Some poems
Inishturk
I slowed my step for you,
as we dipped between hills,
at the edge of the Atlantic,
they sent us away each morning,
no room in the cottage to hold us,
you tripped to keep up, as we ran
our small wild hearts out to sea
at the cliff’s edge,
our backs to the sun,
that big American wind
ripped the coats off our bodies,
we dropped and rolled to keep from blowing over,
cousins told stories of pushing battered cars in,
to watch the sea’s snarl swallow them whole
our uncle kept an eye on things,
bent to the window of his front room,
the shake of his sick hands
pressed to the telescope,
waiting for that terrible sea to rise-up
and force out another goodbye
we hid in the calm of the bay,
scrambled over wet rocks and seaweed,
settled to a day spent smashing barnacles,
making bait to fish-out a hundred crabs,
just to throw them back in again,
until, one cracked against a currach,
split its hard shell, and we stood still
as the slosh of water pulled it under,
the dull ring of death sat between us
that night, playing suduko
by the turf fire, huddled together,
and you, too young to understand,
watched my numbers dart across paper,
we walked the black roads,
the sky awake with starlight
led us along pot-holed boreens,
as we counted the wink of houses,
and trusted the land beneath us
The carpenter's daughter
sits in the sawdust heap, because it smells
just like her father, all warm dust and work
sweeps wheelbarrows of it out from under saws,
the scent of steel, the blade still above her head
pulls planks bigger than her across the room,
wants to know how to fix a shelf, or sand a chair
she loves most what wood can become,
rubs the blisters on her soft hands
they’ll turn calloused like his carpenter’s skin,
a small sacrifice, to be the one, to make—
a new world from that which has fallen,
sliced from the sky to never see it again
she has the gist, but not the knack,
the gist is building with bravery
to take a tree stripped of all its dignity,
then put it back together tenderly
In memory of Granny in Galway
on your last night
I stayed away as long as I could,
didn’t want another sludge of hours spent counting
hospital tiles or the tip and tap of time passing
as if there was a choice in the matter
the sound of footsteps
trying not to wake the dying,
knowing you too should rest in peace,
away from Granddad who insisted
you looked much better now
and you still slumped and slack-jawed
being drip-fed someone else’s dreams
and I imagine, at first, the two of you
stooped over your bent dreams,
how they were black and mangled
dead as your numb foot,
it was only the foot at first,
later the rest went too,
Granddad said every prayer,
lit every candle
he took no notice
when you started to rewind,
you called me ‘Sandra’,
we did not mention
how you’d forgotten
there are things I will not miss
your wheelchair in the corner, looming,
its two wheels span twenty years of misery
a memory stuck somewhere
between fighting and giving up,
lost in a haze of Coronation Street,
ham-sandwiches and tea
until the pictures they showed us at the funeral
were someone we never met,
standing stick-skinny,
with a jumper to your knees,
hair tossed back in laughter
and we think of your candle
snuffed down to a black wick
we hardly remember you laughing,
just Granddad’s cluck of care around you,
missing a beat the day your hand fell heavy
in mashed potatoes,
you sat more red and bloated and determined
than we could bring ourselves to watch
hissing his name, so we wouldn’t notice
I didn’t want to sit there on your last night,
it was five hours before someone told us it was over,
and you waited till the girls came back
from their cough of fresh air
standing in a hospital car park
at 4am on a summer’s night
we sat by the bed
where you called them all angels days before,
a brief moment of recognition
in the catch of a song note on Nancy’s throat
as she sang you back to sleep,
I couldn’t bring myself to step any closer,
did not trust you’d know my
words from any others
your last night in the hospital bed
the morphine saying you felt nothing,
but your low wail punctuating Lucy’s rosary,
the beads clicking quick between her fingers
and when it was over,
when there was no more
fight left in those lungs,
and the leg that gave up long before
wasn’t the only part of you without feeling,
when you had forgotten not just me, but everyone
Granddad stood over you saying it didn’t seem right, it didn’t seem right,
and Daddy clutching your hand like he could pull you back from that gone place
you might know we lost Granddad too that night,
his hands left empty as he wanders
the halls of your old house,
screaming your name so loud
the neighbours can hear
his last love song
the day we made our way to the funeral,
we found him doing your laundry,
he gave us jumpers
you hadn’t worn since the eighties,
said he wouldn’t be coming,
but to remember you well
remember the girl on the island
her hair strapped to the wind
and a heart running faster
than footsteps could carry her,
she who left home at thirteen knowing how to make strong tea
and fish for crabs, with no chance of learning much more,
sent to work away from the slap of sea air
she walked the streets of Birmingham in a two-piece navy suit
and there wasn’t a man didn’t stop as she walked by
the young woman she became at the dance hall,
flitting through the hands of young men,
finding granddad in his red plaid suit
and teaching him to smile
one cup of strong tea at a time
the mother that loved her only child like he was the only child,
and how you whispered your first grandchild’s name, Alvy, like a promise
I still think of you,
though I do not visit your grave,
and were I to find my way there
what would I say,
just stand, helpless,
whispering my name to you
over and over
We never said goodbye
driving past Dublin city
in the almost light of six a.m.
with coffee in our veins
and Oasis on the radio, telling us
not to look back in anger
the world sliding together
in the slur of morning lights,
promising we'll write or call
a story web across the distance,
knowing we might not find time,
laughing about how you should
really learn to reply to letters
we talk
about things long gone,
easier to speak about
the half-mile of boreen
between our house and the main road,
how just before school started back
the hedge was heavy with blackberries,
soft with autumn rain
it's too early
to think of proper things to say,
silence sometimes slips between
the smell of leather seats and wet dog,
you say you won't miss
the dog hairs on your black coat
and I see veins on my hand
as I hold the wheel a little tighter
in the airport everything smells so distant,
and we are the only people
too early to check-in,
we try to play cards on plastic chairs,
give up, realising we’re only
shortening the minutes
you remind me how you always wanted to go,
even though it's been five minutes now
of staring at strangers,
and you really ought to make your way
to a gate somewhere
or so the intercom tells us
I don't reply,
because there are as many reasons
to ask you to stay,
as there are to say goodbye
I walk you as far as they let me,
flustered, you juggle passports,
hands jittery from all that coffee
you say you’ll call when you’ve landed
and that has to be enough, for now
it might be years
before you're back again,
and we'll drive past Dublin city
in the half-light of six a.m.
talking about how the time
flew in to meet us
we'll go back to the boreen,
so you can walk that road again,
you'll wear your black coat
and there'll be dog hairs clinging on,
the blackberries will look a little different,
heavier now, from another type of rain
Warning
ask nothing when my hair has lost out to the wind,
the flirtatious bitch of it, cares nothing for me
I’ve no brush and pucker to hide the bruises,
will always insist we talk about it in the morning
over warmed milk and porridge,
even though nothing irks me like breakfast,
time spent boiling oats to lumpish consistency
it is not just this that scratches at me,
it will be blackbirds cawing against the hours,
traffic lights gone red, the umbrella inside-out
gloves left bedside, cursing puddles, cars,
that two-foot tidal wave,
how they’ve all conspired against me
my mind black and blue with people,
papers to my chest clutching at things to say
leave me to cry silently
over how the spaghetti
is looped in the sink
know none of this is your fault
but I’ll blame you anyway,
quiet and insistent as spring rain
Video poems
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