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Sinéad Griffin
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the poet
Sinéad Griffin has been published in Poetry Ireland Review, The Irish Times, Under The Radar, The Four Faced Liar, Hog River Press and elsewhere. One of her poems was recently included in the Poetry Jukebox installation at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin. Thanks to an Arts Council Agility Award in 2023, Sinéad is now working on her debut poetry collection.
the poems
View from the Dunes
Run hip-high through seagrass to the hollow, lie on the slip face of dunes,
perfect angle to observe heaven. Hear breakers hush, windward side,
by the hole for Australia dug with an orange spade.
Fern plumes in place of daises, hands sticky
with forest scent, intoxicated by the shape
of some boy’s name,
he loves me,
he loves me not,
he loves me,
we never stop on not,
crave feelings we can’t fathom,
dream one day we’ll walk other realms.
Castletown days of tide, not time, we don’t know
the Wexford shore will tumble, the slope of illness to come.
For now, all the world seems nothing, but a few big thoughts away.
Letter from Dublin
Remember us as city schoolgirls, brown uniforms,
scratchy gabardines and knee socks on the Quays.
I’m in Dublin this late June evening,
the footpath all bar stools and al fresco food,
so continental even the seagulls
curse in three languages.
Burglar bars still gird low-level glass, metal
shutters rattle closed at dusk, only the charity
shop window invites with a teapot, cat jigsaw,
jade skirt, a snorkel and flippers green as
Liffey wall scum. Do people still river swim?
A string of rosary beads makes me think
of O’Connell Street Mad Mary, she’d dance, sing,
proclaim, our traffic island Doris Day.
We never crossed at her spot, scared off
since she tried to talk to us about God.
As per usual the Quays are insane,
elbow-out-the-window taxi drivers shout blame
up Ormond Quay. The traffic flow opposite
to how it was in those days. Sure look.
Buses of assorted colour, doors flush to pavement,
not like our navy and cream old favourites,
bubble-nosed, open rear platform and pole,
no door, years before health and safety was born.
You taught me where to grip the pole, swing on
once the bus left the stop, dodge the conductor
if we were lucky, scamper box steps at the back,
sit and stare like we’d been there forever.
Capel Street, tonight I join the boardwalk,
bounce timber planks, feel the suspension. Rewind.
Reverse flow. The 26 is leaving Aston Quay
before time, you leap the platform turn and smile.
Figment or a memory, now I’ll never know,
but you pull away and I have to let you go.
August
I sit with my parents, drinking hot coffee
in the strong sun of their back garden.
My father in T-shirt and shorts, welcomes
the warmth, my mother is shrouded in cotton,
doubly shaded with a parasol and floppy hat,
since medication makes her sensitive
to the light. They tell me about a neighbour’s
dementia, a cousin’s husband’s angina,
they tell me they bought Lotus biscuits
in Dealz. We don’t mention my sister,
how August was ours, a year minus five
days apart. All the while I watch
a white butterfly turn in flight,
zig-zag the grass, like a slip of white
paper, a note that flits away,
like something I meant to say.
Publishing credits
View from the Dunes: The Waxed Lemon (Issue No. 2)
Letter from Dublin: South Dublin Libraires Online (May 2023)
August: The Four Faced Liar (Issue No. 2)