{"id":147,"date":"2008-09-14T09:30:40","date_gmt":"2008-09-14T09:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shadowplays.com\/blog\/?p=147"},"modified":"2012-04-02T12:01:26","modified_gmt":"2012-04-02T12:01:26","slug":"blues-for-rory-by-eamonn-wall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shadowplays.com\/blog\/?p=147","title":{"rendered":"“Blues for Rory” a poem by Eamonn Wall"},"content":{"rendered":"Tweet<\/a>

Eamonn Wall is a native of Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford, Ireland, and currently resides in St.Louis, Missouri where he is the Smurfit-Stone Professor of Irish Studies and Professor of English at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He is a former president of the American Conference for Irish Studies and the author of a book of essays titled, From the Sin-e Cafe to the Black Hills<\/em> as well as five highly regarded collections of poetry. “Blues for Rory” comes from his third book of poems, The Crosses<\/em> published by Salmon Publishing<\/a>. Special thanks to Eamonn Wall <\/a> and Salmon Publishing for allowing me to post this poem on my site. Eamonn has also written an essay, titled “What in the World”: Reading Rory Gallagher’s Blues, <\/i> that can be viewed here: What in the World: Reading Rory Gallagher’s Blues.<\/a><\/p>\n

Blues for Rory<\/em> <\/h2>\n

\nFrom the Slaney Co. Wexford Mississippi Delta
\nrode the rails in flannel shirts, warm CIE beer in
\nhands, in the smoking carriage by big muddy cities
\nGorey\/Chicago, Arklow\/St.Louis, moving on mile
\nby mile marker by great rivers getting closer still
\nto hearing the legendary bluesman from Cork City
\nplay on his battered strat the blues, and sing I could’ve
\nhad religion but my little girl wouldn’t let me pray,
\nthat kind of girl hard to come by in the Slaney
\nCo. Wexford Mississippi Delta though neither did
\nwe pray too much being all prayed out since
\nConfirmation. Rory Gallagher at the National
\nStadium after Christmas, the first live gig ever for
\n me except for wedding bands in the Slaney Co.
\nWexford Nashville Tennessee as I served across
\nthe counter large macks to speeded up Country
\nRoads, couples gliding across the maple floor. All
\nconfused in Connolly\/Union Station the route to
\nHarold’s Cross to breathe the raw elixir of the
\nblues, Rory Gallagher’s sweat falling on his guitar.
\nI could touch his feet if the bouncers turned their
\nheads, who can describe the thrill of knowing it all
\nfor the first time, first bottleneck solo couple of
\nnumbers in? Lord, take that sinner boy home &
\nI’m here on the prairie now with new CD;
\nfrom Amazon.com, window breeze from the deep
\nsouth wafting from tree-lined street to tawny alley,
\npotholes open wide, the rusted trucks, loose gravel,
\nnight light yellow flickering, where for hours the
\nrepo man stood with his forms and magazines,
\nthe world not so bright now for your absence,
\nRory Gallagher, Can’t believe it’s true, I can’t
\nbelieve it’s true. How we walked by the Grand
\nCanal in wet midnight winter air, lost looking for
\nRanelagh, electrified & silenced by the wonder
\nof it all, not caring if we ever made it home to
\nModel County Wexford, hotbed of hurling, home
\nof strawberries, fields of barley & country music.<\/P><\/p>\n

— from The Crosses. <\/em> Cliffs of Moher, Co. Clare: Salmon Publishing, 2000<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TweetEamonn Wall is a native of Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford, Ireland, and currently resides in St.Louis, Missouri where he is the Smurfit-Stone Professor of Irish Studies and Professor of English at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He is a former president of the American Conference for Irish Studies and the author of a book of essays […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[356],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shadowplays.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shadowplays.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shadowplays.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shadowplays.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shadowplays.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=147"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/shadowplays.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":879,"href":"https:\/\/shadowplays.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions\/879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shadowplays.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shadowplays.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shadowplays.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}