Three Sublime Poems by Margaret Kiernan

 

Venetian Sojourn

 

Scents of those Lilies from San Michel, as

I drink Ouzo at the Café Rosso

on San Margarita Plaza.

Ponder anise-flavoured spirits,

once redacted Popish texts,

Life at any price,

The Shroud of Turin.

 

Thoughts swirl I live with riddles

Love of white lilies fusing into soil

Today’s truths ebb

into the Adriatic swell.

 

Stallholders at Portobello market

lookout for raindrops

I hear music from Vivaldi’s

concert place.

 

Fruits de Mer ,the menu said.

Geraniums, with Rose oil scent the room.

I eat red cherries, spit the stones

into a laundered napkin.

Watch a blue Persian cat

sit atop a fridge

Its malevolent eyes stare

mine down.

The café waiter asks if I enjoyed the fish.

Venusian Retro-grade

 

To-day you came around

Walked straight moved direct

Like a true queen

I met you in the morning

In all bright eastern sky

You’ve left a space southwest

Its darker for your going

Venus, you rule my Libra sun

I was chilly for a while

But in my heart, I knew

You would return

My Virgo moon spoke of it

In my dreams

While I waited

Small, ordinary, where I dwell.

Wheel of Shadows

Gestation in progress

He waits, that deity Janus

Like a midwife, towel ready

At the extremity of Heaven

Passages open at war, eager to birth.

 

Patiently He waits for peace

To transition to the yellow glow of Spring

When grey shade falls away

Leaves behind the persistent internal

Intuited moody  feelings

Now full known

 

Steps-out through that doorway

To the ritual invocation of Earth rising

In heat from Sun that always shines

When shadows become Light

Refracted

become indigo.

 

External stimuli turn the solar wheel

Keeping track of time, convivial

So faces smile outward in joy

Arrive at the minted coin

Seeks an omen of new Love, or

Forecast the outcome of military deeds

perhaps.

Margaret Kiernan - nominated for Best of the Net in 2021, writes fiction, non-fiction essay, memoir, and poetry. She has had poetry and prose published in e-book, in anthology collections, and literary journals and magazines - including, Black-lion Press, Pendemic.ie journal-C19 collection , archived at University College Dublin, The Blue Nib Lit - Journal , The Write Life Magazine, Unity Global Festival, Vox Galvia at the Galway Advertiser, A New Ulster Literary Press, The Burrow Lit. Journal, Poet-Head.Wordpress.com, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, The Galway Review and The Irish Canadian Cultural Newsmagazine, New Brunswick.

She writes with Over the Edge, Thursday writing/reading group at Galway Arts Centre, and, Ox Mountain Poets, Sligo.

She is listed in the Index of Contemporary Women Poets in Ireland, 2020.

She holds several Educational qualifications, Including a Degree in Arts in Humanities, from Sligo IT.

Her background is in Advocacy in Human and Social Rights.

Margaret has completed numerous courses and workshops in writing, for prose and poetry.

Margaret has four grown-up children. She lives in Westmeath with her dog Molly. She is a landscape painter. Is into Nature, walking, gardening, music, and heritage. She is working towards a First collection in Poetry.

Social Media-

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/margaretgibbonskiernan/@kiernanmargaret

Facebook: http://facebook.com/margaret.kiernan