Tag Archives: Derek Mahon

Turn Stones into Altars and Everything Is Going to Be All Right – The Wisdom of Irish Poets, Pádraig Ó Tuama and Derek Mahon

December 31, 2020 – 8:26 pm

So let us pick up the stones over which we stumble, friends, and build altars. Let us listen to the sound of breath in our bodies. let us listen to the sounds of our own voices, of our own names, of our own fears. Let us name the harsh light and soft darkness that surround […]

By Richard Osler | Posted in Poetry | Also tagged | Comments (2)

No, Everything Is Not All Right! Irish Poet Derek Mahon (1941-2020) Dead at Seventy-Eight

October 2, 2020 – 2:08 pm

Heraclitus on Rivers Nobody steps into the same river twice. The same river is never the same Because that is the nature of water. Similarly your changing metabolism Means that you are no longer you. The cells die, and the precise Configuration of the heavenly bodies When she told you she loved you Will not […]

By Richard Osler | Posted in Poetry | Comments (0)

Life: Beautiful or Monstrous or Both? Three Poems by Swir, Mahon and Gilbert

July 16, 2018 – 8:28 am

Poetry Reading I’m curled into a ball like a dog that is cold. Who will tell me why I was born, why this monstrosity called life. The telephone rings. I have to give a poetry reading. I enter. A hundred people, a hundred pairs of eyes. They look, they wait. I know for what. I […]

By Richard Osler | Posted in Poetry | Also tagged , | Comments (2)

Happiness in a Broken World – Two Poems

April 12, 2014 – 2:57 pm

                                    The fertility of the poetic mind! As my good friend and poet Liz commented to me today it is so surprising and wonderful the places a poet can be taken by an image. I had Liz’s comment […]

By Richard Osler | Posted in Poetry | Also tagged , , | Comments (10)