————————————————————
SWIMMING WITH DOLPHINS
3 TOMMY MURRAY ————————————————————
❖
Belfast Lapwing
SWIMMING WITH DOLPHINS
TOMMY MURRAY
Belfast LAPWING
First Published by Lapwing Publications c/o 1, Ballysillan Drive Belfast BT14 8HQ lapwing.poetry@ntlworld.com http://www.freewebs.com/lapwingpoetry/ Copyright Š Tommy Murray 2012 All rights reserved The author has asserted her/his right under Section 77 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Since before 1632 The Greig sept of the MacGregor Clan Has been printing and binding books
Lapwing Publications are printed at Kestrel Print Unit 1, Spectrum Centre Shankill Road Belfast BT13 3AA 028 90 319211 E:kestrelprint@btconnect.com Hand-bound in Belfast at the Winepress Set in Aldine 721 BT
ISBN 978-1-907276-96-5
ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Acknowledgement is due to the editors of the following publications in which some of these poems have also appeared; Fortnight, Riverine, Stroan, The Drumlin, Crannog, Revival, Ropes, NUI Galway, The Stony Thursday Book, Riposte, The Moth, The Edgeworth Papers.
iii
CONTENTS
A Sparrow Falls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Afterbloom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Album . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ben Sherman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Boyne Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Breaking Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Butterfly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Camel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cemetery Sunday . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cliff-hangers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cow Parsley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Crow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cuckoo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Departed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dolphins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gnome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Goose Girl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Handyman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . High Stool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hotspell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Landscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lean-to . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lemming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mass Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mixed Marriage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Outcast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Priming the Pump . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sketching a Scots Pine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Spanish Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stone Walls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Swallows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
iv
7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38
Marchioness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The New English Teacher . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Old Forge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Rosary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Yeti . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Topiary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Van Winkle’s Return . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wagtail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wheelbarrow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Willow Pattern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wren . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
v
39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49
vi
Tommy Murray
A SPARROW FALLS You couldn’t have known That your fall from grace Would set alarm bells ringing Across the universe That the echo would bounce From planet to planet From field to field Tree to tree That even before You hit the ground Plans were being redrawn Blueprints changed And from that moment on And a new order would ensue And on mornings When the feathery wind Might send a shiver along The craning furlongs Of cow parsley, evenings When dusk might threaten To throw a shadow Over the hedgerows Your fall would be all the talk
7
Swimming with Dolphins
AFTERBLOOM A slipper of bleached rose blossom Glazed to the wet pavement Outside your window Your only legacy, reminder That you once reeked of royalty And old world charm Smacked of golden dawns And crimson sunsets, posed Immaculate in emulsion colours A handful of limp petals Left behind on the dank tarmac Your final will and testament.
