Narcissus
Smell and colour in a house
ruled by hyacinth are such
that we forget to look out
until a casual glance finds
a first bloom under the alders
beating its head in a gale –
beating, beating on a peg
where day clings and cloud-wars pass.
It has no pond to study,
nothing you could call a face
skittering off a raindrop.
Its best mirror is the O of time.
In the empty, waning
room of winter
it spins the thread of itself
so thinly, like a dancer
staging a part on its own
before spring opens.
(Players are already in the wings,
but it is oblivious to them).
Then, the only night
falls, for all it knows,
suddenly calm, with a big moon
establishing trees and the house
in a setting of moon shadows.
Poetry Ireland Review Issue 119:
Poetry Ireland Review Issue 119 includes new poems by 48 poets including Frank Ormsby, John Kinsella, Rachel Coventry, Aifric Mac Aodha, Gerald Dawe, Alice Miller and Claire Potter. Also included are translations by Richard Begbie and Kirsten Lodge, an essay on Bishop, Lowell, Heaney and Grennan by David McLoghlin, and reviews of Paul Muldoon, Paul Durcan, Sarah Clancy, Medbh McGuckian, Kate Tempest, George the Poet, and many more. The issue also features photography by Hugh O'Conor, Dominic Turner, Sheila McSweeney, Fergus Bourke and John Minihan.