Poetry of Existence

More is Less


Souvenir

 

Remember

How memory once spoke

Of its travels

From one glimpse to another

Finally reaching the tip

Of your tongue

And letting go.

 

Recall

The time

When memory took off

Danced away with a stranger

Without a cue

To hang out

Somewhere else.

 

Remember

what you do not,

When you

Searched for her

Under hazy street lamps

In shadowy alleys, blurry

Winter fields and muggy

Summer walkways. And

 

How you didn’t

Rightly recollect

What she reminded you of

Even as she appeared in half-light,

Selfishly reminiscing,

Taunting, nagging, retaining

Pictures and diary only

For herself.

 

You are it seems

Someone different now.

Memory mocks you

From a distance,

Memorizes new details

Then vanishes again

With all your relics.

 

 

Siobhán Ó Mócháin Breathnach ~ March 4, 2015




Recognition


Would you recognize

your beloved's shoulders

in a line up?


Could you find

his blue

in a book of eyes?


Would you 

read his heart

in a manuscript of poems?


Would you

walk his legs

across a field of poppies?


Would you mourn

his bones

in a murder of crows?


Yes and Yes and Yes!


Siobhán Ó Mócháin Breathnach                        



Fragment

 

A Spanish dancer

   crossed my path

between biker’s road

   and sewer grate:

a scrap of pink lace

   against the tar.

 

I felt her presence

   a parallel time

face masked

by shimmering lines

 

Life stole her dance

   but left for me

a fragment apparition

     upon my walk

along this road

    March 17.

 

Siobhán Ó Mócháin Breathnach       

March 17, 2011

 

 

 


 

 

My Love is the Poet

 

My love is the poet

            I am simply

the wordsmith

cranking out lines

            he echoes in my dreams

 

My love is an epic poem

            I read

late at night

under moonlight

            beneath his unfurling flesh

 

My love is a lyric

            I sing at daybreak

as flowers hum a morning song

and birds on high wires

            dance out loud

 

My love is a cricket

            leaping into my arms

from the black night of joy

chirping notes of delight

            as I rest in his fore wings

 

My love is the poet

            he lives the words

I craft

 

 

Siobhán Ó Mócháin Breathnach  

 

 

 

 

 

Licorice

 

 

Like the blue flowers

of the licorice

            I taste sweet

root myself

in the marrow of your soul

 

You

remain at arms length

            as if I am

liederkranz

for special occasions

 

But

I am your

            lie detector

your liege loyal

to the end of bitter

 

I lien on you

forever

  

 

Siobhán Ó Mócháin Breathnach  

 

 


 

Letter From Triton

 

I seek a close encounter with you

my beloved Neptune

I am your Triton moon

captured in the glow

of your magnetic field

pulled toward you

for all times

 

With Voyager zipping by

invading the sacred silence

of our love I journey

in my orbit around you

hundreds of heavy years

from the heart of my life

eclipsed

on my cold distant moon

 

You are

my beloved Neptune

a mystery a vast universe

I do not wish to conquer

only to know I peek

through white clouds

of your atmosphere

pass through massive storms

to glimpse the ring surrounding you

the gentle band

that gently binds me to you

 

Blue Neptune,

I yearn to give you

a moonstone

for your starlit eyes

to dream upon

through infinity

 

Resonating particles of passion

on my odyssey of true love

I bathe in liquid lakes

of nitrogen

against tidal forces

I prepare to transmit the intensity

of my lunar longing

 

My mission

loving you

shapes my life

 

Siobhán Ó Mócháin Breathnach  




 

All that really matters

    is

our last conversation

Who speaks

Who listens

How all our living

    possesses

each word.