The Wireless Station, Derrigimlagh
The week the Russians razed Ukraine
on radio, I sat quietly
reading about Ireland and America.
Auden came to mind, bare honesty,
but Kyiv, disfigured and defaced,
looked like Derrigimlagh
just loose bricks, desertedness.
The tense staccato of messages
curved to ships in mid-Atlantic,
bad news sailing east to west.
Ben Keatinge won the Patrick Kavanagh Award 2022 for The Wireless Station. An alumnus of the School of English, TCD, he is currently teaching Irish-American poetry there.
I’ll Pass
No thanks. Not me. I don’t believe I shall.
The time isn’t ripe, not just now, when
there’s Japanese to learn and the piccolo
to play, and each dot to mull over
in the paintings of Seurat. I don’t like
funerals; too often they’re grim. Who
wants to be buried in tandem with worms?
Since life’s such a joy, all I want is more.
I’m not that old. My mind is frisky.
I lift weights, I do yoga and dying’s not
pretty – good God! – it might hurt, so
the bottom line reads: I refuse to do it.
Not now. Not ever. No way. I won’t.
Ivy Bannister has published collections of stories and poems, and a memoir. Awards include the Hennessy and the Francis MacManus.
The week the Russians razed Ukraine
on radio, I sat quietly
reading about Ireland and America.
Auden came to mind, bare honesty,
but Kyiv, disfigured and defaced,
looked like Derrigimlagh
just loose bricks, desertedness.
The tense staccato of messages
curved to ships in mid-Atlantic,
bad news sailing east to west.
Ben Keatinge won the Patrick Kavanagh Award 2022 for The Wireless Station. An alumnus of the School of English, TCD, he is currently teaching Irish-American poetry there.
I’ll Pass
No thanks. Not me. I don’t believe I shall.
The time isn’t ripe, not just now, when
there’s Japanese to learn and the piccolo
to play, and each dot to mull over
in the paintings of Seurat. I don’t like
funerals; too often they’re grim. Who
wants to be buried in tandem with worms?
Since life’s such a joy, all I want is more.
I’m not that old. My mind is frisky.
I lift weights, I do yoga and dying’s not
pretty – good God! – it might hurt, so
the bottom line reads: I refuse to do it.
Not now. Not ever. No way. I won’t.
Ivy Bannister has published collections of stories and poems, and a memoir. Awards include the Hennessy and the Francis MacManus.
