The Centre of Always

By Daragh Bradish

When my daughter telephoned, I told her I was writing a few words about a collection of poems, she asked “What are they like?” before ending the call but was instantly back to insist I begin with my five word answer to her; I have. “Ah, they’re just lovely poems!” These poems of generosity and perceptiveness. His first lines are diamond. They stir our bodies, disturb our minds, open imagination, tease and taste ambiguities. Each poem in this rewarding second collection from Daragh Bradish is ‘an unmarked door’ to venture through for public and private conversation and relationship. They draw the reader into the poet’s delicate web of people, boundaries, caverns, seas and skies. There is gentleness here, and power; but always ‘seeing’. These elegant poems are foundation blocks for a poet’s vision. – Seamus Cashman

• Language: English
• Publisher: Limerick Writers Centre
• Release date: Mar 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005911218

Book preview

Answer the question,

or begin to write it down.

I have put off my ghost-search long enough.

Where was I going through this sleepless night?

At dawn I dreamt I had gone

to school, not knowing much,

but carrying a sack of ripened pears, apples,

and plums, that showed the indents of their pickers.

Classrooms vibrated chaos around me,

lined up possibilities before me,

unmarked doors which I could slip through,

Autumn-gifted, yet still curious.

I ask my woken self;

what do you reach for, Old Testament or New?

This day, believing in surprise,

my thumb and index finger

grip the dial, the radio

projecting sounds to latch on:

waves of a world- in-waiting

marvellous confusions, responsive to my touch.

Christmas in College Park

What little light still lingers

roles great purple clouds

to single glow of evening

over College Park.

The nearby clamour softened

on this the open ground,

whose rim of wooden benches

and streaming flow

of this year’s student body

passing with much purpose

between the lecture rooms and faculties

resound receptive

of grave knowledge keeping time with time.

March of generation after generation

all in line, yet bound to melt..

The fact I waged a future once

seems unimportant now.

With time to kill and resting as I must

my mobile cluched in expectation.

Strangers pause beneath the nearest light

Turning away from one another.

A troop of visitors creeps by

with one voice asking

Is this sky typical of Ireland end- of- year.

I want to answer yes,

but stay on wait, leaving the reply

to the commissioned guide,

who uneased by the question, hesitates

before he makes an answer.

Sometimes, sometimes. Which is not an answer,

but a putting off.

The visitors depart. My phone begins to sing,

and what would you expect

I let it go. Its Christmas in a college park

and Cassiopeia is still above us.

Some un-swapped leaves are playing on the pitch.

The shimmering of lamplight quickens.

Perhaps a voice comes calling from that other age,

drunk on