December 2014
I was born in Cork, Ireland. Since graduating from University College Cork, I have lived in London, working as a teacher and educational manager. I have published articles and poetry, and a play, Closing Time, which I co-authored, was staged at the Battersea Arts Centre, London. I published a novel Nidiya and The Children of The Revolution in 2010, and a book of humorous short stories, Zeno & Lu, is due to be published later this year.
The Oresteia Quartet
"Oh, the torment bred in the race,
the grinding scream of death…"
Aeschylus' Libation Bearers
MORNING SONG
The Earth is given a reprieve
To live another day.
Such joy it brings, you have to shout
Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!
Short lived, of course, because we know
The scourge of green and blue
That has the planet in its grip
Suggests its days are few.
THE END FOR SOME
The end for some comes easily –
They’re caught quite unaware –
As if involved too much in life
To ponder and despair.
For others, with death drawing near,
Departure is from hell:
Another day, and they awake
To smell its sulphurous smell.
NAKED
How easily the clothes fell off
When lovely, fertile, young –
The body bare as the wall where
A pretty painting hung.
But now the impetus to shed
Is only there when dark;
And thus revealed, without the light,
A nakedness more stark.
THE LINK
Old bones are just as silent
As meat on a butcher’s slab;
The shrieking of the violent
Measures the weapons that stab.
There is no word for golden;
A life is just one big fib;
Happy the homebound children
Crawling from coffin to crib.
©2014 Harvey O'Leary