Friendship it Seems

 

Arms thrown open;

friendship it seems;

doubt it.

Too close to that face,

the full of your eyes:

a prison.

Self-Portrait

 

My self-portrait is a busy place;

a totem pole of chancers.

Face beneath face,

each advertising its schtick.

It’s late,

but still I’ll start again;

I must start again.

Closed

 

Gentians,

May’s bright eyes

were yours

but now those buds

have closed,

never to open.

Stripped of their tongues,

the mourners

file past;

the quenching

of your beauty

like their Summer repealed.

Dublin Launch of New Collection

My new collection, The Sound of Water Searching, will be launched by poet, playwright Vincent Woods at 8.30pm, Friday, March 25th in Drop Dead Twice on Francis Street. The launching will be followed by The Upstairs Sessions, a monthly night of performances of all kinds which never fails to entertain. 

I have, of course, notified Dublin Airport that there will be a spike in air traffic and Ryanair have laid on extra flights. I expect the ports will also experience difficulties, but it is generally understood that the launching is an event of exceptional importance both nationally and internationally. So, I recommend you get there early. 😉

 

In His Nature

 

 It is in his nature to shoot songbirds out of the sky,

                                               to enjoy that moment

when a bird’s flight becomes sheer fall by his hand.

It is in his nature to take pleasure in another’s pain;

    he can contemplate with satisfaction the damage

                        he might wreak with a broken bottle.

                       It is in his nature to be power-hungry,

 to gain a position in which to indulge his pleasures;

                         relentlessness is part of his violence.

Where the high soprano sings

 

Where the high soprano sings notes so pure

they might crystallise and glint in the sunlight,

these men are deaf as steel.

If only those notes had invaded their hearts,

that steel might now be ringing with harmonies

beautiful enough to liberate souls.

Her Fingers, Piano and Light

 A rewrite from last year.

Her Fingers, Piano and Light.

Her fingers on the piano keys: 

nails brighter, redder than rose-hips. 

                                                                                   

A net of cigarette smoke hanging, filled 

with the two of us and afternoon sunlight.

Room receiving the notes like a canyon;

momentary silences with flaring incandesence

                                                   

between fingertips, and piano notes again 

spill out like sequins. 

Brass and silver, mahogany, ashtrays and

antimacassars,

Liszt like a gold tooth;

green glints of sunlight from bevelled glass;

she smiles; the music twirls a cane 

with that jangly old piano aplomb,

fills the room till the walls fall away, and she 

with her deforming contours of smoke dissipates. 

I write to hold on,

but I may as well be catching steam.

Flitters

 

Lifted off the sky,

wet strand,

on Atlantic gales,

flittered sunlight,

gulls banking

over drumlins

to a moon-

crescent bay,

to be,

closed hands,

hidden

on a cockle shore

My New Collection, 'The Sound of Water Searching'

It's been a long time coming and, needless to say, I think it's the literary event of the year. The Sound of Water Searching is now available from Lapwing Publications. Available in soft cover only, it costs £10/€12 plus postage. For purchasing information email  https://sites.google.com/a/lapwingpublications.com/lapwing-store/to-buy-a-lapwing-title For information on Lapwing Publications email lapwing.poetry@ntlworld.com   You can contact me at mmodros@gmail.com 

The Sound of Water Searching

From personal poems that draw on "the emptied out treasure-chests of childhood" to reflections on the work of Elaine Leigh, John Minihan, Mick O'Dea and others, Michael O'Dea is interested in the ways that memory, experience, and meditation inform the life of the poet. The poems gathered in The Sound of Water Searching give voice to his ceaseless commitment to the artistic process: a "beautiful odyssey" that takes us from Dublin to Galicia and beyond.                      

Philip Coleman (Trinity College Dublin)

Through

 

No

not you there

but

being

like

a thought there

your eyes present

but

bodily

not substantial

not

like flesh

but

beauty your

yes

incontrovertibly

child

staring standing

A Light at Sea

 

Nightfall; a light at sea,

a hand in a net.

Memory:

a beach in Connemara

the sound of which

that tide keeps playing

its faint knowledge

of pleasure, a shooting star

of night ending with

things that could have been said,

that burnt a hole

black as time,

that repeat

the whole life long.

A Turner Impression

 

Hail showers

Hail showers around the bay:

clouds’ dusty spillages.

Sun cries in a confessional,

sky fuzzes.

Light somersaults

in another world

where galleons are waiting

to dream us away.

Turbulent Trees

 

Waves spinning their white bellies over;

fulminating riptides,

turbulent trees.

Fire from their leaves catching,

infect the fields with their delirium;

colours, spilling out from their domains,

eddy and spring

riotous, brilliant.

Their smoke towers uncoiling into the sky

climax in fantastical menageries.

Beside Me

 

Sometimes I stop,

I think I hear you.

Though improbable,

I love those moments

and wonder if, just maybe,

you are, after all, beside me.

Wind and Tree

 

‘You’re still here’ said the wind to the tree;

‘And where else would I be, this is home!’

But the wind was already gone.

Some days later, ‘But don’t you get bored?’

‘Even the stirring of soil beneath my roots interests me

                                      when I am home,’ said the tree.

But the wind was already gone.

When passing again, the wind asked, ‘Don’t you long to travel?’

‘This place and I are inseparable lovers.’

But the wind was already gone.

The next time the tree asked, ‘Won’t you stop a moment?’

‘Oh, to have such freedom!’ replied the wind

and it already gone.