PAT DORAN - POEMS

Pat Doran is from Wexford Ireland. He has been interested in writing for years but never had the time to concentrate on it due to work and family commitments. However after some health issues in the last couple of years, he has found writing a
great therapy. So much so he has published three collections of poetry in the last year, The 50 Year Old Poet, Gentle Soul and in August Beautiful Sky. Pat lives with his wife and son and their dog Bruce.

​Monochrome

Now that I know I am not good enough,
I curl up in a ball 
and hideaway when times get tough

A voice in my head tells me 
to pull myself together,
but that’s not easy when you 
have reached the end of your tether.

What optimism I had is now non-existent,
swallowed up by
the doubts that were far more persistent.

I can’t get rid of this feeling 
that makes me nauseous,
I guess it’s payback
for all the years I was too cautious.

Instead of taking the chance to be free
I lived my life in monochrome instead of 3D.

​

​Country Graveyard

An old headstone in a small
country graveyard,
years of bad weather
has left it scarred.
A family relative
from a long time ago
now the perch
of a large black crow.
The grave is overgrown
with thistles and weeds,
no one is around
to carry out a good deed.
You try to make out 
the year on the headstone
whilst balancing carefully
on the curbstone.
He was only nineteen 
when he had drowned
and it was over a month
before his remains were found.
Newlywed, he had left

a pregnant wife behind.
Who, to a mental asylum
was later confined.
Standing in the stillness,
you offered up a prayer 
for his young soul,
and that of his wife
buried in some unknown hole.
Their child grew 
up to be a strong man
who had lived his life
to his own plan.
He had a wife 
and a family of his own.
Including one son, 
to whom you were well known.
That son was your father,
 who told you of this place.
So, now his grandfather
you could finally trace.

​

​Slow Dance

The ring on your finger 
gives the game away,
what has happened
that makes you want to stray.
Have you being abandoned 
and left on your own
to steer a new course
and go it alone.
Or have you decided
to grab life by the horns
and find a way
to shed your crown of thorns.
You know that you have
too much left to offer
having spent far too long
being made to suffer.
Not everyone can have
a second chance,
so, do you mind
if I ask you for a dance.

​

Wisdom
​

Searching for wisdom
in the pages of books
many I read aren’t 
worth a second look.

However, in others 
it’s there in black and white
the most beautiful words
a person can write.

Expressing their souls 
in a forthright way
making their readers 
think and want to stay.

From every language 
it can be translated,
wisdom is a tool that 
should never be underrated.

​

Gentle Soul
​

I was never one
to have any great dreams,
never one for plans 
or extraordinary schemes.
I lived day to day 
watching my life die,
I never had a wish
to look someone in the eye.
Now that I am older,
I hope it’s not too late,
for I think
I’ve found something
to change my fate. 
A peace has descended 
which came as a surprise,
a truth arrived
that wasn’t all lies.
Now as I look
at my life as a whole,
I know at last 
I can go gentle on my soul.

​