'Muted Sound' and Other Poems, by Oisín Breen
Muted Sound
Moses
is in the rushes,
stillborn.
his mother,
a tired, neon Jocasta
howls:
a klaxon, muted
by epiphany
and death
Resonance
My imagination is best understood
As exuberant. A photographic retelling
Of sparse feelings, shimmering
Like water flowing
Under White Flower bridge.
Yet the gentle life you seek –
And wish to share –
Is memory declined; a fractal
Execution of childish steps,
And my strength depends on i and you.
And here, where black apples prove
The resonant factor
In choosing whether or not,
To up-sticks, and move inland,
As squalls come,
Or to reinforce the gates,
With the fingers of the dead –
Our sole means of holding back the waves –
I know, through you, that history is changeless,
And all that shifts is our sight.
Stars in the Desert (previously published)
When you look at the stars,
On a clear night,
In the city,
It is so different
To the desert,
Sand noticeably cooling underfoot,
And when you retreat to the fire,
It differs too.
There, the sky is a hearthful of embers
And surging starlight;,
Pulsars slashing at the skin of the coarse grain,
And a muddy filament lovingly wiped clean with a sweaty rag,
– the sky –
The sky ruptures
Into a tendentious play for infinitude,
And every star visible to the naked eye
Ushers in another
In a finite
But uncountable distribution
Of connection,
And light.
Irish poet, doctoral candidate, and journalist, Oisín Breen, a multiple Best of the Net nominee and Erbacce Prize finalist, is published in 121 journals in 22 countries, including in Agenda, North Dakota Quarterly, Books Ireland, Door is a Jar, Northern Gravy, Quadrant, Southword, and The Tahoma Literary Review. Breen has two collections, the widely reviewed and highly praised Lilies on the Deathbed of Étaín, a Scotsman poetry book-of-the-year, 2023, (Downingfield), and his well received debut, Flowers, All Sorts, in Blossom, Figs, Berries, and Fruits Forgotten (Dreich, 2020). Breen’s third collection, The Kergyma, is slated for 2025 (Salmon).