Four Brilliant Poems by Patricia Walsh

 

Personal Death

 

Strangulated by form, at best a due portrait

Marriage on an inkling never solved matters

Coldly forth on an obvious reckoning

Closure of the poison on every coffee break.

 

The intrusive reckoning slighted for the better

Rotten to the point of the inveigling return

Trying hard to be even civil again,

The distant love triumphant in a public guise.

 

Walking through preferment, dispensed over time

Running out of pleasantries except associates

The entitled stare punishes its own station

The heated mechanisms condescending by phone.

 

Needing ministers on the back of damnation

The cancerous barbs loving out of measure

Depositing drinks to the holy burning clique

Not being touched a rule not now mistaken.

 

The weighted burn, the timetabled sorrow

Failing a curved ball, not changing anything

Bereft of salted anger, the frustrated page

Parting of a whole rolling in the abyss.

 

The fear of being stolen, circumstances or otherwise

Waiting for redemption at another's cost,

Apologies at least to recriminate, mocked,

The long-running joke catching a fire

 

 Flat White

 

Finally washed, a dissenting murmur stalled

The imaginary glitch walking up to speed

Watered-down progress darkened down recently

The duplicated vocation helping matters worse.

 

Historic insecurities fulfil their common use

Selectively forgetting what the deluge is about.

The timely gimcracks, a new fad every year

Backspacing, pedalling to a salted conclusion.

 

The overdue openings fulfil the rotten times

Perfecting the sundry noise, cheating circumstance,

Closing the entitled smirk, whatever solid

Witnessing the argument, aggrandising the position.

 

Laying the rot, the incredulous love stories

Hitting construction where much is intended

Forever asking what conclusion this may be

Psychotic disappointment wears its finger on you.

 

Do we renege?  Do we sleep?  The confident thrust

Sleeping in this own perdition, gone like the breeze

The damaged goods, coming back on the spot

Breaking contracts like a castigated promise.

 

Chocolate Soldier

 

Accumulated fanciness, consuming to its weather

The outdoor re-cremation burn at will

The angry undone, not limited to another survey

Waiting to be seated as an infinite exercise

Stereotypical machines run their last rites.

 

Wasting time on employment, taken care of

Reneging in the sleep, dreaming about loss

Juvenile association runs its other course

Running empty on order, grieving once more.

 

Outliving usefulness, caught in the traffic

Running outside cliché to earn disappointment

The archaeological cast of thousands fulfil quiet

Situations parked eventually, given the times

The antiquated cold runs deeply, like the wind.

 

The opened shoes fall on their own sword

The screech of the finish never far away

Sanitised handfuls biting into random

Caught into folds of an opportune dissension.

 

The circuit broken, the devastation diminished

The heartened milk fomenting some comfort

The bitched concern walling up the invaluable

One feeling the warmth of an incarcerated bone,

Tales out of class enjoyed without reparations.

 

 Breaking Another Window

 

Not cautious of course, measuring these settings

Driving to some godly home, a year surmising

Watching the dictionary keeping this sweet

The improbable weather, apt to this hunger

More camp, the better, dissolving on itself,

Not even God knowing what you are up to.

 

Timing the moment to a final dissension

Abruptly disappearing a mission supreme

Clicking through windows enjoyed forever

A very rare flower not blooming anymore

Declarations of hatred taken to intro

Walking home in disgrace, gone to speed.

 

Stealing phone calls, catching the hard station

A solace in dolls making this overlord

Disrobing in complex sight, a sickened god,

Hardly distanced, politely, better still

Stamping the mark like a rusty diamond

Forgetting the overshot going to seed.

 

Deserted, reduced to shivering outside,

Great times running sour with the best of them

Inexistent flaws run through burdened times

Not shunting to exile another callous time,

A joy in drinking outside the common touch,

Spread thinly, the good times protected.

 

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.