Asking for It
It’s my own fault for not laughing
Seeing the gibe through a pain darkly
Flavour of the month being an easy target
Asking for ridicule is my monumental sin.
It’s my own fault for not standing up
Standing ground where none is intended
Being stolen from, getting off my case
A small fee for leaving in peace.
It’s my own fault for stating hard facts
Nobody associates with me now
For fear of congregating with damaged goods
It’s my own fault, just keep quiet.
It’s my own fault, for not being cool enough
Clothes, hair, makeup, beloved to a tee
Sufficient to impress the boys down the road
Five minutes before the buses leave.
It’s my own fault, for being silent.
Bleeding alone through sorry eyes
Scrutinised through the weight of inaction
People knowing my sins before I do.
It’s my own fault, conversing with the unknown
Attempts at decipherment running dry
Fear at what’s not understood, laughed at
In time for me to join in the fun.
Praise of Zeitgeist
Surely you remember, that scar of experience
Dangling around your neck, a forever shame
The spirit of the times calling forever home
Slipping through main streets in full view
Please be seated for another round of coffee
Passers-by don’t know what hit them.
Jigs and reels around the fountain
Never enough to vandalise what is yours
Picked on outside the gates, being hit to
prophecy
Asking for misfortune in a gutter of snide
Cutting losses while those powers still are
Fleeting insults repeated on the sly.
Tying bicycles to railings is your own risk,
A bar on creation masks indolence
Some philistine’s law rocks the opportune
cradle
Intelligence just another crime to sink ships
Open mouths catching flies always on target
Slipping curses below par for a bloodied
adventure.
Eschewing television, the rot of our times
Bonding totally disproved, shamefully
disciplined
Meal tickets cautiously exhibited for good
reason
A prime associate, temporary though it me be
Starving through laziness, a perfect catchcry
Rifling scandal sheets for proof of same.
Planning the psyche’s holiday, never before
time
Sleeping in calculations, a congratulatory
exercise
Not eating enough to cover the stain
Loved for representation, heavily cracked,
No one knowing where you’re destined, forever
Drinking spirits nicely, besides tracking doom
Kissed like an eel, studying shape of form
Sneaking out of lectures to surprise you
Cutting losses to eventually inspire you
To caseless to answer, a disaster on arrival.
Strung-up bicycles hung out to dry
Gallery of potential theft, out there,
seething
Nothing much to say besides bald platitudes
Thread less and dangerous on any road.
The brightened code, laughing at resistance
The sacred wooden panel braves the situation
Laughing at circumstance, examinations
permitting
A genetic stone pedigree yours for the taking.
Repetition of ‘boring day’, in the personal
block
Never stopped the rifling of private items
The hiding of make-up soon discovered
Purposeful failure a deft exercise.
Bleeding from neglect, an interrogation
cleaning,
Some infomercial disciplines the innocent
Writing where discovered, a goodly exercise
Whether liked or not, a sacred offence
Different to the whole town, embarrassment of
loss
Gibing to perfection that never recovered
Hitting for frustration over nothing going
right
Is acting normal such a strain, a disaster as
is?
Unlocking the private massacres of school
Stories outside, highly hallucinogenic
Welcoming creatures with sweetened spirits
Hiding agendas for the sake of an audience.
Informed bliss getting in its own control
Glutton for punishment in every direction
Kissing the switch hardly mobilises obedience
Intelligence postponed, help for what matters.
Being left alone a luxury not worth giving
Slipping on the bicycle far from view
Housework to salvation a common trait
Goodness a meant to a sultry end.
Forging counterfeit paths in life, to shame
Social sanctity in an eyeball’s twist
Cases to answer happily persist
In bleeding hearts having had enough.
Patricia
Walsh was born in the parish of Mourneabbey, in north Co Cork,and educated at
University College Cork, graduating with an MA in Archaeology. Her poetry has
been published in Stony Thursday; Southword; Narrator International;
Trouvaille Review; Strukturrus; Seventh Quarry; Vox Galvia; The Quarryman;
Brickplight, The Literatus, and Otherwise Engaged. She has already
published a chapbook, titled Continuity Errors in 2010, and a novel, The
Quest for Lost Éire, in 2014. A second collection of poetry, titled
Citizens Arrest, was published online by Libretto in 2020. A further
collection of poetry, titled Outstanding Balance, is scheduled for publication
in early 2021. She was the featured poet in the inaugural edition of
Fishbowl Magazine, and is a regular attendee at the O Bheal poetry night in
Cork city.
love the imagery in 'pushing and pulling bicycles'.
ReplyDelete