Liam Duffy is a 23 year old poet who grew up and studied in Galway. He is now compiling an Artistic Atlas of Galway, studying Urban studies and working towards his first collection of poetry. He has also read at the West Cork Literary Festival in Ireland as part of a reading dubbed: Irish Poets: A New Generation, was short listed for the Over the Edge New writer of the year award 2012 and has work forthcoming in The Poetry Bus, Kerouac’s Dog Magazine as well as Can Can.
Out
In Taffe’s
graciously accepting pints of Guinness
and well wishes
I can’t quite hear
from the friends of my father.
“Where are you off to now?
And did you see the match”
“I might have,
who was playing and what sport was it?”
We talk about who’s running such and such
bar and restaurant
and how they don’t know what they’re doing,
nobody would pay that for that.
In The Quays
the music gets louder
as the conversation turns to spit
and all is suffixed with ‘eh’, ‘ah’ or ‘lad’.
The drinks go past last orders
as Dad knows the barman, but can’t remember his name.
We go for afters at The Imperial,
where Dad knows the barman.
We’re drunk enough, now, to talk about
the relatives we don’t talk about,
The Troubles and to make a good spirited joke
about the uncle married to a Romanian
(neither of us are sure how many children he’s fathered
or with who).
Outside my Dad walks along the taxi rank
passing the black drivers to find a ‘local’ one,
at home were we eat heavily buttered toast
with tea in a silence tempered by chewing.
“goodnight and God bless”
is punctuated by doors closing
the dishes left for the morning.
A Nation holds its Breath
Footage shows
a stock market floor
men in shirts
punching the air
cut to
indignant’s
breaking police barriers,
charging buildings
and eyewitness accounts
of how they stormed the lobby
were stopped by a secretary
who requested :
“Patience. Please wait,
the bigger animals
are eating.”
They sat with patience
that pleased.
Thumbing through magazines,
while the bigger animals
were eating.
House-bound
Not a human if you can’t cry,
not a woman if you don’t.
She kept a bottle of port
on the table
or it kept her.
Her only enemy:
the snotty sales assistant
and her only worry
was when to have a cigarette
and if the dog would join her.
Her mother called often
to make sure her head
was not in the oven (again).
False Spring
This city is melting
and we’re getting stuck
in the slush
your back is turned
to me
and your hat
covers your ears
I see the edges
of your grimace
when your trudge
requires you to turn
a little.
Your lips
and eyes
are the only colours
and when they catch me
I’m flushed of life.
I stumble
and stop
in boots
wet and cracked
by yesterdays Ice.
The Sun Sets in the Kitchen
When winter came
cinnamon and cardamom
burnt through all the bread.
Tea chests-
their rich scents
of oak, bergamot and ginger;
were never dusty.
Fingers and tongues-
lamented in garlic and onion,
hid in pockets:
mouths and gloves.
Brandies and wines-
hot,
with cloves and lemons
were drank until
the sun rose out
from the sooty stove,
through the frosty windows,
back to warming the cold
vacant sky.
The Galway Review 