Matt Mooney
Matt Mooney Poems
The clearness of a dream
I had in bed last night
Has dimmed at dawn-
I'm awake and looking west,
...
Goodbyes at the open front door
On a Sunday morning in Summer;
An aeroplane shines in the sun;
At home I can learn about solitude.
...
What’s that?
That sound from the wood!
Does that bare tree complain a lot?
It does not!
...
Scents of the Summer, incense to his senses,
The boy walks barefoot most of the way.
By hills of furze bushes above the soft bog,
Though ever so slowly the river flows free
...
A tall man bends low,
While there is time,
To pick up a lost coin
Lying in the bus lane,
...
Sliabh Aughty, my own mountain mine,
Rhododendroned ridge ever there for me;
Fields ascending higher as I go
From Ballylee to Loughrea's lake:
...
She closes the door as she steps outside
At the end of her day's designing;
Stooping she greets a cat on the street
Whose bushy tail it exceeds him.
...
The morning sky has a crest of a moon
Sitting up over my window's horizon,
Tall conifers compete with chimney stacks,
Castle top turrets and white office blocks;
...
High up over nearby Bantry Bay
Nails are hammered into wood
On the town library roof above us:
Maybe staccato accompaniment
...
Dark metro tunnel: unending unknown
With no bright promise of the breaking day:
Not a place for stopping for too long.
...
That Sunday afternoon,
Out on the verdant lawn
On the verge of the wood
An alien stood:
...
Stopped in our tracks
We stood in the wood
Seeing her pass before us:
She was the badger black and grey
...
About you Mike I could write a book
If I was worthy to put you into words;
Yourself could put it better I believe:
Death has left us at a loss without you.
...
I'm up to my eyes in apples,
Lizard like upon the trunk;
Heavy branches to be shaken,
Fishing for the furthest fruit:
...
When the light was white from Tilley lamps
And the boat to Holyhead was overladen,
The postman was a sight for pure delight
As casually from his bag he took the letter-
...
The merry widow in her home,
So proud of her tidy residence,
Hostess to all who rambled in-
No age barrier or code of entry.
...
Eyes mesmerized by long musical fingers
Reaching out across the centuries’ divide
To draw from the wellsprings of the past,
Divining the pure music that he inherited
...
Ceist agam orm féin:
Ó chrann atá lom
Cad é an síor gearán
Sa choill atá láimh liom?
...
Matt Mooney Biography
Born in Kilchreest, Loughrea, Co. Galway in 1943, he took up a teaching position in Listowel in 1966. His first book of poetry 'Droving' was launched at Writers' Week, Listowel in 2003. He read at The Baffle Festival, and the West Cork Literary Festival and in Victoria, Canada. His poem ‘The Instrument' was read on Radio One by Ciarán Mac Mathúna. ‘Stepping Away' appeared in West 47. He was in the top 30 in the Poemhunter contest a few years ago. His second collection of poems 'Falling Apples' was launched at Writers'Week, Listowel in 2010.It's available for purchase on line at Original Writing Ltd, from Kenny's Books on line and from Amazon. It can be downloaded as an e book as well. His third collection, Earth to Earth, was published in 2015 He has been guest reader in The White House Poetry Pub and 'On the Nail' in Limerick, at Ó Bhéal in Cork and Bantry's West Cork Literary Festival, Loughrea's Baffle and Ó Raiftearaí festival. and has been a feature reader on occasions on the online Lime Square Poets and Cultivating Voices. He has been a first prize winner with his poem Éalú at the Ballylongford Bardic Festival and a prizewinner also at the Ballybunion Arts Festival. His poems have been published in The Blue Nib, The Stony Thursday Book Feasta, The Irish Independent, Poetry Breakfast, West 47, in The Applicant, the First Cut, The Galway Review online and in the Galway Review Anthologies 3,4 5,6 and 7 as well as in the Amaravati Poetic Prism 2018 and 2019 Anthologies; also in the Anthologies 'I Can't Breathe' and 'Ukraine: Poems of War' and 'Immagine & Poesia' as well as in Canto Planetaria in Spanish and in Irish. His third collection of poetry 'Earth to Earth' was published by the Galway Academic Press in 2015. His fourth collection 'The Singing Woods' was published in 2017. His fifth and sixth collections were published in 2021, Steering by the Stars and Éalú. All available from his website: mattmooneypoetry.com)
The Best Poem Of Matt Mooney
Always Eighteen
The clearness of a dream
I had in bed last night
Has dimmed at dawn-
I'm awake and looking west,
Its dialogue in a deep sleep
Now almost vanished
In the wash of awakening.
In the dream, so real I swear,
She appeared:
Into my head as I slept she crept:
Always eighteen.
As lovely as I left her
At her father's hearth
And said our last goodbyes
To all the years of my unspoken love.
Love's Labour- I began to say,
(Speaking of the title of a play)
But there she stopped me
In my mid line
To finish it herself this time:
'Love's Labour- is never- Lost'
Contradicting
Both Shakespeare and myself.
That was the only thing she said
As with the dream she left my bed.
Matt Mooney Comments
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7/18/2025 9:17:18 PM # 1.0.0
i 'have to' read his Snakes Alive. and i shall if this computer? /site? cooperates! ! ! i must! ! ! it/they must! ! ! :)