Hey blog, as usual it's been too long. So here's an update. I was delighted to win Fingal Libraries Poetry Competition 2022: Travel with Joyce:1922-2022, commemorating the centenary of the publication of Ulysses in Paris. The winning poems can be read here. Thanks to the judges Enda Coyle-Greene & Máighréad Medbh. I was also grateful to have been granted an Agility Award by the Arts Council of Ireland.
Issue 7 of Drawn to the Light Press can be read here. I had a poem published in Meath Writers' Circle Annual Magazine (The Tinder Stick Road) and I have another forthcoming in The Stony Thursday Book, edited by Annemarie Ní Churreáin. Currently I am working on my debut full collection with Salmon Poetry's Jessie Lendennie. I'm sharing The Tinder Stick Road below and I'd also like to dedicate an older poem to my constant, and inspiring, Sarah.
The Tinder Stick Road
Do not expect the way to be easy,
that branches will not sharpen like knives,
that thorns will not adorn the middle ground.
From a past you no longer serve
be free. Set one naked sole after another
on the coals until they are doused.
Imagine the end, all the little endings
of the journey, the daily living.
Imagine that comfort in the hold of the rose,
the soft pink, and red, petals and folds.
Did any voyage ever begin with certainty?
Not Ithaka! Not Bethlehem! Not Jerusalem!
Look to the stars, to Polaris and Orion.
Never be dissuaded, so that they may orbit you
when seeking them in the glittering beyond.
Let the heavens swarm like bees in the godlike centre
of your existence, your heart writing clefs and quavers
in love for yourself, this life, this humanity.
I remember (love)
- After Rilke's You, You only, Exist
So long it has been but now and then
(and on dark winter nights)
it is with gladness of heart
that I greet the form of you
come back for an instant
to make me smile
like the flame from the fire
or a forgotten voice
resurgent
but you are gone,
far down the river,
whispering back so that I know
you were true, shadow
that cut deeper than any blade,
that raised my eyes to the sun
and laughing, suddenly you were done!
No thanks could be given. None at all.
But I take you with me to a blue sky
to the calligraphy of the birds
with pounding chests
drenched with rains of light
on their wings.
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