War of Independence: Unrecorded incident

Willy Murphy is not in the war.
He carts gravel and clay
along the birdsong roads of Kildare,
milks a cow, can shoe a horse
draws turf from the Bog of Allen.
He is not in the war. The Tans do not know this,
nor do they care: all are guilty.
When he hears the lorries stop outside
he leaves his bed at midnight,
flits by the hedge of the field
to the sheltered pond at the far corner, slips in.
He thinks of men dragged behind lorries,
torment in the barracks, an infant shot for sport.
The lorries start up. Engines fade towards the Hill of Caragh.
But sometimes they leave men with guns behind, to wait.
He waits. Mud seeks to suck him into its black mouth
whispers your time came then, you have no business here.
The lorries do not come back.
The dark lightens and a bird sings.
Another day in the story begins.

Published, 2001, in Poetry Ireland, Autumn issue

Another dreamer

The grocer sits and smokes behind his counter
- pock-marked lino top with tobacco burns -
explains to any listening idler
how to get rich, run a country, rear children.
As he speaks he flicks
tiny tobacco flakes off his lips.
Customers seldom come in:
there is little to want on his hungry shelves.
He addresses the few with certainty.
His yellowed fingers weave the air.
His navy suit, thin as tissue paper,
dances on his shoulders.
He confounds his listeners
with big-money cant
conned from the business pages
which turn yellow
while the light dulls
to the cold of three decades
and the dark moves in
thick as the walls of Fort Knox
with all America's gold
locked up behind them.

Published, 2001, in ROPES (Review of Postgraduate Studies), Issue 9, NUI Galway. (ROPES does not have its own website).

A night out

Wife and husband wordless,
tongue-tied in the Corrib Lounge.
She looks away, her face is closed.
He scowls into the dregs, plods to the bar.
She regards the bottom of her glass;
her lip twitches. He sidles back
with a thin smile and another pint.
Nothing for her: she will do the driving tonight.

Published, 2001, in ROPES (Review of Postgraduate Studies), Issue 9, NUI Galway. (ROPES does not have its own website).