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Nature The gorse is burning freely, unencumbered by manmade boundaries. Yes, in modern day Ireland, there is still such a thing as wilderness, those few peeked upon places left unpoked and unpicked by rigours of survival; sure, tourism is an industry unto itself. A dream of horses, unreined, untrained and unrefined in the ways of man, stirrupless and knowing no master to give purchase to. And forests that will never feel the cruel shake of the axe upon its bough, unfettered tangles of tangential roots stirring in the undergrowth. If only for a day, I could lay myself down in such untouched luxury of heaven; but I, being man, am a selfish creature and would build fences to keep paradise to myself. |
Wildflowers, Victoria Park
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Nighttime Streetlights of distance grace this pinprick landscape on a black and blue night, framed by my curtained window. Rooftop silhouettes overlap each other, interrupted by telephone wires streaking across the sky. We mined the forests for timber to build telegraph totem poles, disturbing this once clean, translucent view. |
View from the Albert Bridge
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Noise after John Betjeman Sure there’s nothing left in this ghost town, houses bricked up and shops shut down, with barely a poor sod around in this bloody street. The few who remain do not persist in staying on Housing Executive lists; it’s poverty that ties their wrists to this bloody street. Yet neighbours conspire to fleece my mind of a required peace; their boom-boom music will never cease in this bloody street. Still there’s kids kicking balls against rusted shutters and graffited walls despite shuffling ladies in knitted shawls in this bloody street. The ice cream van tries to sell pokes but most of the kids would prefer a smoke, childhood has become a sorry joke in this bloody street. So I’ll plug my ears and open tomes to distraction in the form of poems; I’ve signed the lease so here’s my home in this bloody street. |
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Nomads She used to live in seventy-three: it’s torn down now in the way of anonymity that these terraces succumb to. When a house becomes a home, it’s cause to celebrate with the smiling new residents resplendent in their snug, regardless of responsibility, mortgage, well-being, risk. But when a home becomes a house, there’s no ceremony, only the handymen busy with their mortar and chipboard plugging tell-tale holes of dead doors and powerless sockets, concreting futures in, the bank felt through each window, the locks a reminder that there is nowhere left to run, nothing left to hold these families, now redundant shells, just the neglect that weeds enjoy and graffitied thresholds bearing down on streets populated by the stray dogs that know of no place to rest from their downfall. |
Torn down house, The Village
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