Live Encounters Poetry & Writing April 2025
Conundrum, poems by Terry McDonagh.
Conundrum
Poems won’t protect us
from the inevitable
when we only want to write
about the inevitable
and
crosswords won’t protect us
from the puzzle of love
when we only want to talk
about the puzzle of love.
An Old Bicycle Longs for a Battery
Even a bicycle becomes a creaky thing in old age,
a kind of laughing stock to be tinkered with
by an old geezer who can’t remember things being new.
His bike longs for a battery – it has seen shiny sorts
floating up foothills – but it doesn’t know
you can’t fit an engine to an ageing model – like trying
to outfit a billy goat with football boots on a catwalk.
Some senile sapiens might slacken but this old codger
moves with the times: he’s got a hi-vis hoodie,
a plastic knee, a hearing aid, a saddle cover for his beam end.
He’s got a pacemaker – a track record too and a bike that
stares at him in continued silence while he oils and fiddles
with rusting wrenches like the devil’s handyman – and
to top it off he’s got a helmet and lifetime membership.
Foreign ladies used to line up but that was years ago.
Yes, years ago, prior to memory becoming a burden.
Hills had never been an issue – his bike could strut
like a media model in those giddy, gale-force days
before gears, arthritis and dysfunction. Bells ring.
They sing out in colour and bikes churn out dreams
while rain, seasons and rust hang about in waiting.
An end will come when an end will come
and the earth, sun, moon and stars
will continue to align and rotate without batteries.
Who am I in a Suit?
Whither I come from and who I am I really don’t know.
There were gods involved I‘m told but can they be trusted?
They start wars, create hells – inhabit a gloomy beyond
and make their paradise a pipe dream.
When seriously alone and sauntering
I fry in my own fat and undress without fuss
but I will always try to step out sparkling and
tailor-made in my confused quest for top-table affection.
Needs must is the catch cry when hoping
for a candle-light-dinner-gong-call-to-order.
Some suits are so snazzy they engulf and swallow
and others, dainty as ballet feet, burst at the seams
and make us the laughing stock of hedgerows and suburban swank.
If I became part thoroughbred, I’d be spruced up and suited
to jump fences until ripe for a stint of stud work,
later to be butchered, roasted, carved and consumed
by thinkers or ones wishing to know more in France and elsewhere
and all proper in suits and smiles to keep others and selves at a distance.
© 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.