8
Tommy Murray
ALBUM Here, my life blooms in brown plastic Seedling Shoot Sunflower, smiles Sprinkled like blossoms In a blackthorn hedge Nettles, wreaths and roses too Festooned in time Cultivated poses September in my prime Seconds snatched from yesterday And pressed like petals Between the dog eared pages Of my shuttered life
9
Swimming with Dolphins
BEN SHERMAN The rules are simple No time-outs or tea breaks Trial runs Rehearsals Tapes to breast or goals to score Just the soulless challenge Of a crumpled hunk Of polyester and cotton Aerobically smoothing Creases and folds Skimming the seams And jostling the collar Side-stepping buttons Colliding with cuffs Then the sleeves The ultimate exercise in plain sailing Mechanical strokes And meticulously challenging Side swipes
10
Tommy Murray
BOYNE WATER When ever the talk Turns to water We will remember you Oldbridge Sixteen ninety three And all that and The mere mention of rivermist Would be enough to conjure up visions Of passage graves, castles Monasteries and mansions A splash of moorhen In the reed beds, the call Of a distant corncrake A necklace Of half submerged stepping stones The chatter of the ripples Your talk enthrals me Your stories of endless summer days Cellophane pools Where the sun never set Skimming stones from bank to bank Learning to swim with a bundle of rushes Stories too of paper boats Launched unceremoniously Only to run aground Yards into their maiden voyage
11
Swimming with Dolphins
BREAKING UP A mural of cracks Whispers across fresh plasterwork Capillaried, like rivers On a continental wall map You take a finger, trace Canyons and gorges, days of debris and dust Nights when rekindled embers Flickered briefly, freeze In the chill of a nonchalant glance Still you hang in there, hoping Wanting to catch each falling slate, wince As the first stabs of daylight Plunge through the rafters, even then Place buckets to catch the drops
12
Tommy Murray
BUTTERFLY It isn’t easy Trying to make sense Of these impromptu Little sketches And I need more Than a fleeting glimpse To appreciate the subtly Of these ostentatious moments Unless you’re trying to tell me That I too Might one day Emerge from the darkness That I too Would have my Twenty seconds of summer And walk in a world Beyond my wildest dreams
13
Swimming with Dolphins
CAMEL Stare me down if you must With your ageless dreams, rhythms Oars dipping to drumbeat, caravans Inching across the horizon But tell me Did you doze off too? When Scheherazade lulled The insomniac Harun Or eavesdrop on The small talk of Kings bearing gifts And you surely must have blushed When Salome danced Or blinked in unbelief At the grave of Lazarus Still, you had your fifteen minutes Tethered to a dog wood, perhaps On the slopes of Calvary And you could hardly Have remained impassive When they nailed his hands and feet
14
Tommy Murray
CEMETERY SUNDAY There was a certain reassurance In the sudden sprouting of umbrellas Half way through the ceremony Noticeably From The Bank That Likes To Say Yes Emblazoned in blue Scottish Widows In mandatory black Prize Bonds Making That Dream Come True To my left, The Bank of a Lifetime Savings, Pensions and Mortgages While three graves down The Credit Union Current Rate 7.2 Oh yes, they’re all here Coaxing cajoling In an acre of huddles and conferences Fixed Rate Borrowing Day to Day Banking Bank Accounts at a Glance And of course, Personal Loans Online
15
Swimming with Dolphins
CLIFF-HANGERS Tipi couldn’t have known What she was letting herself in for The clans, the cliques the coteries The outrageous behaviour Assassins all, I say Serial killers And who’s for murder, she might have asked Or matricide Even thuggery Thievery too As for promiscuity And polygamy And adult homosexual couplings These too And the last thing She would have thought was gang rape Oh yes, it was all out there Just a cliff away In a Hitchcockian swirl Of screaming gulls and guillemots
16
Tommy Murray
COW PARSLEY Rather, they arrive Unannounced Slipping through the season In furlong after furlong Of little cliques and coteries The ubiquitous nuances of summer Reaching out Touching Standing ovation Mexican wave Craning to catch a glimpse of them selves
17
Swimming with Dolphins
CROW It’s a blacker than black world, ours A first up best dressed world Where compassion is a dried up river bed And the white bones of virtue Have been picked clean So we live for the day, sift Through the charcoal and cinders The dust bowl of our dreams We bicker and bag snatch Wash our dirty linen Centre stage
18
Tommy Murray
