{"id":248490,"date":"2017-03-17T06:06:56","date_gmt":"2017-03-16T20:06:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=248490"},"modified":"2017-03-17T06:06:56","modified_gmt":"2017-03-16T20:06:56","slug":"four-leaf-clover-sonnets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/four-leaf-clover-sonnets\/","title":{"rendered":"Four-leaf clover sonnets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Four-leaf clover sonnets about Ireland, St. Patrick\u2019s Day, March 17, and poetry by Joey Leahy Connolly.<\/em>
\n\u00a0
\nA Sonnet for Saint Patrick\u2019s Day<\/strong><\/p>\n

green gewgaws start appearing in variety stores before Valentine\u2019s Day
\ngreen leprechaun t-shirts, shamrock ties, and hats sold by the score
\nplenty of green beer everywhere even a green river runs in Chicago today
\nNew York\u2019s parade has Irish pipes, policemen, marching bands, and more
\nover in Erin folks used to get up and go to morning Mass in a local church
\nthey would eat a simple meal of beef, potatoes, tea, and Irish soda bread
\nmany Irish will leave the big green scene commercial machine in the lurch
\nwhile from underneath ladies wool scarves peeks hair of beautiful red
\nSt. Patrick departed the Emerald Isle over fourteen hundred years ago
\nkidnapped in Scotland and brought as a slave to Erin when a young boy
\nafter six years he escaped to return to Scotland in a boat he could row
\nhe later returned to Ireland bringing Druids Irish Catholic guilt and joy
\nnow Patrick is used as an excuse for people to drink booze like a fish
\nfrom green beer to Irish whiskey dear\u2014they all wish they were Irish
\n\u00a0
\nHaiku Sonnet for Hibernia<\/strong><\/p>\n

peat brown liquid a four leaf shamrock Kelly on the green
\npeat brown liquid tempting tongue finished with work
\npeat brown liquid\u00a0 a pub down the block a pint for balance
\npeat brown liquid Guinness and poteen no reason to shirk
\nuilleann pipes and acapella ballads from Seamus Ennis
\nChieftains great Irish music heard around the world
\nsongs of history humor fighting dancing and love
\nover which the Orange White and Green flag unfurled
\npoetry is heard in every village street pub and church
\npoetry is heard in around above and beyond the noise
\npoetry is heard from the countryside lovely girls *wren boys
\npoetry is heard love lasts forever some left in the lurch
\nfor centuries thousands of known and unknown greats
\n20thcentury James Joyce to Seamus Heaney & W.B. Yeats<\/p>\n

* See Sligo Heritage about this ancient \u2018wren boys\u2019 custom\u00a0still practiced today on St. Stephen\u2019s Day, the day after Christmas.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Old Sot and the Old Sod<\/strong>
\n\u2014an Irish-American reverie
\n\u00a0
\nif I should pass out think but this of me
\nthat there\u2019s a small corner of this old pub
\nthat is forever Ireland and will always be
\na place you can eat some decent pub grub
\noutside is Ireland the sot is aware he\u2019s back there
\nin his present drunken state tasting Irish cheese
\nmore Irish fare washed down with a shot and a beer
\na corned beef cabbage plate he\u2019ll have a pint or two
\ndrink it right away a drop now of Tullamore Dew
\nno less takes him back his thoughts by Ireland given
\nhis earphones sing with Irish harps and songs today
\nLaoise Kelly, Teada, Seamus Ennis, all sing and play
\nhis heart is resting and at peace in an Irish heaven
\nwho is he, why its me Joey Connolly, poetry driven
\n\u00a0
\nL & G Legit Wedded Be<\/strong><\/p>\n

one fine sunny day in the month of May
\ninto city and village voting booth
\nvoters turned out for a new wedding way
\ncame the aged, the married, and the youth
\nresults were about a 60 \/ 40 split
\npro voters topped with more than half of it
\nknowing this new form of legal marriage
\nmay not result in a baby carriage
\nfrom Dublin, Cork, Limerick to Galway
\nnow some couples can make their wedding plan
\nsince they legalized gay marriage today
\nwhen woman weds woman and man weds man
\nthose critical of Ireland take note
\npeople spoke with a democratic vote<\/p>\n

*Ireland legalizes gay marriage, a sonnet written on May 24, 2015.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Four-leaf clover sonnets about Ireland, St. Patrick\u2019s Day, March 17, and poetry by Joey Leahy…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2901,67,451,16018],"class_list":["post-248490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","tag-ireland","tag-people","tag-scotland","tag-seamus-ennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248490\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}