Andy Jones, is member of Cavan/Meath LitLab writing group. Hi is from  Dublin, living in internal exile in Mullagh.  His poems has been published in Boyne Berries, Skylight magazine, Read on Sunday Miscellany.  Jones was shortlisted on Fish Flash Fiction Competition in 2011.  He was highly commended in Ledwidge poetry competition twice, 2010 and 2011 and Short story winner, at Virginia Show 2012.

 

Three poems by Andy Jones

 

Cloghballybeg

With the evening gathering

I cross the ditch,

 

stoop under rusted barbed wire,

 

stumble over the mossy stones

of someone’s old hearth,

 

past gravepits of blight

 

Come to the copse

that offered scant shelter

at the time my great-grandfather

left Avoca in search of food.

 

One hundred metres away,

motors flash past unheeding

as I summon up the shades

of long dead neighbours.

 

“Ce a bfuil tu”? They ask,

“An bfuil do bolg lan”?

Has God abandoned us?

Do you know the answer?

 

 

Painting the lake.

October morning,

silhouettes of woody islands

traced on a pearl grey veil,

disc of the sun ascending.

 

Half awake commuters gaze

at the would-be Turner,

confused, amused

dismissive, sardonic.

 

Draw quickly lest solar warmth

burns off the gauze,

before a puff of wind

shepherds it towards Monaghan.

 

Something happens

as eye and hand combine.

A misty morning is captured,

only to be viewed each January.

 

 

Turn of the year

I am impatient,

in my mind

Winter is already over.

I search the sky

for a hint of brightness,

town lamp reflections

on low cloud,

a car’s beams cresting

a nearby hill,

anything at all

to tell me that the darkness

is receding.

I shudder to think

how people live in

northern places

where night lasts forever?

Then I think

of Aurora Borealis.

Imagine the joy,

saved by the light.