Live Encounters Poetry & Writing January 2025
Dream Vision – Year of the Dragon, poems by Jean O’Brien.
Dream Vision – Year of the Dragon
for BBA
Beware the sky dragons, they eat the sun.
The walls of white are actually clouds
and the door hook is the tip of the fading
sickle moon. With reticence I am slowly
waking, caught in that liminal space be-
tween the seeming reality of dreams
and the woke world. My dream has no timeline
I am no age, I view the world from far
behind my face an unfettered being.
I am all eyes, slowly the soft rush
of the running shower fades the roar
of the sacred Alph river and the sweet
sound of the dulcimer is replaced
by the indecipherable droning
of a radio in the next room and
the ping of my phone on the bedside table.
I stretch my legs, grow back into my toes,
feel the skeleton of my spine unravelling,
my mouth filled with the hum of tongue
and teeth again. I am back, the sun
is struggling from the dragon’s mouth,
his stinking breath all red, gold and umber
dancing before him. The sun has snagged
on his teeth, a spill of light a dart of blue,
the horizon snaps
I am untethered again
floating on white sheets
like ice floes in a sunless sea.
Mandible
For Maisie Jean
That first tooth started pushing
through raw gums when you
were merely months old.
You viewed the new world around you
seeking clues, for this your second pain.
The first that tortuous route
from your mother Sarah’s womb, into hostile air
and now just as you get comfortable,
feel the world relent;
Your mouth starts to ache, your tongue
makes itself known, one entity you can control,
it scrapes across the burning node
that with each day seems to rise higher from
your gum, or mandible, if you knew of such
things. Eventually the torment eases
you no longer contort in pain,
you smile in relief, showing your single tooth,
and the whole world smiles back again.
Carillion
I hear nearby church bells chime the hour,
cannot help but pause and count, the peals vibrating
the still air of the courtyard unravelling. They finish calling.
I settle back to my work, pick up my pen, make marks
again between collapsing lines, try to write my mind.
Suddenly the tolling starts anew;
Loud, insistent, going clapper and gong, demanding
attention, carolling out with a wild tongue, the clamour
changes, tightens, deepens — seems to strike a warning note.
A clank, a clatter, bellow, blare, blast – all bell clear.
the hollow cup warning of Milton’s pandemonium.
We recall our Latin; bellicose, belligerent, a call to war,
hiding in plain sight. The bells, Poe’s brazen bells.
© 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