Vol. 2 No. 1 - Modernist Magazines Project

15 ART McCOOEY
We played with the frilly edges of reality
As we puffed our cigarettes ;
And sometimes Owney Martin's splitting yell
Would knife the dreamer that the land begets.
' I'll see you after second Mass on Sunday.'
' Righto, righto.' The mare moves on again,
The cart rides over a heap of gravel
And the mare goes scow-ways like a blinded hen.
Down the laneway of the poplar banshees
By Paddy Bradley's ; mud to the ankles;
A hare is grazing in Mat Rooney's meadow ;
Maggie Byrne is prowling for dead branches.
Ten loads before tea-time. Was that the laughter
Of the evening-bursting school ?
The sun sinks large behind the hills of Cavan,
A stormy-looking sunset. ' Brave and cool.'
Wash out the cart with a bucket of water and a wangel
Of wheaten straw. Jupiter shines down
Unlearnedly and unreasonably Poetry is shaped,
Awkwardly, but alive in the unmeasured womb.