Loneliness

At One End Of A Bench.

 

At one end of a bench

an old man wearing Winter clothes

regards the fountains and Summer

through melt-water irises.

 

He needs my ear to be a conch

 

so that he can call to the past

 

down these auditory canals.

And when he calls, his wife and son

 

will resurrect, return, reverse

 

like filings into a family.

 

It is mid-morning in Stephen's Green;

the usual sounds: clacking fowl

 

and fountain symphonies, and beyond

the thrash of traffic and voices. 

In that moment: two strangers on a bench

 

 

are travelling backwards to Mayo;

elsewhere a beggar has recreated himself

 

in a bank window and somewhere,  in a kitchen,

 

a woman is conversing though the voice

 

that answers has not been heard for years.

Historic Walk around Rathmines and Cathal Brugha Barracks

If you’re at a loose end this coming Tuesday (March 15^th) afternoon, you might really enjoy the free guided walk around Rathmines, including the historic Cathal Brugha Army Barracks, which is leaving Rathmines Town Hall at 2.15 pm. The event is sponsored by Rathm ines College as part of its Proclamation Day, (a special day in which colleges and colleges commemorate the 1916 Rising), programme of events.

It is particularly poignant to stand in the small exercise yard behind the barracks guardroom where Francis Sheehy Skeffington was murdered on April 26th 1916. The brick below, now part of the National Museum Collection, is embedded with one of the bullets fired by the firing squad on that day.

Today the guardroom is a small museum with some very interesting artefacts, particularly some memorabilia that belonged to Michael Collins.

 

 

A Moment Certified by Lovers

 

It's a certifiable moment

a punch-drunk second

a pulse's high tide.

 

A dog eats grass

a water drop shivers

a barrel fills to its brim

an apple falls           

a body drifts 

a face buckles

a lover screams.

 

At the tip of an orgasm

passion powders;

the creek turns to dust.