4 Jul
“The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned”: Yeats
IRISH REFERENDUM 2018
I saw Ireland hanging naked in the rain
dead to her faith
a miscarriage of justice
scrawled upon her skin,
death by referendum.
Why use long-fought freedom
to ape the English sin?
When “the centre
cannot hold” what is to be done?
A woman with an empty womb
hangs in a muddy sky.
The old country is not a home.
Julian O’Dea
18 Aug
Julian O’Dea
23 Jun
ST MONICA’S CHAPLET
Rain falls like Monica’s tears
for her child, or the pitter-patter
of an innocent heart,
on the tin roof as a chaplet
of beads.
Patient, like love a given,
enduring enough to soften
a heart of stone.
Julian O’Dea
18 Aug
The Wise Men
The Magi travelled to Palestine
on camels and a government
grant from the Parthian Empire.
Cheated in the camel market,
loaded high with scientific gear
and a few gifts from the royal store;
they let theory guide observation.
Herod got his Brains Trust on
the job, and provided some
peer review; and off went the three
nerds, to follow the Star to Bethlehem.
And “when they saw the star,
they rejoiced with exceeding
great joy”; because their calculations
were correct, and their funding
justified, and their report to
the Imperial Chief Scientist
would write itself.
God sent an angel like a Divine
email to warn them not to return
to Herod to share their exciting
ground-truthed data, because
they needed to be told the obvious.
Julian O’Dea
17 May
The tough Alabama and other State laws in America virtually banning abortion are causing a frenzy among progressives and feminists.
Women only have themselves to blame.
And both men and women are calling them to order.
There used to be a social contract: men endure the risks of work and war; women endure the risks of childbirth. But women have dropped their bundle while expecting men to continue with ours.
Women have abused a “right” to abortion, which was only ever meant to be used in extreme circumstances, to have their unborn children killed in huge numbers.
This has taught men and conservative women a lesson: women can’t be trusted with too much freedom.
Time for a bit of patriarchy.
19 Apr
Good Friday 2019
The bees of Notre Dame
survived the fire and hum
their ancient chant:
“to work is to pray,
to work is to pray” …
we will gather sweetness
from the flowers
of Sainte-Chapelle today,
and make wax for Easter
candles in our home.
Julian O’Dea
17 Apr
Notre Dame, April 2019
Life holds out
a blackened branch
Notre Dame is burning.
Where is my heart?
Dying in an upstairs room.
Julian O’Dea
4 Nov
Song
God took a bone from Man,
a single line from a poem,
and fleshed it out to make
a refrain, Woman, so the duet
began in a thousand tongues,
though all the beasts were mute,
till the birds began their songs.
Julian O’Dea
7 Oct
A recent comment on a photo showing the way women used to be but are now:
” You feel an intense sense of loss, but you feel better because you know things were better once, and you think, you start to believe, that somehow there can be a restoration of that better state – after all, here is the proof, sitting right in front of your very eyes! “Things were once nice like this, surely they can be again, right?” “
Good comment, and here is another old photo of how women used to be:
1957. Leeds General Infirmary, England. Prayers at the start of a shift.
8 Sep
“Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise”
Christ had a disciple
who was a drunk.
He could have been an
apostle but he was
always drunk.
Too drunk to deny Him.
Too drunk even to run away.
Too drunk to write a gospel,
even a short epistle.
All day he lay drunk by a date palm,
just watching the ants go by.
Julian O’Dea
Julian O'Dea 
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