Breaking Up

A mural of cracks
Whispers across fresh plasterwork
Capillaried, like rivers
On a continental wall map

You take a finger, trace
Canyons and gorges, days
Of debris and dust, nights
When rekindled embers flickered briefly
Freeze, in the chill of a nonchalant glance

Still, you hang in there, hoping
Wanting to catch each falling slate, wince
As the first stabs of daylight
Plunge through the rafters
Even then
Place buckets to catch the drops

Shanloth

You could set your watch
By the fields around Shanloth
Especially on warm Summer evenings

When the creosote dribbles down the gate posts
And the rocks in the river bed
Are painted dry by July

Half past Eight and the hawk hangs
No hands above the acropolis
Of Neville's old house

It will be nearing Nine when
The big shorthorns begin to elbow their way
Through the sheep on Canty's hill

By Ten all will have disappeared
Under an avalanche of night
And only the moon will strike the hour
Over the pyramids of Egypt

Nerja

Leg weary against a conspiracy
Of Andalucian streets and alleyways
Dazzled by dialects
I searched
And searched
Ducking under balconies
Turning corners, where
The scent of garlic and battered squid rings
Wait in ambush
Strange I thought
It had been there only hours earlier
As large as life
With its scribbled menu
And row of optics
Any wonder that I envied the swallows
With their unflappable confidence
And uncanny sense of direction.

^

Biography

My poems have been published widely in magazines such as Fortnight, Riverine, Ratpit Riposte and also featured on Ulster Television film "Valley of The Kings" I have won some prizes including Hopkins in Kildare, The Nora Fahy in Clare, Kavanagh in Co. Louth and Allingham in Donegal, Ledwidge in Dublin. I am the leader of My poetry previously appeared in Electric Acorn 9