AWAKE

Awake

Fearful the moaning

of the wind,

far worse when it begins

to speak

however low and

indistinct

of what you suspect

but dare not think,

rising and falling

like a conversation

in another room,

soft then loud

like bad news arriving.

Julian O’Dea

bra

putting her hands
behind her back
to unhook her bra
a gentle struggle
a hint of bondage
supplicant hands
with red nails
turned to heaven

Julian O’Dea

“Cats and Boxes”; “Playground”

Cats and Boxes

Muezza, favoured cat
of the Prophet,
ended her tale thus
on the one thousand
and second night:
“O cats who came from
the Libyan Desert
and conquered Egypt
and the known
world with fur and claw,
heed then this tale
of the flying box
which like the carpet
is carried by djinn
directly to Mecca;
I enjoin you to try all boxes
and sit within.”

Julian O’Dea

——————————————-

Playground

The children go inside
vacate the playground
and leave the light
to play alone
glancing and beaming
as a truant wind scrapes
a dry leaf along the ground
like a small boy grazing
his knee.

Julian O’Dea

Garden Whites

Garden Whites

pallid Pierid butterflies
like shards of light
alight on
the bush heaving with scent
wings singed fringed
like scraps of a burned
book carried in warm air
moving fretfully to
settle and crack the code
of pollination
to turn scattered matter
into seed

Julian O’Dea

FOR THE FEAST OF THE ASSUMPTION

FOR THE FEAST OF

THE ASSUMPTION

In Irish not simply Máire

but Muire for the Virgin Mary

like murine for a mouse

in Bethlehem the “house

of bread” bred Christ

to feed the ages then

snug as a dormouse

in a Roman glirarium

fell asleep to rise

from her Dormition.

Julian O’Dea

MINOTAUROMACHY

MINOTAUROMACHY

Ancient agonistic minotaurs

each day anew disport themselves

chimaeras of the real and fanciful

heaving and fighting and bleeding

on the hot yellow sand

dying elegantly contorted

to wake unharmed in the morning

for another day of their ancient

Mediterranean games under sherbet

clouds in timeless Moroccan blue.

Julian O’Dea

MOSAIC

I make a mosaic in my mind

from shards of memory

and remains of splintered

dreams of sun and sky

that retain their gilded hue

and rich lapis blue

and, after picking up

the pieces and putting them

into some kind of place,

an image emerges

that hovers like an angel

somewhere between

the random and ideal.

———–

Julian O’Dea

ST MONICA’S CHAPLET

ST MONICA’S CHAPLET

Rain falls like Monica’s tears
for her child, or the pitter-patter
of an innocent heart,
on the tin roof as a chaplet
of beads.
Patient, like love a given,
enduring enough to soften
a heart of stone.

Julian O’Dea

Yacht

YACHT

 

White sails in her eyes
bandages for blinding
beauty of the cyan sky
waves to toss her fish
seagulls white and grey
clouds to cool the sun
no need to read charts
when you are happy
it is all the same.

 

Julian O’Dea

Lambing Time

LAMBING TIME

In a fall of mucous and blood
comes the new lamb
to be licked by the ewe
too white for the dirty world,
startled, amazed,
staggering under mother –
her belly an intimate,
familiar sky.
Then a further shock;
other shaky legs and tails
in the fells and dells,
seeing himself multiplied,
becoming a flock.

 

Julian O’Dea