Anne-Marie Glasheen

poetry in English (selection)

Are you happy (for Chloë)

she leaves pebbles in shells
for the birds she declares

and tells me put Granddad
on your shopping list

she plays her harmonica
and the shopkeeper two again dances

my skin’s brown she says proud
yours
is white
like Mummy’s

what her imaginary friend
Pastamonium’s is – I don’t know

In our games we are bears
who leave our porridge
unattended

mermaids and princesses in party dresses
creatures with purple prickles
and rolling eyes who
prowl the landscapes of our
imagination

we are pixies and piskies
and count the poxies behind our earsies
and travel our lands in cardboard boxes

every season is explored
  leaves scrunched
  snow crunched
  puddles slushed
  the sun screened out

she joys in the mirror at
the sight of herself

she takes my hand asks
  are you happy

– how could I not be –

then
wild and carefree
we two children
step out
  to dance
  through stars

(in Lines in the Sand, Bradshaw Poets 2008

Frogs

one frog
swam in my pond
last summer

two frogs
swam in my dreams
last night

and in my bed
the flower sucked honey
from the bee

(first published in Equinox, March issue, 2004 in Lines in the Sand, Bradshaw Poets 2008)

Lines in the sand

 

i.m. R. J. Glasheen

there was the day
we took the ferry across the bay
you your daughters and me

you laugh and run from the camera
one buries her feet then legs in the sand
the other watches the grains flowing from her small fist
being caught by the wind and scattered
I draw lines in the wet sand

we have our picnic
lie among the reeds that tickle the unbroken blue
each lost in his or her own world

then the chasing games in and
around the rocks
in and out of the sea waves snapping
at our heels
erasing freshly made footprints

and the lines in the sand

(title poem of Lines in the Sand, Bradshaw Poets 2008)

winter woman

winter woman
stirs
slowly

lifts
heavy
eyelids and

peers out
from under her white hood

she watches as morning’s
footprints on the carpet
quietly fade

content
she bides her time

(first published in Labour of Love 2011)

gladioli

smack bang in the centre of
the tablegladioli
spike the air

tongues lips mouths
whisper speak shout
remember me
remember her…

…five years old she stands
in the gloomy hall
clutching the offering
of red spears as tall as her

oblivious
grandmother and great-aunt
exchange gossip
in a different stratosphere

the child shifts
left shifts
right
as the women
chatter chatter

eventually set in a
crystal vase on the dark
oak sideboard the flowers
like so many sentinels
usher women and child
towards the smell of coffee and cakes
and the man with the empty sleeve
pinned across his chest

(first published in South 41 April 2010)

Hair

 

for Sandra

hair was always an issue she said
I don’t know why
she didn’t explain
but I would gladly exchange
her wild silver-dust dreads
for my tame mouse stubble
and what wouldn’t I give
for her warm burnished skin
rather than the chalk wrap
that encloses me

we walked scattering the
autumn leaves with our thoughts
our memory-laden shadows
one colour

(first published in Cork Literary Review 2007 in Lines in the Sand, Bradshaw Poets 2008)