I don’t understand why it’s different for you.
Why it’s different for you,
a people who have suffered,
a people who are Jew.
To kill in your name,
a child who’s turned blue.
In the dust from the home that once they held proud,
on land that you stole and then that you blew
to bits that are small
now smothered in blue Continue reading CHILDREN, PASS OVER.
In darkened dream, my walk was halted,
confronted by a tree,
It stood upright, a branch outstretched
and blocked the path on me.
In circumventing sideways dance
I edged in grass quite slow,
but a craggy root handcuffed me,
and would not let me go. Continue reading The Dying Tree
On Port A Chabhlaigh beach,
one sunburnt afternoon
I retraced childhood footsteps,
between grassy sandy dune.
Slipped in craggy sharp and rock
and gurgling frothy stream,
where once we caught eels of slip,
silver lined in buckets green. Continue reading Port A Chabhlaigh
The first time I had a panic attack, I thought I was dying. Literally.
I was working in the Motor Tax section of Donegal County Council and I’d just locked myself in a small cubicle of the men’s toilet, curled up, afraid of what was happening. After an hour or so I shakily ventured out. I told my boss I had to leave. I was sick, very sick. Unfortunately I had no car and the office was in Lifford. I sat, curled up in the back of Garvan McCloskey’s old Datsun Cherry, my daily lift from Letterkenny, for the rest of the day, awaiting my demise, and a lift back home.
The trigger of my first attack actually happened 3 years earlier. I was at home in Carrick and had just received a letter from Margaret telling me that she was pregnant. My throat narrowed reading that letter. I was 20 years old, neither of us worked. It was the recession of the early 80’s. Unlike what we’ve been through since the drowning of the Celtic Tiger, back then we knew no better, there was no work and sadly little hope for the future. I knew straight away what I wanted to do but had no idea how I’d be there for the woman I loved. My paternal instinct kicked in and my throat narrowed even more.
Slowly, leaning forward, I press my left ear against the door, and listen. The home is now an empty house, but the hushed echoes of the many lives shared; reverberate off the quietly listening walls.
In my childhood this was my great Aunt Mary’s room. Mary was an elderly retired teacher, and had taken to her bed some years earlier. My mother, with five children under six, already had her hands full when Mary moved in. I could hear her now, “Marie, Marie”. her stick tapping three times on the bare wooden floor. In the kitchen below, I sense my mother’s sigh. Continue reading MARY’S ROOM
I grew up in the small village of Carrick, in the shadow of the majestic Sliabh Liag, in the wilds of south west Donegal. To you, that may seem idyllic, but to a 10 year old watching Mount Vesuvius’ recent eruption on the news every evening, I lay awake, unable to sleep, staring at Sliabh Liag, waiting for the inevitable. Continue reading …and the church fell silent…
I cannot explain, in simple terms
what I witnessed that summer’s day
my mother’s life had left the room,
genuflected, then slipped away
When she died, the light escaped,
in a soft whoosh in space and time.
I’d held her hand until she passed
her grip no longer mine. Continue reading The Passing
‘Feckin poofs’
Hoofed with studded boot, John F. kicked the worn leathered ball over the pebble cracked school wall of dash, skimming deflected off through thorn bush, bringing the game to an abrupt end.
‘What did you do that for ?’
Jimmy’s shouts fell on deaf flapped ears as John hump-backed off down towards the shop. Continue reading ASH
“It’s an acorn” Francie mumbles, slipping it carefully inside flapped jacket pocket. “Are we going in or what?”
Mona’s bar of stout draped mahogany, stretches in open view of mirror straddled wall, reflecting shelved half and full bottle and long suffering lines of glass upturned. Smokes of Afton sweet, stacked in bricked nicotine pillars of yellow and Players blue soon to be inhaled.
Men of flat capped tweed, propped in one end, smoke ale and puff soft talk of sheep and rain while straw basketed women of silken scarf wait patiently in elbowed chat at the other. Mona serving, list by list from scattered queue. Continue reading OAK
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