The Seekers

(i.m Andrew)



Now we are tracking the cliffs,
Men at the drop, women further in
scattered widely, but bound by the silken cord
of him

There is his brother, deranged and staggering, alone
No-one dares go near, for fear of edges
A tiny cove, some tracks, shoes and clothes neatly stacked

The divers move east and west, into the depths, crevices
beaches are combed
Some walk with sticks, and in pairs,
murmuring

The air, chill and unmoving, ghostlike against our faces
sweep of dune grasses, crunch of footsteps, a few words
launched on the breeze

Some hours, days, pass and there is a gathering at the beach,
where the father speaks, gently, grateful
the weight of emotion, too dense to lift alone

Not like the weight, finally found,
unbound now, floating, free


Published in the SHOp

Eavesdropping in a Galway pub

Were you ever in love?
asked the Welshman
of a brooding Connemara man
with a spike pierced
into his lower lip
I love you
he replied, leaping off
the bar stool
and seizing him
by the shoulders.

Netting the Weather

Darkened days of it
landed clouds of it
marching on in

out on the ocean, surfers
topple with the white water foam
of it

sand is pitted with rivulets,
pulverised by it

long rain strings
unwind
with the steady drip of it

I heave into the net of it
string words together with it

the weft and the weave
of a week of wet.


Afric McGlinchey