Patricia Walsh’s poem: Community


Trained, qualified, experienced, what's not to like?

A welcome grace coming from the weather station

Not even interested, the better to request same

Nothing said or mentioned, rotting on the vine

Being good within reason is all that matters.


Written to be seen, incriminating overtures

Crash and burn over presentment, what it really means

The garrulous phases reading through scripts

The irrelevant moniker rolling a sort of dice

Bleeding love songs roped in to dissuade,


Contacting betters for sake of another argument

Watching through the meltdown for closure

Satisfied over history, if not future plans

Common parlance piquing the degenerate

No answer given, at least a long shot.


Future being better tomorrow, as happily declared

Arresting the steal, en route to world king

Not sitting beside me, the better to pay attention

Failure growing into glory, eventually

Always thinking the worst, resting this case.


The arclight fixates on the good on the ground

Great in the field, stumbling on high art

Invitation to better things, a charitable sort

The academic rot clashes on its own reckoning

Fingers in pies, fanfares redoubling its efforts.


Patricia Walsh was born and raised in the parish of Mourneabbey, Co Cork, Ireland.  She has previously published a range of poetry in publications across Ireland, the UK, and the US, and one collection of poetry, Continuity Errors,  with Lapwing, and two novels, The Quest For Lost Éire, and In The Days of Ford Cortina, in 2013 and 2021 respectively.  She lives in Cork City. A further novel, Hell for Beginners, is scheduled for release in 2024.

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