FIVE POEMS BY DONALL DEMPSEY

Donall Dempsey was Ireland's first Poet in Residence in a Secondary School. He has appeared on Irish radio and television. He has been translated into Spanish and Italian and Urdu. Donall has read at festivals in France and India and Ireland He organises a monthly spoken word event in Guildford as well as being editor with his wife janice of Dempsey and Windle Publishing. He is a Reuel International Prize ecertificate winner and appeared in The Significant League's Significant Anthology.

None of these poems can be republished without written permission from him as this blog is under legal copyright or without legal repercussions if used without his permission. All rights belong to him.



"...IN FORGETFUL SNOW..."

Flake by flake

Heaven falls

until its whiteness

covers all.

Angels guard

their dead.

All is quiet.

All is light.

Even marble flesh

feels the cold.

The dead have forgotten

Christmas.

A Christmas the angels

have never known.

A forgotten bicycle

half there-half not

looking like an art

installation

until it too succumbs

to the snow's will.

The silence slowly

erasing the world.

A raven perches

upon an angel's wing.

She pays it

no mind

gazing with sightless eyes

as land and sky become one.

Even the horizon is

being filled in.

The raven's

harsh voice.

***


THE DUSK FOX

the fox acknowledges

with an imperceptible  nod

the arrival of dusk

dusk and the fox

becoming one

entering the world of humans

the fox is busy

being a fox

stops: paw raised

the fox goes

in and out of

time

appearing now

disappearing as if

it had stepped out of the world

the dusk no longer

exists

night falls with my footfall

as if on cue

synchronised to time

and light

the fox stares  at me

beyond me...I am

a walking shadow

the yellow street light

stains us for a moment

we vanish from each other

tomorrow sees

dusk and fox

keep the same appointment

only I

am absent

. . .

***

HORSE OF A DIFFERENT COLOUR

Auden & Isherwood

strolling in China

trying to soak up

The War

by the process of

osmosis

staining it

with words

observe

(at first what seems)  

green horses

but turns out to be

only white horses

painted green

for camouflage purposes.

That evening in Canton

also offering them

the futility of two men

trying to put a rat

into a bottle

a woman who lived

in a beehive

pouring water

into a sieve.

War knocks

over the inkwell

spills

into men’s lives

covers the white pages

of their wishes

makes the idea of Hell

...all   too   real.

The spilt ink eating

the words of men

who send letters home

and die in pain

never to return

only in other’s memories

& useless dreams

marble memorials

while green horses

champ the grasses

the bridles & the bits

clanking & glinting

in the hot sun

of Now.

as this last lost evening

dies.

***


SILENCE IS FASTER GOING BACKWARDS

He stepped outside

of himself.

Closed the door

of reality

behind him

with a sharp short click.

"Where had the time gone?"

he asked of a mirror.

"There is no time here!"

answered the reflection.

"So this is...eternity?"

he heard his thought say.

He took another step

left behind this world of flesh.

Here, where

not even memory

...persists.

***

NO MOON AT ALL

She cries because

there is no moon

in her window.

And can she sleep

with you and mummy

because....

there is a moon

in your window.

She drifts to sleep

in the harbour of our arms.

The moon asks

"Can I go now?"

I nod a yes.

Watch it tiptoe away.

Careful not to

wake her.

***

Future posts include Lopa Banerjee, Kashiana Singh, Santosh Bakaya, Don Yorty, Daipayan Nair ( a feature on Tideling poems), and many others.