POEM: "Finnegan's Awake"

Poet Seven Dhar (O'Dare), Wisdom Quarterly; Cartoonstock.com; The Clancy Brothers ("Finnegan's Wake")

Irish stereotypes cartoons and comics - funny pictures from CartoonStock.com

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"Finnegan's Awake"

A modern Irish poem by Seven

When Irish American eyes are smilin' | National Museum of American History (si.edu)

Irish humor or craic (ar.pinterest.com)

THIS IS AN ABBREVIATED PORTION OF A LONGER LYRICAL, TONGUE-TWISTING WORK THAT TELLS THE STORY OF THE BUDDHA'S LIFE IN THE VEIN OF JAMES JOYCE'S FINNEGANS WAKE. LIKE JOYCE, THE INSPIRATION FOR THIS WORK WAS THE FAMOUS IRISH SONG, "FINNEGAN'S WAKE." IT'S ODD THAT WHEN YOU TALK TO GOD, IT'S CALL PRAYER, BUT WHEN GOD TALKS TO ME, IT'S CALLED SCHIZOPHRENIA.

[PROLOGUE]

I will pray you a poem.

In Irish but in English.

Yet you won't understand because

You don't sing your language.

"Scratch pictures on asylum walls

With broken nails and matchsticks

Hypodermic" or pneumatic,

Get under my skin with your fix!

To a drop of the craythur I was born,

A thimble of fuisce, a mash of the corn,

Unlike Bushmills a comforting 'board,

No room for the cups where the tankards are stored.

To a tuber's fine tincture

I was turned on,

A poteen, a poitín [\pot-cheen\],

All mellow and brown.

[Mara is The F'end in many guises.]

A Liam, a Rhea, a Ryan, a Rip

Around a cadaver a sway and a sip,

A Pat, a Maria, a Michael, and a Mic

Slosh the carcass in a rite Catholic rinse.

Shillelagh shake; shellac shenanigans;

Sheet and shout and shoot sharp shingles to shush 'em;

Unsheathe and shear and bathe sheep in springs;

Finn' Ph'n, friend us again!

The Oracle spoke but Sumerian,

Like the Gilg and the Manx on the Isle of Man:

"Die Ivory Isle, uber mensch Damen,"

Cried Mary, their little lamb.

Gil or Gilly, he's a Gilligan;

This weird O' Willy won't will again.

He's a handful, I tell it's true, Liam.

Finn' Ph'n, friend us again!

[DIALOGUE]

Siddhartha saw samsara end;

Revolving-Round, spin no more instead!

But we pose to our old friend:

Come, Finnegan, become again!

What is a wake? To raise The Dead?

Then shimmy-toss my own two cents!

Shake the spirit and rouse the breath.

Come, Finnegan, become again!

Mara's three daughters (Lust, Discontent, and Delight) interrupt Sid's meditative absorption.

.

Lust, Discontent, and Delight

Shirley, Shannon, and Shay ahem

like fiendish daughters of The F'end

To pull thee from thy 'sorption then

pale in search of spirits in a pen

Corked and screwed and waxed wick-end

Bitter as the Grape, Guinness, or Grain,

I say, I sing, I say again:

Come, Finnegan, become again!

Wan wolves who wander for crimson drink

Wretch and writhe by 'bane beside a splint.

Hale men who haggle at Haddock hint

Then writhe and wretch to get a stint

[Poetic inspiration plus the Bard]

A Shropshire Lad, a filly wink

Bard of Avon, cauldron ingredient

A skinny finny to feed the fink.

Come, Finnegan, become again!

Ne plus ultra, Naiad and Nymph,

Dryad, Damsel of Dark Forest, minx

Meadow maiden of mirth and myth,

Come, Finnegan, become again!

Flanagan, Hannigan, Flanders, and Haw

Millicent, Gilligan, Moira, and Maw

The crow ascends till it empties it craw.

Descend, Finnegan, descend!

Vril Society Oracle Maria Orsitch

Hennessy, Tennessee, Tiger, and Todd'

Our sighting grew to a vision of GOD.

The winged agree, The awed are odd.

Descend, Finnegan, descend!

With a mane to wick the dew Or switch,

The Messenger, came through in Gaelic:

"Thy Iv'ry Isle, uber-dames, damn it..."

So, come, Finnegan, become again again!

And so on and so forth.

"Finnegan's Wake" (The Clancy Brothers)

Why people can't write, according to Harvard psychologist

 

The single reason why people can't write, according to a Harvard psychologist

Sense of Style (Steven Pinker)

"Why is so much writing so hard to understand? Why must a typical reader struggle to follow an academic article, the fine print on a tax return, or the instructions for setting up a wireless home network?"

These are questions Harvard psychologist Dr. Steven Pinker asks in his book, The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century. They're questions I've often encountered  -- and attempted to tackle --  throughout my career as a business writer and editor.

Whenever I see writing that is loaded with jargon, clichés, technical terms [or jargon], and abbreviations, two questions come immediately to mind. First, what is the writer trying to say, exactly?

Second, how can the writer convey her ideas more clearly, without having to lean on language that confuses the reader?

For Dr. Pinker the root cause of so much bad writing is what he calls the "Curse of Knowledge," which he defines as "a difficulty in imagining what it is like for someone else not to know something that you know. The curse of knowledge is the single best explanation I know of why good people write bad prose." More