SurVision Magazine
An
international online magazine that
publishes Surrealist poetry in English.
Issue
Nine
MICHAEL FARRY
Voice
(after The Owl You Heard by Frederick Seidel)
The voice I heard that night
Outside the open window of my third-floor bedroom
Was yours.
I know what your reply will be,
Or would have been, the deafening logic of the present,
But still...
My behaviour was flawless
Almost perfect, but since the acquittal I've let myself go.
No wonder.
Later that day in Market Street
The man with the funeral wreath said it was a lovely day,
A lovely day.
Hope is the one I never lost.
There's always time. The voice is the perfect instrument.
I understand.
Today Nothing Happened
(After a visit to the Cavan studio of artist Michelle Boyle)
I
will see what I can bring you. Small things.
A Madonna and Child from a deconsecrated church
A cracked Sacred Heart from a derelict school
A self-portrait in the wild among forgotten fruit.
Later, in return, you'll attend to the bric-a-brac
Stash away the unread books on India, the Age of Bronze,
Burn all the dead wood, that hash of tangled ivy,
The ash plants, hat stands, and the carved Pieta.
Then I will pose in the empty picture frame,
Try on the blue coat with the gold embroidery
Lounge in the deep armchair that he forgot.
I will bin the final pieces of the children's game
And rearrange the stray scraps of my last biography.
This is where I belong, this exact spot.
A Madonna and Child from a deconsecrated church
A cracked Sacred Heart from a derelict school
A self-portrait in the wild among forgotten fruit.
Later, in return, you'll attend to the bric-a-brac
Stash away the unread books on India, the Age of Bronze,
Burn all the dead wood, that hash of tangled ivy,
The ash plants, hat stands, and the carved Pieta.
Then I will pose in the empty picture frame,
Try on the blue coat with the gold embroidery
Lounge in the deep armchair that he forgot.
I will bin the final pieces of the children's game
And rearrange the stray scraps of my last biography.
This is where I belong, this exact spot.
Michael Farry lives in Meath, Ireland. His latest poetry collection, Troubles (2020), has been published by Revival Press, Limerick. Previous collections were Asking for Directions (Doghouse, 2012) and The Age of Glass (Revival, 2017).
