The Memory of Water (for Scarlet)
Water remembers you
falling now on your sleeping face
waking you from dreams
with its surprise
after you fell asleep
at your first pinic.
Water remembers your childish
laughter.
Water remembers you
holding your body
in its body
as you learn not to fear it
as you learn the words float...sink...swim.
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poem by Dónall Dempsey
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Songs For Scarlett
THE SUNLIGHT CAUGHT IN HER VOICE
The darkness
of her hair
& the blue
in her eye
sang of her
& transformed
the world
into a beauty
a child could see
notes like
drops of rain dripping
from a branch
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poem by Dónall Dempsey
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The Refraction Of Water
Not knowing how to swim
I became an expert
at diving in
and swimming under water
(oh I could do that)
for a width
and then
another width back
reaching for the safety of the bar as if it were
Life itself
even pushed it so far
(I held my breath)
took to swimming lengths
underwater
the danger and the fear of death
became the thrill of it
lost in a soundless universe
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poem by Dónall Dempsey
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The Way Of All Flesh
The live fish twitched
shrugged its tail
and seemed to pale.
Just before it lost its head
the fish observed me
with a cold careless eye.
“Do your worse! ” it said
as if it were a British spy
being tortured by a cruel Gestapo.
Brutally decapitated
with a sudden twak
It became just a body
it’s head feasted upon by feral cats who had patiently
waited just for that.
It was now even more deader
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poem by Dónall Dempsey
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Dancing with Me Da! (For Linda)
As usual
the world
is threaded through me
through television
& right now
it's Jimmy Cagney.
I sit enthralled
engrossed in every move
...each gesture.
My Dad comes in
from the garden
as if he were Adam
toiling over
his vegetables.
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poem by Dónall Dempsey
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MO CAILIN ALAINN RUA(My Beautiful Red Haired Girl) /RED RIVER/WEARING HER HAIR - Sequence
MO CAILIN ALAINN RUA
(My Beautiful Red Haired Girl)
Your hair
taken by the wind
blown
into flame
a fiery red
Medussa
standing on
the edge
of this
mountain
a world
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poem by Dónall Dempsey
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KISS ME KATE! (for Helen)
A Blazon sonnet?
That’s the one an
Elizabethan lover
would turn his
Elizabethan Miss
into a
list
itemise her attributes
(hidden or otherwise)
& tick ‘em off
bit by bit
like a ledger clerk
closing an account.
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poem by Dónall Dempsey
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What... Watts's Cat!
IN THE HAND OF GOD
In & out
amongst
sunlight & shadows
the dead
come alive
as we speak
their names
make them real again
let them live in our voices
each tombstone
eager for us
to say them
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poem by Dónall Dempsey
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