Robin McNamara – Fevers of the Mind

A poem about Sylvia Plath by Robin McNamara

(c)Ismiskate https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/literary-musings/artists-portraits-of-sylvia-plath/

Strange Dreams

I could not decipher the reality of you:
For you were once, the impossible dream. 

In the city with no time and the shadows 
Of past lives, melded into walls that 
Couldn’t talk of your history. 

Ibsen said,
Temptations are manifold in this word.

In the city of grime and Inclement weather 
That may or may not wash away uncertainty 
Before the night takes hold of

Your morality; before the morning rises
And burns away the poets moon 
And workers scramble from their beds, 

To go to a job that comes before their dreams. Dollar-baby-generation, with all those poems 
By Sylvia Plath, unread on the shelf.

Yearning for learning, musing about losing /
Chains & shackles that sink a soul like 
A stone to the bottom of nothingness. 

In the words of Jim Morrison;
This is the strangest life I have ever known. 

A Poetry Showcase from Robin McNamara

Poetry based on photography “The Lone Road to Moloka’I” from Maggs Vibo

A Lone Road on the Island of Moloka’i by Maggs Vibo

Our plane putters over patchwork pillows of rusty clay 
Celebrating the day's first rays at a coffee plantation

Top down, and around the bend the breeze kicks dust into our locks
We visit spaces of ancient mysteries and forgotten history
Not far from a phallic rock and a peninsula of exiled patients

Where jagged cliffs leap to kiss the sea
Towards desolate paths that stretch and smile at roosters crowing
as if echoing the road sign:

Aloha
Slow Down
This is Moloka'i

Untitled from Jacqueline Dempsey Cohen

Here the earth glows,  
breathes from its molten core
laying bare its soil 
reborn with radiant heat
This iron-rich clay beckons
hands to touch and feet to scuff
staining fingers, soothing toes
caressing knots of need.
Untouchable limbs frame the path
relentlessly muted 
urging travelers ever onward 
to mountains birthing fire.

@boscoedempsey 

A JOURNEY by Petar Penda

He took a fiery road
towards distant hills,
with wild shrubs on its sides
not to let him turn off the path.
This solitary journey led to
his self-knowledge of
the lack of something central
which permeated.

Copper Dust Road by Robin McNamara

I’m on a dust road
unburdened by winds /
unshackled by conformity. 

Humbolt of a cloud; 
wispy in the sky 
where the land lies 
with dust and rust 
and rock and ruin.

I saw a desert man he
was wearing wisdom of
an Indian spirit / I crave  
the aqua of his knowledge.

My face copper-rust from 
the swirling dust of the road  
to nowhere /
rattlesnakes and coyotes on
each side watching /
waiting patiently for hope to die.

ABOUT TO ACHIEVE by Spriha Kant 

Crossed many long tortuous paths
beaded with many thorns
showering under the sun’s anger
Every time, found me 
a bird flying
to touch the horizon.
Now
Cooler sun
Roaming clouds
Swaying thickets on both sides of the path
as if about to welcome me
to my destination
by showering me in water
from the skies.

(c) Spriha Kant

The Red Road by Elizabeth Cusack

Why is this road so red
And what makes it real?

Why is perception a tunnel?

Who decided our destination
And what do they know?

What is a bramble
And why is it dark?

Why are hedges bare
And why do thorns stick up in air?

Why do rabbits fall into lairs?

Everyone knows these skies will part
And our lives will not end here.

Beguiled by Lesley Curwen

Rust bloodroad flares to brightest crux
its russet track armed by hedges' dark
overed by long mynd and sailing cloud 

the eye swept back and back to fiery light 

its centred throb, perplexing Delphic shape. 
Witch trio aflame, altar to neon gods
or haloed mothers keening at a grave? 