CUCKOO Your flight was delayed Storms in the bay Turbulence As if you needed excuses, or That summer could be held without you You nearly didn’t make it though Waiting until the last vestige Of hardship Had been licked clean The last leaf in place, before Announcing your arrival Penetrating the heat haze With those sweet talking tones That manipulate time And mark off calendars
19
Swimming with Dolphins
DEPARTED Even the streets paid tribute The day they carried you out Mute as a fiddle in a varnished case Weren’t you the great one for the music They whispered Weren’t you the one that could turn a tune Wet streets, windswept streets, streets That listened to e very tune but yours Streets that ignored your every note The sharps and flats of conversation The bobs and trebles of tittle tattle Small talk Streets where your best pieces Were as snowflakes on a wet pavement Cherry blossoms in a storm Now you have suddenly become a celebrity A crowd puller They listen spellbound, applauding
20
Tommy Murray
DOLPHINS The Paparazzi would have loved it This once a week spectacle So you feel privileged to be In the right place at the right time And all because the sun and the planets Are aligned towards Mercury It could just as easily be Dingle But the air doesn’t reek of salt And you don’t feel dwarfed By that great big ocean out there So I check the shooting mode on my digital And launch into an uninhibited mingle And yes, they are all here, Jedward Robbie, Ryan and Pat Daniel posing unashamedly. One dubbed Seanie Jumping through hoops The highlight for me however Was swimming alongside Bono Watching him surface and resurface Reaching out, stroking his tail fin
21
Swimming with Dolphins
FEBRUARY Window bound and waiting For that first snowdrop I warm to a splash of yellow At the bird feeder, notice too Those little legacies of inclemency Glistening like discarded hand mirrors The smoke from yesterday’s fire Rising pencil straight Into the glaring grey sky where Vapour trails converse Pythagorasly And the silence belies the activity As nature explodes at its own pace Breathless the world waits For the thunk of a spade Or the ‘tchak’ of the jackdaw To sound the clarion call For the onslaught of spring
22
Tommy Murray
GNOME Dysfunctional They said you were When you failed to raise your hat And what have you to smile about Little man, they mocked All dressed up and nowhere to go And where were you in Nineteen Sixteen They taunted, when The stones left the fields And the walls Bent over backwards Did you wave a flag? Or drink a toast Or skip along the narrow streets To the strains of Napper Tandy And when the fiddlers played the high reel Did you dance?
23
Swimming with Dolphins
GOOSE GIRL Only a picture A few square feet Of cracked canvas Reckless daubs and soothing splashes With figures in the foreground A rectangular creation Of lights and shadows Willowy verticals And tracks that throb to the rhythm Of another time, another age Where the relentless Whisper of leaves Is punctuated only By the occasional honk and the Brushed of starched calico As she comes and goes and stays Becalmed forever In a world of rising sap and opening buds
24
Tommy Murray
HANDYMAN You will recognize him From the sack bag Of bits and pieces And the saw sticking out He will have the box plane He inherited from his father And a villainous looking nail bar Boxwood rulers And hickory handled squares And a punch drunk spirit level, that Has long since lost its certainty He will have a bradawl To double as a pipe cleaner and A length of shelving with about Nine pence worth of knots And there will be an urgency About his every step
25
Swimming with Dolphins
HIGH STOOL Hepplewhite would have been Even harder to convince Discarding the idea As one would A misshapen chair leg A warped fiddle splat Refusing to sanction Such an unpretentious arrangement Of uprights and rails Oblique angles And voluptuous curves And opting instead For something less homespun Run of the mill Something less ensconced In the annals of wood turning As being frequently incapable Of remaining upright
26
Tommy Murray
HOTSPELL The day that summer Climbed over the garden wall Vapour trails embroidered the velvet sky The hedgerows turned out in frivelled white The borders in orange and blue And cast-offs That had not seen the light of day in ages Were plucked from obscurity And scrutinised Like Christmas lights Mothballed memories of you
27
Swimming with Dolphins
LANDSCAPE Constable would have been Spoiled for choice Opting perhaps For a gunmetal And grey dazed horizon With russet and dun for the bulrushes Behind the white-washed cottage Where the smoke rises pencil straight And the old bridge leapfrogs across the river To the tangle of muddied blackthorns And the nut brown woods Gainsborough too Would have loved the blue Above the malachite splashed hills Where the sheep hang Like medallions On a general’s greatcoat
28
Tommy Murray
