Diamond Hill Today

by Liam Boyle -

Now that the county is our oyster

and the weather app promises a window

before evening rain

we decide on an afternoon walk,

boardwalk over bog, a slight incline,

after lunch in The Purple Door, Leenane.

We start on a gravel path, a marked trail.

Now and then younger walkers,

lithe and light-footed, glide past.

This is the place to be,

crossing patches of bog on planks,

sniffing yellow furze in bloom,

stepping on lichen stained stones.

The slope gets steeper till,

faced with a wall of stone, I baulk,

I pause a moment, then press on,

rough slabs form steps slapped before me.

This is tougher than I thought.

A drizzle drenches me,

a welcome coolant on my face,

but the steps are slippier.

I climb with care, frequent breaks

to quell the lactate in my legs.

With each break I gaze at the changing scenery -

the higher I am the farther I see

back beyond Letterfrack.

At the summit I am Zeus

surveying the world of humans

as wind buffets my face and tosses my beard.

Through drizzle I see

hikers like ants on the trail below,

farms and bogland stitched together,

a car beetling along road

between tiny villages,

a silver thread of river

flecked white with distant waterfalls,

Kylemore Abbey a child’s toy

tucked at the edge of a pool.

In front, hills, harbour, sea, islands.

Behind, Twelve Pins like titans’ teeth

threatening to chomp.

And here, sparkling quartz and white marble

remind me of the age of mountains,

the age of rock and earth,

and how this height once was

the bottom of the sea.

---

Liam Boyle was born in Drogheda and moved to Galway in the 1970s. He wrote poetry in his teens and twenties but then stopped. He started again recently and has rediscovered its joys and challenges. He has been published in the Galway Advertiser's Vox Galvia page and has been a featured reader on Galway’s Over the Edge readings.

Letting go

By Janet Harper -

I tumbled headlong

into a hole

and in the

perfect spiral

of a dream

watched whorls

and eddies

in a stream

of sand and gold

and failing

to take hold

fell

further

than I ever

thought I could.

---

Janet Harper lives and writes in London. She is the current rep for Southwark Stanza and Poet in Residence with an organic orchard in Kent. Her work has been published in print and online publications including Dream Catcher, Ink Sweat & Tears and The Morning Star.

Carousel

by Matt Mooney -

I'm on the Carousel that is Dublin City,

around the Spire to Middle Abbey St.,

sitting at a table outside the Oval pub,

spotting the red hop-on hop-off buses

gone by the GPO and its history told

of the tricolour that's flown from here

to make us sovereign and forever free,

on then to what’s left of Nelson’s Pillar.

The Luas warns us that it's going to go,

serving Jervis St. and Connolly Station:

flowing through the arteries of the city

and the throbbing centre of the capital.

A corner stall calls fruit and veg for all

in the real accents of the rare old times,

worthy of the women in Moore Street,

as colourful as what they've got to sell.

Christy Moore is 'standing by the ocean'

in his love sick song about Nancy Spain

in soft emotive tones deepening the day;

the floral fringe spills down on top of me

from hanging baskets for brightening up.

Counting chimney pots across the street -

there's rows of them on red brick shops

whose fronts could feature on a film set.

To a scenario with a strange denouement.

Enter, a gangly lad complete with a bottle

who has a remarkable grin from ear to ear

moving with the gait of a man inebriated,

having argy-bargy with some lady friend

saying, 'you can spend the rest of the day

looking for me now!’ and he followed her.

The homeless are not aboard the carousel

in Dublin's milieu of waist-coated waiters.

Neither were they in Brussels last night -

in the restaurants meant only for the rich.

Just a thought as I muse outside the Oval.

---

A native of South Galway, Matt Mooney has lived and worked in Listowel since 1966. His collections of poems are: Droving (2003), Falling Apples (2010), Earth to Earth (2015), The Singing Woods (2017), Steering by the Stars (2021), Éalú (2021).

Winner of The Pádraig Liath Ó Conchubhair Award, 2019.

Deputy Editor of The Galway Review and its Poetry Reviewer. His poems have been published in a number of literary publications including The Blue Nib, Feasta, Vox Galvia and in anthologies at home and abroad. His poems have appeared translated in spanish-language literary magazines. He continues to feature in many live and virtual poetry reading events.