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Theresa Donnelly
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the poet
Theresa Donnelly is an Irish/Canadian poet who has enjoyed a career in Hospitality & Culinary Management. Widely published and anthologised, she's a past winner (and judge) of Canada's Food for Thought poetry competition in 2014/15. Poet Vanessa Shields said Theresa's poetry, ‘offers a delectable arrangement of observations that both haunt and honour.’ A member of The Ontario Poetry Society, Theresa's also a founding member of The Brooklin Poetry Society.
the poems
Towards Iseult’s Chapel
Before the brewery, cross Joyce’s bridge.
Smithfield has a lighthouse but few horses!
Pass pubs that rival any museum.
Sweat of centuries steeped into stone;
backyards where squealing pigs were kept.
On Blackhorse, enter the Pheonix Park
through the ‘Hole in the Wall’; traverse
the expanse to Chapelizod.
The wooded valley where tragic tales
of 12th-century Irish Princess Iseult
and lover Tristan abounds.
A tree grows above each grave,
their network of branches continue
to reach for each other; alluringly scented
honeysuckle, and the hazel with the knowledge
of the universe within its branches.
The weir-view at Martin’s Row:
a favourite place for contemplating
characters and the Liffey’s descent.
In the Mullingar House, home of all characters
and elements in James Joyce’s novel,
Finnegans Wake, Earwicker pours pints,
served by Anna Livia Plurabelle.
Under a copy of Joyce’s death mask,
a tourist reads the aforementioned novel.
In one afternoon, he’s swallowed
five pages whole. His uncle’s book club
in Venice, California, took 28 years to finish it.
It’s too nice an afternoon to read. Maybe
it’s the stone, maybe it’s the spirits from
Wakes watched in his father’s local
with inquisitive pen and jotter. A cultural institution.
A pulchritudinous view of a city from this riverside village.
Dublin’s best kept secret.
Mystery of Monarchs
Honeyed sunlight softens
his jagged features.
Late January mellows
under a magenta sky.
Sleeping beneath malleable boughs,
his heart is unyielding.
But only I know it.
Remember, Adelita,
the path which ran beyond
the gated casement
into a world we dreamed
but knew little of?
When Madre left,
he occupied the blue room;
frantically paced its floor
like a caged tigre.
His ingested rage spewing
like an erupting volcano,
over ink-stained flesh.
Betrayed when, even the moon
turned her face, leaving innocence
to whimper in darkness.
Remember, Adelita, you prayed to
The Virgin of Guadalupe for wings
like those of the monarchs,
fluttering above the cornucopia
of deep burgundy auroras kiss dahlia?
Your prayers answered,
during the summer of dearth.
In a flurry of orange-silk georgette,
monarchs filled the sky: the garden: the room.
Emptied me of you. You flew away;
found sanctuary on Sierra Chincua.
Sometimes I hear your voice,
rising on the wind, as it blows
above the oyamels.
Remember, Adelita,
for fear that I will forget.
Fishwife
Was it an act of sanctity or sorcery
not to be created from Adam’s rib?
Caught in your net, I fought brazenly,
until you pulled me from the sea.
Sweeping shadows aside,
you bent barefoot and bronzed.
Your lips allowed me breathe
the earth once plump with poison.
My eyes became saucers
over which daylight spilled.
I lay on the shore sweetened
by the early tides of May.
Seashells ringed my newly
fashioned fingers and toes.
You knew my name; you repeated it over
and over until it was echoed by mute swans.
You unbraided my hair, draped
it like damp seaweed over stones.
Visible silken threads coupled both
body and soul beneath your cloak
of tightly woven canvas.
Duck egg is either blue or green,
it depends solely on the light.
I chose various shades of it
for each and every room,
in a house where I have never slept
without some memory of water.
Publishing credits
Towards Iseult’s Chapel: Verse Afire ~ Canadian Poetry Magazine
(Vol. 2, Issue 1)
Mystery of Monarchs / Fishwife: exclusive first publication
by iamb