Roisín Browne – Saoirse

P Roisin Brown LE P&W Vol 1 2019-

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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 Crossways Literary Magazine 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 awarded third prize in the Jonathan Swift Awards in the same year. She was commended in the Gregory O’Donoghue Awards in 2018 and shortlisted in The Seventh Annual Bangor Poetry Competition in 2019.


Saoirse*

They’re running up Suffolk Street in twos and threes
fox furs and minks draped around their necks
full feathered hats held down by blistered hands
red hot from scrubbing clothes and smashing windows,
grabbing goods long beyond their reach,
someone hits piano keys in Switzers window
clanging notes in mayhem

Short-trousered boys and rag dressed girls
stick their hands in glass jarred humbugs
while eyeing up the apple drops
ogling the gobstoppers,
their eyes larger than the yellow bon bons
skating across the chequered floor
determined munching of macaroons
blood red jellies smeared across chapped lips
liquorice rounds clenched in sticky hands,
the softness of pink marshmallows on tongues,
makes them stop and sigh
in the sweet carnage

In the Shelbourne they sip their tea in Gladstone china cups
silver spoons recline on floral saucers
shapely fingers poised in April Violet air
and outside,
the snipers splice the skies
and patchwork dogs dash with mottled packs
wild at the frenzy of it all.

*Irish for freedom


Orchestra

After Michael Longley

On this day
all the colours
will leave their brittle cages,

fly up and out
left and right
all shades, all tones, all notes

all dark will meld to sky dust,
cup eternal stars,
burn to become one

like starling murmations that soar,
shaping rainbow seas
in unfettered praise


beyond machines

clenched fists round over each other
taut hands never hitting hands
rise and fall of sinewed forearms
compact circles, in, out, in, out
oars kissing ocean
propelling forward
pots panning
nets filling
as you
waltz
in
water.


© Roisín Browne