Live Encounters Poetry & Writing February 2024.
Enough, poems by Tim Dwyer.
Enough
Last Place In This World
As time shrinks, I send
a prayer to my parents
many years dead.
Maybe quaint and cowardly,
but I’m at my best
when I imagine the beyond.
They don’t send back
a sure-fire sign, such as
levitating this book, The Afterlife,
a foot above the bed,
or a couple of seconds to hear
their voices again—
but today, it’s enough to see
their faces in my mind,
the last place in this world
I am greeted as
my boy.
The Afterlife, poetry collection by Larry Levis
(1946-1996), University of Iowa Press, 1977.
Wake Time
The sky lightens, you appear
with coffee in my favourite cup,
open the curtains
and begin the story
about the girl from long ago
on a quest to save the boy
from evil stealing his soul.
The chapter ends, I picture
the next stage of the journey,
gaze across the lough,
pulse of the old lighthouse
winking from the other shore.
Tomorrow is the future
when the story resumes.
© Tim Dwyer
Tim Dwyer’s poems appear regularly in Irish and UK publications, recently in Acumen, Cyphers, Under The Radar and Masculinity Anthology (Broken Sleep). He is a previous contributor to Live Encounters. His chapbook is Smithy Of Our Longings (Lapwing). Originally from Brooklyn, NY, he lives by the shore in Bangor, Northern Ireland.