|
Children
at the Glassblowers
It
was so hot in there heat caught
our
breath and carried it away.
The
Glassblowers wore bandannas
soaked
with sweat above their eyes.
We
watched them blow in to a long pipe
saw
a small balloon rise and grow,
saw
the molten orb being dipped
to
harden fast as they transformed
the
glass in to fantastic shapes.
Later
looking through the window
at
sun making steam rise and droplets
run
down the pane. We squint our eyes
and
change the light to colours
and
make our own rainbows.
Resist,
Resist
It
is difficult to think straight
when
rain is hammering
the
window hard on June.
The
flowers are taking a battering.
The
hollyhocks have swayed
into
battle and are in danger
of
loosing their petals.
It
is impossible to ignore
the
clamour of left over party
balloons
drifting across the floor,
like
my cursor on screen
dancing
to a ragged right
and
leaving me orphaned there.
It
doesn’t do to measure time
in
words and weigh letters
on
the page. It is better to reason
that
there is always a wind
at
the side of things.
Don’t
go turning yourself to bone.
^
Biography
Jean
O’Brien was born and lives in Dublin. She is a founding
member of the Dublin Writers Workshop. Her work has been
widely published in magazines in Ireland and abroad. Her
collection The Shadow Keeper was published by Salmon
in 1997, In 98/99 she read for an M.Phil in Creative Writing
in TCD. she teaches Creative Writing in the Irish Writers
Centre and is currently working on her next collection Dangerous
Dresses.
|