to Lisa Sometimes the beauty of knowing someone for a long timeCan erupt in your pocket like a firecracker on New Year’s Eve We hung up since decorum demanded that two hours Scratched the limit of what a partner could well be expectedTo wait for with dinner also it was your turn to walk the […]
Anecdotal Evidence (And I see I am both of them as much as myself)
When she told youYou laughed, laughedWhen she told youYou’d die Alone Laughed when sheNumbered Your talents your Many talents thatLay wasted amongThe riches ofYou LaughedWhen she screamed, laughedWhen she wept, told her the doorWas open, the road broad and wide And freeTo all travelers alikeAlbeit it was you who went down it In the end […]
Botanic to Waterside
With a nod to Stephen Connolly’s “Translink Haiku” This train she says isfor Derry Londonderrybig pause in between I leave behind herwho looks at and takes picturesof those she holds dear Above the hollow’sdark mouth a rainbow appearstoo bright to take home The train pulls intowhere someone awaits methe place with the pause Mussenden Temple […]
Eavesdropping in the East
In the museum, the woman sitting next to me is sobbing, shoulders hunched, hands fumbling. Confusion clogs her voice when she tells her companion of children vanishing from school. When the wall came down, she says, we found devices in our phones and fittings. We never knew, we never knew. They, on the other hand, […]
Note to Self
Must stop trying so hard, smiling so much, Must stop before face hurts or eyes water Must banish that Border Collie look from face, The one that hopes against hope Must go to bed earlier, do more yoga, for the Sake of mental health drink and think less Must be myself whenever I remember Her […]
Good Man
The way you Squint your eyes Furrow your forehead Make a walnut of your face Signals to me you are trying To understand whatever drips So unrelentingly from my mouth. Good man, you run the long distance Navigating much loneliness. And I guess that trying so hard must But shouldn’t have to qualify as Love, […]
Obligation
On attending Space, Place and Obligation, Maynooth University, Sept. 2018 The week I started reading Greer’s The Female Eunuch was also the week I listened to artists speak about their craft and their craft’s groundedness in the places they inhabit; oftentimes uneasy places, conflicted, elusive, un-arrived at. And why not, given their preoccupation was with […]
Look at the Orchid
Look at the orchid, closely.Behold its obscene openings: five veined, spread-winged petals,folding outwards innermost (do I need to name the parts?): All bedazzle, all display. Its dark-green silken necksdo not snap unless you bend them hard, hold out promiscuous fruit,naked and disgraced when flowers fall, until bedecked again with tight, brown nuts. Not even its […]
All I want now
All I want now is to have back the time: The time spent searching for the moment of the fall, the precise moment when having done, said, thought X must have led to Y. All I want now is to have back the time spent sifting through all the possible Xs in a silent frenzy; […]