Poetry

Poetry that’s really poetry and not prose in short lines (my early attempts were like that) is a fairly recent development in the last five years. It has allowed me to re-visit and explore my own childhood and past with a degree of recall that has sometimes surprised me and a degree of honesty as well. And to take side-swipes at aspects of modern life among the way.

So more of that will now be seeing the light of day soon in Greybell Wood and Beyond to be published by Lapwing Publications of Belfast. However, I must admit poetic licence creeps in as memories get manipulated and heightened for dramatic effect. So not quite the confessional it may at times seem. My first solo collection, so an important step forward.

Collections:
Lifescapes in Side-Angles (Pagan Publications, 2005)
a two-hander with Cityscapes by Stephen Downes

I have also read my poems at the Amergin Literary Weekend, Drogheda, and the Aspects of Irish Literature Festival, Bangor, Northern Ireland, where I was half of 'Random Acts of Poetry' with Kevin Higgins, the noted Galway poet, and other events, including a range of poetry evenings and slams in Drogheda in more recent months, several of which I hosted. Individual poems have appeared in various magazines and anthologies as well.

MIGRANTS

Echoing
The myriad swallows
Perched like notes on a music sheet
On telegraph wires overhead
The children swing excitedly
On parallel strands of the wire fence
And cheer
Waving to passengers
As local push-and-shove steam train
Chuffs by beyond the end of the garden
Sparks flying upward
With the streaming soot-laden smoke

Evacuees from the nightly bombed city
Their future less certain
Than that of the swooping wheeling swallows
Assembled for migration
Or the dry stubble beside the track
Sparked here and there
Into short-lived fires
By the flying fragments

IN PRETTY PRAGUE

Over the cobbles they scuttle
Through narrow winding lanes
In fairytale city
These multi-tongued tourist beetles
Scavenging for the droppings
Of history
Of culture
Capturing them
For this brief holiday at least
In camera, notebook, brainpan
Scurrying to keep up
With umbrella-signalling tour guide
This way that way
What did he say?
Mustn’t miss a minute
Through castle church museum gallery
Up steep steps stairs hills
Ears grappling with strange names insignificant events
Easily forgotten once home
With photos albumed
Mementoes scrapbooked
Normality obliterating casual memories
Hard work of holiday over for another year