Kevin McManus is an award winning writer from Carrigallen in Leitrim.
He has published six novels so far and will publish a short story and poetry anthology in April entitled “The stillness of Lakes” .

An Ashen Evening Sky

A cottage drowning in a delicate curtain,
as smothering mist engulfed it,
as if it was an ethereal being
eerily dancing around,
forgotten and plundered by time,
bedraggled, time eaten gables,
sinking roof,
eroded chimney stacks pierced
an ashen evening sky.

Crumbling walls stood,
a dark and foreboding monument
in a stark, barren setting,
surrounding rush infested marsh land,
swept out towards the grey Atlantic Ocean,
bitter and unforgiving,
enduring the full lash
of the harsh rain dowsed maritime winds.

III

Old rotten wooden door,
hanging on its hinges
flecks of red paint clung to it,
roughly repaired with galvanised iron.

A red curtain waved
out through a broken window frame
and scratched against a low dead sky,
flapped in the wind like macabre
and ghostly fingers,
beckoning, calling inwards.

Peering inside into the darkness,
black gaping void,
jagged shards of glass protruded menacingly,
a dejected, desolate interior,
a tragic reminder of the past,
plaster had fallen from walls.
traces of dried dung,
a shelter to animals.
A couch deconstructing,
where a family once sat,
torn apart by vermin,
scattered by the elements,
table sat next to a wall,
where Christmas feasts and
birthday gatherings were held,
its form slowly devoured by woodworm.

Outside mist washed by relentless rain,
hammered viciously on the leaking roof,
like a priest beating at a pulpit,
water gushed from the clogged up,
collapsed gutters,
flooded down walls and through
broken windows.

VII

Rain was carried by a brawny wind,
garden trees, trying desperately
to hold on to their dead leaves,
danced in the gusts like demented geriatrics,
Fishing boats riding stormy waves
in the distance,
dense dark clouds sailed in from the Atlantic.