Killing Time

By Tom Moloney

Tom Moloney's work is cryptic and wide-ranging in style, topic and tone; deeply interesting and at the same time interestingly deep. Multi-layered and erudite one minute, simple and laugh-out-loud funny the next. Tom's poems have something for everyone. I urge you to read them and then read them again. - John McGrath (Seanchaí Writers' Group, Listowel)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Limerick Writers Centre
• Release date: Oct 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005457105

Tom Moloney

Tom Moloney lives in Broadford, County Limerick with his better half -Bernadette. He has two beloved sons, Edmond and Thomas, in whom he is well-pleased. Nothing taxes him apart from Revenue. He describes himself as a poet-barbarian, knocking at the gates of the canon. He juxtaposes his life between two shops. By day he 'fumbles in the greasy till'; by night he turns to 'the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.' He has published two collections of poetry My Register and Killing Time. Getting the Nod from Himself is his first venture into prose fiction.By the same author:My Register - poetryKilling Time - poetry

Book preview

This is how it could happen –

(you can relax your gaze if you like)

Leave behind some hoary conversation

And, walking down Daly’s New Year’s Day hill,

Ignore the intermittent gaps on

Either side, the countryside still.

No doubt your conspirator, old Nature

Is clued-in to what you’ll ruminate just then

Passing the gap beyond big Jack’s gate.

For one moment you see

You’re master of the Universe

Already standing astride to take in

Hibernal light de novo;

Familiar with the general lie,

And having no need to look back,

Realise that everything is clicking,

Wondering to yourself, ‘I see faith;

Was it like this for Him in the beginning?’

SPONGE BALL

The best banging was up against the gable

So high you could in your stride

Choose to sail every acute shot

Over the bar from far out,

Each bounce perfectly laid

After hopping off the shed opposite,

Stand-in for the half-back line,

The wall’s defence ripped open.

The special ones though were the raspers

To the left corner of the net,

Beauties born in anticipation,

Perfect children of instinct.

Not to be carried away, some went astray

In space, your-on-the-spot umpire

Waving his hands in the summer air.

You’d just shrug them off, return to the fray.

In June when you’d lose the sponge,

Nettle stings usually educated

You, testing your mettle in the lunge

And swing through belligerent overgrowth.

If nettles reminded you to be prepared,

At such times you called on heavenly aid:

"Pray to saint Anthony, pray to saint Ann,

Put the ball in my hand as fast as you can."

This was the sponge that struck

Hartnett in the eye as his first gaze strayed on

Bernie O Brien’s knitting needles.

This was the sponge that shed bits

From banging against the pebbled wall,

The sponge that you forced into your pocket

At supper time, creating a bulge out of sight,

The sponge that smelt of the countryside.

Other times, after landing in Cronin’s trough,

This was the sponge that felt like lead,

Left down on the windowsill overnight

Then getting the feel, banging off the gable.

This was the ball after all that you sent

Into cloudless space, Sunday morning,

The goal then to aim it virtually straight-up,

The crack firing your very own Sputnik.

HOPE

Towards the end of Martha’s ‘phone call

Thomas interjected, ‘darling,

Unless I see the naked nail on the wall

Complete with the picture there, hanging,

I refuse to believe that the masterpiece is missing’.

Thomas had a right to be doubtful.

He had seen the officials hanging the original

And all agreed that it was in a safe place.

On that historic Monday morning,

On his usual walkabout,

The curator, Pierre Sire, discovered that

His latest baby (he called all his works

Babies; no, I’m not joking), well,

This masterpiece of masterpieces,

- An original conceived out of death -

(and for the record, three days old)

Was missing from the tomb room.

He reported it as a robbery on his cell

To the highest authority

Who, in turn, instructed Interpol.

Of course, the curator did all of this immediately.

But a sleeper leaked the story

And the word soon spread – globally.

One American editor ran with,

‘Print the goddamn thing as

‘The miracle at the Louvre or whatever it’s called’.

At a hurriedly-convened conference and photo