Monday 17 October 2016

POEM FOR NOVEMBER




NOVEMBER DAYS

Parsley pales. The cat craps in the flower box.
Round the garden table, garden chairs still range,
an icebound working group on climate change.
The car door’s frozen doorhandle unlocks

when blessed with water. Christmas rules TV.
Although no visitor’s appeared in weeks,
the feeble latch-grip slips, the front gate creaks
its winter wolf-crying expectancy. 

Our neighbour takes his DIY indoors,
no longer deafens us with power tools.
Spleenwort fronds survive on old stone walls,
each finger-lobe a blister-strip of spores.



INVITATION TO LAUNCH OF FERMATA: WRITINGS INSPIRED BY MUSIC


Tuesday 11 October 2016

'SEA DITTY' AND CLIFFS OF MOHER




SEA DITTY

Let’s all go binary
beside the seaside, beside the sea
with a two into one 
and so it goes on 
with a seagull here and a cormorant 
there on the breezy prom 
where little boys make goalposts
from their jettisoned jumpers
and the brass bands go pom! pom!
marching ad infinitum
with lots of girls besides
by the breaking of the waves
and my tongue in groove struck dumb 
for the love of a fishwife
with a fishwife’s tongue




© Ciaran O'Driscoll 2016