Beaufort Scale 8
Who knows what gales
Around the headland blow
When all seems calm
Skies are clear
Fair weather set to hold
Breathe in that still air
Cherish the warm
Breeze which blows
Gently across your face
Savour each scented
Wild flower
You pass by
After all
Who knows what gales
Around the headland blow
Published as part of Kilkenny Library Poets on Board Scheme
Distracted
While attempting
Poetry
at my desk one day,
fighting off the usual
bears, wolves
and other dangerous beasts
of the internet
between the Muse and Me;
from the teeth of Twitter,
a ferociously distracting
animal,
there leapt out
Billy Collins, Poet
talking of Poetry.
Losing myself
in his
captivating
flow of words
I ended
Poetically satisfied,
but
Poetically wishing
I had not been
ambushed
by dingoes of distraction
and had instead
written
a
Poem.
Click on the icon.
“Click on the icon.”
“Icon! What icon? There’s too many!”
“There! Look! I only showed you yesterday!”
“That was different.”
“Different? What do you mean different?”
“That was yesterday, Anyway I have it now, look, see!” With quiet pride in her voice she continued, “now we’re set.” Then she groaned softly, “Oh dear, I’ve forgotten what I do next.”
This time her daughter intervened, having silenced her brother with a withering glance and a barely murmured, “shush!”
If their mother noticed she gave no sign. Instead she peered intently at the spot on the screen her daughter indicated, reading aloud, “address book.” She double clicked and leaned back, satisfied, when a list of names, locations, numbers, e-mails magically appeared. As her son went to move the mouse she gently slapped his hand away saying, “no Tom, let me do it, you showed me yesterday, I have to learn.”
He shrugged his shoulders and like his sister watched their mother hesitantly scroll down through the list. Their patience over a few days home tutoring was well rewarded when she cried out in almost girlish excitement, “look, look there they are! That’s them, look!” Her daughter Mary gently pulled her hands down from her mouth, drawing them back to the keyboard.
“No good there, Mam, come on! What next?”
She frowned in intense concentration, “Let me see, I’ll double click anyway.”
They didn’t need the glow from the screen to see the light in her eyes when Jim in Australia and Kate in Alberta came on the screen. The three way family chat filled the house with noise, with laughter
None of the children, home or abroad, heard her crying on the phone that night to her friend of many years, “this Skype thing makes it easier.”
Published as part of Kilkenny Library Poets on Board scheme
They always lie to us
They always lie to us.
When they proclaim they are
telling the truth
they act as if this were
virtue on their part,
rather than a sacred duty.
They always lie to us,
the wars never end
by Christmas,
there were no weapons of
mass destruction
and which is it,
that more of theirs die
than the fewer of ours,
or that fewer of ours die
than the more of theirs?
They always lie to us,
the failing fail safes
are never going to hold,
situations are always
worse than they proclaim.
They always lie to us.
Drip feeding us morsels,
indecipherable
tit bits of truth
is also a form of lying.
They always lie to us,
so much so
that it is no longer
a source of sadness,
instead,
the sadness lies
in how often we
forget,
how seldom we
remember,
in our ever and always
believing,
not realising that
they always lie to us.
This was published as part of Kilkenny Library Poets on Board scheme for January 2012
I am rock
I am rock,
I am stone,
I am old but I am here.
I was once something else
Now I am stone.
My surface is worn, scratched, chipped
I am still me, I am stone.
Look closely at me,
There are colours where it seems
There is only one colour,
There are marks where it seems smooth,
And all the time, I am what I am,
I am stone.
The shape I am now
Is not the shape I always had,
But I am still stone.
Dun Laoghaire
March 2004
This was published as part of the Kilkenny Library Poets on Board Scheme
There are swans on the Corrib,
Along Quay Street the pubs are
Filled to overflowing.
They play Edith Piaf in cafes
While patrons patiently wait.
Outside, buskers ply their trade.
Behind the old Spanish Arch
We find the new Museum.
There, Johnny Faulkner and friends
Transport us with old sea-songs
Beyond the river’s open mouth
To Greenland whale fisheries.
Voices tell the shanties rhythms.
Eyes closed, to listen close,
I follow the music’s rise and fall.
Singers’ voices in harmony
Take us until we return
To the museum’s sunlit room.
Outside, the swans glide by, mute.
This was published as part of Kilkenny Library Poets on Board Scheme
