Robin McNamara is an Irish poet. Hisdebut chapbook Under a Mind’s Staircasewas published in June 2021 (Hedgehog Poetry Press UK). His forthcoming full collection, Monochrome Heart is being published in late 2022. He was nominated for the Pushcart Prize for ‘Apple Picking Season’from Under a Mind’s Staircase.
Postcard From an Exiled Heart
I watched a documentary on North Korea the day after you said, My heart is unwatered. I learnt about a different culture in another world with another perspective on life. It reminded me of you. When my iPhone trills with your good morning text. I can’t help but think of Janus, the god of beginnings and endings. We’ve lived lives of regrets and if we could do it all again. I don’t think we would have done anything different, while at fifty we still react to half a heart. One part eaten by men of her past the other half, seedless and barren. The Waste of Minds When the light is softer in the morning A gasp of an autumn day appears Awoken from slumber and summer heat Which cools to early dark evenings again. A bed of leaves at my feet a promise Of living room fire and books of poetry. The seasons are changing but my words; They do no such thing to the minds that Refuse to flow. I could die today and perhaps People will say he was a fine man but alas The smartphone is more powerful than death and has domain over lives lived / unloved Our demise passes no resemblance to fast lives Unthinking past the absent scrolling. A semblance of hope remains in our poetry In defiance of the age of the waste of minds. Auguries in the Water you are an old-aged rained river submerged in susurration of a memory lucent with hope that lasted until winter you are a sliver of light emerging from summer water the jumping salmon just an augury long gone the body is water the flow of skin and the submerged heart like driftwood the river floods memories into mud silt coarse with bone the ebb of an autumn tide slowly tugs at the moorings holding the reminiscences of you
Fevers of the Mind 