My Poems

Digging for Gold

We were talking about the old days

when we perched

skirts akimbo

on kerbstone of our road

holding in our sticky fingers

a  lolly-pop stick

liberated from a HB Choc Ice.

In silent contemplation

where only five-year olds go

we dug for gold in black seams of

melting tar

sun burning our necks red.

These women knew their place

for Aileen and Máire

We plant a garden

on cleared, re-seeded ground

to remember new beginnings

look towards the hills of Hollyfort

where hope dared to dream

in the tobacco fields and ditches.

We plant three granite stones

for remembrance

a path to lead the way

a flag to fly

in the face of despair.

These women nursed their visions

never faltered in the chase

for in the story of this land

these women knew their place.

This poem is in  2016 Commemorative Garden, Hollyfort,. May 2016

Moving the dream on

It took me twenty years

to climb the attic stairs

twenty years of

poetry, spells

and sound cures

to ease a wheezing chest.

It was waiting for me

by the water tank

where I left it -

a turquoise shell

silver locked with

a handle stout enough

to hold a young girl’s dream.

A traveller

I carried this case

from Dublin to London

rented flats to owner-occupieds

Tunbridge Wells to Wexford

packed each attic with strings of time

watching it, watching me,

danced around its hinges.

Today I wipe the dust from

my over-weight luggage

heave it down the stairs and

unpack your love-blue letters

to carefully unfold, read

and shred.

                                                            

Poem written im Aaron Wright

Faces

long

cold

vacant

washed out

from the outpouring

thin  

young men

shades of yesterday

jaws        shoulders

straining

from the weight

of his coffin

empty of what made him

outstanding

heart, eyes, lungs

filling  

hope of others

leaving his mourners 

memories 

of his smile.

Poem written (and read) at the marriage of my son in August 2014

The Coupling

She carries him

          in the folds of her dress

          crease of her elbow

          smile of her hips

or knotted fast in the roots

of her jet hair

like a child’s comb.

He carries her

          in the blue of his jeans

          the furrow of his brow

          pride of his shoulders

or bedded in his lyrics

on white sheets

strewn across the day.

My work with Hollyfort Development Group has inspired a number of new poems. This one refers to the mass grave on Mount Nebo.

A monument to famine of 1845

Trekking Mount Nebo

over Fort of the Holly   

I hear tell of a mass grave

lost in the bracken of time

a simple, shallow pit

dug by a local gravedigger

a refuge of want.

He remembers it well

my neighbour,

the green patch

planted with faceless stones

a boundary of low hedge

to carefold

the uncoffined.

He remembers also

another digger in these woods

excavating the unwritten

scattering the footholds.

No headstones mark

the mount’s face now

only dogs mark the bones

in this lost village

there is no yard to sweep

nothing remains         only wilderness.

I wrote this during one of our poetry therapy workshops in New York (Aug '13)

It is a myth
born in reality
that day
in a quiet residential
neighbourhood
when overcome
with excitement
I sprint 
across
the quiet road
to greet my dad -

the swish of my skirt
in the drag
of a passing car
still haunts him.




This is a found poem - after an article by Cathy Newman inNational Geographic.

In my nocturnal garden

the moon borrows

light from the sun

illuminates the night stage

where the dramatis personae

are luna moths with

wings the colour of caledon

scarab beetles

iridescent as opals and

wildly fragrant blooms

unfurling in darkness

like jasmine.

This is a shadowy place

a place where the leaves reach

for the faintest glow

and are transformed

in a monochrome

of silver and grey

all colour washed away

over head the great ghostly

barn-owl sweeps silently

across the moon-blooming

water lilies.

Yet the perfumed night

is nothing more than a wily plot

and the faint outline of shapes

all some night workers need.

In this universe

cankered flower   desiccated leaf

the rotted branch

silvered by star-shine

are swallowed by shadows

to leave only an illusion of perfection

and me to my night of dreams.

I wrote this poem after reading Women who run with Wolves.

La Loba

If you could track her down

as you would a she-wolf

in the desert

crawl on your stomach through

mountains and damp caves

 gathering lost bones

and in the mouth of your fire

piece together the last

rib of white sculpture,

raise your arms and sing

flesh onto bone

fur onto flesh

until a snarl starts

the lungs with a rush

if you can do this

then you’d  see

a wondrous creature

run into the desert

laughing like some wild thing

and you will run with the one

who lives under your skin.

Here is a poem written during the Therapeutic Writing workshop in Falmouth

The visitor

I will invite meanness

into my house

help him off

with his coat

hang it on the back

of his chair

sit him down

offer him

tea and biscuits

and I will invite him

to turn out

his empty pockets

onto the table

then, 
in my calmest voice,

ask him

why he has so little

when others

have so much.

Sorcery in Caheraderry

The home grows from a ring fort

through the clay of Caheraderry

as we fish lines of syllables

from grey Liscannor stone.

Across a marshy field, flag irises

shine through this greener grass

oversee the lift and return

of two coffin stools

legs turned vermicular and

splayed to take the load -

appanages of dignity that lightly

held a master’s weight a month ago.

And like the sorcerer’s apprentice

we witness the breaking of a spell

as coffin stools turn back

into occasional tables.

Two poem from the booklet that accompanied our recent DVD.

From Shed Poets' DVD Booklet

You can hear me read these poems by clicking the link below

 Hear my poems from Shed Poets DVD here