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.
Tag: water
Insidious
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…
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.
From Bath to Cork with baby Grace 