Captain

I am reminded of the ways things will always go
as I run the route by the lambs and graveyard.
One foot in front of the other, over and over.
Grass. Asphalt. Concrete. Doesn’t matter.
Autumn is soon to leave, winter’s chill bites
and lets go, spring is growth and shearing,
and summer flies by as I doze and forget
about the days.

But it is drilled into me, laboured, as my sole
strikes and strikes the ground, sending me
forward with each stride. My own stride.
A heartbeat I control, as much as I can, and it’s Invictus,
sounding off in my head to a quiet, distant knell.
Shoes on. Oars in the rowlocks.
Charon can rest his arms in the stern.

COVID Poem #3 – Social Distancing Sonnet

We keep apart six feet. We’ve lost intimacy.
A sickness that has come is keeping you from me.
So strange to stand so far when we were face to face,
I miss your tender touch as well your warm embrace.
The stats are counting up, we’ve each an end to bear
this ghostly breath against the gloves and masks we wear.
But it’s the space we give that’s keeping us as one.
A gorge of love and hope to see through this is done.
And time will side with us, provided we are strong,
to distance when it’s right, to fix what has gone wrong.
A heart sustaining heart, life and life on tether.
By keeping us apart, it’s keeping us together.

Okay, a little emotional, a little soppy (or quite soppy). I suppose I am. Although it feels strange to keep your distance from people, especially those you love, there’s this overwhelming sense of Team Humanity when people work the measures put in place. There really is a huge shared effort to, as everyone is putting it, #StopTheSpread – and it’s bloody beautiful! I had a thought the other day (one that led to this poem) that it’s as if there’s this invisible thing between us. Like a long table, a bench or something, a nasty virus one, and it’s stopping us from our usual hugs, close chats, intimacies, thumb wars. But it’s also something we’re agreeing to manage together, to manoeuvre around, to shuffle to one side and let someone pass, to give each other safe breathing space. It goes against what we’re used to, but staying away and keeping distant is translating clearly to ‘Let’s play it safe. We can make up the high fives when this is all blown over.’

I don’t know. Virus tables? My newly accrued lockdown mentality madness is convinced there’s some sense there.

Keep safe everyone!

COVID Poem #2 – Fog

Our recent conversations have been through glass.
We stand outside, cupped hands around our eyes,
looking through the broad pane framing their living room.
There, the young family. Our nephew, a year old, sleeps.

And we all thought – what does he know?
Only the warm, isolated comfort of innocence,
where for a precious few months there is no one
at work and mornings smell of baked bread.

Hands wrung, the mother worries about his lack
of social interaction in these early years,
and the father calculates the sad seep of savings.
How many evenings a meal can be stretched?

A generation of newborns are in the same boat,
but it is us communicating across fences, roads,
windows, barriers between our common worlds,
with our breath fogging the glass.

COVID Poem #1 – Set

I left work today. “We should be home,”
I said, concerned about sharing tools,
the communal shed. Non-essential stuff,
I shrug, and ask if he will leave as well.

The grass grows, the crops need watering,
the weeds green between – I have to, he vows.
Pandemic. Sanitise. Just sounds to him, dissipating,
lost to breeze, birdsong, and spade hitting stone.

He bends down, unearths it with both hands.
What’s that doing in there, he mutters, and lugs
it to one side, then falls back down to work.

The picture is still there. I can’t shake it: a man
and his sweat married to soil, the sun pressed at his neck.

Remains

It sits on my desk, looking back at me.
Found amidst moss and wild garlic,
the bone wears a light shade of green
beneath the eye and stains a cheek.

It’s a stoat, I think, or a pine marten.
Small. Fit for my palm. Half the jaw gone,
the nose cavity jagged. One fang remains,
perhaps the same that tore a hole

in the neck of the kitten we rescued,
not far from where I found the skull.
The wound closed itself quickly,
and left a scar hidden beneath her fur.

The two both occupy this room.
Life and death here and there.
The cat sleeps beneath the radiator.
The cold skull gives a cold hard stare.

Burn Your Ghosts

Past times will always sing, night and day.
Their songs can slow and hold you still,
and howl your younger years in their sway.

But your precious time isn’t for the dead.
Burn your ghosts hanging from the rafters.
Look forward. Straight ahead.

What Little We Need

We walked beside the Shannon, against
that slow, steady flow, where tall grass
skirt the banks, and daffodils spot the path.
But we did not see it all; we turned after an hour,
and left the remaining length to mystery.

How little of the world do we need to see?
Like cows in a cattle trailer, their kind eyes,
pink noses move about their barred view
of the world, passing wide, grassy plains,
final scenes as they travel to the abattoir.

It’s the small pieces that help us along
through to the great portions of life.
Today, I saw a woman queuing in a gift shop
to buy a holy figurine. €1.99. Eight inches tall.
His hands pressed in plastic prayer.

Newborns

The horses are still. Some may be sleeping,
others hold that blank, vacant stare.
Those black marbled eyes look right through you.

We fit each with a rain sheet, wrap their newborn-like
bodies from tail to mane and leave them
in the paddocks to stand in the rain.

Are we old, then? When were we last clothed?
What did we learn? Some do dress appropriately.
Boots, raincoats, waterproof trousers and thick socks.

Others look pale, thin, holding that empty gaze
unknowing why they’re shivering.
So they roll cigarettes, heat their lungs,

give their bodies some warmth that no one sees.

The Drought

It is Thursday. The bottle is empty. My glass
nurses only a rusty smell of brown ale.

I sit alone, hands wringing, thinking there must
be some pool in this still parched mind of mine.

Please, inspiration. My empty page longs for print,
like a kingsize bed yearns for company. Speaking of –

– the neighbours upstairs are back. Going at it.
The headboard bangs the wall, the bed legs chafe

the carpet, to the repeated cry of drunk success.
His dull moan to her shrill yes.

Like a beggar beneath a water pump,
I raise my glass to catch whatever lend

could end this long drought. I feel it, seeping
through the mattress, passing between

the floorboards, sinking through the foam insulation,
working down the wire into the lightbulb, the lightbulb

that burns above my head. A bright idea for the dim.
Down it goes through my arm. To my hand. My pen. This poem.

Centuries

Moulding tides, casting waves,
work, abrade coarse rock
to rounded pebbles.

I pick one and skim
centuries across the surface.