PBL #1
The Poetry of Martin McKenna
In this, my debut post since I relaunched this as an arts forum, I was very lucky to work with Marty McKenna.
After I received a surprise email from him a couple of weeks ago, I felt that it was only appropriate to showcase his fine poetry. As this is the first of, what I hope, many contributions from creatives far and wide, PBL will continue to thrive and stand up for showcasing the work of creatives.
Marty is an independent Irish poet. Originally from Co. Tyrone, he now lives Belfast where he works for the Belfast Trust. His poems have been widely published in both print and online journals and he won the Matrix Petry Prize in 2017.
He has self-published three new chapbooks this year, entitled: Silent Stigma, Loud Leaf, Gently, but a Dream and Sleeve Notes, in addition, he has a collection of 27 poems due for release this year via Shanaway Press. Marty is neurodivergent. He is currently editing his full collection Letters Home.
Marty’s work is very diverse. He touches on themes of childhood, politics and human suffering.
"letters to my daughter x"
my warmth in chill wind,
blinding. you are the calm
to this winter lake, visible
since the leaves left. you
are my moment’s break,
standing under blue sky.
as these days return
you are the fresh breath
of what solemn trees have to say;
in four more lines of broken sonnet
you bring joy to me, well.
with this soaring bird call,
and on a drifting wing, you are.
before his word’
i understand the power of the word.
i’ve written myself in and out of good
and bad. i see them, too. offering a soul
to hands of a kind, but i can see too
their icons in their life, their forever friend
who simply doesn’t communicate with i.
we talked last night about the different
theirs and ours are. you’re reading
a handmaid’s tale. never more relevant
with their dystopian dreams given
breath over there. we are different.
and not to other but we have a depth
to our spirituality, open too to other,
we write it in. love folds itself neat, i’ve
bundled you here, cradle my responsibility.
letters to my daughter lix
i’m warmed whole this cold, red day
by the permanence of your spirit. as
grey reality seeps through my eyes,
you are all colour to my heart. all
pain of suffer does leave the senses
as our tangle this life puts smile and
shine to this madman soul. from
depths of this cold glass on this cold
high stool i do breathe easier knowing
i am to know you all these soul days.
our love is growing around our griefs,
our time, richer. i am but poor, yet you
make big this meal of a life. all i owe
is to warm wise glow of your soul.
‘children of lír’
i have everything i need to make a poem,
swans, snow and the whisper of colour
lake is to my eyesight; but i can’t.
i love how you said original thoughts
to me about the last one, i love how
your interpretation makes it yours; but
i can’t. i want to say to you, i’m sorry
i missed you, i want you to go along
with the skeleton trees of winter
and love fully; but i can’t. in the silent
fall of flakes of this morning’s vital
life, i want to write you a metaphor
of such staggering sorrow; but i can’t.
necks bowed and floating slow in falling
snow, these mythical give sad life to lake.
dump trump’
i am embarrassed by my anger. i
want to feel honour in your
decisions, warm my white fingers on
your compassion, follow you whole.
instead i’m met with darkly deceit,
corrupt greed, definitions of cruelty
in plethora you resign yourself to. how
can you ignore compassion so easy.
how can such swollen pride not see
the wet of their eyes. these acts of
insulting ignorance, a swaggering
filth and lack of integrity all. how do
they suspend you there. how are you
highest office in the land. how so bad.
‘vigil of hunger’
we gather cold night in warm
hearts, hearts big enough with
remembering. under this same
moon, hundreds of thousands
of our brothers and sisters are
stolen away in a hungry silence.
voices lost to the noise of their
cruel genocide. bad suits still
dropping bad money down
small chimneys this new year.
limp children, all we need to know
to break our silence on this struggle.
they have tried again to distract,
reframe it through their lens, but we
are wise to their ways. we see, we
have seen, for it was done to us.
there exists a beautiful symmetry
to our people, and it is this symmetry
that pens of history will correct,
are correcting.
their lie will dissolve on their
tongues like a bitter pill and in this
cold night our prayer for your
days in sun will come.
in this famine of compassion, we are with you. for
you are the nourishment to all our hearts.
your starved voices are heard in our world.
"rosetta park"
I asked you for a season. we went
longer than that. Ican still make sense
of your room with the high ceiling,
the new bed where we tapped out
syllables on each others skin. you
taught me not to use the word
beautiful in a poem, for ‘we
were poets’. it wasn’t long before our
declarations. fuchsia buds sang
plump songs just outside the pale,
muslin-draped windows. you
were my first ekphrasis. nourishing
solitude sacrificed before the altar
you and i had built, hand by hand.
‘Valentine IV’
Your face mist, yet a figure cuts. i’m
with you, building you. i have no voice
for you, yet, but i know your form to be
warm, a poetry. you’re courageous,
outspoken and make waves to be known,
you are art. you go against tradition
to make love heard. find my faults
best by night, open my head with the
music you play. we shall cook with
precision, linger long on tasting. there
may be wine, but i can’t just sound out
your voice quite yet. your fire will build,
you’ll cut me out. i’ll wander these streets
millennia alone, grieve over form again.
Words by Marty McKenna
You can the link to Marty’s Eat The Storms podcast below:
Further Poem: