Live Encounters Poetry & Writing Volume Two November-December 2024
The Lions of Delos, poems by Jean O’Brien.
The Lions at Delos
Long ago I slept beneath the stone feet
of the Lions at Delos. Night was broken
by the noise of cicadas, bats, the tooting
of an unseen owl. The shush of sea
as the tide changed seemed
to make stars ignite the black of sky,
a scimitar of moon sliced the dark.
The blackness of the sea is frightening.
In daylight it sparkles in the sun, now it cloaks everything.
Fathoms down fish and creatures of the deep
go about their business; here on this
floating island I feel a minor peace among
the weathered marble lions
facing a sacred lake.
Now of an age to become an oracle, have I gained
the wisdom or the foresight to guide anyone in what
to do? The huge marble paws are pucked and pitted,
rough under my touch. How little I know.
Night is slipping fast, a hint of horizon shows
like an entrance to another world. There are
no answers. The lions and gods no longer roar
and here, we live as castaways.
Jigsaw
She picks the puzzle pieces
confidently, small finger dexterously
sorting lines and corners and colours.
I lag behind, my brain trying to create
a synapsis between shapes and shade,
trying to see the bigger picture
while her fresh eyes freewheel over
Peppa Pig’s half snout and the smithereened
leaves of trees seperated by sea.
She doesn’t look for a coherent
pattern, doesn’t confine herself
to the lariat of logic. I, with so many
years on my shoulders have fashioned
a Gordian knot for myself
and cannot see the jigsaw in splint-
ered
pieces
in front of me.
Candles
How quickly the extinguished candles multiply.
C.P. Cavafy.
As much to escape the daze of heat
and sit for a few minutes in the cool,
quiet, I entered the Orthodox church
in a small square in Chania’s Old Town.
Inside in amber light two women,
perhaps not much older than me,
sit guard dressed all in black and almost
asleep on hard bench seats.
I palm them some money and one
offers me tapered candles, I light them
like a charm against the dark
and place them upright in a dish of sifted sand.
I think of my recent dead,
news of a friend’s death pinged my phone
as I boarded the plane for Crete,
and an ever open wound, my explorer
young newphew whose face I see
manning the tourist boat in the harbour.
I sit amongst the garish icons, light splint-
ering through mullioned windows
striking gaudy glass chandeliers,
mirroring off the silver gilt and gold statues
and watch as the candles gutter.
How quickly the dark surges in.
© Jean O’Brien
Jean O’Brien is an award winning poet with six collections to her name, her latest being Stars Burn Regardless, (2022 Salmon Publishing). She was poet in residence in the Centre Culturel Irelandais in Paris in 2021. She has won, been places and highly commended in many competitions, coming first in the Arvon International UK and the Fish Internation and amongst others has been Highly commended in the Forward Single poem prize (UK) Twice Highly commended for the Bridport prize (UK) and was awarded a Catherine & Patrick Kavanagh fellowship and various Arts Council awards including a travel and training grant to Texas (USA). Her work has been broadcast and has appeared in many anthologies and in Poems on the Dart (Ireland’s Rapid Rail System). In 2023 her celebrated poem Skinny Dippying was set to music and voice by composer Elaine Agnew and sung by New Dublin Voices at the inagural launch in Trinity College, Dublin. She has collaborated with the artists Dixie Friend Gay (USA) and With Ray Murphy and Irene Uhlemann (Irl). She holds an M. Phil in cw/poetry from Trinity College, Dublin and tutors in same in places as diverse as Prisons, Community Centre, Schools, Travellers Centres, the Irish Writers Centre and at post graduate level.www.jeanobrienpoet.ie