Eoghan McGrath is a writer and scientist from Dublin. He had has a Ph.D in biochemistry from NUI Galway and now lives in Brittany, France where he works in cancer research.  His poetry has appeared in The Ogham Stone 2019 and his prose has appeared in The Scum Gentry online magazine. He’s trying to learn French. It isn’t going so well.

Promises for men at 4AM:

Buzzards bay on the Spanish arch,
Guarding gates to wet plutonic depths.
In moonlight his shadow falls on sleeping men,
In a spotlight on the damp decaying bridge.
At the edge, a bouncer, extends a hand and speaks,
Weaving his net of easy delicate silk.
All the men watch him, this catcher on the bridge.
As if promises are any man’s to give.

A Nation in Exile:

Steven holds his bag and waits,
For the boat taking him east forever.
In the end the hour came without holy show,
No smirked farewells or Céad Míle whatevers.
Already they’d asked, who was Stephen indeed,
Escorting himself from this grey Eden,
To forge a nation unto himself,
Of identity, exile, and treason?
And define their days which coincidental sit,
Unnoticed and unknown against the sea,
While lending his name to none but himself,
And defending it from wherever he happened to be?

Our Night Crossing of Lago Gral Carrera

The western sky turned pink then black,
Then in the east the full moon glowed.
But lake was still as we floated south,
Above rocks and unconquered gold.