Bob Shakeshaft – Three Poems

Bob Shakeshaft LE P&W March 2023

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Live Encounters Poetry & Writing March 2023

Three Poems by Bob Shakeshaft.

These Ekphrastic poems were written following my numerous visits to view artwork by Jack Butler Yeats
at the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin.


Grief

Pouring splashing abhorrence
of war
let there be no more
apocalyptic rider
rising aloft
an angry mob
amid aggressive gestures
a beaten old man
bloody-blood
seep-soaking
pouring hands
trembling
a mother
arm-covers her son
protectively protecting
a smallness of hope
that violence
wont dwell
in his life


No flowers today

Slumbering shoulders
knees in veneration
his token of respect
a torn-bunch of grass
strewed a fresh grave
bearing simple cross
of throwaway branch
criss-crossed-tight
embellishing
impoverished he
adorns his love
now
as he trails
into a distance
of sorrows


Old walls

solitary silhouette
old shadow
greying walls
reflecting life
that was before now
inevitable weighty
time patiently waiting
since the beginning
to end the day
a walking cane
helps frame scaffold
his pondering now
revisiting
this abandoned abode
once sang-song
in warm soul-breath
unaware of tempo
in silent allegory
an unsteady gait
tremor-tells


© Bob Shakeshaft

Bob Shakeshaft has been a regular reader on the Dublin open mic scene since 2004. Poems appeared in Riposte Broadsheet 2004/20015/ also Census Anthology 2009/2010. Agamemnon Dead 2014. New Ulster 2016/2017. NY. Lit. Magazine 2016. Live Encounters Poetry & Writing 2016/2021. Bob is a member of the Ardgillan Creative Writers. Bob’s debut collection Auld Rope published by Revival Press June 2021. Presently Bob is working on his second Manuscript: Winged minutes.

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