James Fitzpatrick Poems

The blackbirds swooped in their customary jealous way, the Robin
Chirped before leaving for another year, and I patted
The well fed brown clay with my muddy boats.
I remember planting her in the spring hush just after the flakes stopped,
...

He sits on the edge of the world
Watching us come
Jotting, then scribbling, then painting, then down
To lie back in his hive and marvel at us
...

Nothing. Just a clear sky on a dulling day. A deserted street with waving flags on painted posts. The regimentation of complete uniformity. The lack of empathy in silent sorrow.

I march to where they are buried in a dark graveyard of black nodding heads, painted with wide staring eyes, and grimacing teeth. I have taken a backward step to move me forward on a sinking bog, squelching, climbing to who knows where.
...

Entombed, by a chronic Phidias,
Chained, by a weakening Kratos,
Plagued, by a ‘Pandorian' Evil,
Comforted, by a Reddening Hermit,
...

Butchered, in the modern Kiln of the obsequious,
Infected, by the septic words
Of a feral Baachus,
Laying, tongue tied by the Ghosts
...

It was a dreamy evening, one which brought the romantic sparse mist which
covers wide wrought iron platforms, like Victorian melodramas.

I was being 'Pollocked' by the puddle making, clothes dappling stuff, which soaks socks, stockings, boots and shoes, sticking the aul drowned ticket collector to their chevron Sunday best. I spied a damp flaking bench and climbed wearily aboard.
...

Queenstown Cobh, Southern Ireland
1: 30p.m.Thursday April 11th 1912

In salubrious Olympus attire,
...

In a dining roomed Mausoleum, above a worn shop
On a slight but steady incline,
I stared at crass Orange frames, corralling
Strange botanical Homilies.
...

Where a stray breeze shakes the shimmer on the sands, you stand alone leg high on a custard coloured Doon. Below you, a gapping greenish mouth chews away another sand bar, gobbling it's gold desert with seaweed dappled teeth. As the east sun meets a constable sky, you bask in the admiration of nature, as the twisting surf washes away the day before. It's a grand life, you suppose.

here you can walk for miles, days, without meeting a single person. You are surrounded in a vast expanse of Sun, lawn and hilltop, all emptied, at your request. As you climb the craggy mounds, seagulls swoop and shrill, swirling around their tiny homes, then sit and watch you stroll on by. To them, you're just another tourist on their island, stranded, lost without your bottle.
...

San Joao

I stand and then lean on a flittering ledge, staring at lanterns as they
Light up the sky, I catch their smiles as they pass through the clouds
...