Patricia Walsh was born and raised in the parish of Mourneabbey, Co Cork, Ireland.  To date, she has published one novel, titled The Quest for Lost Eire, in 2014, and has published one collection of poetry, titled Continuity Errors, with Lapwing Publications in 2010. She has since been published in a variety of print and online journals.  These include: The Lake; Seventh Quarry Press; Marble Journal; New Binary Press; Stanzas; Crossways; Ygdrasil; Seventh Quarry; The Fractured Nuance; Revival Magazine; Ink Sweat and Tears; Drunk Monkeys; Hesterglock Press; Linnet’s Wing, Narrator International, The Galway Review; Poethead and The Evening Echo.  She has also published a novel, In The Days of Ford Cortina, in August 2021.

Work in Progress

Cataloguing a surprise of advertisements
born to fail like an unwritten dialogue,
promise of resurrection before the bullet takes you 
evacuation notices the creature you really need 
deserving glory under the eye of the pen.

Intrusive technology excoriates the script,
not young enough to marry these off,
a turgid uniform is duty to the masses
going hell for leather, a familiar disposition 
photography, being truth, dances on the walls.

Kissing these extremities, forgotten by now 
reminded by the spiteful to never drink
these ‘out of order’ notices steal the protected
this beloved’s rejection on back of the worthless 
staid control of a conference braids the difference.

Falling repeatedly, cameras at hand
not passing deliverance to return as a gift, 
stories of private massacres fitting the bill 
treating the sincere badly, no forgiveness there 
watching the ascent of a bitter high noon.

The common tea-lights populate the nested tables 
punctuating with paces a progress still going 
turning through culture a marriage still bleeding 
reports of good times, of exclusion foretold 
poisoned by kisses giving slyly, just like that.

Wasted Death

Taking the seat of a gentrified moron,
out of sight, happier that way, preferred instance 
the need not to bend to a merciless whim 
especially through the fashionable distance.

Interviewing just for the catcalling, sour grapes 
poisoned in plain sight, calling to this office 
sardonic acolytes twist and turn the blade, 
better to see this miscreant struggle forth.

Criminal to hold a torch, promised to others 
crying on the loudspeaker to garner attention 
not taken aback, despite nutritious shadows 
hard currency, defined through serial cigarettes.

Grateful to be unmarried, noli me tangere, 
sweating under duress, communal lies persist 
common culture shocking through mutual deeds 
this sorrow pervades through likely scenarios.

Feeding through coffee, regrettably through mis-sold 
rapid-fire insults let love lie bleeding
sitting noisily down under cover of drunkenness 
constraints on the page not solving anything.

Siblings under the skin. Instruction to be fine 
saintliness on the sly a bit much to ask, 
typing up aberrations to a closet exactitude 
dying before scripting the solemn curse.