DENNIS MORIARTY

DENNIS MORIARTY

ENCOUNTER WITH A PHOTOGRAPH. 1.

The photograph is a grainy interpretation of the man he was,

Slightly older than I remember

But still all 1970’s Afro hair and dark glasses behind which

Pain back then was a largely uninhabited island.

Inside the photograph beckons the mourners to the front

Where it stands aloof and alone on the coffin lid.

The eulogy is a series of minor revelations,

The football team he supported later on in life,

The Saturdays he spent on the market square with collection box

And tambourine,

Days spent alone on a river bank fishing.

I look around and see his sons, grown men both, each face

Honestly reflecting the others grief,

Two young men surprised and undone by death’s

Close proximity.

From the pew behind a hand taps me on the shoulder,

A hushed voice tells me

How his eyes were always so bright even behind the dark

Camouflage of his glasses.

Outside in the warm spring sunshine, the photograph already

Leading the mourners graveside,

The same voice asked me how it was that I knew the deceased.

They were close once, another voice replied.

Yes we were close once, or so I’m told.

ALWAYS THE WIND

It is the wind

Always the wind

Here in this remote and desolate spot

Where curlews dip their wings and cry.

Bull whip of slavery

Flayed tip of sapling birch

Cruel and archaic

It flies black clouds like a flag

Of dark intent

Howling like a wounded beast alone

On the moor

Rampages with malice a fore thought

Over blunt stump of ash

And through withered limbs of rowan

The bronchial heave of oak

Writhing in an agony of biblical proportions.

Old testament febrile an eye for an eye.

It is the wind, always the wind.

THE BENCH

A solitary bench rooted in memory

On a lonely stretch of mountain common.

Green with a newly laid wreath

And yellow with tulips

Carnations pricked and bleeding red blood

Of frosted petals

The colours merging like plumage of mallard

Forming an oily slick on the water.

A card preserved in cellophane depicts a

Jack Russell terrier

Were you a champion of that breed or were you

A casual admirer of it’s tenacious beauty?

Did you walk this mountain lake

One such dog at your heels

His ears flapping his eyes watering his breath

Splintered by the restless wind.

Did you stand on that shingle spit of shore

Looking out over the water

Recalling the past contemplating the future,

And did you ever imagine

That you might serve your sentence in so lonely

And wild a place,

A bench planted in tribute to the person

You once were.

A bench on which your spirit could sit and while

Away the hours of eternity,

Enduring the noise of fractious gulls, the gathering

Of wings on the water at dusk,

A ghost dog at your feet clinging tenaciously

To the good times you shared together.

DENNIS MORIARTY

DENNIS MORIARTY was born in London but now lives in Wales, UK. Married with five grown up children, Dennis likes to walk in the hills, read and write poetry. In 2016 he won the Blackwater poetry competition and went to the Blackwater international poetry festival to read his work. Dennis has had his work published previously in journals such as Setu Bilingual, Blue Nib, The Passage between and Mad Swirl.