Saint Patrick was a green alien,
He came from other parts.
He was not a native Irishman
But was taken to their hearts.

On oceans of pre-destiny
He made a Christian start
With a sense of heaven’s purity
And faith in his small part.

He sailed the sea on a ship of wood
With a shepherd’s crook in hand,
And did all things a sailor should
To get to his promised land.

There, there were snakes, slippy as eels,
Each snake a little devil!
But he sent them packing on their heels –
And that land to a higher level.

With snakes all gone, the earth and rocks
Were green without restraint.
The people poured like newborn flocks,
And praised him like a saint.

Their land became a mirrored glaze
Of thanks and blessings to him.
Reflected glory, joy and praise,
That gave a soft green glim.

St Patrick was an immigrant
Now with an em’rald sheen,
And a pope made him pre-eminant
In the land of shamrock green.

Saint Patrick was a green alien,
He came from foreign parts.
He was not a native Irishman
But is deep inside their hearts.

 

Damian Robin lives in England where he works for an international newspaper and lives with his wife and three children.

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4 Responses

    • Damian Robin

      Thanks Margaret. I enjoyed writing it. My mother’s side of the family came from Ireland.

      Reply
      • Damian Robin

        Hi Margaret, you may find this enjoyable as well:

        The President (be upstanding and salute!) of the Society of Classical Poets corrected a couple of lines in this poem to his own liking. I noticed a fault in his scansion and wrote this to him :

        Many thanks, diligent and hard working man,
        Evan

        I’ve bin reading
        The Ballad of Reading Goal
        and it comes to me
        that Victorian poetry
        talks and takes much of the soul
        and Christ and ghosts
        and themes them out into the air
        as platted, coupled, done-up, thatching, pearling
        Pre-Raphealite-curling
        longing
        hair

        and for the mosts
        it paradymes the stress
        off the page
        (sometimes in para-rhyme and less)
        to press
        breath against the air
        to ride it there
        and in some spaces it races
        and in others paces neatly
        sweetly
        discretely
        on the page
        though oft
        to live off it
        (the page)
        you need to be
        a sage
        of prosody

        and if you’re to be
        reading it publicly,
        you need to read three
        times really
        into the Air or Heir Preparatory
        in order to make the poetry
        live
        and breath.

        so it’s nice that you agree
        — for I didn’t want to scoff —
        that the scansion
        in your correction
        was slightly
        off.

  2. Damian Robin

    BTW It’s good to be corrected, to get the things we do, right.
    So if you see or hear in your head (or on the audios that are becoming more frequent here) anything ‘not right’, do let the poets know.

    Reply

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