Stephen Denehan's DAYS OF RISING FLESH AND FALLING MOONS: Samples. Blog Tour Oct.14-20
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- Published: Tuesday, 19 May 2020 21:17
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Our Irish poet, Steve Denehan, whose mix of wit and worry is classic, has added ten poems about Covid-19 to his Days of Falling Flesh and Rising Moons. The collection came out on Oct. 14, with a blog tour Oct. 14-20. Here are a couple of samples:
Free Coffee
There are too many hand-wrung poems
too many grief pornographers
too many poems about loneliness
written by the lonely
hunched over pained pages
by lamplight
in search of the cure
there are too many poems crafted
to within half a half-inch
of a merciful death
or a merciless life
poems revised again and again
until whatever meat
has been stripped
and the bones
pared down to pupil-sized points
there are too many poems about nature
the glory of it
the harshness of it
too many poems with words like cicada
and cerulean
putrescible
and primordial
there are too many poems and poets
full stop
too many preeners and posers
too many poems written
just to be written
far, far too many poems read aloud
theatrically laden
with bizARRE inflecTIONS and unnatural pauses
to near empty rooms of dutiful neighbours
enablers and loose-enders
glad of the free coffee
and sense of belonging
there are especially
too many poems about love
breathless, stomach leaping, heart fluttering
moon dancing, sun shimmering, aching, soul shaking, heart breaking
love
regardless
this poem
is for you
Into the Third Week
The only thing outside now
is the virus
dying slowly
the attempt of one virus
to kill another
futile, this time
the antidote was simple in the end
inactivity and isolation
which led to my daughter cutting my hair
into a mohawk
followed by nail polish
I chose purple
lipstick
I chose black
my face was painted
a spider on one cheek
a flower on the other
a red lightning bolt on one temple
blue star on the other
a purple spiral on my forehead
I wear a hoodie emblazoned
with a taco and nacho arguing
"Wanna taco 'bout it?"
"It's nacho business!!"
shorts
and Aquaman boot-slippers
from morning ‘til night
these are bad days
Black and White
I wonder if some babies are easier to give away
my mother let me go, her only son
to be replaced, one year later
with a daughter, the first of three
my father built a wall of distance between us
escaping, finally, to Canada
I remained his only child
cities flowered and wilted
men laughed in smoky evenings and talked of politics
women pressed melons with their thumbs to test for ripeness
and suddenly
I was 42 years-old and sometimes, feeling it
I learned of his death, my father
found, eventually, alone
his days of playing tennis, heady sing-song nights
giving away sons, over
life leaned toward me then
his brother, he who held me in his hand once
when I was new, came to see me
bringing my father with him in monochrome
in two dimensions
a life in faded photographs
my father, a baby too once, before he was a boy
standing, in strange formality, at the beach
water behind him that had seen it all before
I watched him stretch to a height I never reached
tall and lean, eager to test himself against it all
I saw age find and change him and wondered if he railed against it
I saw him grow older than myself and saw serious, stoic eyes look at me
look right at me and though I tried to reach inside those photographs
there was nothing of him left
then, a small box was placed in my hand and I was told
that I should have it
as it was all that he had left of me, an engagement ring
meant for my mother
it occurred to me that I was touching something that once, his hands had touched
across oceans and time and life and death, this was the closest we could ever be
I opened the small box and was shocked by the vibrant yellow gold and thrumming diamond
I was sure that it would have been black and white