Patrick O'Reilly Poems

The cages clatter close over the shop windows
On the claustrophobic streets
(Jammed, dimes apart) .
Shopkeeps sweep over daily dust
...

In winter's snowy drifts
Under the shawl of twillight
We walked, hand in hand, clasped and cold,
...

Push, shove.
The August heat makes the body sweat
And the ire rise.
On the George Washington Bridge.
...

Oh Birthland,
Where God's leftist hand
Was spread over pine clad hills,
Down to the walled-in Rooms
...

The first time we lay together
We were naked, not nude,
Unarmoured and unmasked
Bodies intwined in the silent dark,
...

Counting on summer, counting the steps
To the cafe from home.
Breaking some backs on the cracks dividing the sidewalk,
Nearly bending my own.
...

I don't hurry past the old school
This is where we loved and fought
Through the days
We've passed on.
...

How do you start a poem?
Is it something bred inside you,
An Immaculate Conception
Waiting for a nativity scene?
...

I took a walk on the jagged rocks
On the foggy shores of home.
The ocean rolled and ripples bloomed
As I gently skipped a stone.
...

Can I reach you with my ruined right hand,
A bundle nerves and muscles, twisted and tangled
Like strands of dysfunctioning wire.
...