Saturday, November 10, 2007

Promotion

A flicker of amusement
lights the pallid face
of the young man
in the grey suit
with sandy hair; subject of
a nondescript description.
He finds it slightly cheerful that
his boss, who is
a tyrant among slaves
and rabbits
is older/vaguer/paler
than he.
In this, this decay of a man
resides his fondest hopes
and sweet desires.
Such noble cause, such noble man.

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Friday, November 9, 2007

Pat

I think that perhaps that far distant year has come; I know I can think of this old friend only with affection and withotu regret, only wishing well, and remembering the best. I hope somewhere he can do the same.


For Pat.


Concealment
half conscious and half true
has become like breath to me
I cannot even know myself
and you,
you are like a new found land
stranger than my dreams.
Holding you
I know that I am safe;
but only for seconds.
You escape me and I do not know
if this is chance or just
the way we are.
Your voice I listen for
amid the babble and the crush
in which we live
and when I think or when you
give, some proof
of caring
I quickly find some sign
our lives weren't meant for
sharing or for love.
Yet still I know that
you are somehow mine;
I think in some far distant year
you will think of me
and I of you
with knowledge
If we do I hope that fear is fone
and all that will remain
is memories of laughters
wild nights and stories sadly told
and heard
between two trusting friends.

Geraldine Moorkens Byrne

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Thursday, November 8, 2007

Strangers

A poem from my party days; when we would drink til midnight, attend the Gaiety Jazz club til 3 am and crawl to Kaffe Moka's for tuna melts. As I worked Saturdays Friday nights out had a strange and disturbing effect on Saturday workdays.....


Strangers

hurriedly dressed and tousled
stale eyes, stale inside
caught in the clammy sweat
and churning stomach
of a hangover
in a state of vague paranoia
everyone I meet
is a familiar stranger.
My mother's voice
a recurring distraction
to the all-important task
of staying vertical,
praying for deliverance.
The day outside
a glowering stifling blur
too loud, too fast.
I wander through the place
lost in self inflicted misery
with pitying glances from passers-by


Geraldine Moorkens Byrne

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Tuesday, November 6, 2007

At Harold's Cross

This is a poem from the "Dublinia" cycle; and I can tell you the exact date it was written - 23/6/92. In some rare moment of organization I actually dated the piece of paper I scribbled it on.
The cottages are still there, at Harold's Cross, all but uninhabited and awaiting the fell blow of the developer's fist. It seems fitting to post this now, before they disappear forever.




At Harold's Cross


There is
in Harold's Cross,
quaintly decaying in a set,
four cottages of antiquity and
mildewed gloom;
two-roomed, tiny
infested by cats and old people
shadowing beside the damp park
and public toilet; a florist where
brightly bunched carnations hustle
with the hearts and diamonds of the funeral
wreaths and spill across the street on Sundays;
a Church of Ireland church
grey and gothic spired,
with a cemetary beside
and a gatelodge for the graveyard -
all crevices, and sepulchred doom.
I often pass , staring down from the
window of a bus,
wondering.

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