It wobbles now. A new wobble. Undisguisable. Over 50, something in the glovebox vibrates. Discomfortable frequency. Or maybe the world is wobbling, not the car? I must try harder to never become emotionally invested in mechanical things. Must try harder. The NCT (National Car Test) Centre is on the East side of the city. It…
From up on Garraun you can see out along Renvyle peninsula. Glasilaun, Lettergesh, Mullaghloss, and Tullycross somewhere hidden. Names known since I’ve known names. Distilled summers of wave on wave, collapsing in rushes, scrambling down grassy slopes. The sea so broad and wide below you can’t take it all in. Or in the other direction,…
I’m hunched down under a little umbrella, my back against a rock face on the mountainside, and through drumming hail sunlight beams from under a turreted and tendrilled bank of Atlantic cloud. Cold. Fresh. Soft. The loft-frozen pellets hop and bounce down the rock face. Pile into little lines and bumps and begin to whiten…
Winter still on duty: Drops dusk early Provokes depressions to jostle over the Atlantic And this one brings fierce hail, Stinging along the coast I run For poor shelter under wavebashed rock Scattering sea birds Into jolted gale-hung grace And me, jolted but clumsy, staring at waves, Intruding. Beach and coast at Furbo, January 2018.
It’s early January, and 2018 is still shiny and new and cold, and I pull in 5 miles from Clifden to get a photo of some mounds of gravel that have been piled up by the N59. I’m hoping to get something that is Connemara but not cliché, something that I can’t visualise, something I’m…
Suddenly Sam found himself sitting at the next table to Sam. To be more clear, Sam McKenna suddenly realised that he was sitting at a table next to a table where Sam McKenna sat. To be clearer still, here we had Sam McKenna, one of Mallow & Hanly’s least known accounts technicians, picking a seat…
701-9 Test 3028. 2017-12-15. 16:22. Click. swing. Light up. Foodbody? Grabbody. Grabbody smell. Grab grab. Grab grab go. Up up. Smell loud. Body loud. Away away. Over. Grab grab. Down. Ear loud. Down. Splash splash. Grab go. Grabbody smell. Swim swim. Swim swim. Light loud. Sound sound. Swim swim. Whir. No panic no panic. Swim…
The last ‘proper’ snow here was back in 2010/2011, when things got real cold, as low as -15, and pipes were splitting up and down the country. In Ireland we basically call society off when it goes below -5. Most of us have never seen a snow plough, or snow shoes, or know what snow…
Gusto was only back for the weekend. I met him on Friday afternoon and again in a pub on Saturday. It was December and there was a cold snap, with snow on the hills and scattered along the edges of roads. People marvelled about how one field was pure white and the next one wasn’t.…
Born willing, fire inside, Voice wailing “I’m alive” Torn silence, punctured peace Time feeling ill at ease Bruised knuckles, bloody knees Some learning never heals Pied pipers peddle lies Plastic halos, hiding eyes Born willing, every morn More able, more torn You count up, or count down Same story, different town Warm bodies, colder parts…
I compiled a small gallery of stills from the 1953 Yasujirō Ozu film, Tokyo Story. I simply took screenshots when the camera stayed put on some detail or setting, free from dialogue. These shots are simply but beautifully framed and together would not be out of place as a photobook or exhibition. The cinematography of…
In the winter of the will where we have parked, There are new words dealing in the dark, Out you go – all you know. In the time spun off the clock where we are sinking, There are distant pretty eyes and now they’re winking, From the shore – out you go. There are cardboard…
The Promotion Interview room 341 is very small and dark, like a segment cut from a corridor. Harry notices the odd ratio of wall to door to window as he automatically moves towards the one empty chair. An inspector sits opposite behind a small desk, staring down at a screen. He’s thin, suited, with short…
The Dark Half. If you were to cut a year down the middle, right through the belly, it would make sense (in the northern hemisphere at least), to choose the time of Halloween. This is when Daylight Savings Time is cut from the clocks and autumn cedes to winter. It’s a transition from light to…
BadReview: Crime and Punishment, play, Druid Theatre Galway, October 2017. It’s one of those books that you might happen to namedrop the odd time. “It’s a bit Dostoyevskian, isn’t it?” Doss Toyevskian? “A bit Crime and Punishment perhaps?” Phshsh! It’s a video of a beagle opening a fridge. What are you on about? [low, meaningful…
Dull, damp, October. A pheasant in the middle of the road. I always have the wrong lens, and he flies off before I can find another. The road ends, a track begins. Fading signposts point out the Western Way. A gaggle of houses perched over the Corrib. Honeysuckle. Leaves on the ground turning to sodden…
Is it here yet? We are plugged into radio, tv, boards.ie, facebook, twitter. RED warning. refresh, refresh, refresh. Cork’s getting a hammering. 169 km/h way down at Fastnet Rock. Waterford. Tipperary. The eye is tracking up the west coast. Is this it? Now? Lough Corrib is churning. It’s raining full pelt. Up in the high…
September. Wave stripping wind. A drive back to Cleggan. Missed the early ferry. Was stuck behind buses thought about overtaking, but nope, pulled the plug on aiming for the early ferry and had coffee in Clifden. Made ferry 2. Bang, bang, bang into the waves once it left the harbour.
Us & Then (Exabyte) Billows of dust Thickened and dry Colour of rust Blotting the sky Comments flicker in the fallen night (A trillion stars in a trillion galaxies) Flickering, bickering, faraway old light of 1000000000000000000000000 stars Go on, get a good kick in now, and Feel the rush of a boot point scored A…
Windmills on the hills slowly rotate in the August breeze. John Sullivan, eighty-plus, with a healthy shock of hair, hops onto the stuttering old Massey Ferguson, his back injured and twisted from years of hard work on the land. But he is still nimble, like the tractor; chipped and scraped, scarred and weathered, but with…