PATRICK MORAN

Patrick Moran was born in Templetuohy, County Tipperary, where he still lives. He works as a post-primary teacher.
He has won the Gerard Manley Hopkins Poetry Prize; he has also been a winner at Listowel Writers’ Week and the 2008 Éist Poetry Competition. In 1990, he was shortlisted for the Hennessy/Sunday Tribune Poetry Award.
His poems have appeared widely in the major Irish outlets: Poetry Ireland Review, The Irish Times, Cyphers, The Honest Ulsterman, Cork Literary Review, THE SHOp, Irish Pages and The Stinging Fly. His work is featured in anthologies, including the inaugural Forward Book of Poetry (UK), The Stony Thursday Book and The Best of Irish Poetry 2007.
Patrick Moran has published two collections of poetry: The Stubble Fields (Dedalus Press 2001) and Green (Salmon Poetry 2008).
Interiors, with Emigrant Irish
Camden, Kilburn, Cricklewood…
Once, many pubs; now, few:
a mouth of gapped teeth.
Evenings, I shuffle here,
and sit in drifting smoke,
amid froth-ringed glasses;
listening to men bursting
into drunken singing:
Far away from the land
of the shamrock and heather,
in search of a living
as exiles we roam.
While the notes rise and fall,
I start unravelling,
all my ties are shaken…
Closing time. Darkening
interiors. The old cry:
Have ye no homes to go to?
Outside, shops shut. Shuttered.
Rumbling, fuming traffic.
Round corners, wind pouncing.
Turning the key, I grope
for the bare mattress, the last
uplifting, numbing swig.
*
So what have I become?
Look at this place. No heat.
No water. Shadows, dust.
My bed, that sagging couch.
One bare, broken window.
Rows of empty beer cans.
Oh, I’ve had time enough
to mull over the ifs
and buts. Yet it’s too late
to seek shape or outlet
for my downward drift.
And what is left to me?
Memories as worn as
this lino, persistent
as the rats scratching
in the dark…Going back
down the streets of Camden,
Kilburn and Cricklewood.
Recalling home. Sowing.
June meadows. Blighted spuds.
The bells of Angelus.
*
So there we are, fresh
off the boat from Ireland
in our Sunday-best: suit,
tie, shirt spotlessly white,
full heads of hair oiled back,
our shoes a sober black;
mumbling the names – Camden,
Kilburn and Cricklewood –
as if in litany…
After a day shovelling,
digging, hod-carrying,
to step out of the van
hungry, tired, maybe wet;
and straight into the pub.
A fire, familiar
accents and flows of booze,
eyes brightening with laughter.
The rows of gleaming teeth.
To set out again
for the dancehall’s throb and hum.
Neon lights flashing; beckoning
towards a dream-haze of girls.
Life pulsing through us, without
shadow or hangover.
©2010 Patrick Moran
Author Links
Green (including poem & review) on the Salmon Publishing website
Video of Moran reading at the White House, Limerick
Moran poem in Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review
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