Padhraig Nolan's Blog

It's all a bit of a blur!

Holy Moly but it's busy at the mo! Too busy to post with any regularity, I'm afraid. Too busy to attend the launch of Seamus Cashmans's new collection new collection 'That Morning Will Come: New & Selected Poems' in Dublin last night. Dammit!

I'd hoped to have a review of the new issues of Poetry Ireland Review and The Stinging Fly up here by now - but haven't even given them a proper read yet. Soon - hopefully.

Meantime - the one bit of writing I have been doing is taking part in the Poem-a-day challenge over on the Poetry Ireland forums. Not my usual modus operandi. Apart from anything, it's a bummer to know that most journals proably won't even consider this work as its already in the public domain. And fast poems aren't always good poems, of course. But one has to face down one's preconceptions sometimes and it's keeping me thinking and writing during a period of otherwise hectic bread-and-butter rationality, so I guess that's a good thing! Here's one of my poems from the challenge - you can check the rest out here.


The Golden City

Graffiti cliches gild my entrance,
Gliding into town on public transport.
Flayed plastic, nesting in the trees
Revealed by decimation of their leaves.

The pewter pavements of the fall
Skirt the railings of the green
Time to turn the clocks back,
While a fine black mare

Pulls her fare out from the kerb.
Cars tick and halt, giving way.
Teenage lovers bullet each other
Under the gateway arch of fusiliers.

Upstairs, on the mezzanine
An isolated wasp is defeated
By the glazing. A gust medals the air
With copper, bronze and brass.

© PJ Nolan November 2007