A political failure

 

Words fly,

they are air.

Bullets fly

through the air.

They fly

through the words.

Humanitarian Support for Afghan Citizens

 

The spread of covid from one individual in China to the entire world has illustrated that the planet is now just one large neighbourhood. Similarly, the spread of  political trends and movements; we can no longer consider a problem in one country to have no bearing on another, no matter how far distant. In effect communications and travel have become ropes binding us all close together. In the coming years climate change, pollution, water management, conservation of environment will all have to be tackled by the global community working as one.

My point in saying this is that there is no brushing aside the current Afghan problem, the crisis there is not solely of their making, and the fallout will not be contained within its borders. It is a global issue and those in danger deserve more that our turned heads.

The Afghan Council of Ireland has published a letter template on its Facebook page for Irish citizens to send to their governmental representatives to urge them to strengthen the support for Afghan citizens fleeing the new regime. See  https://www.facebook.com/101984398057143/posts/369156171339963/

I urge Irish readers to read and send it to your TDs and MEPs, and perhaps readers from other countries might do so with wording appropriate to the situations where they live.

St Brigid's Well, Liscannor

 

I walk along the subterranean passage to St Brigid’s well;

it is jammed with pictures of the Sacred Heart, Virgin Mary;

statuettes of Jesus, Mary and the saints; crucifixes, rosaries,

mortuary cards, vases, medals, ribbons, coins, photographs.

Sadness. There are that many calls to God along the passage,

the walls seem almost sagging under the weight of the pleas.

The passage ends where the water falls in algal greenery;

where the earth is giving but also taking away.

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Remember my beloved mother, Theresa;

she put so much store by Heaven;

I leave you her photograph.

Paul’s legs are both smashed,

he is too young for such hardship;

I leave you his gloves.

Twice my expected child has miscarried,

not again, dear Lord;

I leave you my rosary.

It is my hope that Anne will come home,

I pray for this daily;

I leave you the ribbon I kept.

Beyond the barren trees

 

Beyond the barren trees,

at the place silenced in snow,

the ruins of our love still stands.

A gable just, and the tracery of our dream,

still beautiful if vacant;

our ghosts, the grand thing we longed for,

still there.

Court Tomb

 

When their bodies had started into stone,

we lay them among the boulders

that had grazed the hillside, in a nest

for early sunlight, not far from the roaring tide,

in sight of the eagles’ perches,

in sight of their timber homes,

in sight of their fields,

stones away from their parents.

When their bodies had started into stone,

we left clothing, corn, arrows, bone knives

by their sides and pointed them along the path

of the returning sun, with our prayers

and our wishes built so high they would be seen

from the birth-places of mountains, rivers or stars;

they would know that we were waiting, all the generations 

waiting, running like currents through the stones.

Spiralling Down

 

First I saw bricks give way.

then the bricks and mortar collapsing

down, a chaos

in which I unexpectedly saw beauty,

a stampede of petals;

oh, I’m exaggerating to jump on a few lines;

there was a curvature, a pattern

one sometimes sees in a whorl of petals

because the fall of one brick is contingent on the fall

of the previous, except symmetry, a radial symmetry, almost,

spiralling down 

was totally spectacular, absolutely beautiful.

 

Love made arcs of us,

and as water dreams

of droplets,

we dreamed of perfection

and might have made it,

but the curvature of our arms,

unfortunately,

had to round a perfect circle.

Clean Technology

 

How vicious those butchers

with bloody hands!

Our deaths delivered

clean as hovering.

How wonderfully civilised!

Pike

 

Pike resides in Gothic gloom

among the ever-descending piers

in dense silence.

Is the shadow of a ripple.

A Christian life,

shaped to it;

does as God directs.

Has the dark stain of silt.

Sweeps nave and aisles,

never actually grumbles,

swallows the unwary altar boy.

Is custodian of the gravel.

The White Square

 

The white square;

that dense emptiness;

the pressure it exerts.

I point out that there is nothing there,

that you are struggling with nothing,

that there is only you.

A Time

 Didn’t our lives come together? Once. 

Wasn’t there a time that was ours; 

the two of us? 

Isn’t that so, wasn’t there?

A time, once?

Survision Issue Nine

Includes 33 poets  from Ireland, England, Wales, USA, Canada, Australia,  Italy, some in translation https://survisionmagazine.com/currentissue.htm

And entries  open for submissions to the James Tate Prize 2021 for a poetry chapbook. 1st Prize: €120; 2nd Prize: €80. Both winners will win a chapbook publication + 10 free copies. There is an entrance fee of €16 for each manuscript. Deadline: 31th August 2021, midnight. Info: https://survisionmagazine.com/jamestateprize.htm

Gulls

 

Dazzle-bellied off the graphite sea,

curds flying from the churned-up agitation

of the tide; the ocean’s mouth foaming, venting

furiously onto the beach at Rossnowlagh.

Inside the thunder-ear, climbing the grey air,

slicing the storm, they stitch cloud and water, screaming

obscenities at each other; thrashing and wheeling

in the cage between a ferocious earth, indifferent Heaven.

The wish

 

Grinning in the sunlight, the river

plays jazz on the stones.

I sit, feet dangling,

its frequencies lighting my face;

toss a coin for happiness

into the honeycomb of bright water,

It settles among the pebbles

that all wishes become.

Sitting Outside

 

He sits, comatose, outside his door;

the beer tins, spent cartridges

scattered all around.

She wakes him, suggests dinner;

he insists on having one more,

pulling the trigger releases a gasp.

Next time she comes

he’s slumped back in his chair,

a trail of beer running away from him.