LIVESTREAM
The city emptied of another day,
a half-frozen brook that passed by unnoticed.
Twenty-four hours have wandered
lost as wasteland dogs in search of a scent;
in every one a swarm of instants,
syllables of eternal graffiti
scattered in splintered disorder,
each containing an ocean of moments:
unbreakable passwords to a secret
we can never reverse engineer.
THE ROCK POOL
Every little golden fish is a memory
darting in and out of the shadows;
every slimy tentacle that I think I see
waving hypnotically in the depths
is a secret that I’d rather not remember.
While my doubts roll on behind me
like a caravan of fear I hear life drip away
in the still, breathless calm
between one deception and the next.
Bending low to the pain, I’m looking down
on an island far upstream of now
where you and I stand as we were back then,
young and radiant, looking up.
Published in The Belfast Review