Three Poems

by Ray Carey

Tyria

See the moth procrastinate as it spreads its wings .

It checks its coordinates Latitude 52. 26 ̊ N Longitude 8.71̊ W.

Before laying its larvae in a glistening eiderdown of ragwort.

Only for the moth the ragwort would have spread everywhere

You know ragwort is bad for the alimentary canals of livestock.

That’s why the cinnabar moth is introduced to many places.

To give birth to the caterpillars that will kill it. Unfortunately

It often runs out of the very ragwort it needs in order to live.

With headphones and a tall antenna ending in a white dot

A human moth is wheeling her babies and humming a lot.

Herbie Flowers’ s bass-line from Walk on the Wild Side.

Her children are fast asleep. The next generation usually is.

In no time the cinnabar will fly-off once its eggs are laid.

And the wet-mother will leave with two tins of Damp- Seal

They both assume there will be a world for them to return to.

As I do. My Weather App says No precipitation for 52 mins.

Another Tune

Near the cases of the instruments they had used

Three or four beaten-drums have been left on the ground.

For the funeral of a fellow band member. Some have removed

Their band uniforms and are themselves again. Hassled.

They are warm from remembering. A few are very hot.

I hear the sound of a  nearby tree being not quite cut-down.

Imagine ? There is more of  it on the ground than in the ground.

And there’s a reminder of humming from the saw. Then

A vacuum-cleaner with a sock-like snout is taken out

To gather up whatever has come down in sawn silence.

The hearse pulls out when there is a break in traffic.

This is a busy street so bit- by-bit the tress are dying out.

Removed for different reasons. Orange cones left out

To make room for the body are no longer needed.

We can no longer measure his presence in words or cones.

What was loose-leaved and bony with its head high over

The houses has alder kneecaps now and is stationary.

But only momentarily. One alder elbow has been left

Sticking-out to the right by accident. Never fife-less

His smile blows into the emptiness we find everywhere.

The Book of Alterations

Will I ever make it back to her book of alterations ?

That red self-opening cover covered in cigarette ash. 

Each alteration was written down  as soon as it was done.

And I’d count the butts and tell her she was smoking too much.

There was a nicotine-coloured sewing-machine in the room

Where she’d work on skirts mostly. And pants sometimes.

To help a a helpless man like Mr. S who wasn’t able

To sew a button on to save his life. 

On the 6.30 to Waterford  a man once  took out a needle

And started sewing a button onto the lapel of his jacket.

It looked as if the lapel was grimacing at the thought of it.

To think a man could actually look after himself.

I have tried to go through life like this. Hem- hem -zip.

To jot down the alterations or the times I remained unchanged.

To keep track of where I was going in life. To improve maybe.

To atone for things falling apart or for not amounting to much.

Mr S. would tell about his mother in the West.

How she hated hearing the weather-man say Wind and rain

Will be coming in from the West. She loved the West you see.

Then he’d take his ash-covered pants from the cloud and leave.

BIO: Ray Carey is an Irish poet and composer. He was selected by the Irish Poet Laureate Paul Durcan from a National Competition for his Trinity Workshop Poets. He has composed adaptions of Boucicault and Wilde for the Dublin County Arts Festival . A recent work- Iphigenia- was selected by the poet Patrick Cotter for the current edition of Southword 47: New International Writing. He was born and lives in Waterford Ireland