Nathanael O’Reilly teaches creative writing at the University of Texas at Arlington. His twelve collections include Dublin Wandering (Recent Work Press, 2024), Landmarks (Lamar University Literary Press, 2024), Selected Poems of Ned Kelly (Downingfield Press, 2024), Boulevard (Downingfield Press, 2024), (Un)belonging (Recent Work Press, 2020) and Preparations for Departure (University of Western Australia Publishing, 2017). His work appears in journals and anthologies published in fifteen countries, including Cordite, Mascara, Meanjin, New World Writing Quarterly, Southword, Trasna, Westerly and Wisconsin Review. He is poetry editor for Antipodes: A Global Journal of Australian/New Zealand Literature.

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Writ on Water

I walk like a ghost through cities
and towns I used to live in, call home,
flaneur down streets and lanes
whose names remain Swanston,
Flinders, Lyons, Lygon and Cardigan
recognized by nobody, invisible – 

just another middle-aged man
wandering streets and roads,
seeing buildings and shops and people
that no longer exist, have moved away
or died, just another middle-aged man 
buried in the past, living in memories 

and fantasies of memories reaching
back through layers of self, layers
of history, attempting to grasp
something solid, unable to let go
of youth, joy, love and community,
wishing that more of life

lay ahead than behind, knowing
there is no true return, yet returning
and returning to savour fewer
and fewer pleasures, eating
and drinking last century’s
favourites, pasties and Victoria Bitter,

reminiscing in remnant pubs,
The Miller’s Arms, The Drunken Poet
and Young & Jackson’s, with a diminishing
group of friends and family, feeling less
and less seen, more and more invisible, 
like one whose name was writ on water.

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Knockbride

Back in ancestral townlands last
year on a misty Bréifne afternoon,
I walked along the boreens to face
ghosts in the landscape. I tramped miles, passed
loughs and ruined cottages outside town.
Headstones summoned visions of warders flaying
convict ancestors for uttering syllables
of resistance, spitting on stolen ground,
savouring a sip of forbidden beer.
The caretaker at St. Brigid’s smiled
as she explained local history, poured
water on flowerbeds. I took my body
through the graveyards as clouds began to spit,
caressed ancestors’ tombs with my palms.

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Note: A terminal utilizing the end-words from Ella Jeffery’s Huangshan Sonnet.

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Convicts

After Imelda Maguire’s Origins

I come from convicts transported
to Van Diemen’s Land from Ireland
& England, exiled from their worlds
for stealing an umbrella, a watch
and a ring. I come from convicts
who worked in the farmhouse kitchen
and the fields, who spent eight years
as prisoners, created seven children
before receiving Tickets of Leave.
I come from convicts who married
in Launceston, crossed Bass Strait
to start life again in Western Victoria
far from their parents and homelands.
I come from convicts MaryAnn Sullivan
Kelly and George Roberts, a Dubliner
and a Londoner who farmed stolen
Gunditjmara land at Yambuk, raised
eight children and became grandparents
of sixty. I come from convicts
whose descendants multiplied, prospered,
raised super fine Merino, fought in world
wars, nursed, taught, farmed, built, created.