Roisín Browne – Last View

Profile Roisin Browne LE Poetry & Writing May 2018

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Last View, poems by Roisín Browne

Roisín Browne lives in Rush, Co Dublin and has been published in several publications including A New Ulster, The Galway Review, Flare, Mgversion2, The Stony Thursday Book, The Gladstone Readings and Echoes from the Castle Anthology. She was shortlisted for her poetry in the Over the Edge New Irish Writer of the Year in 2017, and was also awarded third prize in the Jonathan Swift Awards in the same year. She recently was commended in the Gregory O’Donoghue awards in 2018 and is a member of Poets Abroad, an online collaborative poetry gathering which is truly international in composition. Their recent chapbook, something we were supposed to do, shortlisted in the Locked Horns inaugural chapbook competition.


Wexford Fields

We climb the stile,
he doesn’t speak
his stoic frame ahead of me

he turns to see, smiles
warm as summer honey
crease his wide worn face,
I catch the scent of Major

the evening air kisses
my flushed features,
a couple of sneaky stouts
sing in my soul,

we take uneven steps
side by side, swishing
through night grass
our legs in easy rhythm

Star drops light the mossy path
home, dew will soon be settling.


Last View, 1978

He is upright in his metal Jervis bed
neat in light striped pyjamas
two large white pillows encase his borders
black spectacles offer clear vision to pale blues

She stands at the side, her navy handbag
crossing her body, her left hand taps its front,
checking it is still there, the purse inside,
fat with December notes

He tips his forehead and motions
to her capped head, a swirl of mauves,
blues, wines, enquires as to its use?
She pulls on the back of it,
dressed for the sales
the jaunty reply

A kind of smile returned, from
a life-long cap wearing man
as he flanked cattle, drew silage,
pitchforked hay mounds

she turns to go,
his last view
springs out
to cobalt blue.


Sadbh’s Song

We stand in that small porch
separate yet huddled
still, with occasional shifts
a related mess

some of us look at the grey ribbed carpet
some of us gaze at the cream ceiling
some of us read the pinned notices
anniversary, baptism, months mind

I look at you
snug in your mother’s arms,
gentle jigs up and down
dimpled hands waving
honey brown eyes smiling
one year old hair shining,
a chestnut cap on a perfect head

You
good and quiet,
silently singing lovely sweetness,
bobbing, oblivious.

Sadbh/Sive is an Irish girl’s name which means lovely sweetness. It rhymes with hive.


I have

I have in my possession
a neat snip of your grey-brown hair,
discreetly taken from behind your ear,
to remind me.


Thread Notes

This-

Tessie the Tailor
Mary-Anne Dennehy
Dan Sugrue
John Joe
Nell Sigerson
Pud Shea
Debbie Phatcheen
The Barrys
Alice Grady
The Hartys
Miss Fenton
The Master
Mike Nora
Bridie Paud
Mollie
Gerry Kate
The Driscolls
Auntie Julia
Nora Uncle Dan
Nell
The Jackeen
Paddy Joe
Castro
Sailor
Reen
Boolakeel
Dungeagan
Meeliguleen
Emlagh
Kinard
Libes
Cloghaneanua

was.


© Roisín Browne