Poetry Magazine
The Boom and After the Boom
The Shannon when it washes
the shoreline in the wake
of a cruiser susurruses
exactly like the Polish
language you hear in lidl
on Friday evenings, 7 pm
payday. That’s what
Gerry says.
•
The river surface offers
space to the song:
hammer taps of Latvians
and Poles nailing planks
of a deck. The place
between water and sky
holding sound. It is under-
loved and an amphitheater.
•
Latvians and Lithuanians
are nailing planks
of grooved decking.
It will be a nice feature
of that riverside property.
Their tap-tapping
underscores the distance
between this side and that.
•
Winter gales have made swift work
of the billboard proclaiming
42 luxury bungalows only two
remaining. Crumpled up
on the roadside now
two-by-four legs akimbo—
a circus-horse curtsy
or steeplechase mishap.
Source: Poetry (December 2011).
Biography
Alice Lyons was born in Paterson, New Jersey and has lived in Ireland since 1998, where she is the Ireland Chair of Poetry bursary. Her poetry film The Polish Language (co-directed with Orla McHardy) is touring film festivals worldwide.
Poem Categorization
SUBJECT Social Commentaries, Class, Money & Economics, Race & Ethnicity
Poetic Terms Free Verse, Series/Sequence
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