We're delighted to present our Poem Of The Day, presented in association with Poetry Ireland.
Today's poem is A week and not a word since the argument by Joe Carrick-Varty - read it below.
I'm cycling near your house,
cycling for no reason, to nowhere,
but I’m near your house, on your road in fact,
passing the Baptist Church
and the redbrick half-finished new build
and in no time at all the shape of you is walking towards me
slap bang in the middle of the road.
We talk, albeit gingerly, about my work at the playscheme,
about the kids who fight there,
about my sister off to Uni in a month –
to Glasgow! As if she could’ve picked a further place.
You slur only a little when you say that.
Where you off anyway?
Nowhere.
The barman you call Mason nods,
unlocks the side door, props it open,
motions you inside. I look at my watch: 11 a.m. –
I’m seven years old, waiting with a Coke outside
the frosted glass of The Seven Stars,
smelling cigarettes every time the door bangs –
then I’m you, in Coventry, your father
at the bar, more hair than the both of us, taller
in the backlit glow of the doorway
than I’d known him from the black and white photo
you stuck to the fridge one Christmas Eve.
You gather us around, whiskey-whisper this is your Grandad,
no liver cirrhosis, not dead at 48,
still bringing pork scratchings and a bottle of fizzy pop
to land with a clink on the step.
So, you coming in or not?
