Published by Enright House
Perfect Bound, 54 pages
5½ by 8½ inches 1993
ISBN# 1-55605-230-8
$10.00
$3.00 added to cart for shipping.
Praise for The Green Ribbon
Multi-talented artist / poet / Irish tenor Daniel Cleary left his native Tipperary, Ireland
for London in the early 1960s and came to Chicago, where he remains. He’s brought with him the
musical lilt and pleasing rhyme schemes that move his poetry, creating a series of lyric images portraying his homeland, celluloid’s Marilyn Monroe and Fred Astaire, and Chicago intersections.
In “Homesick” he writes:
Homesick for hills, for fields, for streams; Homesick for mountains too it seems
For windy skies for country roads;
For little picturesque abodes.
Homesick for trees, for fruits, for flowers, For happy, sunlit July hours;
For sudden mists, for silver rain,
For things I may not see again.
Homesick for friends, the brightest, best;
For long untroubled nights of rest
He recalls Joe Di Maggio’s rage and the public’s delight at that famous scene in The Seven
Year Itch as he salutes Marilyn:
You, your skirt billowing above the grate of the subway
As the train roared beneath; they used a
Blown up version of the scene above Times Square
To advertise the movie when it first appeared.
You were our goddess then, a remarkable icon –
Wispy, ethereal, every mans secret dream
(the woman he loved next in line to Mama)
Later he laments
another casualty in the eternal quest for youth and beauty;
That glamour that must eventually fade
And yes, his images evoke green lands of comforting familiarity, even for those of us who’ll
never set foot on the Emerald Isle just as he inspires nostalgia for Marilyn and the era she
defined, now gone but never faded or forgotten as long as film preserves her pouty lips, her
full, ripe curves and knowing, tempting innocence. Perhaps it’s Cleary’s knowing innocence that
tempts the reader, the listener, draws us in to experience seemingly simple, straight-forward
poems complete with end-rhyme and elliptical thought scenes, all tying together to form something
more complex and satisfying than simply the sum of its parts.
Whitney Scott – editor Tallgrass Writers, review from Chicagopoetry.com
About Daniel Cleary
Daniel Cleary was born in Tipperary, Ireland and grew up there. In the early sixties he moved
to London, England where he worked and studied art. In the late sixties he moved to Chicago,
Illinois, where he lives to this day. A passionate and devoted painter in oils and acrylics,
another calling, that of a poet, prompts him from time to time.
Contents
Magic
First Dawn
Spring
Nancy Green
Yes and No
If Only I Could Have My Way
On the Art
The Mountains
Waking up in California
Pasadena
Marilyn
Fred Astaire 1899-1987
Love in the City
The Balloonman
At Jewel
Epithalamion (for Jean Marie and Jack)
Joelle
At Clark and Montrose
Kitchen
The Green Ribbon
Ballade
Homesick
London
London Bus
Saturday Morning
After Mozart
Chevrolet
To Mary
Tipperary
The Tipperary Hills
In Memoriam (Sean Dempsey)
My Grandmother’s House
On Being in Love
Bar Talk
Dinner for Two
At Estelle’s
Spring Will Come Soon
Waiting for Your Call
Girl on a Unicycle (for Irene)
On a used book
A Full Moon at Christmas
Song
Snowfall
Winter Morning
World’s End
Sample Poems
The Balloonman
I know the balloonman lives downstairs
This is a house built on balloons,
Red, yellow, blue and green balloons, it’s leaping
On the air of so much helium.
I saw him at the street corner,
Reining, holding them for fear they’d take flight;
I thought he would take flight,
A real cloudy rainbow over him.
Someone bought a balloon and for an instant
In the congregation it was as if
Childhood had escaped and became one among us.
Now I know the balloonman lives downstairs;
This house is being supported by balloons
Like the house built in the clouds
Of an eastern fairytale.
I step downstairs as if I were floating,
Under each foot a balloon, and go down
Into the mingled lights of the night time city;
Again I see him at the street corner,
I know he lives downstairs,
And I say “What a cool way to make a living!”
Song
god bless all gentle things,
All creatures here below,
Every bird that sings
With radiant, fervent, glow
All little things forsaken,
Fragile, lost and small
Within a quiet haven
That no one sees at all.
With gesture ostentatious,
The way of heaven is shown,
Unbeknownst and gracious-
To which the heart bows down.
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