Live Encounters Poetry & Writing Volume One November-December 2024
These are the days of the Brewer’s Sparrow, poems by Sinéad McClure.
These are the days of the Brewer’s Sparrow
Flit, and peck, poke and prod,
the day disturbs my lidded eyes.
Sagebrush in summer. Desert in winter.
Weeks without water
my unremarkable shape a lean shadow
in the dark outline of a quickened wind.
How Mojave creeps into my salt bones
leaves its parched seal on my heart.
I am almost invisible.
An inconspicuous bird
blended into ragged earth.
When the wind shifts I crave to hear the long trill of my lover
gasping, unrelenting,
as if a thousand chimes dangle
from a thousand Joshua trees.
Greenfinch
I have the disease it spread through my family almost unseen
I appear robust, my large head, host of brains
What is melancholia?
Is it that feeling you get when you hear the other birds cantillate?
Slow, solo, piano of the forest, trees turn branches inwards, hug themselves.
When my great uncle was at the asylum
They tried to stop him whistling.
What is mania?
Is it seeing grape-hyacinth stiffen with frost
And not hearing any bird at all?
When they stopped him whistling,
He began to chirp.
Mania from grief turns loved ones into butterflies
Or robins or white feathers descending?
Hereditary
Unknown
Sunstroke
Poverty
Religion
Grief
Alcohol
Congenital
Hurt
I wait in the hedgerow for the cutting machines.
Autumn Father
I remember the Autumn Father
through black and white photos of my sisters
turning harvested potatoes on the loamy soil of the far backs.
Fields that ran for what seemed like weeks down Killiney hill to the sea.
I wasn’t in that autumn, father, I was in yours.
The father with the walking stick schoolboys called granddad.
They didn’t know that stick was also a staff
that traced the shape of Cassiopeia on warm, dark nights.
They didn’t know that stick was also a baton
that conjured Tchaikovsky in the living room.
They didn’t know that stick was a wand
that cast spells on schoolboys, turned them into potatoes,
soil filled heads rolling down the far backs.
© Sinéad McClure
Sinéad McClure’s writing is published on radio, in anthologies, in magazines and online including; HIVE, The Long Poem Journal, The Honest Ulsterman, The Cormorant Broadsheet, The Stinging Fly, Southword, Live Encounters and many other fine publications. She was recipient of the Roscommon Bursary Award for her first solo chapbook The Word According to Crow. She was shortlisted in the 2024 Fish Poetry Prize and Highly Commended in the 2024 Patrick Kavanagh Award. www.sineadmcclure.com