Kerry Gray was awarded first prize at the Maria Edgeworth competition, (2022), and one of her short stories was shortlisted by the Irish Times, ‘This means War’ competition. Her poems have appeared in London Grip New Poetry, and shortly in Fortnight magazine. After a childhood spent in Colombia and long periods of time in Spain, England and Italy she now lives in Belfast. She began writing poetry after completing an Open University Creative Writing course, inspired by the Italian and Spanish poets she studied as an undergraduate at Queens University Belfast, during the eighties.
Holy Isle
Launching off
into a summer sea
ill-prepared in flip-flops,
floppy-hats. Eyes fixed on
the Holy Isle aboard
a three-man scull
we row. Old buccaneer
still smoking on the pier
his telescopic eye upon
our spiral water-marks
around the pods of island-
mounds; clover rimmed
and dense. We row into the
speckled sound. Into sun-drifts,
open sky. We row the mackerel-
scented atmosphere then shift
a gear and land upon the shingle
island strip. Black-winged
gulls uprooted from their nests,
protest, excrement through schists
and shards of midden ground,
on bits and bones, monastic stones.
Our spirits stunned by sudden white
caps on the bow! I pick a cowrie
shell for luck. We slip again into
the mercy of a newly-turning swell
as myriads of silver fish suspended
in the dark-heave of a wave
inspire a sort of mystical bravado.
Our wooden oars,
we musketeers,
we cleave into the rising sea.
Eyes fixed on the sun-lit bales,
on coloured string-lights glimmering
on far off white-washed walls.
Miraculous!
the belly flop of summer boats
secured to brightly painted
buoy’s, and that old mariner
still pacing, still waiting
on the shore.
Passing time in a Donegal pub as summer ends
(Seamus Heaney’s old haunt)
A wooden counter dwarfs the narrow space.
The old man stooped peers through his specs
at our summer-sated weariness. ‘Well sir?’
as if to say, none of your small-talk here. Two
placemats set on shadow-seasoned grain –‘Lovely day
for a Guinness’– One full and one half. I’m dazzled
just by being here and listen to the slipper-shuffle
in between the rows of stout and spirits, Beaujolais
and Scampi Fries. An aged fridge whirrs undeterred,
our conversation stilled by smouldering briquettes
and the tap-tap-ring of an old-style button till.
Spirit levels settling, our host points to the poet’s favoured
snug, heroic views out to a sea-less bay. Gilt-framed
verse hangs from a ruby dado-rail, bathroom knobs
unchanged. And up upon a crooked shelf a startled pole cat
on display. It makes me think of those old bits of fingernails
in candle-scented cloisters. El Greco plotting all-sorts,
incognito on a pew. Through sweetly scented sea-
gloom, the poet ghost preserved – his crumpled jotter
pressed upon this wooden altar. The poet weaving
tapestries from sods and wisps of hay. The poet
scripting miracles, for these our passing days.
STAND AND DELIVER!
– Ardglass parish hall
On disco nights the boys off trawlers always coming late…
The Parish hall transformed by disco balls
and smoke. Mods in clumsy boots and fish-tails
parents at the front door keeping tabs…
On disco nights the boys off trawlers always coming late…
Jackie at the tuck-shop doling colas, Hula-Hoops and foams.
Queues for loos, queues for love,
queues for cloakroom coupons going, gone…
On disco nights the boys off trawlers always coming late…
Dying for our lives to start. Kohl and ankle boots and perms.
How we surged from dim-lit corners then
when Nena and her Luftballons was spun…
On disco nights the boys off trawlers always coming late…
Taking their cue from Adam & the Ants, when
all was chaos, borderless and lust, our teenage
drumsticks drumming on those village boards as one…
On disco nights the boys off trawlers always coming late…
through swinging fire-doors, sea-mist on their soaped-up collars,
sharp as dandies in their drainpipes, crew cuts, fly-by-sailor-
smiles. That dance floor was our kingdom come…
On disco nights the boys off trawlers always coming late…
Drumbeats though the sea-lit lanes
and Beano at his multicoloured quarterdeck
blasting ballads at our undelivered hearts.
The Galway Review 