Michael Nolan (b. 1950, in Dublin) recently retired from a lifetime spent in education. He was Principal of a Jesuit Special School for nearly the last twenty years of his teaching career. He also studied Law and was called to the Irish Bar. He has lifelong interest in writing and literature.
Provisions
Out front door
Porch plants left right
Wilting
Water
Sunny morning
Through double-glaze
Lock behind
Bins by window
Remember Monday
Concrete path
Neighbours abed
Ah
Hands in rain pockets
Teeth spectacles keys
Good
Drimnagh Crumlin Walkinstown
Decision revoked
St Mary’s Road
Doesn’t look like here
Milk orange cigarettes paper
Which shop
Furthest
Doors open
Start left
Vegetables soft drinks milk meat
Newspapers alcohol
Stock up
Go home
Notes For Us
Minutes of our lives
become parts of it
which can be depleted
into a great
panoramic view of everything
that we believe
we believe
but cannot prove at all.
I sing of love
and know its longing
for the garden and the river
and the belonging
Leaving
There is always
beauty of the everyday
constancy of history
And a burden of purple wisteria
embarrassing the wall
hugging cosseting
My wake is infectious
Mon Voyage
Go neiri an bother liom
Invitation
She growled
me at the air
oceans of breath
be memory
She winded
me at her breast
sea-ness
remembered
She sighed
sorrow of laughter
love’s reasons
forgotten
I had to accept
An Obstreperous Man
(on the death of my father)
Sr. Clare aka Aunty Fan
the tiniest nun in the world
clothed in swath black wool
cool as snow on spring leaves
dreamed our funereal family home
amid admirable ennui whispers
turning and lifting her perfect chin:
“Michael, you were a difficult child”
Without a perilous thought I say
“I still am”
Constant Penny
The first coin was Greek to me
King’s head unaware
of Pegasus’s tail. I lament the horse,
the hare, the wren, wasn’t it?
In 1971 on our way back
from discoing in Belfield
at a chipper, Crumlin Road –
our palms accepted euros.
Still clinking in my mind
a constant penny, lodging
unimportance in all our lives.
The Galway Review 