J Michael Tynan hails from Cork City, Ireland.

He spends most of my time in the wilds of Co Clare with his partner Caroline, opinionated lakeland terrier Joey, cats Scomber Scombrus and Marmalade and a mob of 16 chickens (not counting the recent shock arrival of 14 chicks).

Every day must have some fun… writing plays a big part, as does rowing traditional Irish boats (currachs), which have transported him to the mystical Mag Mells of Ireland, the Grand Canal in Venice, and the Camino coast in Spain.

He worked for 40 years at the Irish Examiner newspaper as a sub-editor and equestrian correspondent.

His poetry has been published in Bindweed Magazine (Belfast) and The Broadkill Review (Delaware, USA).

He co-wrote the winning entry in the 2019 Cork International Folk Festival Song

Contest.

He has staged exhibitions of works combining his poetry and  photography. His first short film, ‘Sorry’, has been selected for Chicago Indie Film Festival, Fastnet FF, LA Mega Fest, Madrid Arthouse FF, Stockholm Short FF and Roma Short FF. He is making preparations for his second film.

Meaning of…

Life is a designed futility
Universal progress 
Abstracting divine advancement 
For synchronicity 
with intangible inexplicability

A desert search by starlight 
More frantic with less time
For a flower of disregard 
A perpetual bloom of meaning for no-one

Forever in the shallows of substance, drowned 
By treacherous pleasure
Unquestioned happiness 
Is the flagrant truth destroyer

Fingers of despair scramble up 
the Cliff of Truth
Infinite as the defining summit 
holds a lie of all faith bar one

So, to be is one of liberty, to question: 
“To be who?
“Or why?”
Or why bother? 

As to see means 
looking to closed eyelids, 
the negative of perception flash-fading to nothing and inward vision 

To hold hands is to sense 
The sorrow scattered on the pain-rippled lake of destiny and 
Feel the joy of communion 

When Naked Branches Mourned

My ache, I clutched 
A shard of sacred Burren limestone cold 
On opposite sides of the hastening November night drizzled road
We walked 
In bleakest hurt so far apart 
Immeasurable void between our steps and shrivelled hearts

And oh, when naked branches mourned

In silent grief
The blackest velvet cloak soft descending 
On transparent thoughts now ascending, 
So shedding my malice frost
I formed 
Of feather, talon and sharp eye 
To rise away from the 
Hollow silhouette of our once-lush love

And oh, the starry tears glistened

The Dark

Craven I fear to escape the urge
To care... who cares?
But those too weak
To break the snares

(For I to know to kill to care to leave me free of humanity’s beware to dare)

Shameful I bow to escape the want 
to satisfy... but why
To always please
You before I 

Pity I long to escape the need  
To know... all life 
Can ever hope 
Is to rise above unsatisfactory 

Scorn I to escape the everyday
To awaken... and thrill
Blind to gathering
Rooks of remorse for acts not done

Suffer I sad to ignore the need
To be... liked 
Look to Lucifer 
And not the god extorting good