Poetry
Some selected works that I shall try to update regularly.
Morning Ireland from A Book of Strays(2002) Suicidal prisoners moved to Ballymun. Politicians form a Gang of One. British troops defuse their daily bomb. Senator stands trial with aplomb. Georgian building rebuilt overnight. Abandoned baby lost on derelict site. Farmers and badgers reach an accord. Poet gets the Brown-nose Verse Award. I switch off Hanly, play the Shepard's Hymn, coughing up my morning clot of phlegm.
From Collected Poems (2001) The island was being secretive and chose that day to wear its most opaque cloak of grey weather. Your eyes were also in that mood and chose not to be blue but grey and misunderstood. The finest globes of rain strung your face like many necklaces.
Belladonna in the Bar excerpt from Poems for Younger Women (1988) So come you lushes, drinkers, topers, be you residents or interlopers, sail you on yachts or dhows or junks, be you Sunday - or weekday-drunks - beware this black and midnight hag with venom in her shopping-bag.
