It would be easy to miss the poets
in the Farmgate Cafe
encased behind glass
as you sip espressoed coffee
on a Saturday afternoon
in the English Market.
Poems slip by without fuss,
prefer to let you pass
until you’re ready to listen
to your breathing heart
– the minute they sense you ache
for a set of fingernails
with which to grip on to fragile life
ticking like a fading metronome.
Poems are used to coffee drinkers
who turn their backs on them.
Poems become taken forgranted
even when handwritten and hung.
Poets never have the last laugh.
Ink fades gradually away.
I wonder whether the spirits stay
hidden among fushia encased in a water jug.
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This was composed in the English Market Farmgate Cafe in Cork Ireland in May 2015
From Bath to Cork with baby Grace 