LEAN-TO Immortalised in albums And affectionately framed Family gatherings, that Will be me with the broken plinth And the dark patch Where the pebbledash ran out A ponytail of bits and pieces Hand me downs and afterthoughts I am hardly photogenic But once when September posed impromptu I was for a split second Three sixteenths of a spectacular sunset
29
Swimming with Dolphins
LEMMING I remember the moment You, lying there Immaculate in pinstripe and cuff links And the tie you only wore to weddings The broad grin fixed For all eternity You blew your chance then Of growing old gracefully Missed out on memories Pipe smoke and slippers Sunsets of affection You might have been famous Graced the top tables Taken your place On pedestals and podiums Had you not decided to leave? When you did, and so suddenly You could have taken it all in your stride Laurel wreath and golden handshake And yes, you also missed out on Crow’s feet and quackery Weeks of wet Mondays And endless obituaries
30
Tommy Murray
MASS PATH Here, mist is all the rage The way ahead, a rosary of stepping stones As we brush past Grandstands of cow parsley Avalanches of May Trees limp with memories, hone in To that twice in a lifetime Call of the cuckoo Penetrating the heat haze With those sweet talking tones That manipulate time And mark off calendars Dandelion and daisy Peopling the grass Pausing by the lean to On our way to morning Mass Where the ghosts of Christmas linger And the cobwebs cling like snow And our swallows have returned For the fourth year in a row
31
Swimming with Dolphins
MIXED MARRIAGE Trying to make sense Of this Babel of Polynesian and Yupik You move among the guests Try not to notice the whirling bolos The harpoons And the swinging stone clubs Pause to sample The yam paste and roast gibbon Or slurp a spoonful of moose soup Applaud as the bride now resplendent In printed cotton, immaculately manicured Garlands And sun bucket hat enters The Groom, magnificent in beaded walrus hide Caribou skin goggles And matching moccasins Two steps behind
32
Tommy Murray
OUTCAST You will find me too In country towns, villages On dusty afternoons Down cul-de-sac s, side streets Where the cranks of conversation And the skid marks of gossip Barely rise above the undulating Drone of distant prose, and The stillness is such that The sky seems to leapfrog Across the rooftops, in Impulsive little outbursts Of ochre tinted enthusiasm, and I Amt the pump On the edge of the footpath A municipal dropout A Christ of the Andes in my kingdom of Cambers and kerbstones, where Nothing is spontaneous, except Hub caps and spent lollipop sticks And smiles across the cobblestones
33
Swimming with Dolphins
PRIMING THE PUMP Is strictly a two handed affair The knack being To pour and pump at the same time And always Have a saucepan or two in reserve You must allow at least three bucketfuls For the water to lose That Pepsi Cola look A further two before it’s drinkable Timing is everything Knowing when to plunge Pouring on the down stroke Then what with dry spells And low levels And whether the mechanism Is in the mood or not Ten saucepans on It might still be just Two bells and a grapefruit
34
Tommy Murray
SKETCHING A SCOTS PINE The best views are close up In twos and threes Policing the hedgerows In looming chiaroscuro Or fields away From upstairs windows Scaffolding the skyline In muted explosions Of charcoal and grey And when October and twilight combine To match their rugged grandeur Thumb tacking Long lines of low hills to the horizon
35
Swimming with Dolphins
SPANISH POINT You marvel at the size of the sky And all that sand The helter skelter of bird tracks, things Wonder too about global warming And rising sea levels And what would happen If the ice caps were to disappear Would the breakers still stop short? Of the rusting no bathing sign And would the strollers Still side step the seaweed and stones And what of Mutton Island Out there straddling the horizon Would it still remain the last bastion? between me and America? I bet that the gulls already know They will have noticed the extra fraction of an inch At high tide
36
Tommy Murray
STONE WALLS Every time I see and old stone wall or Contemplate a craze of lichen clad crevices I cannot help wondering about The men that might have built it My grandfather built old stone walls Indeed what he didn’t know about slate and shale Rubble and lime and perpendicularity Wasn’t worth knowing Had he lived I would have asked him too About the hyssop, those timeless little clumps That seem to climb and climb hand over hand Was it planted or did it just grow there And he would have told me stories and names Of stones and how he could tell from the grain Which ones to keep and which ones to throw away Stones have character, he might have said I can picture him now shifting his pipe From one side to the other That grin of satisfaction s the stone slotted into place Each stone should cast a shadow, He might say I suppose it could be said that he wrote poems in stone Honed each stone until it was just right His legacy now is there for all to see A bedraggled poem written in stone
