¿Te gustan las mujeres? ¿Y la literatura? ¿E Irlanda? Pues entonces no te pierdas la velada poética que ha organizado el Máster em Lingüística y Literatura Inglesas del Dpto. de Filologías Inglesa y Alemana bajo el título
quienes leerán sus poemas y hablarán precisamente de eso: de mujeres, de literatura y de Irlanda.
: Aula García Lorca, Fac. de Filosofía y Letras, UGR
: Viernes, 8 de noviembre 2013, 12:00-14:o0 h.
Liz O'Donoghue
Suspended Animation (Listen!)
There may as well
be a galaxy between us
you on some remote star
and me adrift.
Solitary
contemplating a screen
through swirls of cosmic dust
until my eyes water.
I follow the beam between moons
nausea’s got my appetite
weightlessness
makes me wane.
Splendid visions
of your mountainous landscape
flash intermittently
until I am shocked
out of senselessness
by the sharpening cold …
this interminable space
is cold, silent and cold
the dogs and bears are silent
silence between the sheets
silence between my lips
silence in vast swathes
of emptiness
vast interminable silence.
Where are you?
Skysign with the tail of a comet.
Rearrange the stars as an arrow.
Bounce a signal off Saturn.
Time floats like a mist
and I’m suspended within …
its eerie faint groan
excising another hour from our lives
days and nights
drag each other from their beds
fighting for the last shred of light.
The screen is dead
this craft won’t spark
the outer casing is dented
the log has run out of days.
The space between us
is only physical
my hand
even now
is in yours.
Silence is replaced
with the quietness
of skin on skin.
Dear V
Returned ravenous … an avocado had baked all week in the fridge. In the dark, on
the patio, with my nine shrubs looking on, I ate it sweetened with vinegar. I could
smell the fuschia and the soft white flesh of the fruit, remembered the same red purple
of it, the same deep green of it, the white of your shoulders … I ate the avocado
before it went black, before the ulcer came back … nine muses looked on, the stars
against the wall of this narrow inlet of sky watched on in the hallucinating light of
pre-dawn, the fuschia scarlet as any dawn. White avocado thighs, green avocado
eyes, I was a peach … paling as the stars paled with the light, impaled on the serous
spikes of the moon. The avocado is eaten. The stars are under blankets …
Moonlit Night in Dunquin (Listen!)
after all day in Krugers
The brimming ocean
the silver sea
a dark man lying
on the horizon
a white woman
on his thigh
a beautiful
white skinned woman.
Looking south
towards Iveragh
the seer beside me
mapped those nights
of ecstasy
by the stars
‘the sea
their silken sheet
a soft climax
at the shore
whorls of
sea-green loving
the motion of
the restless woman
the endless motion
of the restless woman
Lovesong of Bethalize (Listen!)
My sins are huge
toothed ones
committed from
spire to spire
from Pine Street
to Cathedral Row
roaring love
between the domes
and crosses
clawing at a metal door.
My wails are whipped
by an ill-natured wind
through the gutters
of the soul
and I mewl
like a poet
ignored.
What have I learned?
I have learned
how painful it is
impaled on the
punishing
spires of a cathedral
that down below
the prowling streets
can name my sins
that there is little
to redeem now
there is nothing
behind that metal door.
Through the coolness
of the stone corridor
reading ogham
into our trite conversation
into the quad
and sunshine
and bodies making ogham
lines along the path
until our conversation
turns to stone.
Making a meal
of dining out with you
flashing your plastic
in my face and
stammering in my ear –
how could you accuse me
of playing with your heart
as you stuffed your face.
‘Arts as a faculty’ you said
‘is way down the line’
so I took to reading stones
in the stillness
and compared your mind
to a corridor.
From gothic windows
I saw magic in the mist
hanging over the quad
and felt the druidic splendour
of those stones.
Gerry Murphy
Under the Dog Star
Imminent synchronicity wakes me.
I open my eyes as the digital clock
displays 3.33.33. a.m
Beyond the windo
a gleaming curve holds up
the dark weight of the moon.
Further out fierce starlight
glitters through from 1347,
Even the dogs are silent -
shot, knifed, and bludgeoned into silence.
Thinking of you,
I begin to imagine you
slipping out of the satin hush
of your underwear
into the chafing din of my arms.
Trouble is, you are probably awake also,
busy in the sealed-off archives of memory
shredding this fiction.
Finally I admit to myself
that you will not call
and apart from burning offerings
next to the silent telephone,
apart from racking the postman
until he snaps and coughs up
all those letters you insist you sent,
I can do nothing.
So, I sit in the gloom
unravelling steadily,
the gleam of a demented smile
growing brighter and brighter
as I disassemble the rose-
shelovedmeshelovedmenotshelovedmeshelovedmenotshelovedmeshe-
reassemble the machine-pistol.
This is where I peel your name
from that much battered, much travelled suitcase-
the heart.
Where I dissolve whole reels of memories
which played and played
in that obsessive, all-hours cinema-
the head.
This is where
I switch off the individually-lit photographs
and burn down the dreary warehouse of regret.
Where I walk out
into the sweet empty air
into the desert of myself.
Reductionist Love Poem
Never again
your lovely face in mine
as I wake blah, blah, bah.
Never again
my arms around you
as I sleep etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Never again
those long involved conversations
after midnight
but then, never before.
'Water Myth'
"Whatever inspires,"
you call from the shower
the water stunned into droplets
on your suddenly delicious skin
"Well," I reply,
from the airport
twenty-seven years later
"even with arms,
in your presence
the Venus de Milo
would be queuing
to be kissed."
Further Out
I can't tell you
where this is happening
I know it's a dream
becuse the left bank of the Siene
has just appeared directly opposite
the right bank of the Lee.
I know it's daylight
that silver-grey, residual glow
from some imploding star
shining in your glossy black hair.
I know it's you
because there is not one
even remotely as beautiful
on the stony inner planets
as I know you have been kissing me
for over a minute
because I have just woken up
gasping for breath.
