Patricia Walsh
On My Way/On My Mind
Temptation to do good, varying through forces,
placed where none called for, euhemerised,
a neat little metre contains the highly esteemed
tax and returns pressurises the slip-road.
None of us is truly alone, in our estimation,
stars in our underpants remain like this.
Complicated literature heats the derisory,
a solitary chair remains over-static.
A small fortune from detritus, hang on there
goldmines and gold-diggers setting the pace,
voluminous writing coming to nought again,
certain massacres deserve safe-keeping.
Exiled from the common good, celebrations abide
the luxury of inclusion doesn’t pass muster,
intimate conversation in a breasted eye,
cheated by home comforts a repeat exercise.
Let down by handwriting, this common grip
loving to derision the proper order,
the bleeding heart calls on tender mercies
a prior engagement barbs and tears its prey.
Siphoning off an equal beauty, a bold call,
ears still burning from dissident friends,
pining for promotion on site, still elusive,
the grail of inclusion eschewing troubled good.
—Submitted on 06/02/2020
Patricia Walsh is the author of the poetry collection Continuity Errors (Lapwing Books, 2010), and the novel The Quest for Lost Éire (AuthorHouseUK, 2014)in 2014. Her poems have appeared in Southword, Third Point Press, Revival Journal, Seventh Quarry, Hesterglock Press, and other journals. Walsh was born and raised in the parish of Mourneabbey, Co Cork.
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