Five Poems by Amanda (A.M.) Hayden

 

Shamrock Wool, Donegal 

 

Rolling sheep, curly sheep, fluffy knotty yarn of sheep  

church bell sheep, fence line sheep, wind, salt, and seagull sheep 

Gaelic poet bard sheep, smoke a pipe fluffball sheep 

sheared storyteller chieftain sheep, peaty crutched cotton sheep 

Princess Ulster, Munster sheep, dag on dag off sheep, misty sheep 

Appalachian valley sheep, raddled rumen solstice sheep, boggy marsh and forest sheep 

cliffhanger click clack sheep, invisible cloak sheep, yin and earth, teet and lanolin sheep 

wool and horn, tongue and grass sheep, under the willows prayer sheep 

old stone hut and thatched roof sheep, cloved orange sunset sheep 

sheep with names like “Grainne” and Catriona, Finn McCool sheep 

shamrock flock of sheep, salmon gimmer sheep, ancestral mythical storybook sheep 

trinity spellbound sheep, shapeshifter monkfish sheep, weathered, wethered leaping sheep 

dancing dams and shee sheep, faery hop along mischief sheep, sheepish sheep 

sheep who weep, don’t care sheep, don’t wear sheep, sheep who sleep 

sheep who roll over and can’t upright, all four legs pointed up sheep  

sheep who lament pathetic moans while they lay and wait for a farmer’s flip  

are we the sheep?

 

 

 

Druid Salmon 

 

it is spoken into the trees 

it is shared in bark and leaves 

tough nuts keep grove’s prayers, 

poems, stories, pinecone pages 

between hard-husked covers, 

then, in a moment, they ungrasp 

their branches, plunge 

into salmon-filled rivers 

where fish grow thick 

cracking open shell cases 

ingesting forest knowledge 

caught by human 

caught by bear 

both now gut  

deep with druid  

wisdom

 

 

Ogham Terza Rima 

 

Pagan pre-Christian communication 

Shared stone stories of sixteen centuries 

Latin relation, clann situation 

  

Smooth squints face sun’s rising east 

etches of lines, claw marks, thin grooves precise 

piano’s black keys, a comb’s missing teeth 

  

Chieftain’s tenacious notches, four by five 

limestone letter, arduous alchemy 

brawny shoulder storytellers of time 

  

Bewitching message, sunwise sorcery 

Ogham antenna of tongue’s spent ages 

5th century Gaelic “Remember Me”

 

 

 

Heaven in a Long Room Ghazal (Dublin) 

 

Enter the gateway, this archway of books. 

Oral histories preserved into books. 

 

Inhale autumn leaves, ink quills, leather satchels. 

Cotton cords tenderly hold fragile books. 

 

Look - Ireland’s oldest surviving harp! 

Made of willow and oak, musical books. 

 

Follow the black wrought iron staircase spiral. 

Long ladders stretch erect beside ribbed books. 

 

This room is a real working library! 

This is the Sistine Chapel of books. 

 

15th century word rapture on earth. 

Dark academia exaltation of books. 

 

Samuel Beckett and Oscar Wilde. 

Jonathan Swift and Bram Stoker read these books. 

 

Right here, I mean, these guys read them right here. 

Where I am, their fingertips traced these poetry books. 

 

And maybe those over there, rough hands reached, 

glided smooth along glazed banister’s stretch of books 

 

No doubt now, harmony smells of wood and paper. 

Nirvana in 200,000 books.

 

 

Book of Kells Sestina 

 

Iona burned, pillaged, plundered, monks 

murdered by Viking villains, monastery destroyed 

four hand-written volumes, swollen folio tucked thick 

magic spell book of curved letters laid to vellum 

painstaking prayer parchment, ochred words more precious 

than inlaid stones, intricate treasure scrolls, yellow halos  

 

 

no beard for malachite St. Mark, no evangelist halos 

only bird heads, closed hands, crushed carpet of monks 

concealed in a stone church for 1200 years, work of precious 

angels shrouded under the pillage, plunder, all that’s destroyed 

ten times over, callous iron weapons to soft fine vellum 

lime-soaked skin of 185 young calves, layered thick 

 

 

lapis lazuli and gypsum teal, hardened sap thick 

packs every page, St. John’s eagle draped in halos 

and double wings, triskeles, chalices, vine scrolls on vellum 

root colored, quilled and filled by teenagers, 17-year-old monks 

who took tonsure, hair roughly scraped off as all was destroyed 

knots and crushed leaves, first epic Zen tangle, gospel precious 

 

 

Chi Rho cats chasing rats eating, holding precious 

eucharist in pointed teeth, perfect circle, pigment thick 

Gospel gripped in St. Matthew’s cloak fold, undestroyed 

inkpot Buddha sand paintings, bird heads and whirligigs, no halos 

both share intricacy, focus, devotion spent by angel-shouldered monks 

spoon bent over wooden desks and indigo pigments, birthing in vellum 

 

 

untouched by profane finger pads, not this grandmother thin vellum 

opened in square lit case, holy days altar, ceremonial Latin, precious 

survivor, lime-soaked skin, hair scraped away, calf tonsure of monks 

Chi Rho swirling, contrast triskele like bright yellow curls of thick 

haired-Christ, flying saucer aqua eyes, copper halos 

throaty Jack or marked King of clubs, hearts destroyed 

 

earliest evidence of Madonna, were the other queens destroyed 

like goddesses burned in bark and lichen, resin for vellum 

immortal peacocks, resurrecting snakes, lion cub paws, no halos 

charred clays, black iron salt, berries, powdered precious 

pigments gritty under young nails, oh, their stamina, eyesight, thick 

with thorny hormones, hair scraped away, young calves, fresh monks  

 

 

left each other notes, I’m hungry, I’m cold, precious mistakes, thick 

stacked halos swollen fjords unfurling in walnut yellowed vellum 

monks’ alchemy, buckthorn to ceremony, in 1200 years, never destroyed 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amanda (A.M.) Hayden is the current Poet Laureate and Professor for Sinclair College. Her debut collection, American Saunter, is forthcoming (FlowerSong Press, 2024). Her first chapbook, How to Tie Tobacco, and second collection, Old World Wings, will be released in 2025 (Wild Ink Publishing). Hayden is a Pushcart Prize nominee and the 2023 River Heron Editor's Choice Prize winner.  She lives with her family and many furry rescue babies, including their very special blind, three-legged pup named Vinny Valentine.