She is on fire by Constance Bacchus

not going anywhere she is rambling on to the lake she stops off at one of two gas stations won’t eat anything but licorice candy extreme pop she spins out of control across so many hills the vultures at the top pay attention she has passed the other one watches the fire blend in arrives at the launch hardens her heart in the water you could say it fossilized you can say you miss it you can say anything you want it is cold doesn’t care breaks apart amongst milfoil

Inspired by Leonard Cohen lyric visual piece from Maggs Vibo  

Congrats! To Fevers of the Mind contributor Maggs Vibo 

A Fevers of the Mind Quick-9 Interview with Margaret Viboolsittiseri aka Maggs Vibo 

Visual Poetry by Maggs Vibo: Drinking the Ash Pt 1 & 2 

Poem from Constance Bacchus : Memories from a party last 4th of July 

Poetry based on photography Challenge from Ankh Spice pt. 1 

Poetry based on Photography challenge from Ankh Spice pt. 3 

2 poems by Spriha Kant from Hard Rain Poetry Forever Dylan Anthology 

A Sylvia Plath inspired poetry showcase by Robin McNamara 

A Poetry Showcase from Robin McNamara 

August 2022 Poetry Showcase from Elizabeth Cusack 

Poetry by Petar Penda : Tiresias

A Sylvia Plath inspired poetry showcase by Robin McNamara

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

A Poetry Showcase from Robin McNamara

Rain Over Kuala Lumpur

The milky white mist rolls
across the Klang River
in April morning in shrouds
of silence with the shrill of
the eared nightjar breaking night
to early light across the still sleeping city.

A rouge cloud threatens rain
with the rising heat thunder cracks
across the sky near Ketumbar Hill
and soon the lalang grass is covered
in rain moisture that quickly dries
as quickly as the thunder and rain comes
and goes and I’m reminded of how
fleeting beautiful things are if we let
them go too soon.

Gingko in a Tokyo Street

The tree sparrow nestles
upon the wire
and tries to translate into song —
how the ginkgo
lost her yellow dress that day

While
under neon lights —
illuminated mannequins show dresses
she’ll never wear.

There’s a dynasty of lost souls —
I see them. Waiting like Hachiko;
for death to be reversed.

Kintsugi Imperfections

Meadow morning kisses the light,
beckoning me to a two-fold road
with a rust-old generational gate.
Shadows laced across your face /

daughter of grace, with a petal face
fragile, like crystal, almost l ike - kintsugi.
I swallow your imperfections whole /
they devour me.

Swallows fly across the weathervane
uncertain to where, the wind blows /
uncertain to where, the water flows.

The sun an orange blush.

Bio: Robin McNamara is an Irish poet. His debut 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

2 Poems from Robin McNamara : There’s a Morning Waiting & Sunflower Seeds in your Pocket

There’s a Morning Waiting

By the god of daylight a quilted quiver 
Of sin lain beside me in the morning/ 
Worship of all that kneeled before me
In absolved prayer with the priest with 
Two sons; one in religion; one in shame/
A blame of another kind.

Lust has taken those forsaken. 
Earthly body returns to earth in dust. 
The bells— they ring, they ring and angels 
Bring out the remains of your Judas love.
 
With your rosary beads and divination Unknown you walk the path not shown— 
There’s a morning waiting at the end of 
The road shrouded in Biblical revelation, 
All cock-eyed in the hold of another hand.
 
Lucifer comes round during Jupiter darkness 
And kisses the ground walked by disrobed
Saints scholars and prophets from Mecca.  
Flight of darkness in dawns early light,
Those chosen depart with the parting 
And all history awaits.

Sunflower Seeds In Your Pocket

Ukrainian proverb:‘Love thy neighbour, but pull not down thy hedge.’
We sheltered from the wings of war with their missiles.

We’re fated to our destiny
a father leaves to go battle. This is our future history.
now
the skies scream down evil

the last goodbye: it was never our intention it was never meant to be our final destination.

In the metro sleep the future generation

hearing a new reality of warit was never God’s intention
for them to hear death
So near so soon. Although
the world still turned and houses still burned
we’re fated to waiting for fredsbringer
with sunflower seeds in our pockets.

Wolfpack Contributor: Robin McNamara

Published poetry by Robin McNamara from “Under A Mind’s Staircase”

A Fevers of the Mind Quick-9 Interview with Robin McNamara