Kevin Graham lives and works in Dublin. His poetry has appeared in various journals and anthologies. He was selected for the Poetry Ireland Introductions Series 2012.
Blue
I’d been putting it off, casting you so far back
a young father’s smile had to trigger the avalanche.
Up until then I’d been a content little prick,
slamming down shots, swinging from branch
to branch between the bars like a monkey.
I knew it to be a puzzle that needed time
and energy, of which I can only say
I’d had little or neither. Don’t lament, don’t pine
was the gist of the world talking back.
The snatched-at present was flying by too fast
to pull in to a lay-by and take stock.
I kept you hidden so long you got lost
in memory’s blind spot. Now a child’s eyes
turn mine suddenly up, to heartbreaking skies.
Dive
Up ahead jutted the scar of High Rock,
sparring with the sea’s eternal guttering,
its black slab of rooted rock the leaping
point for kids, a precipice of shock
that climbed from your toes to your chest
as you shot like a stone through mid air,
plummeting in a bracing drop that tested
bravery and the illusion you didn’t care
if the sea tossed you back in a mild sweep
of its blue mood, sent you scrawling
over rows of razor flint, or suckered you deep
into its coffined breast… Screaming,
you were only aware of how to disappear,
how lose all consciousness, all fear.
The Saw
We were putting up partitions in an old warehouse,
elevating it into a trendy new furniture store.
There wasn’t much to do at first. Bored,
we talked about football, inventing reasons
to brush the floor when the manager walked in.
Then I was handed an electric saw, told to measure
and fit a stack of plexiglass. Here, I learnt the pleasure
of labour: pencil behind ear, dust-stained apron,
working at my own pace. Pulling out the tape,
I marked where the cut needed to be made and pressed
the first clean sheet level with the scarred workbench.
Powder plumed as the blade sang, the pinch
of my face turning blue. The excess fell away like ice.
There was only to stand back, feel my shape.
Still Life
A Pink Lady washed with rain has rolled
out from under the stall onto the side of the road.
Cyclists swerve, nearly landing in the deeper
water of heavy traffic. Pigeons confer
but ditch the fruit and jerk their necks
towards last night’s thrown up Indian curry,
or the mysterious hash of breadcrumbs
no one knows got there. Unformed tree,
it’s a genome of classic reproduction,
at its core a handful of seeds bearing selection –
forbidden bitten poisonous delicious
fairytale culinary botanic religious –
as brief as a red moon rising above the noise,
uncrushed as a thought, delicate and poised.
The Galway Review 