Sunday 1 May 2022

Stolen Minutes

Is any food as good as when it's made by someone else?
What pleasure and what leisure, regardless of expense.
But, better still, the sandwich filled by lovely company,
and woe betide the child who tries to interrupt this treat.
They're yet to savour all the flavours of these stolen minutes,
their meals comply with what they like, they do not do the dishes;
no appreciation for preparation, and that's right for their age,
but let me have a little chat, and a sandwich I didn't make.

Friday 1 April 2022

Time Capsule

The rabbits eat the bellis while the cat sleeps snug inside,
I patrol by dusk and upturn pots to tasty flowers hide.
Just one night missed will well undo all my careful work,
but then again the worst result is that the rabbits will be stuffed.

It's not hard to walk the garden on sunset primrose guard: 
I live in a charmed, geographically armed
place of certain peace;
a world away from The Ukraine and Russia's senseless siege.

I've thought a lot about that box, our message going ahead,
of how we'll say we're happy, and the wild rabbits are well fed.
Of our hopes for all the people on our census, from Ukraine,
and our thoughts for those who they have lost, all the missing names.

Tuesday 1 March 2022

Sorting Socks

We have a severe sock shortage,
and those don't match up in shape;
Two pairs of wellies are beyond repair,
and we are sick of all the wind and rain.
I hate the two armchairs in the living room,
but just can't seem to fix that space,
and the myth perseveres of Putin being a human, 
and descended from a Kyivian birthplace.

If they are one people, if his claim is true,
maybe it is for the Kyivians to choose or not to choose
to stretch their coat of arms in line with Moscow's view,
and make Ukrainians of the Russians, one people out of two.

They would be free to spend their time then, day to day,
sorting socks and buying wellies, hating armchairs;
running out of washing capsules, washing anyway,
being late for soccer training, ignoring all the ware;
paying for the car tax; the cat's next vaccination.
No time to spare to prepare for Russia's mad invasion.

Proxy

If it is a case of appointing a replacement,
I assure you, Mr. Filitov, that house won't be left vacant.

I have the perfect candidate, and he's just like you:
He likes the luxury of the lap, and takes more than he is due;
He sees no need to be effective, is not averse to transgression;
and, as long as he is unaffected, he'll consent to oppression.

Off you go now, Yuriy, leave the key under the mat,
and I'll install your proxy, my over-qualified cat.

Tuesday 1 February 2022

Quicksand

Quicksand.
And chloroform.
And falling through a branches trap,
into a giant pit. Hauled
up by a net that right upon my path was set,
and let's not forget the constant threat
of only finding out after my abduction
that I was being replaced by my evil twin,
of whom I had never heard.
The fear of cars with brakes tampered;
my arch-nemesis balancing out of sight 
above the stage performance of my life,
ready to cut the rope holding up the batten,
and then slink away after I was flattened;
Being the one who would have to choose
to snip the red wire or the blue,
before the device could explode.
How I dreaded rabies, which particularly scared me,
and poisoning with no sign of antidote.

Then I grew up and realistic, and now I know that the statistics
do not favour plots of nineteen-eighties' shows.
I wish that I could feel free to expect our women's safety,
and that quicksand was what we dreaded most.

(RIP Ashling Murphy, and all the other women).

Saturday 1 January 2022

Any Of Us

When the children cannot be together
who will run and play?
When they cannot share their secrets
who will keep them safe?

When there are wishes, dreams, and aims
who will push us forth?
When all is lost in sheer despair
who will pull us close?

Are any of us shielded
if some remain exposed?
If safety can be wielded
everyone should get a go.

If our hearts can't yield to fair appeals;
if our consciences defy,
then we must leave our children grieve
the world that we let die.

When our senses lose all purpose
will we fall like dominoes?
When the climate deems us surplus
who will smell the snow?

Wednesday 1 December 2021

Velvet Paws

Wouldn't we all have velvet paws
if we lived like the cat?
Wouldn't we stretch and downward dog
outside the future and the past.

Wouldn't we split our time evenly;
sleeping, playing, eating, cleaning.
And deal with the unforseen
in the moment of its meaning.

We would wake to fascination
that yet another day appears,
strut with appreciation
that again we have no pain or fear.

