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Contests : War Poetry Contest : Past Winners : 2006 : Sean Joyce
BEYOND HISTORY
The First People lived in the big house
and the First People had everything.
In the rivers and streams fat fish leapt
to nets while birds sang in the trees.
In sunshine and shadow fruit ripened
and fell into waiting baskets.
The First People lived in the big house
and the First People had everything.
But the Second People were already on the highroad.
The Second People came to the
big house and they moved in.
They were more powerful than
the First People and they wanted
the whole house for themselves.
They invited the First People to a party.
The First People didn't want to go to
the party but there was nowhere else
to go to except to the party.
At the party the Second People fell on
the First People and massacred them.
They cut the throats of everyone
and not a single soul survived.
Now the Second People lived in
the big house, the birds sang
in the trees, fish flew in the rivers.
The Second People had everything
they also had ghosts.
Children went missing.
It's a terrible thing when children don't come
back and you don't know where to look.
They went fishing for the day and they
didn't come back. Perhaps they fell in
or maybe, maybe the First People got them.
Not just children but adults would
disappear when you weren't looking.
Perhaps it was normal to go like that
or maybe, the First People got them.
Now the Second People could see ghosts
Over there a dead child on a turn of the stairs
over here a dead man in a doorway.
open a door on a room full of ghosts
opened again and it's empty.
They prayed.
The Second People prayed and the years went by.
They prayed to the river, the wind and the trees.
They prayed that something, somewhere out there,
Somewhere between the sun and the moon and the Milky Way
something or someone would come to save them.
But nothing could change the way things were,
loved ones disappeared it was as simple as that.
And in their hearts deep down
they remembered why deep down.
And in their hearts, deep down
they remembered how deep down.
Not just in their hearts but in their hands
in their fingers and in their hands.
Then the Third People came to the big house
The Third People were more powerful than the
Second People and they wanted the whole house for themselves.
They invited the Second People to a party
and in time the Third People had ghosts
and even their ghosts had ghosts.
And so it went on, and so it goes on.
Now it is our turn and we live in the big house
and we have everything.
The Sun shines
the birds sing
fruit ripens
fish leap.
Now it is our turn to live in the big house.
But there are doors we will not open
and there are rooms we dare not enter.
This poem won an Honorable Mention in the 2006 War Poetry Contest sponsored by Winning Writers. Author Sean Joyce received a $75 award. Copyright is reserved to the author.
About Sean Joyce
I was born in Galway in the West of Ireland and emigrated in 1975. I am married to Vee (from Cork, Ireland) and we have two daughters. Apart from poetry my interests include psychology, history and public speaking. Among other things I am a member of the National Speakers Association and of the Free Burma Coalition. My interest in public speaking got me involved with Toastmasters International, which in turn led to me doing conference and wedding MCing and to a stint in stand-up comedy. All this word play led to writing speeches, comedy routines, short stories and eventually, to poetry. There are similarities between comedy and poetry as they both start with a thought that has to be captured and then written down before it fades away.
The poem "Beyond History" began as an attempt to write about the situation in Northern Ireland but as sometimes happens the poem had wider ambitions that I was unable to constrain. I have never had a piece of writing published but if you get a chance to read the poem "Beyond History" I hope you will enjoy it and see that it is about a recurring situation that we can and should work to change. If we can do that then we will know we are entitled to have governance over the land, fishes and animals. Even a sincere effort in that direction would, to paraphrase Dylan Thomas, put "Stars at our elbows and our feet".
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