They are all gone now,
Heaney, Mahon and Longley
the last to go.
Their words speak
to these troubled times
with a lasting humanity.
Thanks be
to poetry's Irish trinity.
Categories:
mahon, poets,
Form: Free verse
JENNY FREE VERSE
Balaclava over my head,
I nipped into the John Hewitt
and went nervously up to the bar.
'Are you a poet?' a woman's voice inquired.
I dreaded the question, so embarrassed. It was a key moment.
'I'm ... I play with words on paper!'
I fumbled in my pocket for a pen and notebook.
'I'm having fun with the language!'
I laughed - I felt a great weight
lift from my shoulders
as she slipped the balaclava
off my head and kissed me.
'Can I buy you a drink?' the lady
bought me a Pernod, and hey presto!
we were off to the races,
talking passionately
About Heaney, Mahon and Longley.
Jenny Free Verse
gave me her number,
promised to have a look at my notebook
and give me some feedback.
'Cheers!'
I waltzed down the street,
got back to the house in ¾ time,
got my Italian leather, hand-crafted,
writing journal out from the tall boy
and wrote, ‘I just met Jenny Free Verse!'
Categories:
mahon, fantasy, me, me,
Form: Narrative
RADIO VOICES
Thirty-three and a half minutes listening to the static;
I'm one big ear! hoping to hear a message
from the other side...
Beethoven has an unfinished symphony he wants completed,
Arthur Conan Doyle complains fiction today is all detective work,
Joan of Arc loves Mel Brooks.
Thirty-four and a half minutes and my patience snaps;
I turn to RTE, the writer Derek Mahon
Is being discussed by a panel.
They've detected importance in his poem
'A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford'.
Mushrooms decaying in the dark,
Holy Joes adrift in a Godless cellar,
Sweethearts who've missed the boat,
Bollards moored in misery,
Death-pale and ghostly.
I would store this poem in a cool dark place
and only bring it out into the light of day
for a bookish friend, a literature hound;
it merits close inspection.
Categories:
mahon,
Form: Free verse