Miniature

 

In the beginning, they bought me things

with pedals. Things to move me from my spot.

When all I wanted was a world in miniature

that was mine, that I could hold at once

in two small hands. You see, a book could

take me further than a bike; could take me

miles in seconds without fear of reprimand.

 

Henceforth, they bought me things with pages.

Things to move me all at once to empathetic

tears; to envy and to love; to anger and to fear.

 

And in this world of miniature I travelled

through the pages; held my breath on top

of man-made mountains built with words.  

Perished in the loneliness of every final page.

Then, breathed myself alive with each new spine

cracked open like a new born dragon sent to

set the world in miniature within my hands afire

 

 

Northern Hearts

 

Connolly Station: a surge of passengers ready to forge

their southern paths. As we worked ourselves loose

from the frenzied threads on a free street map we misplaced

our bearings. Dublin had us tangled in her knot

of streets, four feet teetering on convulsing cobbled paths,

St Patrick’s snakes bore us on their patchy backs.

 

Youths with legs outstretched played social in

some skulking alley; hidden from the outstretched arms

of the bustling maiden and her heady throng deeply

drunk on black. Men in bags with cups and heaven-pointed

eyes, brought forth that blessed are the poor for they

will inherit the kingdom, and we are all at once consoled.

 

We spilled into a bar. Fell under the spell of a fiery fiddler

with a stamping foot, a sense of fun and an upturned hat

for half-cut tippers with clinking change. Met Ballymena

man, who border crossed to greener grass, shared stories

into the early hours and hankered for a northern bond.

 

At three a.m. we laid our heads in attic bed. We clambered

through a laddered window in the roof to find our rest.

Awoke next morning to the clip clop of horses’ hooves

on the cobblestones of a hectic day, and streamed Irish light

through the curtain crack charging our northern hearts.

 

 

Daucus Carota

 

My granny only tailed before she peeled

because you need the stump of leaves to hold

an orange inmate captive while you skin her.

 

The topping of a carrot’s always last.

 

You behead Daucus Carota only when

the final ribbon of her sullied skin

has slithered off.

 

Then dice her into dancing suns.

 

Upon the board she looks like agate sliced;

at times she’s sceptres; half stars.  

 

She’ll dance again amid the broth.

 

The sun comes up within the pot.

 

 

Opening to the Light

 

I am in the garden and he is telling me

to go easy on the gin, for I can’t hold my drink.  

 

But the sun is shining. And it has been a long time

since I have seen the flowers open themselves

 

to the light like they do now, and I want to take it in.

He is telling me to go easy, for in the next room

 

our cat is dying. My beautiful boy is dying.

But the pots are alive with bees and I can hear

 

the children next door laughing; the neighbour

is mowing, for the rain is to come tomorrow.

 

The cat could be dead tomorrow he says.

But it doesn’t make me go easy on the gin.

 

For I am thirty-seven and almost everything

I have loved has died. It has been a long time

 

since I have seen the flowers open themselves

to the light, as they do now. I want to take it in.