The following are some of the long form poems that were published over the years. Some of these poems have been published in leading journals such as The Stinging Fly, Cyphers and Boyne Berries. Credit notes are at the end.
On Brighton Beach
Waves lap the stone shore
like a child licking ice cream.
There is a path of cold copper
stretching out under the sun.
The early spring sky is clean blue.
An unleashed Labrador runs by,
its owner a black smut against the horizon.
I stand under the pier,
a tunnel of black beams where waves meet
the tinkling music of razzmatazz rides.
Perhaps I shall move here and become
familiar to the pull of the sea.
Up on the pier a boy crouches,
sets a top spinning and watches it
wander from one side to the other.
(Cyphers – May 2013)
Since 10 o’clock
At the counter I run my finger down my glass.
The cut lemon dries slowly, the pop song flickers.
The door opens with promise. You come in
and nudge near to me. We slip out and away.
In my shadowed room I smooth
a tongue-path to your nape,
follow your nose with my lips,
stroke your tense back as we curl and cry.
Now we lie in ease on stroked sheets.
Tomorrow you will be gone. Then I will
face the stale air, an unruffled bed,
one single towel on the rail.
(The Stinging Fly – Spring 2013)
Conifer Man
The fire flashes like a camera.
A green wine bottle clinks
and the wide couch moans.
Slowly the curtains open themselves.
Above the window sill
I see a low conifer tree.
Come uproot yourself,
I want you to become
a man of evergreen muscle,
soft twigs for veins, a spiked crown for a head.
Face me with branches for arms
and your legs parted and crouched.
Then step over the sill and dance with me.
Entwine your fingers around mine,
shake down a bed of needles
and tear me with your arms.
Now I am naked,
laced with your scars,
shadowed by your bruises.
I wake, my head spinning.
Sunlight spills into the room.
Slowly I part the curtain
and you are rooted in the ground.
(It’s a Queer City: All the Same, an anthology of LGBT Writing from Limerick – June 2016)
Settlings
Seaweed is stubborn here
and the dipping waves wash over
a confetti of rusted pebbles and stones.
Who know what stories these stones can tell?
If I smash them with questions
their shards will remain faithful to silence.
The rain brings thoughts
of my sister to me. I wish I could
clasp her hand with my hand.
The cup of the sky holds my dreams.
I must meet myself kindly
at the frothed high water line.
(Boyne Berries 21 – March 2017)
Diarmuid Fitzgerald 