Biography
I was born in 1953. I was a Gregory Award winner in 1977 and my collection, Bruegel’s Dancers, was published by Free Man's Press in 1984. For twenty years I stopped writing poems, but started again about eighteen months ago. My poems have appeared or are forthcoming in many magazines including Agenda, Coffee House Poetry, Envoi, The Frogmore Papers, The Irish Press, Critical Quarterly, The Interpreter’s House, The Reader, Stand, Staple, Poetry Ireland Review, and Poetry Salzburg Review. My new collection, In The Distance - Selected Poems 1972-2010 will be brought out next year by Night Publishing.
Samples
WORK HORSES
The clanking compound of the old Simmonds
brewery, where my dad did casual shifts
at times that work was slack on the buildings,
is buried now somewhere beneath the graceless
panels of the multi-storey car park
and the chat that drifts across
from the cappuccino pavement.
Born to a scant inheritance of rushy Sligo acres,
my dad was bred like his brothers
to follow the work, sending remittances home
from London, Reading, and Philadelphia –
for worklessness
would have been their defining shame.
And somewhere, too, in the grainy hinterland
of just remembered childhood
I am watching a drayman
as he guides heraldic, towering horses
through a time-thinned stream of traffic.
Their sinews are barely tensed;
their blood-pumped engines turning over gently
as they go unfussed about their business.
YOUR CHAIR
After half a lifetime of early starts,
and a few fly years that made you money,
you finally softened round the edges
and eased back, prosperous, into your chair.
It's there in our mother's place: a threadbare
seat of judgment, battered in the mayhem
of a clattery open house, its wrecked guts
sagging, its two arm-rests coming adrift.
And fixed immovably in that still centre
you watched the racing on TV, shushed out
our conversations, as Michael O'Hare's
gabble of names stampeded to its climax.
Another windfall? Or a better prize –
To know you were flush enough for losers
not to matter, in a different country
to have attained a gruff serenity.
That chair has hoarded the words you uttered,
and releasing them at times, as we make
our late decisions, can fill up a room
with some cagey, warm, and toil-inflected phrase.
Your chair is true North on a map of memory,
and points out paths, the sanctioned ways still worth
your approbation, the cuteness implied
in Whatever would your father have thought?
VISITING
for my grandfather
When once, as a clean-kneed
child from town, I first came
on a visit to your limewashed
house, your two great fists
impressed me, for they
were ponderous chunks
of granite, notched
carelessly for fingers
and which, at your own willed
creation, you had torn
from the heart of the land.
Yes, I knew then how
you had risen and, separate,
must have kept on walking.
I was almost frightened
to be your friend, but still
am running so breathlessly
beside you as you stride
onwards, the castle of yourself,
across rough fields
of thistle and clover.
And the dogs are running
before us, and our laughter
creates again a flawless sky.
All poems are copyright of the originating author. Permission must be obtained before using or performing others' poems.
Last blog entry
Posted on Tuesday 22nd June 2010 6:54 pm
A lump of disused iron, its black the shade
of drab endurance, its surface is pocked,
and flecked with hints of blood.
The date above it tells no story.
The year is fixed,
but the clean stone has darkened.
Through a grill I search its blank sump:
there is more stone, dry-jointed,
and a fern feathering towards the light –
as I try to absorb the business of water:
the dour mechanics
of buckets and balance;
how something that’s ordinary
becomes a problem
whether you’re up or down a lane.
Its spout has choked on a gulp of air.
Where there is no flow,
there will be no voices.
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View or make comments. (2 comments)
Greg Freeman
Sat 17th Jul 2010 07:42
Glad to hear your book is coming out early next year, David, but aren't you being a bit leisurely about 'launching' it in June?! Put me down for a copy, whenever it comes out. I might even pitch up at the Poetry Cafe in Reading one night, you never know!