History says, Don’t hopeOn this side of the grave,But then, once in a lifetimeThe longed-for tidal wave
Fate goes ever as fate must.
Mid-Term BreakI sat all morning in the college sick bayCounting bells knelling classes to a close.At two o'clock our neighbours drove me home.In the porch I met my father crying—He had always taken fu...
Is there life before death? That’s chalked upIn Ballymurphy. Competence with pain,Coherent miseries, a bite and a sup,We hug our little destiny again.
Human beings suffer.They torture one anotherThey get hurt and they get hard.No poem or play or songCan fully right a wrongInflicted and endured.History says, Don't hopeOn this side of the grave,But th...
In a war situation or where violence and injustice are prevalent, poetry is called upon to be something more than a thing of beauty.
All I know is a door into the dark
More than loud acclaim, I loveBooks, silence, thought, my alcove.
It is said that once upon a time St. Kevin was kneeling with his arms stretched out in the form of a cross in Glendalough. . . As Kevin knelt and prayed, a blackbird mistook his outstretched hand for...
Islanders tooare for sculpting.
A landscape fossilized,It's stone-wall patterningsRepeated before our eyesIn the stone walls of Mayo.Before I turned to goHe talked about persistence,A congruence of lives,How, stubbed and cleared of...
A four foot box, a foot for every year.
Even if the hopes you started out with are dashed, hope has to be maintained.
Sink every impulse like a bolt. Secure
It is always betterto avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning.For every one of us, living in this worldmeans waiting for our end. Let whoever canwin glory before death. When a warrior is gone,tha...
I shall gain glory or die.
For every one of us, living in this worldmeans waiting for our end.
Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.
Rain comes down through the alders,Its low conductive voicesMutter about let-downs and erosionsAnd yet each drop recallsThe diamond absolutes.
Over the waves, with the wind behind her and foam at her neck, she flew like a bird until her curved prow had covered the distance...