Granny

Granny in woollen cardigans, bespectacled,

smooth-cheeked, sitting at the stove end

of the kitchen table, stockings rolled down,

wanting the dog to lick the ulcers on her legs.

Cups of tea coming and going like seasons,

showers of sunlight canonizing her fitfully,

switching on the light of her soft white hair,

the wild rose that bloomed free in her face.

The comfortable plumpness of her body

always shaped to her generous curiosity;

her old voice gentle as seaweed on a wave,

chatting life back into the bones of the dead.

The Viewing.

Dead: the colour of old cream,

his eyes shuttered shut;

so neat, besuited and slim,

the weight he lost dying.

They made a basket of his fingers

with a rosary spilling down;

everyone said he looked lovely,

but when I touched his face

it wasn’t him at all.

Evening

Some poems never get there. This one has been with me for nearly as long as the old man it's written about.
It's frustrating, but, then again, it's probably a good thing that certain accomplishments keep us grasping.

Evening

Evening light dozed on unwashed dishes;

old dust coated china plates;

the Sacred Heart, smoked and sagging,

looked down from a height;

a clock ticked like a jaded heart.

His face, at the table, jerked uncontrollably,

occasionally he choked on his tongue.

All that might be called life was in a biscuit box

in a press: letters, photographs, Christmas cards, postcards;

and a silver pocket-watch he got from his mother.

Rivers Run

Rivers run over the land,

slivers of sky and light,

their spindly bodies flowing,

fish and ripples one,

alive.

Clamouring in the high places,

lisping in the  low;

spry in youth,

sedate in age;

always journeying to their end

to run again.

Peninsula

A peninsula: shingle, cockle and barnacle shells, strips of desiccated wrack,

greened with sea-holly. The wooden cabin, though frequently lashed with spray,

was salted dry, and coloured somewhere between bone and limestone;

I lived there for five months before you came.

From the land our light seemed no more than a single candle burning;

the clothes on our line had the appearance of  rags,

and the smoke from our fire curled into the sky with a nonchalance

that suggested our daily struggles with lighting washed up timbers.

You’ll remember the shingle made walking difficult; with each step the stones rolled.

You said it sounded like the grinding of a mouth full of loose teeth; but, around the bay,

 a billion stones rolled thunderously with each beached wave;

and the  breeding terns came at us like boomerangs.

Nights: we were  unlit stars perhaps, but at one with the universe, free and alive

 in the unbroken expanse of shore, sea and sky; we had  space

 to be colossal, to exhilarate; and moonlight, our spotlight to roar songs into the cosmos,

to take the universe’s light into our eyes and exult in it.

Came the day of migration: wings outstretched, muscles fluid, necks craned to our separate
destinations; we, without backward glances, took to the air

with eyes big enough to countenance the curve of the earth, greedy enough to fly it;

and left our peninsula, a finger  pointing to somewhere .

As a chaos

1.

As a chaos of jagged girders,

black against the sky,

looks like pain;

yet it makes a beautiful ugliness.

2.

That day’s electrodes, bare and unprotected,

were waiting for me. From the moment I awoke,

nothing was ever going to halt

their run to me from that future.

3.

I met my moment on the street;

it made jazz in my bones;

lifted me

oh, much higher than I can ever sing.

4.

Sir, I said, these particles vibrate,

you hear them on a still night

and after that, you will always hear them.

They smash glass if you do not control it.

Self-creating Fluidity in Nature

When dense enough,

murmuration or shoal,

a flow becomes a fluid,

self-created;  

all parts align, cluster and stream

according to physical  laws.

Living parts, starling or herring,

generate intra-forces  that govern

the whole, the system,

effecting dynamics  recognizable

throughout nature.

She Leaves

She leaves

a country of mountain tops,

pencil points in nothing

and crosses on current arrows

to where the sun shines on a space.

Angels

look over the rails,

cheering ferries on the sea

of her worries  ̶  

or that is where she bobs  ̶

among all the sparklets

on the seatop.

And fears

scratch their fingernails

down the glass

she has left;

not left,

left,

not left.

Growing Up

  

  

    

  Shortly you will trace lines,

  leave,

  join the herds,

  leave a trail among the trails

  meandering over the hills.

 

  We are part of some eccentric’s

  geometry;

  I wish I could tell you more,

  my little love.

Life is glass

I fall, fuck up my face;

my arms and fingers

pouring blood

and I don’t even feel it.

Life is glass.

I discover that I can’t mind myself:

I can’t make the decisions

that protect me.

I meet my broken face in a mirror;

it accuses me.

I stare at it;

I stare at myself.

Light

1.

The longer I am paddling this canoe:

the more distant my destination,

the less I am.

2.

The less you see in me,

the less I see in me,

the more is light.

3.

The more is light,

the less I dream,

the more all is dream.

Reminiscence

When I reminisce about my childhood,

I am running with my schoolbag on my back;

exulting in the speed: one leg extended forward,

the other crooked at the knee,  foot in mid-air;

and a broad grin across my face, brimming happiness.

The church is in the background with a brilliantly coloured Calvary grotto,

and there’s the school and the Harrison Hall, all shining

against a cloudless azure sky.

And all of that is gone

as suddenly as a blizzard  strikes with the flick of a wrist. 

Films in your face

I am watching the film in your face:

your enjoyment crinkling

at the corners of your eyes,

teeth catching your lower lip,

blood draining from the pressure,

draining back as soon.

Furrows on your forehead,

I am smiling at your absorption,

want to stub them out with my thumb

but you catch me looking

so I turn back to the screen

till your face is mine again.

The words on my lips

remain unsaid. A time may come

when, not having words,

I will wish I had spoken; a time

when love being tested, I could say,

I used to watch films in your face.

Literary Events this week/weekend in Roscommon and Leitrim

Late notice this, but not too late if you live in the north midlands or northwest. A very engaging two days of talks and readings entitled Irish Women in Literature. Speakers include Nuala O'Connor, Prof. Luke Gibbons, Professor Christine Kinealy, Jessamine O'Connor and others. Free readings, but booking necessary.

also this weekend in Carrick-on-Shannon

Irish Mountain Festival in Carrick -on-Shannon 6th - 8th Oct. 

Participants include celebrated American writer and folklorist Henry Glassie, King of the Castle author Eugene McCabe and Ireland Professor of Poetry Eileán Ní Chuilleanáin, novelist Pat McCabe, migrant rights campaigner Bernadette Devlin McAliskey and London Imam and sean-nós singer Muhammad Al-Hussaini  among the participants at the festival in Carrick-on-Shannon.Tickets €60/€40

The End of Love, A Chill Awakening

Ending

He, who covered my body

with snail-trails,

whose hands were wrack

swept over my skin,

kisses on my back

a colony of shell fish.

He, who would have crossed a mountain range

for an hour between my thighs

now crawls over me

with wizened passion.

Gutted of love,

he comes clawing,

scavenging;

and insults me with lies

that have made greater pincers

of his mouth than his hands.

What does he see in me ?

Meat to excite him,

his groper's desires,

even his fingertips betray him.

But no more,

the erotic becomes ugly,

decrepit manoeuvres disconnected

from their original meanings;

the touches stain you.

I have watched him slither from my gaze

a thousand times a night

while slipping the word love

from his vocabulary;

watched him develop this communication

of knives and forks.