Alan Magee is a teacher, living with his family in Belfast. He has a great interest in all things Literary, artistic, and jazz related. Since beginning his journey in poetry in September 2022, Alan has read his poems at Purely Poetry NI events in Belfast, where his work has been well-received. Alan writes on a wide variety of themes around shared human experiences, with sensitivity and insight. You can find him on Instagram @alan.magee.poetry
Do Not Lean Out of This Poem!
Do not lean out of this poem!
To do so, risks death or serious injury,
Or worse, that your mind should wander!
Do not lean out of this poem, whilst it is in motion.
Keep your head, arms, legs inside the words!
Do not lean out of this poem!
Admire the view, the folding air,
The way noise wraps around your feet.
Do not lean out of this poem!
Imagine a fixed point just ahead – jiggling towards it!
Do not lean out of this poem!
Think of someone you love,
Of the time it takes to reach them!
Do not lean out of this poem!
Stamp your sweaty feet! Clap your swollen hands!
Turn your 360 degrees!
The Skin That Won’t Crack
What do the knuckles know of the fist,
Or the punch that snaps the rib?
Confusion? Delight?
Nothing sometimes?
Nothing every time?
In that moment, those moments –
Is it relief? Is it anger?
Is it bliss? Is it fresh?
An imitation of love – Maybe?
The surprise – the sudden pain.
Will the knuckles speak to the fist,
Or the ribs of their shame?
Will hate stow away?
Be a closer cousin to love?
The back that won’t break?
The skin that won’t crack?
Jo
When Jo passed, she didn’t mind,
Hardly gave it a second thought,
Just left herself as she was.
Drifted somehow to the ceiling,
Caught there – stayed,
Watching herself beneath on the bed.
In time – found. The young priest came,
Anointed her body: forehead, eyes,
Ears, nose, mouth, knees, feet.
The priest done – left. And Jo,
Or whatever she was now,
Could see, hear better than ever.
Everything was fringed with light,
Like winter dew edges twigs, leaves.
The chair, the pots, the bed – shining.
She could hear for miles, every scratch –
Bicycles, children, trees, radios, fish,
A fist thudding hollow on a girl’s chest.
Every sound, clear from its source –
Delicious – called inside. She waited
In the dimming, listening to her tap drip.
Water dropped too from the roof
Into the stone tank in the yard –
Notes of water hitting water.
She watched her body wait by itself.
Felt herself shift, as if somehow,
Stepping behind her own thoughts.
She remembered sipping water,
From the hollow of her hand.
The Sacred Heart on the wall.
Remembered walking the lane,
A wicker basket on her arm.
Gloves the colour of a pigeon’s breast.
The sun in the high plane trees,
Their bark the colour of ash.
The light, the air, the gravel sang.
The whitethorn in May.
Rowan berries in September.
Blackberries under her tongue.
She felt a whisper of water
Fall from the tap,
Then – stop.
Come Here to Me Now
Do you remember the day?
It was a Sunday in Spring.
The air along the river,
Ran cold around the neck.
The squeal of a distant train.
The tattle-rattle of its wheels.
Geese were calling overhead.
We danced on the tow path –
Your languid grace – my left feet.
I felt myself glide away there,
Pushing slightly against gravity,
Before giving in to it all.
Light pooled and welled
In the hollows around us,
Around the oak, the ash,
The alder and hawthorn.
Infinite tiny bells,
Spewed from the verge.
It is possible sometimes,
To feel like birds, crows maybe?
Fly together, as close
As bodies and wings allow.
Dance free in open sky.
Touch the sun’s sea.
For me, we are still as we were,
That day – when sunlight
Kissed the first leaves,
When desire called love into being.
You sighed on the riverbank –
“Come here to me now!” And I did.
Rockfleet
Every night, when I nest my head on my pillow,
I remember walking from the house in Rockfleet:
Across the stoned yard, the cattle grid at the gate.
Looking all the while at the still water of the inlet,
A stone’s throw, not twenty feet from my feet.
The narrow slope of the hill thins to the Atlantic.
Lush fields run to the woods and the spluttering river,
Choking water into the head of the sea’s reach.
Grainne Mhaol’s castle, fixed where sea licks the stones.
Four granite storeys biting hard into the centuries.
The swan and cygnet slip-by, like a touch of air,
Every day – come rain, come hail, come shine.
The road creases round between the water and the fields,
Barely wide enough for a car, a thread for the fishermen,
Who drive it twice or so every day to the small harbour.
Sheep graze easy, by a stone barn, by a single tall tree.
Wind speaks in the fence, sighs in the broken wall.
The fishermen, the swans, the sheep, the tower-house
Gather to me when I turn each night towards sleep:
Sifting my day back again to the quiet of Rockfleet.
The Galway Review 