Five Poems

Below Allihies

Flat out, with the moor's turf in the small
of my back on the Allihies cliffs,

long before the naming of the cliffs
or of Cork, long before the mountains

were the Slieve Mickish, to the soft interleaving
shirr of the surf against the cliff below

I drift in a half glow of sleep, then stir
awake to this westernmost view

of land edge and water and a clear sky's silica,
half not believing it, the mind's sinew

tautened by names, stiff as disagreement; then loosening
to the truth of it and losing it again.


Maiden Flight

for Jimmy

Crouched over blueprints, slicing balsa,
...