Declension in April
Declension in April

Lacking an ordained task,
I sit in the blue chair facing south,
rain on the circular field past Ballyhaine,
rifts of blue opened by the wind,
a taper of baling twine
from last year’s sweet pea,
caught in the current and blown
to where the tulips lie gusted in defeat.

I watch some footage of Auden
on a summer’s day in Kirchstetten,
his belly barrelled and buttoned in the middle,
holding a canvas satchel
jaunting down a narrow grassy track
tilting like Keaton towards some casual fall
the picket gate unlatched
his white VW opened
dust raised along the dirt road veering north.

He is going somewhere for a reason
to buy a carton of milk or cigarettes
to meet an appointment with a doctor or nurse
to admire bodies on a tree-lined lake
to stop and look at a suicide’s grave.

The wind slackens
before an onslaught of rain.
I’ll not stir out today.
I’ll clean the grate,
build a fire,
close down the damper,
return to the blue chair,
and watch the storming day
berate the windows.

‘I was never bored’ he said to Parky once
‘Fatigued, disconsolate, melancholy,
but never bored.
It never was a feature of my generation.
Never!’

Between Eros and dust
between one Martini and the next
between poems and wars
sonority and authenticity
everything that happens
happens to persist.

Is it failure then
not to affirm
the flame,
that burning desire
to celebrate being
in all its forms?

Another storm streams in
from beyond Black Head,
fire shadows rise and fall,
I stir the embers to a blaze,
to a shatter burst of tongues,
and cast my eyes to the storm-bent
sycamores, knowing the resisted life –
intricate in the darkness
is everywhere to be seen.

Frank Golden

Frank Golden is a Clare-based poet, novelist, and screenwriter. He has published five books of poems, the most recent of which was gotta get a message to you(Salmon Publications 2017) “This is a poet to get excited about. Risk-taking…rhapsodic…elevated.” Afric McGlinchy/Southword. His novel, The Two Women of Aganatz(Wolfhound Press), was described by Carol Coulter in The Irish Times as “uncomfortable, but compellingly and poetically described by a powerful imagination”. Golden’s novel The Night Game (Salmon Publications) was described by Declan Burke/The Irish Examiner as, “A challenging, transgressive, and gripping read.”

He has received bursaries and awards from the Irish Film Board, Clare County Council, and the Arts Council of Ireland. Frank Golden is Head of Creative Writing at the Burren College of Art.

www.frankgolden7.com

Ouevre

All That is Given

Poetry by Frank Golden

Hard wind on the turn at Cappaghmore. You drive on, on the cusp of light, along the old road past Mortyclough. To think it’s taken me a lifetime to cool...
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ST Colmans Well – Oughtmama

Poetry by Frank Golden

Is there a code of seeing what is or is not present? This tree by Colman’s well melted into its heartspace. This coil of life in its own soil, making...
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Portrait

Poetry by Frank Golden

Oughtmama and the mists of late February fade Turlough Mountain and Moneen to a landscape of silhouettes in sheer cascade, only the immediate clear and nameable. I live here now...
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Anthology

Who was I?

Poetry by Bettina

Who was I before I forgot your face? Who was I before I forgot your name? Who was I before? My mother’s face, my father’s face, my brother’s face. Mother...
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The End of the Road

Poetry by Knute Skinner

He walks along the possible road, one deliberate step ahead of the next. At the end of the road, it may be, there’ll be sustenance, shelter, a sensation of sympathetic...
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