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                          PLACEBO EFFECT

I believe that Patrick Kavanagh and Raymond Carver 

gave me a poetic energy. In nineteen seventy-four my father 

was released from nine months of detainment in Crumlin road jail 

and the maze prison.  The longest detainee in Ireland, he went on 

the run and we lived in a little cottage with no electricity or running 

water seven miles from Dundalk, Hackballscross, just a mile from 

Kavanagh country, Mucker. 

He truly was my mucker, I ran in the fields he walked in with 

my trusted Companion Muttley the dog, he chased cattle like 

he used to chase British soldiers.  With only one eye and three legs, 

beaten by the butts of British army rifles.  

It was the first time in my life that I felt that all the world was not at war, 

before that day I felt this war was a part of me and I a part of it. 

Now we have peace and all those gun-running days are over.  Years later 

a friend lent me a book by Raymond Carver book and it blew my mind 

and stirred my active imagination, turned me from a street urchin into 

a published poet.  Through him, I said yes! I can do this, and my poetic 

voice was found, my inner active imagination.

My father died in 1989 but he gave me something, he passed on to me 

the same poetic energy that Carver and Kavanagh gave to me, an active

 imagination.  I believe that the Irish conflict has sapped us of creativity 

and only an active imagination can get that back, by piecing together 

our dreams, that’s what my pomes are snippets of my active imagination.  

What follows in this blog really happened, I think, I have no memory now, 

but I have been touched by my Father Kavanagh and Carver.  This has 

nothing at all to do with creation, I believe that god is the anti-Christ

he has sapped out all our self-esteem and worthiness and in this time 

of peace, It’s up to us to retrieve it.  I’m not putting religion down, 

I’m just saying we don’t need it, it doesn’t belong in my world.  

I find inner hope in words if only I could make you see what I see.  

I feel your inner self, but you are putting your energy out instead of in.

Carl Jung spoke of the inner active imagination back in the 1960s when 

we were trying to free ourselves from oppression, the troubles.  Now that 

we live in peacetime we can piece together our dreams and have an active

 imagination again and be poets of the heart if not the mind.

 

These are my dreams, pomes, paintings, stories, and essays pieced back together, to form an active imagination.

 

RAY RIVER

 

Although I’m here in Donegal, not Yakima

Washington state, or in Dublin reclining

On the banks of the Grand canal.

I feel a sense that Raymond Carver

And Patrick Kavanagh are here with me

Following the Ray River to the sea

Of this poem.

 

The winds sway the reeds reflecting

On the rippling water, on a bend a stream

Flows in, cascading on the rocks.

I love the music of this place, the silent

Harmonies of the source, the spring.

 

Falling from high on Muckish mountain

To where I sit translating nature to poetry.

Further on another a stream flows in ever

So quiet, secretly subtle, like the clarity

Of wonder in the undercurrents.

 

I’m here at the sea, the reservoir.  Tory-

Island looms black, remote above wild

White waves, poetry echoing across

Golden strand. The colours of a rain-

Bow rise from the sea, the intangible essence

That lingers here.

 

The blending colours fade to blue.

I look down to see a multi-coloured spider

Crawling across my hand and the open

Pages of this notebook, as if that

Were its only purpose.

 

I find it very hard these days to focus on positivity, Alina Feld 

said in her study on melancholy, “the self knows its light only 

by knowing its darkness”.  My darkness it seems is projected 

from within, I live within the state of melancholy, but I hope 

this essay shines a little light in the dark.  I am not coming to this 

essay trying to shove something down your throat.  I have searched 

and searched for the answer, but even in my hours of near-death, 

I found the same answers as you.

I believe I have been given a second chance for a reason but 

I'm not asking you to believe in something that fundamentally 

contradicts itself. I believe what I believe, it’s just that I call mine 

Poartry, you have another name for this mystery, let’s leave it at that, 

a mystery. Mysteries are named so because they want to be left alone; 

if we find out what the mystery is then that's the end. Like poetry, 

you get something from it, then leave the rest alone for another day.