37
Swimming with Dolphins
SWALLOWS Aerobically challenged Dead beat And with the threat of inclemency Imminent We congregate at airports And private pads Or queue tunefully In conspicuous displays Of blind obedience To some primitive call Restless urge Some intuitive prompt That it’s all happening Out there In the vast nothingness Beyond the last lighthouse That somewhere out there Between the high watermark And the Tropic of Capricorn Our Castle Gondolfos Balmorals Our Camp Davids Have been mucked out and watered
38
Tommy Murray
MARCHIONESS It isn’t easy being married to old Queensberry Even though he means well Not that there’s any malice But two broken ribs On top of last week’s black eye Is just about as much as I can take. He’s supposed to miss, you know While he measures the value of each punch But occasionally he gets carried away Caught up in a maze of rules and regulations “I’m trying to clean up the sport,” he tells me Then there’s the weight advantage Four stone something Which is why I dread the late night sessions And the kidney punches The right hooks And the clinches And I’m just terrified of the ones below the belt
39
Swimming with Dolphins
THE NEW ENGLISH TEACHER You know how it is in September The first day back Trying to come to terms with the new colour scheme The wall, immaculate in magnolia Doors, the worse for blue Who’s new you wonder As you notice the empty locker Cleaned out except for the rubber band And the heavily pencilled copy Of ‘Getting to grips with English’ A limp handshake And you feel as if you knew Miss Brody all your life The little hen like movements of the head The turn of phrase The play on words are all so familiar That you suddenly find yourself Scanning the picture of last years staff outing Trying to find a place for her in the line up,
40
Tommy Murray
THE OLD FORGE What I remember is White eyed-men, staring out The rattle of cinders, hellfire And that iambic beat of the anvil A world of horse whisperers And hangers on Where rekindled coals Flare and die like fitful stars In a distant universe And every turn of phrase Is hammered out and shaped Before being sanctioned By the hiss of steam From the half barrel And horses fart impatiently Between hee-haws and whinnies And the conversation I punctuated By woodbines and tobacco
41
Swimming with Dolphins
THE ROSARY I can still hear the sound of atonement Bouncing off the humble hearthstone As we rinsed away The little indiscretions of the day The thumb cued drone of the Pater Rising and falling Like the plea of a captive bluebottle On a summer’s morning The unanimous rattle of aves Slipping quietly through pious fingers The Gloria, whisking us back to reality Time and time again As we washed the world from our jaded souls To the accompaniment of hissing coals And the copper kettle singing Sacreligiously in the grate
42
Tommy Murray
THE YETI I’m with Darwin on this one Huxley and Hooker too So instead of trekking across Desolate mountain ranges Looking for a seven foot tall Semi-celibate recluse I would expect to come face to face With a race of ungainly Auburn haired introverts A promiscuous assemblage Of loose limbed athletic types With just a hint of hairiness Brown eyed beings Fighting for space in a sort of Malthusian nightmare And of course they would have digital cameras And the office party Would be the highlight of their year
43
Swimming with Dolphins
TOPIARY Careful now Concentrate Clip There goes that ostrich Unicorn too Marsupially challenged kangaroo Easy does it Steady up Chop Guess I’ll hav e to settle for a swan Alternatively A goose or a duck might do And why not go for a green cockatoo Uh huh, I’ve did it again Beheaded My legless Little topiary Wren
44
Tommy Murray
VAN WINKLE’S RETURN Look at me Blear-eyed, grubby As dishevelled As a swallow in a sandstorm Reeking of sloe gin and juniper Hair, a hurricane of Grizzled grey and auburn Time trailing in my wake How then Am I to face the dawn? Should I blush? When they ask me where I’ve been When the children chant And call me names Or when the elders Stroke their chins and wonder “Am I a Federal or a Democrat Should I thrill them?” With my tales Of mountain paths and moonlit nights Down deep ravines Where shadows flit from rock to rock In stocking-footed silence Or should I just tip The brim of my high crowned hat And bid them “Top of the morning”.
