Four Poems by Patricia Walsh

 

Tasting the Rainbow

 

Stop trying to change the subject, be criminal!

The internecine conflict over cleavage

Hovering over tarot cards and lose a great empire,

Sugary cubes of contraceptive effort suffices

Looking through the double-glazed paradise.

 

Treating less respect to those already earning it,

Caught on its own beauty, cancer sought,

Not enough time for the illness to attach,

Driving nails too forcibly for the return home

The illegal name goes far in its usefulness.

 

Seemingly worried, creeping darkness' revision,

Sliding the battery life, a joke too soon

Payment on demand, cigarette-burn chic

Hardened sore inveigled to a sudden death

Clearly done form, alarm cries hallelujah.

 

Past kicking-out time, saving fair,

The eschewing darkness slips it's time,

MiBreaking the time gone like the season,

The velvet plush writes its own happy ending

Recharged into slumber to write it all.

 

Assuming a destination, drunk to forget,

Long-term perennials needing to burn,

Jealously guarded receipts crassly overweight

Unhorsing calendar years with one stroke,

Burning crusts, snappish to the bone.

 

Organic Killer.

 

A bit of quality functioning never goes amiss,

Opening doors for other creatures at will,

Setting the pace for writing-off home cars

Sliding into night a mature collection.

 

Not cutting labels fine, sober gratuity,

Having to destroy all in the way of survival

Better off in employment, come what may

The better lights how hides its fantasy.

 

Thinking of death that time! Sore repercussions

Poured cover cold injury under umbrage

Defending this self-same honour a perennial rage,

Imaging the documents in an astronomy

Proffering the better nature to some degree.

 

Not watching where seen, butch declaration,

Siphoning a history where the heart aches,

Daughter houses level the back-calling stance

Climbing into glorious association on a side.

 

The incriminating fire, a family run from my

Avoiding painkillers for the time being,

The damage paid for, the stain remembered

Jet streaming over folly, fully relaxed.

 

Saving on Bullets

 

Hearing what is said, finally reminiscing

On the hireath's blessings and cover stories,

Free pets garnering on the horizon tide

Model prisoner on don't of manufacture

Godly house party a finale wrecked again,

Phones gone dead to announce the stricture.

 

Congratulating the anointed, corrupted as ever,

The topical joke lost on evangelical aberration

Because the dark pervades the waiting time

 elected on children's vainglory

Furtively checking on insurrection aside

Plastic explosive forgiving the in indolent lock.

 

Scratched out misgivings, blot this merry sin,

Buying out records, the screaming girls as well

Excavating liquid brains, the suffering body

Searching for jewellery foregoing for free

A sleeping beauty marked for recollection

Surrendered permafrost a friendly overture.

 

Not being funny, or at least nowhere criminal,

Watered down sentiment shielded from our eyes

Translated into doggerel the faint claims of another

Hurt into form the milder hour, askance

Published into a polite journey, shielded wreckage

Closing eyes on death an optional preferment.

 

Sweet Mint

 

The dark pride meanders into solemn streetscapes

Tasting the water off the coffee discounted same,

The lowly massacre pinned down for reference

Doing one's own thing, closest to industry.

 

Nothing open as yet, the bringer of good deeds

Mislaid in translation, returned at a loss

Blood-eagle in transition, fun for a while

On a trolley propped up by the sub-historic.

 

Scragging inspiration, discounted like a fan,

Hands never washed again, idolatry consummate

Too young to be pierced, marriage of likelihoods

On the spot excuses fulfilled like the wind.

 

Not available for comment, casting slight

End-to-end vehicles tasting the electric

Sales indicating the good in all our stars

Well-stocked permission to what's interrupted.

 

Mascots helping no one, pretty in their situation

Cleaning the lights washing through suspicion

Misspelled altercations in a steady gaze,

Crumbling history spaced out for ever.

 

Here comes the moon, damned for less,

Retrospective rewards rear up the behind

Simple mathematics good-looking to a point,

Submittable to a point what's well-deserved.

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.