Esther Murbach
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