For those of you who haven't yet heard, fellow kossack, Translator, or Doc passed away on Sunday. For the details, there's a link to the diary below, as is a link to his mind-boggingly prolific oeuvre. i'm not going to speculate here why he chose to leave. I'm mourning the lost potential of the man, the diaries he will never write, the friends he had not yet met and the future grandchilren who will never learn at their grandfather's knee. Quite simply, He was the best of us, and i can't help but feel we failed him.
In Ireland, a Keen is a lamentation for the dead uttered in a wailing voice or wordless cry. Truthfully, they're very difficult to listen to, so i chose instead a lament. And yes, Doc was no poet, but he certainly had a poet's heart.
LAMENT FOR BRENDAN BEHAN
[print]
(Fred Geis)
Word has come from Dublin City
Word has come to our town
Word has come from Dublin City
They tell me bold Brendan is dead
Born in 'twentythree in a slum in Dublin
With a tenement over his head
Born with a spirit his flesh could not contain
They tell me bold Brendan is dead
He died at the Meath in far off Dublin
In a cold white hospital bed
In the Georgian tenements the children hushed their singing
They know that bold Brendan is dead
No stranger to life, he lived right enough
No stranger to the glass in his hand
No stranger to the cause he fought all his life
Yet they tell me bold Brendan is dead
Ireland has lost her sweet angry singer
No longer his poems of fine design
Will ring out in Gaelic or sound through the lanes
For alas! bold Brendan is dead
The Clancy Brothers (and others) - Lament For Brendan Behan
Emmylou Harris - All my Tears
Iris Dement - Our Town
The Who - Sunrise
The Cure - Lament
Doc's Diaries - http://www.dailykos.com/...
Zircon the Twisted's diary - http://www.dailykos.com/...