View Askew - New Poetry Collection

I'm happy to announce that three years after Croak and Belcanto (2018) Lapwing Publications, Belfast, is publishing my new collection View Askew.

The book launch will take place in Charlie Byrne's Bookshop, Galway, on 2nd December, 2021, 6.30 pm. Thank you, Mary Madec and Conall O'Cuinn, for doing me the honour of presenting my new work! And thank you Vinny Browne/Charlie Byrne's for making this event possible.

Below the title poem:

View Askew

The shutters used to turn

on well oiled hinges

Angles straight

outlook bright

through clear glass glances preceeding

stepping outside

where we moved freely

Also freely

we confined ourselves

at times

to social waterholes

insouciantly

breathing each others’ breaths

easing each others’ tensions

squeezing into narrow spaces

Until you sneaked up

tiny spoil sport

hardly visible

even under the microscope

but a giant at

rocking our foundations

You set the view

and every angle

of our world askew

Lopsided now

the windowframes

have become a prison

shutters flapping to and fro

here a peak

there a drop

creakcreakcreak

lube is out

You leave us hanging

on slanted windowsills

looking for freedom

longing for freedom

in fear of freedom