Two Poems by Marguerite Doyle

 

Odyssey 

 

The consolations of the twilight hour, a solitary traveller on the train,

winding out of urban spaces, clinging to the coast again.

A blush of dawn has reached the sky and sketched the clouds in fragile wisps,

tapering on the edge of space, moon kissing frosted angels’ lips.

The sleeping hills and distant mountains, dusted on their powdered tracks,

the beach is brushed with diamanté; strewn with frozen bladder wrack.

I swipe the glass to see the view, a sudden vision checks my breath,

the promise of light in morning mist has split the dome of sky to earth.

A corridor through landscaped clouds, snow-capped peaks and polar lands,

plateau, precipice, sculpted fjords, chiselled by celestial hands.

Blue Transantarctic mountains soar, towering glaciers, crystallized,

a mirage invented by Aurora, through gaping rifts of paradise.

From the railway bridge, I watch the sun, dressed in her gown vermillion red,

as she rises slow, majestic, from her liquid blue seabed.

A stone’s throw from where I stand, the gates of commerce wait for me,

I want to walk through ice kelp fields, and gaze across the frozen sea.

 

 

Red Fox at Howth, County Dublin

 

On the cliffs we turned away from the Northerlies,

seeking sanctuary

beneath the abbey’s bellcote.

 

On that plateau we paused to

view the peninsula, blown like molten glass

in the half-light.

 

The sea was high and heaving. We knew

there would be no sight of a seal,

no luck with a crossing

to the island,

 

but a skiff came labouring out, coughing

diesel, fragile with intent against

the mouth.

 

Then a flash of red across our path,

pointed snout and eyeball of panic

as the vagrant darted

left and right –

 

then dropped through piled otter-boards

and scarred black rocks

into the spittoon.

 

I imagined the armies of Queen Méabh

of Connacht swaddled in the soft

red fur of their fires.

 

Someone gasped, did you see the fox!

but I was frightened for those

heading out,

 

who had not seen the devil in his stride—

or heard our cries

to turn back.

Marguerite Doyle holds an M.A. in Creative Writing from Dublin City University. Her poems have been published in Vallum, Reliquiae Journal, The Poetry Bus, The Galway Review, The New Welsh Reader, Dreich and previously in Lothlorien Poetry Journal.  Marguerite’s poetry also appears in the Dedalus Anthology, Local Wonders: Poems of Our Immediate Surrounds and The Ireland Chair of Poetry Commemorative Anthology, Hold Open the Door. She has been Winner in Category for the Trócaire / Poetry Ireland Competition and was both shortlisted and highly commended for the Anthology Poetry Award.