Are you ever startled by beauty, catching sight of something unexpected in nature? It might be the smallest of things (Forget-Me-Nots), or the biggest (this morning’s sunrise), but it can feel like being nudged awake – jolted even – out of the brain benumbing inertia of screen addiction.
A cardinal beetle once did something like that for me, and in thanks, I wrote the following:
ODE TO AN INSECT
such sophistication of red encasing wings of silk symmetry of black antenna curve of antler jet ivory of elk
drinking in the sight of you
full-bodied delicacy tracing your lines
of majesty
love calls to love & echoes through our atoms
From poetry collection ‘Dear Planet’, published by Fidessa Literary, July 2025.
“So deeply admire anyone involved in conflict resolution, especially as I can be hugely conflict avoidant. Poetry has been my compassionate therapist, my Pooh Bear, coaxing me into an understanding of how I got here: why my instincts are to hide at the faintest whiff of conflict. And the truth sets us free. Piglet doesn’t always have to be a coward.”
The above paragraph was my response to a prompt question, “How can you think about conflict in your life through the lens of poetry?”Each Sunday Pádraig Ó Tuama posts a deeply reflective piece on his wonderful Poetry Unbound Substack (poetryunbound.substack.com), always including a thought-provoking question, which is inevitably hard to resist.
Writing the poem below has been part of my process – recognising where certain fears came from (and why standing at the sink, washing the dishes is a favourite place).
Sometimes it’s only once we understand where we actually are, that we can truly start to move on…
AFTER DINNER MINTS
Sky rent in two
falling between
soles finding ground
I take my stand in silence.
She hurt beyond betrayal
he haunted and subdued
chasms ripple them apart
pernicious waves of white noise.
History layering upon
itself, unpeeling one from
another, an After Eights messy matter.
No wonder I seek sanctuary
in soap suds and greasy dishes
while fault lines re-form
I mask my aftershocks
my crumbling.
From poetry collection ‘Dear Planet’, published by Fidessa Literary, July 2025.
Even if it’s for just a moment, have you ever had that sensation that you’re sliding up out of sleep and into awake-ness, like transferring up out one world into another?
WAKING
“Dreams fade with morning light, Never a morn for thee, Dreamer of dreams, goodnight.” – Roberto Bolaño
Breaching
surface
a mermaid reborn
to walk the earth.
Dripping
from scalp
from ocean pressed
ebony tresses–
seawater celestial blues
prismed through trans-
terrestrial matrix
of sentient
light.
Higher
she rises
faster falls
these dream
sapphires
of iridescence
into oblivion
of the
forgotten.
First published in The Amphibian Literary and Art Journal, March 2025; part of debut poetry collection ‘Dear Planet’ to be published by Fidessa Literary later this year.
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