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The following two poems are from a collection due to be published this Summer. It is one of a series based on a painting session involving artist Mick O’Dea, (no relation), in the RHA studio in Dublin in November 2004.

1.

Her skin is clear and white (as I see it);

he picks out the heat and cold

that is in her flesh

so her belly is blue and green;

colours I have seen

where rubbish stirs in low tide.

She is a timber frame

a thousand colours.

They are inside each other

wash in and out of each other;

overlapping, under-lapping.

They graze on each other;

slap, fall, meld, hide,

shimmer, swelter, drown;

no rules until completion.

The brush, searching for challenges,

rushes about the page putting out fires

anxious for a thousand perfections

2.

“And what do you think of ?”

- hours naked above the crimson carpet

on the wooden platform -

She says she is not sure;

“it’s like being at mass.”

Felos ainda serra is the title of a small collection of poems published in Galicia by AMSTRA-N-GALLAR in January 2005. The galician translations are by Sonia Vila Aragunde and it is illustrated by Charles Cullen. The enlish originals are also included. They are poems I wrote in 2002/2003 in response to photographs by Emilio Araúxo.

The felos are maskers wearing bicorns reminicent of Napoleonic officers' headgear with animals depicted on them. Their costumes are farcical with brightly coloured pantaloons, small jackets, black tights and cow bells hanging from their backs. They come to life in Galician spring festivals wielding whips or sticks. Their origin is debateable with tax collectors and napoleonic officers at the top of the list.

The poems were inspired by Emilio Araúxo's photographs; he is also publisher. Here is one of the poems:

Poem 1

My head is an eggshell

Intact, hollow.

Left on the ground

weather leaves its stains;

on the outside I smile that smile

which passers-by notice less and less.

All I can do

is keep widening the smile;

wider and wilder,

eventually grotesque;

they start running,

I am left alone.