Raqqa Bowl 2017
A blue bowl
From ancient times,
Bare hands gathering clay,
Wet fingers moulded into shape,
A paint brush dipped in blue,
Glazed in a hot oven,
A blue bowl
Held by many hands,
Infused with their secrets,
This empty blue bowl
The colour of the Aegean sea,
A small raft drifting listlessly,
Wet fingers holding on,
Grasping for life,
Their hands outstretched,
Their stories washed away
In the deep blue sea,
This blue bowl
Sits in a museum piece,
Locked in a glass case,
Empty promises left unanswered,
The silent screams of this huddled group
Sink deeper and deeper
Into a sea of blue,
This blue bowl
Untouched for years.
Inspired by 4 paintings by artist Rita Duffy, in the Hunt Museum, Limerick
Poetry Ireland Trocaire Award Ceremony at the National Library of Ireland May 2018
After Drogheda Creative Writers was re-established in September in 2017, I chaired the group until July 2018. I thought of the idea to have a poetry trail during the Fleadh in August 2018. Although I was already working abroad by the time the Fleadh was on, poems appeared in shop windows around the town. 34 poets had their poems displayed on golden yellow posters in 100 shops and cafes from Narrow West Street all the way up Lawrence Street and from the top of Peter Street to the bottom of Shop Street. Create Louth provided a grant to print the posters in the first year of the Fleadh and a grant for the promotion of the book in the second year.
Name Tag
Blue stained ink
lines smudged
in careless circles,
handwritten name fading
from memory,
a transient dash
earmarked,
fluid lines
faltering over
broken letters,
fragmented pieces
of your past
trail against
this milk-white card
creased with age,
a discarded tag
restless and unsettled,
the last words we said
gone forever.
(First published in Message in a Bottle in 2010, one of my poems found in The Book of the Trail, published in 2019)
The Whistleblower
Silently
I watch the water
ebb away,
mist washing over me
as I watch
the waves crackle
in the evening sun.
Silently
I stand alone
shunned
from society
for speaking the truth,
silenced by their venom
I stand alone,
and watch the white ripples
cascade across the open sea.
Published in Heart Shoots in 2013.
Bunnacurry Poet 