45
Swimming with Dolphins
WAGTAIL For ever dropping in Arriving Unannounced I know your little game Commandeering Every square inch of my affection For those spectacular touchdowns Those unscheduled landings Fickle promises That dance and skip Like half glimpsed news flashes In clockwork cued spurts of sprung rhythm And soft shoe, before Taxiing round the corner for take off
46
Tommy Murray
WHEELBARROW Two coats of left over gloss A dash of multi purpose lubricant And you were ready to rumble Your maiden voyage setting the pace What if your creator had? Run out of ideas early on, skimped On all but the basics, endowed you With a minimum of trimmings A Jurassic shape and an unmechanicle gait That fell somewhere between A casual amble and willingness To stop and chat at the drop of a hat And what if at times youn did reek Of cut plug and stale porter You were after all Indispensable
47
Swimming with Dolphins
WILLOW PATTERN Difficult to follow the plot What with those stringy legumes And all that mash Of course there’s a fence And a bridge with figures Spanning a trickle of gravy A pagoda too And a pavilion Right next to the succulent chicken breast But where are the runaways Koong-se and Chang, Unless they are slumbering Under the extravagance Of second helpings And what of the turtle doves Are they destined to hover for ever? High above the complex of tea houses and trees Cobalt tinted apples and carbohydrates
48
Tommy Murray
WREN Cast against fanfares Of scrawny whitethorn And gutted gorse You cut quite a dash In clipped wing and penitential brown Defender of the stalky cabbage patch The sunken spade And upturned pot May your reign last As long as ladybirds sparkle In the rekindled embers of spring
49
Swimming with Dolphins
50
Tommy Murray
TOMMY MURRAY
A native of Trim and winner of numerous awards for literature Tommy Murray’s work has appeared both in Ireland and abroad. His poetry provided much of the background for the UTV documentary, Valley of the Kings and was also featured on RTEs Nationwide. His awards for literature include, The Gerard Manly Hopkins Certificate of Merit, The Patrick Kavanagh Memorial Certificate of Merit, The Nora Fahy Award, The Tom O’ Shea Trophy in Swords in 2004, Runner up in The Bard of Armagh Contest in 2002 and the Poet of Fingal trophy in 2005 and 2006 and 2010 In March 2007 he accepted the prestigious ‘People in the Community’ IT project Award on behalf of The Meath Writer’s Circle. His first collection of poetry ‘Counting Stained Glass Windows’ was published by Lapwing Belfast. His work has appeared in a number of magazines such as Fortnight, Riverine, Stroan, The Drumlin, Crannog, Revival, Ropes, NUI Galway, The Stony Thursday book, Riposte, The Moth, The Edgeworth Papers and an anthology by the late Michael Hartnett.
51
Swimming with Dolphins
3 52
L A P W I N G PUB L I C A T I O N S
TOMMY MURRAY
A native of Trim, County Meath, Tommy Murray has been very active in promoting poetry and participating In literary events in Meath and beyond. What others have said A poet of immense promise JB Keane Maturing all the time Bryan Mac Mahon One of Meath’s foremost poets Ken Davis, Meath Chronicle Delights in his way with words, especially When he transcribes the landscape of Meath into poetry Elizabeth Hickey His main power point lies in his versatility as a poet And his ability to talk on diverse subjects Louise Tallon, The Weekender He is particularly good at absorbing various kinds of atmosphere And of recreating these atmospheres into verse, he enjoys looking At the world and his readers will enjoy it too Brendan Kennelly Tommy Murray has done more for Creative Writing in Meath Than anyone I know Tom O’Malley
The Lapwing is a bird, in Irish lore - so it has been written indicative of hope. Printed by Kestrel Print Hand-bound at the Winepress, Ireland
ISBN 978-1-907276-96-5 £10.00