PATRICIA WALSH - POEMS

Patricia Walsh was born and raised in the parish of Mourneabbey, Co Cork, Ireland, and was educated in University College Cork, graduating with an MA in Archaeology in 2000. Previously she has published one collection of poetry, titled Continuity Errors, with Lapwing Publications n 2010, and has since been published in a variety of print and online journals across Ireland, the UK and the US.  In addition, she has also published a novel, titled The Quest for Lost Eire, in 2014.

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                              More Than An Apology
 
Connecting with excess, drink and a sorry existence
Biting heels for a scrap from the table
Form following function in an escape plan
Touching cufflinks forbidden in time.
 
No one wants to see me unhappy
No schadenfreude washes over my tears
A rabble of protection still guards me
From the poison of my words falling flat.
 
Measuring attention, keeping time
On what now means the world to me.
Some shallow soul jaundices association
Enough for you to slap me to the floor.
 
Still warm, enough for you to cut my losses
Relaying information in front of your aides
Sunk from view, fleeting familiarity
From all that is mine, resigned to the moon.
 
You got what you wanted.  Lessons learned
Forbid me from doing the same mistakes
Spitting poison to share my heart
A tirade suitable expressed by speakers.
 
Half-nakes through sunlight, via the curtains
Another day rears its brightened head
Enough to reassure my incarceration is gone
Enough to kiss the last standing enemy.
 
 

                    The Woman Who Sold The World
 

Illuminated pictures blight the wall
Flowers at every turn, scent depleted
Pledge to do at least one constructive action
A week, to sate an ego long overdue.
 
Covering your face, as though committing a crime
The clock name-checks your boring canonisation
Still watching the fairy lights flicker
Long after Christmas breathes its last.
 
Shuttering the window to ill effect
Not advertising custon as you would like
Cigarette burns turn to a blinding eye
Viewing darkly a habit of the dead.
 
Candles in bottles, creating an effect
Lost on customers, slipping between cup and lip
While i write on petty events like these
The world jolts inexplicable, a wake-up siren.
 
Have what is yours.  Money is no problem
Being big on hugs is another question entirely
Time is seeping through cracks of satiety
Calling home before it’s too late to stagger.
 
Advertisements come and go.  What happens
When you wanted so much, but couldn’t buy?
The world is your crustacean, eroded away
From your happy-slapping soirées a fait accompli
 


                                   Rain Stopped Play
 

I could walk for miles and miles
Across the perimeter of a slow holocaust
The earth betraying a wronged culure
Keeping secrets from the unwary.
 
The minute raindrops danced on our cheeks
Signalling abandonment, forever welcome
A chance to play cards and shoot the breeze
Monitoring destruction to a tee.
 
Kneeling in dirt, debunking ditch forms
Massacring anomalies where intended
Modern features go recognised slowly
Games of chance with soil ring true.
 
Assauted teacups lined for action
Not large enough for an extended lunch
The rain immunising agains a rock-hard sun
Washing down a work in progress.
 
The council drops by.  Flurried to attention
The unwilling comrades desert the cabin
Hacking at history’s betrayal of one event
Swept aside for posterity, resurrected, now.
 
Destroyed by measure by gods of progress
By-passes and motorways come dropping slow
Enough to smoke a cigarette in light of leisure
On the perimiter of a story realised.
 



                                          Vegan Bread 
 
                                                                                   (for Niall Julian)
 
A bird is known to fly on one wing
Catches flies as it passes a throng
Full of sanctity, a virtue worth reposessing
A weekend full of chaste desire.
 
Football discussions lie under skin
Of perfunctory emails, lying in wait
For a maching communication, phone cell dying
A special place in the heart of cards.
 
Interest where now intended.  A surreptitious arm
In the cinema sparks a prophecy
I cannot get away from posh sorrows
Inflicting themsleves on circumstance.
 
We are so clever, role-modelling to pieces
The path once travelled of mutual friends
Pledging faithfullness, in light of temptation
Not thinkin about distance, teetotalling journeys.
 
Some queries beset themselves in light of reality
Blue-eyed inquisitions ligh path of prophecy
An accessory covering over a multitude of sins
Desperation assuaged, heartstoppingly exciting.
 
Cheap missions of mercy, resting my case
Graphic designing curing all of my ills
First love going to the back of a bus
Deservedly alone, unlike most others I see.