W. T. Quirk – Manx Poet & Writer

(Ecclesiastes Ch. 3)

TO every worldly thing a season is;
A time to every purpose under heaven;
A time for ...

Oh, Freddie on the fiddle
And I on the piano
With others in the middle
A-drinking champiano.
We’ll make the ...

(Apologies to Coleridge)

AT Kerrowhdhoo did Cobbler Cain
A splendid pleasure ground decree,
Where Ballacottier’s river ran
Through valleys beautiful ...

THE savoury smell of the kipper fried
Steals to my nose, and I,
Thinking of nothing but filling inside,
Quickly ...

ELEVEN days from now I’ll be
From homestead putting out to sea,
And as the vessel shapes her course
What ...

ALAS, the church is empty near,
The light is dim, the service drear;
The hymns are poor, and more than ...

Moaning, rising, shrieking, falling, spun
Around the gables of the Church of Runn
(An ancient saint of Manx descendancy)
The ...

I sprang to the saddle with Arthur behind,
And two of us rode with one thought in our mind
To ...

WHEN I look back on what has gone
And view the wasted years
I wonder should I travel on
With ...

1.
In the beginning there was God.
And God was there, and God was God.
And God created heaven and ...

(The fifteenth of the Black Hole Ballads)

THE scrawl’s on the board,
And we are still bored;
Mathematics aye will...

AT the head of Douglas harbour
Stands the Douglas Railway Station
In its late-Victorian splendour,
Red of brick, with iron ...

Let me tell you of the engines,
Of the sixteen little engines,
Very shiny in their green paint,
Very striking ...

NOW a word about the stations,
Little wayside country stations;
Some with platforms, some without them;
Some with buildings, some ...

Let me take you on a journey
Cross the island to the westward
Starting out from Douglas Station
On the ...

See on the grassy river bank in play
Themselves disporting all the livelong day
The sweet Katrina and her Ramion....

UPON this clean white page I write
A verse for you to treasure.
Let those who wish to bark and ...

(The tenth of the Black Hole Ballads)

ONCE the Bishop of Sodor and Man
A trip on the briny did ...

I looked from out my sill one night
And witnessed a surprising sight,
For there was perched a figure in ...

(The fourteenth of the Black Hole Ballads)
(With apologies to

Cotton skin, derelict, black,
Painted with witches’ own brew,
Crumpled ...

TO Peel to-day
Not the O.K.
But in the car
Of Alan Parr.
A number went
With the intent
Of ...

(With apologies to Milton)

I, who erewhile in happy childhood played
In Ridgeway attics and the quay, now sing
Uncovered ...

My father said “Why don’t you write
“A poem that I can recite
In the schoolroom next Thursday night
When ...

HAST heard the lilting tune
Of songs beneath the moon,
The songs with which the dumb things all resound?
The ...

Now Sundays are of all days set apart
For strolling on the promenade in twos;
Each loving swain is hooked ...

Below my bedroom window in the Corporation Yard
A blacksmith blows his bellows and works there very hard.
He hammers ...

(The thirteenth of the Black Hole Ballads)
(With apologies to Longfellow)

BESIDE the indented table he stood
His wood bat ...

There once was a gay caballero
Whose fortunes descended to zero;
He went to the bank
To replenish his tank...

IN the beginning God created man
In His own image; we are blest indeed;
Yet are we worthy of the ...

When everyone has gone to bed
I lie with earphones on my head,
And listen to the music sweet
Accompanying ...

(The eleventh of the Black Hole Ballads)

THERE is a master whose name is Ned
And with his supple cane...

THE trees went forth upon a time to choose
Who might among their number be their King;
And to the ...

AS far as my researches carry me
It seems as if the year can well be filled
With birthdays of ...

(With apologies to Wm. Cowper)

Oh that my lips had language! Life has passed
With me from down town to ...

A sullen roar, as of a cagèd beast
That hurls its body forward in blind rage,
Leaping in vain to ...

(The Sixteenth of the Black Hold Ballads)
(With apologies to Sir Walter Scott)

AH! Lovely Gus, thine hour with us...

SEE where the dusty highroad winds along
From London unto distant York, its line
Like some gigantic ribbon laid upon...

When all were settled to their own content
And gathered round the fire of blazing logs,
When new-trimmed lamp sent ...

(The twelfth of the Black Hole Ballads)
(With apologies to Longfellow)

UNDER a spreading Panama
That villain Smithy sits;
Biff ...

(The Seventeenth of the Black Hole Ballads)

WE fear thy words, oh gentle master;
Thou needest not fear ours;
For ...

The hill was steep, the road was hard
As upwards climbed the weary bard.
He dragged unwilling feet along
With ...

Among the strange immortals of our land,
Mona’s sweet isle, long famed in verse and song,
A creature that is ...