River through city
Street lights burning like candles
Icing bus shelter
Tag: city
Pavement
I
Maple leaves on O’Connell Bridge
Floating down the Liffey
Red hand of Ulster
Three crowns of Munster
Feathers flickering
one Seagull under lights
It’s not late enough to fall in the river.
II
Tired grey beard
losing the colour of life
Flat cap, caipín
Breasts striding by
Brown Thomas bag
with a black umbrella
coming from Grafton street.
Luas bell warning
Time to get a move on before it’s too late.
Long hair flapping
on Dawson Street,
out west violent wind.
Trail finders walking by
“Injury Time” on display
“Wolf Man and Water-Hounds”
“Have you seen the Dublin vampire?”
a window for browsing readers.
Another bell, another Luas,
that soft strong wind.
III
Carluccio’s is not the best place to be cremated.
Plastic flower
in an extra dry Prosecco bottle,
white King Protea facing the door.
Crema, a thimble of hot water
diluting its bitter companion.
witness the knife and fork
slice an almond croissant
scattering icing sugar.
Cool in the mouth.
“Thank you very much”
to a Palestinian smile,
a time for thinking,
alone in company
with an afternoon snack .
Cutlery crashing,
any second now,
settle the bill.
— There may be time to die .
The city of London
The City of London
Cocktail-shaker for the World
Bridge-builder, fortune-maker
City of greetings, grime and grit
City of tongues
City of preachers, teachers and elephants
City of wars
City of screams and exhibitionists
City of Empire
City of fires, plague and drawing rooms
City of parks, love-makers, trouble-makers, heart-breakers, imperial, ethereal, thirst-slakers, pace-makers, peace-wakers
City of dogs, cats, rats, scavengers and paintbrushes
City of players, symphonic stayers, hyperbolic cares
City of ruins
City of wounds, marches and prayers
City of bubbles, stock-takers
City of pain, disdain, refrain
City of shoes, falafel, matzoh ball soup, chopped liver, peppercorns, cardamom, chillies and curls
City of deaths, debts, resurrections, assumptions
City of refugees
City of the poor
City of the sword
City of slaves, waves, graves, sails
Race-gobblers
City of the clock
City of time and charts
City of natural history, kings, queens, nobility, futility
City of the blitz and bliss and bits
City of the Underground and flight
City of hiding places, stones, Sherlock Holmes
City of reinventions
City of anonymous burdens
Melody-makers, sacrifices
City of the heat and the Crystal Palace
Harbinger of malice
Brain of the Serpentine
City of masons, Livingstone, Gladstone, earthworms, sculptures, sepulchres, sceptics
City of songs and eavesdroppers, towers, bowers, superpowers and sour grapes
City of the chrysalis
Storyteller, seducer of words, fountain pens, notebooks, fish and chips, pie and mash.
City of fountains and ships
City of truth, city of factions, city of the Heath, city of smog, city of the Frost Fair
River banker, clangors, Doppelgangers,
City of joy
City of birth, mirth, thirst,
the witty first city
pitiful playground
foundation of the nation
creation and gestation
pregnant
City of the parties
City of the Open Mind
Martinis
Broad cocktail-shaker for the World.
————–
(Inspired by Carl Sandburg’s poem about Chicago)
From Bath to Cork with baby Grace 