Selected Poems Archive

Paulo and Francesca

Talking to God in a Protestant Church

Deluge

Suantraí

Seeds

Leavetaking

Charms

Fable

Wonderland

***

Paulo and Francesca

after Rodin

They sit there ignoring us,
engrossed in a first kiss,
so wrapped up
in themselves
that we behold them,

nonplussed.
The book in his hand,
just slipped to the ground,
the page he was reading,
of Guinevere and Launcelot

open face-down.
She has taken to heart
his medieval romance,
wrung by a kiss,
hungry for the taste

of his mouth,
the soft play of his lips.
Outside their window
is birdsong and sunshine,
red roofs, the Adriatic

glittering.
She doesn’t know yet,
that love will bring them,
light on the wind,
true selves,

one death,
sweeping in like the sea
they played in as children,
bodies innocent
of all suffering.

***

< back to selected poems

Talking to God in a Protestant Church

We stole inside once, schoolbags dropped
by the baptismal font. Stone walls,
flag floor, no coloured mosaic
in symmetries of lambs or doves

or paradise lost, no incense smells,
statues of the saints or
Virgin Mary in a blue robe
standing on the globe,

one bare foot on a snake’s head,
no Stations of the Cross,
but crests to Major or Colonel
who died in Gallipoli or Dunkirk.

Pews with high wooden backs
velvet cushions for knees,
brass names adorning each row.
We climbed in at Lady Jane Harrington,

married twice, ? ‘God didn’t mind,’
Father said, ‘they had different rules
and tried their best.’ We’d seen her
on the horse. Our pulses raced

as we took a seat and bowed our heads
wondering which husband came to church,
beyond the pulpit found instead
faded regimental flags,

a vase of dried grass,
radiant daylight streaming in
through clear glass,
the savage yearning of our own hearts.

***

< back to selected poems

Deluge

They throw Beanie Babies across the fence
and shout their names and call for someone

to throw them back. I sit quiet with a book
pretending not to exist as animals rain

but they have climbed onto a ledge and spied
a patch of dress through the lattice and red

roses, blooming all round a gap in the hedge.
Already there are lions, elephants, penguins,

and several species of reptile looking sad.
‘Here’s Amber’ they holler undeterred.

A striped cat lands at my feet. Two pairs
of brown eyes observe. ‘Would you like to

keep him?’ They smile as I pick up the cat.
Amber is soft, enough to take me off guard.

More beanies shower the fence. The boys are
yelling and it’s time for bed, but from

their incessant voices, I can hear
exhaustion flooding the land,

their parents are already drowned
and I understand what Noah in the Ark must

have felt: I am their only chance
and my garden is the last high island left.

***

< back to selected poems

Suantraí

She wakes up beside him,
a nocturne’s spilt notes,
how he’s cupped in her arms.

Will he in time forget all this?
That for once he’s the lover
who rose at dawn,

Díarmuid on a mountain-side,
her naked body, an unentered pool,
and for once they find themselves

content in a silence of breathing
that scent drenched in the song of a bird
at the open window and light

billowing through a soft fall of rain
and dare not utter a word
for fear of breaking the spell.

***

< back to selected poems

Seeds

Giant, freckled,
my father’s hands
scatter grain, palms
cast from a jute sack
this way and that as if
he’s performing a rite.
And what I wonder about is
how he measures out
the ground and how he knows
how thick and fast to plant
as he paces forward
and where exactly it lands?
The Bible warns against stones.
What about the birds
already having a feast
as they flock and lift,
treating our harrowed space
as if it were Christmas?

He’s unconcerned about stones
and it’s important to cater
for the birds. They’ll soon
have enough. As for the seeds
I watch them sprout
delicate ribby greens
against the rainy earth
and rise over months to a deep
aquamarine that glistens
in runnels under the breeze.
Avid to catch the split
second the colours change,
I play hide-and-seek
in an emerald smock,
vanish and appear,
eye to eye with ripening grain
stilled by a tide
shifting the field
and close my eyes to listen
as the harvest turns golden.

***

< back to selected poems

Leavetaking

You would have me stare at a grave,
freshly dug, a precise rectangle,
though all around scattered in the grass
are primrose and daffodil,
folded petals beginning to open and frill.

You would have me stare at a grave
spade marked, worms working the tilth,
though spring has come
after long winter, the blossoming plum
and at the doorstep earth’s smell.

You would have me stare at a grave
deeply cut, ready for burial
though I am young and have known
love. If you must, bury yourself.
I will listen to the blackbird’s trill.

***

< back to selected poems

Charms

Thistles. Nettles.
In the long grass,
a hot afternoon.

The calves of my legs
stung. Dock leaves
rubbed to juice

trickled green
on the burn.
What time was it then?

I reached for
dandelion clocks.
Whispered your name.

Whole moons frayed
under my breath.
One o’clock, two,

loves me, loves me
not. The answer?
A bald stem.

***

< back to selected poems

Fable

In the story
you heard as a child
they said he threw her
overboard one night

when the Shannon
was at full tide.
So determined was she
not to let go

that it took
all his power
to prise each finger
from the rime of the boat

free. This is how
you see her now,
not the young bride
echoing marriage vows

soon bearing his child,
but fighting the black
swirling river
with every last ounce

of force, her hands frozen
to the stern, knuckles
grown white, white.
And when you asked

How this young man could
hear his own woman cry
and fail to turn human
they said nobody knew

what happened that night,
he was out of his mind,
and anyhow he never meant
to make her his wife.

By then you’d seen the house,
the river at eleven miles wide,
the court where
he paid the price.

***

< back to selected poems

Wonderland

You are the smooth rock,
in whose warm hollow I bask,
like tiny Alice.

***

< back to selected poems