Alternative role models for the Irish poet

for Adam Zagajewski

Yeats and Kavanagh in a tea-room.
Willie is all angles, pinkie cocked
over crockery.
He toys with cucumber fingers
not quite up to the standard of Lissadell,
chants the menu for the puzzled room.
Paddy ignores the food,
slurps tea out of the saucer,
spud-knarled thumbs fumbling
with the porcelain as he looks around
for enemies.
Outside, a mechanical songbird
balances on a wire, thrilling notes drowning
a bedraggled sparrow's cheep.

Family history

Kiltimagh, 15 June 2003

A short stop en route,
a chance to find your traces in a market town
where houses are painted for some jubilee
and Aidan Street seems innocent of history
among its eateries and newsagents.

A cup of tea in my hand with the cousins,
a promise to exchange family trees,
to keep in touch by email.
There's a faded portrait over the piano -
I have my great grandmother's nose,
as do the two deputised
to take the tour with me.

They point out the drapery
(now designs a la mode),
the old Walshe home -
the scene of Kack's lock-in.

Last stop the cemetery,
they show me the family gravestone
rescued from scutch grass.
I adjust my shutter speed, they pose.
I don't tell them what I'm up to -
some secrets can't be kept
in the family.

^

Biography

Nessa O'Mahony was born in Dublin in 1964. Her poetry has appeared in a number of Irish, UK and North American periodicals including Poetry Ireland Review, The Shop, Fortnight, The Sunday Tribune, InCognito, The Stinging Fly, Agenda, Books Ireland, In Media Res (Canada), Iota and the Atlanta Review and has also been broadcast by Irish state radio. Her first poetry collection, entitled "Bar Talk", was published by iTaLiCs Press in Dublin in 1999. She is editor of the online literary magazine, Electric Acorn (http://acorn.dublinwriters.org) and is undertaking a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Wales, Bangor.