Two Poems by Jennifer McMahon

 

Cityside

 

Cityside  

awash with tumbling  

blades of amber,  

dazzle over glass, 

sweet scent of you so close, 

inhale fresh rain and living breath,  

rapid voices,  

beating heart of night.  

 

The music’s loud, not loud enough,  

a drown of sound to quell my doubts,  

stomp of feet,  

arms twist and turn  

then reaching high,  

the climax vivid painted stars, 

I cannot catch my breath.  

 

You kiss, kiss, kiss-consume me,  

reach in to occupy the very bones  

of me. The music’s loud,  

not loud enough,  

press of flesh and  

eager tongues,  

blades of light  

and swirling rain, 

I pray this never ends.  

 

Cityside, we come to dawn,  

to dashing down,  

vampiric haste,  

away, away,  

we must away  

before the world awakes.  

 

In light,  

the truth revealed too soon,  

a broken heel,  

a smothered curse,  

foul scent of you,  

I taste your breath.  

It’s here we say goodbye, my dear,  

it’s here we say goodbye.

 

 

Live This Day In Quiet Ways 

 

Rise early to the day, 

deprive it of its misery  

and trick it into joy. 

 

Do not hurry,  

what awaits you will wait for you;  

this is its job. 

 

Go to the mirror and say these words: 

 

“Wow is me!” 

 

Breathe and breathe again  

for breath is life and it will be a  

sad day when you can’t draw one. 

 

Stand in one place and  

consider death 

 

sense its stillness and  

its singular devotion 

 

then live this day in quiet ways  

with love and from your heart.

 

Jennifer McMahon was the overall winner of the 2024 All-Ireland Scholarships Creative Writing Award (Public), a winner of the Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair, and was shortlisted for Short Story of the Year at the Irish Book Awards, and for many other awards. Her work is widely published. She is represented by Storyline Literary Agency.