An Irish Love Poem

Portrait of James Joyce by Liam O’Neill (b.1954)

Dallying in the evening wild, studded with barbed wire,
My mind takes a turn for the worse.
Oak trees help me flee to the world I need
My mind is soaking up this new year’s eve
Your slow gaze onto this solitary page
Releases the frame of my bondage to the world
Now only the mind can release the tension of the moment
My imagination leaps, frees my broken body,
into the dream of transmission.

The beautiful saviour, music, dissolves the hidden addiction
to the poetry of Piers Ploughman, John Clare
Words that understood accent, tone, the importance of home
Groping line by line, I move towards their gloom
I live in a place where a vaccine promises much,
A flashlight upon this dark night’s book,
Fog descends on this melancholy Jew in the mountains,
As I compose beautiful feminine words
We will resist the lies of the barbarians
humans create their own destinies,
The darkness is lifted by the miracle of life
We resist the siege, instinctively,
My landscape is the light of the moon,
Dreams rustle, new year snorts up the alarm clock,
Nothing is as nothing seems
I’’ll drink until I’m sober
I’m a rover who settled on my Irish love
I cannot live without her now.