You will receive something else from the same thing don't bury it and kill 

the mystery.  It’s about you and how you feel today, everything you receive 

depends on your mood, how positive and negative you are.  You have 

the power to change your life for the better but it’s up to you. The power 

of positive thought is an amazing determination; tell yourself you can do it.

At the minute I'm reading the book “Purpose Driven, What on Earth am 

I here for? “I’m looking for the answers like everyone else, but no self-help 

book will give me the answers.  At the end of the day they are Rick Warren's

 (author) words, it’s the name he places on it, it’s his answer but who are you, 

what's your name and most importantly what's your answer? It’s in you, 

look at yourself!

When I was in the embrace of death there were always questions I needed to

 answer. I remember waking up one night in a cold sweat from a dream. 

There was a crowd of doctors around me administering drugs. I thought 

I had died and this was my hell, but I came to realize that heaven and hell 

are the same place it’s how we think of them, they both exist in your mind 

but it’s up to you how you paint them, positive or negative.

I remember, many years ago, being kicked to the ground in Lurgan one 

night with seven around me and a beer bottle in my hand. I thought 

of smashing it over the ring-leaders head but instead I threw it away,

I rolled up into a ball and took the beating. If I had smashed that bottle 

over his head I would be dead, not here now writing this essay. It’s up 

to you, your life says what lane it takes. As Robert Frost said, “Always 

take the road less traveled by.” Life can be affirming. It’s up to you 

and what you bring to it, so paint your picture with a beautiful sunrise 

or sunset and you can’t go wrong.

A good friend asked me to write this essay. A searcher like me, she 

and her son has, along with others has been instrumental in my life 

since the stroke.  They are the ‘road less traveled by,' they are the sun-

rise and sunset of my life, they are my positive thoughts.  I wouldn't 

be here without those people, they were there for me. It's at times like this 

you realize who your friends are. Without them I would have become 

negative; instead with their power and my own determination, I pulled 

through. Alright, I'll never be 100% the person I was, but I'm alive. 

I have someone to thank for that, even if it's me, my friends and family. 

I believe in them and they believe in me; that's what I call the power 

of healing the positive force within me. The beauty is not to ask people 

to believe in what you believe in. Whatever happened to diversity? 

Believe in whatever you want to, it’s your right. If it paints your day 

so be it, that's your positive force.

These past years has been the worst I have ever encountered. As well 

as recovering from a stroke that almost killed me. The stroke came without

 warning. I was on the edge of the bed, then I was on the floor shaking. I didn't

 know what was happening. I crawled into my mother's room and asked her 

what was happening; she told me I was taking a stroke. She phoned the doctor. 

All I can remember is being rushed to Intensive Care.  I had ‘locked in Syndrome.

I knew what to say but hadn't the power to communicate.

I was flat on my back and could only move my eyes I was so afraid 

it was uncanny. I thought everyone was out to get me, without the power 

to resist. I really did believe I would go out in a wooden box.

I remembered an experience from childhood. I was running along a pier 

when I slipped on seaweed and fell into the water. I was trying to get 

out of there. I feared I would die but when I looked around it was beautiful 

in there; the seaweed was dancing and for a second it was magical.  

An American tourist dived in, pulled me out and pumped the water from 

my lungs. Since that day I have never met him but thank you.

It felt like that during my stroke, I was lost walking around in a field of nothing,

 then I woke up with friends around me. I don't let on to know the answers 

to life, I am just like you, a searcher of the truth and lying there in that hospital 

bed I realized that there is no great light that I'm drawn towards, just the people

 who loved me for their own reasons not mine.  

Someone once said, ‘Never judge your enemy, it clouds your judgment.' 

The power of positive thought is everywhere, it’s what they see in you. 

These are the positive thoughts I have produced.   I'm not looking 

for sympathy or pity you can keep it. All I ask is that you read this 

and determine your own answers, not one that's shoved down your throat, 

I hope this is your placebo effect.