Gerry Galvin lived in Oughterard, Co. Galway.He was a chef and former restaurateur, author of two cookbooks, ‘The Drimcong Food Affair’ and ‘Everyday Gourmet’.
His first poetry collection, ‘No Recipe’, launched in Galway by Michael D. Higgins, was published by Doire Press in 2010.
‘Killer A La Carte’, Gerry’s debut novel was published in 2011, also by Doire Press.

AGE

When I got up I checked
How old cards were stacked
The dice of age still rolling
Balance of the mind intact.
At seventy I’ve come to know
That all may not be well below,
Dysfunctional the waterworks
Varicose from knee to toe.
I found my age at pains to say
Not to worry, all’s fine, ok,
Disease is only in the head
We can breathe and walk today.
I watched him totter to the shop
And followed, couldn’t stop,
Knowing not when he might fall,
To be beside him at the drop.
I’ve tracked him now for long enough
With him through the smooth and rough.
When I’m not here he’ll carry on
Scavenging at an empty trough.
And then he’ll go, he’ll go, he’ll go.

 

Longevity

Rare flowers grow among the shrivelled weeds,
beauty’s profiled in the aging beast.
Pine cones climb to scrape upon the window
diary of desires we used to know.
Ageless sorrows leaking out
like water from a ghostly spout,
Drip, drip as in some ancient bath
up to overflow and death.
They die out the nags and sorrows
subverted by presumed tomorrows.
What endures? The kind codology
of years’ accredited chronology?
No counting of the costs
the sum that adds up to a loss,
Old age merely multiplies
the absences, the weaknesses, the lies.

 

Weather on a Summer Afternoon

After a shower
Hedgerow tearspills
Over scrambled thorn
Bumble bee berating
Rising meadowsweet
Soufflé from the sun’s oven.
After a shower
Meddling in undergrowth
Dog rose gasps in
A writhe of bindweed’s
Snaking intentions
Choking air.
After a shower
Snapped in jaws of secrecy
Scouting fox grinds out
Ins and outs of weather
Murder in the hedgerows
Phantoms in the grass.
After a shower
Young elder’s pride
Foamdancing to a blur
Apogee descending
Summer calendar’s brief
Berry days to fall.

 

REFERENDUM

The day of the referendum –
Austerity or Stability,
Europe or Armageddon –
I picked fruit for jam,
an old recipe, half gooseberry, half rhubarb,
the sour pair submitting to sugar,
a sweetener, a bailout
on the way to preservation;
jam for the bread
on cold winter mornings
when all that can be expected
from any direction
are the unknowable secrets
of bitter changing winds.