by Darren Caffrey -
Now Dr. X wasn't anything to me
Just a professional
With a desk and certificates
And a print by Marc Chagall
Primary blues and reds
A kind of pastoral folklore
And he asks you
Why are you here
And you want to answer
But he's asking you questions
And you don't even know
What his name is yet
So you try to make him look away
By looking away yourself
But it doesn't work
Because he looks down
And you notice the writing pad
All of the writing is illegible
And he scribbles it out
But looks back up to see you
Thinking about animals
And you know he has you
Exactly where he wants you
And he was right
But you were right to lie
When he asked about the voices
No you said to him
I only hear farm animals now
Darren has written critically about public art exhibitions for a number of years, most recently in Circa and the Visual Artists supplement. His creative writing was included in Utopia, the spring issue of Emerge (2021). Thanks to the support of Words Ireland he is working with an acclaimed author and current writing.ie short story winner with the aim of developing his own project in creative non fiction.
As an artist he received his MA through MAVIS /IADT in 2013 and has exhibited digital and moving image work within an installation context, exploring live art and performance settings in an ad hoc handmade aesthetic built around masculinity, labour and technology. These days he regularly attends Lime Square Poets, a poet's reading night where he says "...a range of voices both local and international give added flavour to my ear."