Terry McDonagh – Conversation over Coffee

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Live Encounters Poetry & Writing July 2025

Conversation over Coffee, poems by Terry Mcdonagh.

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Conversation over Coffee

Why are we sitting here discussing dystopia
and things we know little about

when we could be chanting football hymns
or toasting a couple walking out of a lavender wood

as a church bell calls to prayer – or with
finger on chin, we could be dreaming of fireflies

and a gaggle of geese taking charge of crossroads.
A figure in black and two policemen might turn up too,

and when the fireflies have had enough of blue and cackle,
they will buzz off to light up hedgerows before sunrise

and then, in comical undertones, you rattles on about
a relative who borrowed a hearse to transport a ladder

with a strip of red lingerie hooked to the end poking out.
Flat out he was. Foot to the floor – full tilt

exhaust fumes pluming to the skyline and all for
a wilting wife and roof-tiles in tatters. It was urgent.

But if his spouse took a bad turn and mayhem
broke out on rooftops, he’d be lost

having to fight a periodic fit of peeve while
settling for a pizza and Stella as stopgaps.

Relationships can be tricky if literature is to be trusted.
You say the fat lady sings this side of the far horizon

but what if her song is nothing more than a moody moment
in coffee breaks? The same again with nice spice please.

And above all else, let’s stay put and palavering
with coffee and cake in convivial conversation.

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Not from Here

They arrive from god knows where,
some bombed out of babyhood,
others on the run from hunger
and crumbling dreams.
To beat the foreign out of them
we call them non-nationals,
tribe-less-ones who come to us
with odd names and languages
but they learn so quickly
we almost forget they are not native.
They don’t forget
but they don’t tell us.
Some of them are brighter
than our own.
a teacher told a mother.

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I Am

I am the child in the adult that meanders.
I am the singer serenading in sunlight.
I am the cheerful rover by a great river.
I am the believer on a dream team.
I am the outsider taking to the hills.
I am the bicycle transporting the teacher.
I am the drover driving cattle to high ground.
I am the puzzled beast walking to its doom.
I am the donkey pulling above its weight.
I am the drifter drifting to and from the altar.
I am the teenager in and out of love.
I am the trader who wronged and was wronged.
I am the snake in the long grass.
I am the golden apple of the far-away moon.
I am the one who writes to make things right.
I am the Púca at the foot of a blackthorn.
I am the touched child that couldn’t be satisfied.
I am the one who turns his back on the light.
I am the trickster ducking about under cover.
I am the falling star lighting up a legend.
I am hope trying to stretch a single breath.
I am all things in hedgerows and in shadows.
I am Adam and Eve in an orchard.
I am wrong itself when I thought wrong was right.
I am in the dark – occasionally glimpsing the light.
I am a mystery but I am not divine.
I am.

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An Ode to a Puma

Carty had always liked cars
and as he stood under an umbrella
in the corner of the carpark
next to a hangdog Ford Puma
with the rain dumbing-down,
he wondered about Ford schemers
that had the gall to imagine
this offensive object moving
with the grace and precision of a puma.
It was too late to change misdeeds.
This thing was no showpiece
in a valley of precious metals,
more like a sepulchre, mausoleum,
henhouse or makeshift coffin
that would see its owner out,
only then to be scrapped, squashed,
folded and flattened with
writhing bits dumped in a ditch
and with some parts remodelled
as cutting-edge creatures.

No moral intended but – as ever
Cartty would be talking cars
and quizzing his wife at teatime
on how, in the name of ancients,
this ailing object could be a puma
when anteater would be adequate.
His wife wondered about weapons.

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© Terry McDonagh

Terry McDonagh, poet and dramatist, has worked in Europe, Asia and Australia. He’s taught creative writing at Hamburg University and was Drama Director at Hamburg International School. Published fifteen poetry collections, as well as letters, drama, prose and poetry for young people. In March 2022, he was poet in residence and Grand Marshal as part of the Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations in Brussels. His work has been translated into German, Indonesian and Arabic. His poem, ‘UCG by Degrees’ is included in the Galway Poetry Trail on Galway University campus. He’s been a voice and narrator on several RTE radio dramas (All Points West production) for young people. In 2020, Two Notes for Home – a two-part radio documentary, compiled and presented by Werner Lewon, on The Life and Work of Terry McDonagh, The Modern Bard of Cill Aodáin. His latest poetry collections: A) An eBook ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Not Dead’ – Live Encounters Publishing. B) ‘I Write Because’ – Calendar Road Press. After more than thirty years in Hamburg, he returned to live in County Mayo in 2019.