Kevin McManus is a writer and poet from Western Ireland. He has published six novels so far and has also compiled a collection of poems and short stories that he plans to publish shortly. He works as a secondary school teacher in County Leitrim.
Bolted Doors
Behind rusted, bolted and stiff iron locks, a day of no great consequence has emerged A bleak January hour travelling over a well-trodden path on wet and rushy ground, Upon a dusky black thorn branch a glass crystal water drop, that hangs and falls to earth Nothing to penetrate the silence, nature is still at rest, Looking forward now, not backwards to reach out and grasp, To stretch out fingers to elongate the senses, To find what you are looking for To put your finger on it, to have it on the tip of your tongue A sense of belonging, there is enchantment all around But we have lost our way, it has been misplaced, hidden and buried We are goaded with feelings, fleeting visions and momentary preambles into the radiance Through sight and sound, breeze and chill, taste and smell The senses are opened and hunger for more They haunt us and push us headlong through a perplexing crusade To hold and comprehend those fleeting moments That can’t be held, that float from us like a breath
On Garadice Shore
Going over old ground passed the church. Under the low Winter sun towards the shoreline, The green mossed stone and the bare black branches At years end, time passed. Lucid thoughts that pierce through the empty spaces These things will stay with you. A bell rings across the lake, calling patrons to prayer, to try and make sense of self, to be rooted to this old ground on a lake shore
Solstice, the Feast of the Risen Sun
I The shortest day, the darkness before the dawn. Celebrating light in the blackness of mid-Winter, For the ancients a time of cold and hunger The rebirth of Mithra, the old sun is dead the new one is rising Its power will grow stronger now with each passing day Our forefathers marked this day well with their earth mounds Which captured the blessed light and warmed the womb of the frozen Earth II Bringing the evergreen inside a symbol that Spring will return, the fire of the Yule log to sanctify the dying year. Odin’s nocturnal flights. The slaughter of the animals for the Winter Feast To keep up the strength for the harshest months yet to come. Before the green shoots of life break through the cold ground once more The cycle continues, the wheel keeps turning.