We would expect support and comfort,
We would stretch and downward dog.
We would look after ourselves first,
we would all have velvet paws.

Monday 1 November 2021

Rita's Silver Box

Between the contents of the box
that looked contagious,
and Billy's headstone shots
and printed pages,
I learned of William Cronin's
second marriage,
of children dying in
early years who did not manage
to be recorded.

Baby Patrick and tiny Ned
among other ancestors
now not related,
except in memory and retelling.
Kate, of Kate of Johanna,
a railwayman's wife,
passed The Famine and O'Donovan-Rossa
but died of typhoid
back in Milleennagun.

The roadside Patrick McCarthys,
connected by a woman
certainly walking and running on empty
called Honest Mary Riordan.
A flurry of descendants
to reward her steely labours,
and wives to curb and enhance
the paternal inclinations,
like Auntie Sheila.

Our grandmother knew
that photo had to be taken.
She would die too soon
and most of us would be too late.
She gave us Seán to tell the tales,
knowing full well he would guard the secrets,
until years of tiny details 
had been wrung out of certificates.
He did her proud.

(Two of my cousins and I have been putting our family tree together. One cousin, Cath Walsh, is the twin of the subject of a poem I wrote in 2018, Michael Walsh's Shoes
When we had gone as far as we could go with the information we had, there was a phonecall of revelation from our uncle, Seán, to flesh out the names and dates. And Cath, in their family's poetic way, said, "After years of tiny details wrung out of certificates".

The Auntie Sheila mentioned was our grandaunt. It seems that our grandfather always said he was the youngest of thirteen children. Considering the infant mortality rate he may well have been. 
However, we have also heard that he believed there had been another child, Ned, born after him. Auntie Sheila, married to our grandfather's brother, always said, matter-of-factly, "they were a family of seven").


Friday 1 October 2021

For These Days

Though our cat lives a life I can only dream of
there is a certain steady freedom with his reign.
No killing sprees on the flocks of local sheep or
the barking that accompanies the postman every day.
The cat is pristine and insists on an access-all-areas
cycle of cleaning that he must repeat ad nauseum.
He makes a point of ridding his fur of the human rub
that he claims, by force, as and when it is required.
We can drive away without a thought for our cub,
and return to find him safe and well and dry.

But the dog. I miss having a dog so much.
It is a parcel of preparation and plotting,
and flea-and-tick treatments that don't work.
And training, and grooming and washing
to no actual purpose.

Now walks to the woods are the ways of my daughters 
and I feel they must
have a pet for adventures.

Thursday 30 September 2021

Frances

Adjustable paper guide, blackberry picking,
Barry's Tea and red wine, neighbours carol singing.
October winds and matchstalk men, a yellow Renault five,
Mossie the old milkman, and a pocket full of rye. 
Orange kitchen cupboards, cod liver oil,
potatoes for the next day, peelings for the soil.
The kettle's always boiling, jars crammed full,
tomato plants are spoiling, salt in handfuls.

A corner full of beehives, mint sauce and chops,
a black rabbit on the driveway, six crowing cocks.
Guitar frets and card decks, bunged airlocks,
rows of earthed strawberry beds, the oven drying damp socks.
Carbon copy paper sheets, headscarves in the rain,
line-space lever, sink full of ware again.
A little mouse with clogs on, script deadlines,
borage and parsley... sage, rosemary and thyme.

Frances filled forms,
spell-checked,
won awards,
typeset.
She pulled letters from scrawls,
print from shorthand;
all while a small child crawled
on to her lap.
Each submission
meant typing up twice;
no copiers or printers,
just mornings and nights.

I got my fingers stuck between those keys, 
until the electric typewriter muffled their clacks. 
And then a stream of clunky PCs
were replaced by laptops that went fast, fast, fast. 
The technology improved in leaps
of too much change at too much speed.
Arnica and aconite just when you think 
you can make both ends meet, margin release.

(On 30/08/2021 my mother, Frances O'Keeffe, passed away. She was 72 years old. She had been very sick for a very long time, really since 1998, but with long periods of wellness between then and 2010. And she hadn't been herself for years. I am one of six children, she is a huge loss to us all, and no less for her seven grandchildren, who she possibly loved more than us. They were lucky to meet her and she them. RIP Frances, 1948-2021).