"siobhan" poems
For ShirleyB
Feel your heartbeat quicken
For these pasta-salad days:
I am bringing chicken.
Bulging bellies thicken
Laden with crab hollandaise.
Feel your heartbeat quicken.
Sweet Siobhan seems stricken
By the puddings and soufflés.
(I am bringing chicken.)
Insert thy toothpick in
Anastasia’s canapés:
Feel your heartbeat quicken.
Beatrice (she’s Wiccan)
Brought a heap of warm beignets;
I am bringing chicken.
Jealousy shall sicken
Those who brought their best entrées--
Feel your heartbeat quicken:
I am bringing chicken!
Apr 28, 2016
Apr 28, 2016 at 6:50 PM UTC
When my uncle Frankie died
I didn’t think much about death
or the short fact of living.
I thought about my cousin Siobhan.
Everybody did.
He left 3 children dying,
but Siobhan was already dead -
the part that harvested hope anyway.
But people tend to focus on what’s missing
probably because we're all obsessed with growing.
Anyways, I knew then that she’d try to fill that void
like a hoarder, collecting anything within reach.
But her father’s watch wasn’t a token of relief
it sent her body into epileptic shock,
clutching white-knuckled at his biological clock.
And his glasses? Well she still wears them
but if she misplaces them for a moment
she’s liable to panic into another dimension.
Yes, Frankie’s death defined a tragedy
but Siobhan’s living only defined a tragic heroine
and all anybody could do was study her face,
know when it wrinkled from living
listlessly expressing that void, the missing,
the agonizing in the glass of her eyes
that tells me she’ll never again hear her father call her,
Blondie, creep up behind, massage her tired shoulders
and tell her without words that he will always be there –
there with her.
Siobhan would count her losses like this
making grief tangible in memory –
like the loss of language her and Frankie shared.
Sometimes at night I think of Siobhan
at last thanksgiving watching her daddy wave back to her
on home movies never saying much but smiling wide,
wide enough to make you gulp and twitch
and feel the hairs of your arm rise.
I remembered thinking that not many daddy’s have kindness in their smile.
But I knew then that everybody was playing detective
secretly watching Siobhan, screening her face
for clues to a crime unsolved
talking to every other family member in the room.
I often wished I felt brave enough
to grab her hand and squeeze it to stone
and tell her very “undetective” like,
“If this isn’t love, I don’t know what is.”
Jan 31, 2012
Jan 31, 2012 at 12:27 PM UTC
This unravelling
has created loose ends
I thought if I kept weaving
everything would stay secure
I've treated love like the finest gold yard
wrapping you around my heart
I thought I could tie everything into a knot
and hold it in place
I forgot about the wear and tear
the pull that could not be contained
This unravelling
has exposed a threadbare heart
that no amount of patches
can repair
Instead I pin and mount you
inside the recess of my brain
waiting and waiting
for you
to be
born again.
By Siobhan O'Sullivan
Nov 20, 2013
Nov 20, 2013 at 10:59 AM UTC
In quiet corners
I keep
All
Those
Thoughts
Shelved
Ordered
Coded
Numbered
Archived
Stored
Safe
Far
Away
Out
Of reach
Easy
For me
To
Find
When
I
Sleep
By Siobhan O'Sullivan
Nov 20, 2013
Nov 20, 2013 at 11:28 AM UTC
I am a wildfire,
you are miles and miles
of whispers in water.
Come, lay in me.
Scherezade Siobhan©
Dec 31, 2014
Dec 31, 2014 at 1:28 AM UTC
I told you
In this love
There would be no holes
We just need
Lots of buckets
For the pails of tears
And that we could use them
Year after year
To keep us from
Dying
We could
Water our love
With the tears
We’ve been
Crying
With tears
We’ve be laughing
Recycling
Our joys
And sorrows
Now
Today
Always
And
Tomorrow
By Siobhan O'Sullivan
Nov 20, 2013
Nov 20, 2013 at 11:24 AM UTC
Dancing phrases in the corridors
Of my brain
Breaking thru
This tissue thin membrane
My words suspended
In their cells
Short circuiting this silent hell
Sometimes a lighting fix
A string of pearls
I spit
You gather them
I know you do
These words
My fading memories of you
And we are twirling on the dance floor
Of who, I once was
Bumping into
Our love
All my words lost
Except this last refrain
I can still sing and dance
Your name
By Siobhan O’Sullivan
Nov 20, 2013
Nov 20, 2013 at 11:13 AM UTC
I’m catching
Your light
, lately
In different places
Illuminating
Empty spaces
Reflecting from the sky
Across
A shimmering pool
Halo’s hovering above
Children’s heads
On their way to school
An orange glow
Peeking thru
October’s
Falling leaves
Your light dancing
Amongst the trees
In my office
Light bounces
Across my cool green
Glass desk
At the end of the day
When the sun has left
I’m catching your light
, lately
Wherever I go
Basking in your glow
Didn’t I say?
You’d always
Shine
‘O’
Didn’t I say?
This
‘O’
Friend
Of
Mine
By Siobhan O'Sullivan
Nov 20, 2013
Nov 20, 2013 at 11:19 AM UTC
THE BELL GOES FOR THE END OF HISTORY
her head all algebra
trigonometry and Heaney
and...boys...boys...boys
her mind crept
nearer & nearer...him
longing just to touch his...
she watched a trickle of sweat
make its way down his neck
imagined herself licki..ing...it...off
it is the end of WW1
thank heaven for that
she watches him....mmmm...stretch...yawn
his name surrounded
by doodled hearts and flowers
her first poem....ahem...HYMN TO HIM
she had eyes only for him
he had eyes only for Siobhan Winterson
she hated Siobhan Winterson
oh my God oh my God oh
he just looked. . .
. . .past me
oh please oh please oh please
look at me
he doesn't give her a second look
she cries herself asleep
dreams of him
requiting her unrequited love
years years later
two kids and a divorce later
HYMN TO HIM in a battered shoebox
she reads her
13 year old self
sobs her heart out
Sep 7, 2019
Sep 7, 2019 at 5:47 AM UTC