Poem for David Bowie

John Kelly

There was a man who used to cut the grass.

He used a scythe – the snaking shaft of it –

the sned – just right for swivel and for sweep.

A blade so sharp, they said,

it would cut wool floating down a stream.

And tonight I dreamed that man again.

Corrigan or Kerrigan – I forget his name –

but he cut a swathe. He cleared a path.

I saw the frogs, the twitching leveret,

the grasshoppers in splashes.

Then the sudden tilt in everything –

and everything collapses.

Poetry Ireland Review Issue 119:

Edited by Vona Groarke

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.