Live Encounters Poetry & Writing July 2026
Her Dress of Blue Feathers, poem by John W Sexton.
Her Dress of Blue Feathers
In her dress of blue feathers she came to my sleep
In her dress of blue feathers she found me
She shook out my coat of its silver and dust
And promised that she would astound me
She pulled up my shoes by their dry speechless tongues
And bid me to dance in my skin
And together we danced on the ribbons the moon
Sent down for us to step within
She shouted the mountains and shouted the sea
And they blindly jumped into her purse
She shouted the night and she shouted the stars
They surrendered themselves to be hers
In her dress of blue feathers she asked for my heart
And I gave her my heart completely
And she tore it in two and tore it in four
And said nothing but her would defeat me
In her dress of blue feathers she said that she,
That only she could beguile me
She’d beguile me for weeks, beguile me for years
Beguile me forever and ever
And each night of each week and each night of each year
Would be as short and as light as a feather
In her dress of blue feathers she came to my sleep
In her dress of blue feathers she found me
© John W Sexton
John W. Sexton lives on Carn Mór, a mountain on the Kerry side of the Beara peninsula. He identifies with the Aisling poetic tradition and his work spans vision poetry, contemporary fabulism and tangential surrealism. His poetry is widely published and he has been a regular contributor to Live Encounters. He is the author of eight poetry collections, the most recent being Futures Pass (Salmon Poetry 2018), Visions at Templeglantine (Revival Press 2020) and The Nothingness Kit (Beir Bua 2022). In 2007 he was awarded a Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship in Poetry.