Insect Waders on Water (haiku)


On smooth still water

along an ambling current

insect waders skim.

(Image by Artificial Intelligence – to prompt by Paul O’Mahony)

24th November

Sailing to Dover

floating to death on water

we hadn’t a chance.

Screaming for life

for breath, a hand to hold me

swallowing silence.

Sinking and drowning,

a cold wet graveyard for home.

I hoped for better.

Insidious

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Insidious

I was walking along a couple of roads,
one turned to the sea, the wave, the water, the tide …
one sloped to the mountain, the scree, the rock, the peak …
I followed a breath like a hunter.

There were distractions,
high like eagles,
busy like bees,
imaginations
like sugar,
addictions,
paradise,
a sweet-shop shining
scent of fish
nectar,
pollen,
ice.

I was walking along a couple of roads
when the earth gave birth to twins,
and twins to twins
I followed a breath like a hunted fox.

A moment

 

The coffee’s bitter here,

beans dark, roasted hard,

flavour for waking up

– I see Cezanne on the wall,

a fire extinguisher,

a smoke-free zone,

even water can’t soften the taste,

exploration calls,

echo of earlier conversation,

poplars wave, leaves flash,

sunlight shortening shadows

under apple trees.

A bronzed girl hangs her jacket

on the back of a chair.

 

(Galicia 6 August 2010)

Not being anything…

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Not being anything,

nor holding water,

cleaned out of grit,

a lonely man fears he has nothing

and never really had

anything to show for himself.

Light


Black shoulders, white earphones,
she sits on a wooden stool
in the ‘Internet Centre of Excellence’
on Winthrop Street.

Blends into a smartphone,
consuming power,
hooked,
like my dad consumed TV,
sat by his books
in Fort Mary.

Her fingers fit for a keyboard,
carrying a library
in the pocket
of bleached blue jeans,
sipping water
from a SuperValu plastic bottle.

Frank O’Mahony smoked a pipe
in a drawing room,
sat in an armchair covered in faded flowers,
never blotting a book, straining a spine,
creasing a corner, ripping a leaf.
Father sold books.

Eyes glued to screens,
consuming stories,
liquid crystal married to tubular light,
pathways to wider worlds.

They both wore brown shoes.