MICHAEL CASEY

Michael Casey was educated in New Ross, Dublin and Cambridge. He worked in the public service and the IMF (Washington DC). He has published a novel, Come Home Robbie, and a non-fiction book, Ireland's Malaise. He has published a considerable volume of poems and short stories, many of them award-winning. He is a regular contributor to the Irish Times and other newspapers.
Bulloch Harbour, Winter 09
Third Prize, 2011 Gregory O'Donoghue Competition
Twenty apostolic fishing boats, shaped
like eucalyptus leaves, curving up to bows,
all heaving side by side, catenaries
keen to slice through swollen seas beyond the walls.
But no one’s going out in force eight gales;
oarlocks are removed from gunwales
and varnished oars lie across wooden seats
useless as chopsticks on empty plates.
Cots are strung together bow to stern;
moustache-shaped fenders guard prows
against unexpected collisions due to
undertows or rogue waves slipped
through the harbour mouth by sudden squalls;
the craft are free to ride but not collide.
They roll and yaw on slow insistent waves,
mitigated by piers of Herodian stone.
A separate line of boats face a wall,
bob and nudge each other like drunk uncles
swapping bathroom jokes across urinals,
as they compensate for a lost pay-day.
Tracing the clinker lines, painted strips
of red and blue converge on jaunty names:
Seaspray II, Tara, Fearless, Lara Sue.
But to-day is laden with absences.
Across the road, in Our Lady’s Home,
those in dry dock knit vests and socks
for India, gaze out at hollow holds,
empty of fish and loaves and rescued souls.
©2011 Michael Casey
Author Links
Ireland's Malaise by Casey at Liffey Press
Come Home Robbie by Casey at Amazon.co.uk
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