Patricia Walsh
Fashion Subtle you were, like the quick brown foxjumps over the lazy dog, perchance.Stale as it is, pumping alcohol as directed,slowly imbibing was you watch from afar. An exit strategy hardly beckons,pointing out classic hits over the tannoy,disembodied photographs grace the stairwell,playing games where provided, entertaining. A hardly crafted tattoo graces your neckline,barely covered under buttons, displayed all the sameclosed-circuit conversation of no consequencelooking strange a price to pay for solitary. Hooked on decent manners, a prolific swing,born-again criminal over suitable drugs,championing one’s talent for better reading,on condition of including you in my canon. Bare shoulders reveal a wealth of fashioncrying only for yourself, incarcerated again,slotting in sex wherever possibledeceiving nurses with your extravagant poverty. An astringent collective, drinking unfashionablymoving far away it a hard-worn guilt.Opportune drugs defining your lifedying in perfect time, a wrong proved right. Wild Life & Low Life Scuppering another’s music as you do best,black eclipse on form a requisite standarda pinnacle of pain falls short of closurecrassly sucked, on demand, inconsequentialworming into a life grossly all right,introducing the dark side of a job well done. Sleeping under demands, requests futileof places to stay, clothing notwithstanding,waitress on guard to see you off safely,loved, not liked, as her parents wishedscanned demands make politicians laugh,persecution simplex explains their rule. Promising redemption on the back of a laptop,nicely groomed to its use to an optimum,frequenting the gingerbread house on every occasionan unlikely rehab from top to toespare cuts do the business, a tea-based lifeform,straws breaking backs miss their chances. Now, I am alone, before smart phones and revenge porn.Ultimate sacrifice no more than a whimsy,laying down in peace, a pardoner’s pole-vaultsleeping though you are now, a luxury of soilon your own sword of drugs and alcohol,probably missed, by whom I have forgotten. Worrying Over Fiction Bleached landscape as a frame of mindbeing blamed on the boogie, as always.No permission to drink over the nefarious din,nor taking good care of the rosy admonitionno word of a lie championed at will. The hurting ears burning over past misdeeds,chanting ‘nothing’ when pressed further,renting vehicles over sandwiches, a barbed tip,insane connections cut loose like frippery,salvation through housework no longer suffices. Prolific scenarios punctuate the eveningssome criminal mind never out of the spotlight.World coming between the pounding sorrowand darting through the suffered associationtaking seats where required, nice one permitting. The monogamous saviour knows no bounds,to the point of admiration, Behaving a bit nuttyin his presence, dismissing out of turna purposeful touch while on the day job,burned from the past, but from a respectable distance. Bank holidays flummoxed, cut from desirability,fun in my absence regaled over once more,kissing to be supreme, singularly alone,lost in reminiscing, nearly gutting from the noisethe must-have scenario falls at the first hurdle. Patricia Walsh was born and raised in the parish of Mourneabbey, Co Cork. Her first collection of poetry titled Continuity Errors was published in 2010, and a novel titled the Quest for Lost Éire, in 2014. Her poetry has been published in Southword; Narrator International; Third Point Press, Revival Journal; Seventh Quarry; Hesterglock Press; The Quarryman; Unlikely Stories; and Otherwise Engaged. A further collection of poetry, titled Outstanding Balance, is scheduled for publication in March of 2020. She was the featured poet in the inaugural edition of Fishbowl Magazine and is a regular attendee at the weekly O Bheal poetry event in Cork city.