Cathy Galvin Poetry

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Two poems by Cathy Galvin including the title poem from her collection Black and Blue: A Sequence of Sonnets, published by Melos Press last month.

 

Black and Blue

 

It’s blacker than blue. Your hand is going black, I said.

Me in one front-room armchair. You in the other.

A side-table offering soccer book, specs,

crossword from the Daily Mirror. It’s not black.

It’s bloody blue, you said. And I’m not going back.

We did. A bag containing razor, rosary

and all the weary rest, carried to yet another bed.

It was as far as you went. Blue chair empty now,

only the dent of your forearms left impressed:

surrounded by the proud puzzles of your life –

photos of grandchildren’s confirmations, the wife

who died too soon. Consolation in beer and Radio 5 Live.

I see you young and alone, doing what’s right.

Washing my schoolgirl socks by hand. Whiter than white.

 

From Black and Blue by Cathy Galvin (Melos Press – September 2014)

 

 

Crimea

 

Standing perfect apart, we look the same.

Spring tanks chain Crimea.

A shell’s wave claims the atoms of our air.

Sleep-walking to the familiar battlefield.

 

Spring tanks chain Crimea.

Too late for sanctions in this Lovingrad.

Sleep-walking to the familiar battlefield.

Repenting the impossibility of forgetting.

 

Too late for sanctions in this Lovingrad.

Survey the cost: who pays, who profits.

Repenting the impossibility of forgetting.

Blackbird thrills a line of liquid revenance.

 

Survey the cost: who pays, who profits.

Just when you think it’s on, baby, it’s turned off and gone.

Ladt Day thrills a line of liquid reverence.

Yellow glances our mirrored dawn.

 

Just when you think it’s on, baby, it’s turned off and gone.

A shell’s wave claims the atoms of our air.

Yellow glances our mirrored dawn.

Standing apart  – we look the same.

 

First published in the Morning Star.

27 October 2014