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Ballinasloe Station

Flood plains replenished and diminished,
a deceiving here-and-there fluidity
and the flat statement of stubborn water.
Occasionally trackside trees are stranded,
littered in swirling pools
that soundlessly disappear.
On the horizon,
tall walls and radio mast mark the far-off asylum
neatly screened with its avenue of trees.
The people are hidden beyond the town,
their tears reaching as far as the railway lines.
The train navigates the flood’s edge
like logic escaping emotion,
trim engineering escaping danger,
holding firmly onto the rails.

(Ballinasloe was a major mental home in County Galway)

Pat Jourdan
Poetry Theme(s):

Currently Popular Poems:

Ominous

Unexpected darkness descends With a decrepit desire for long absent affection, clutching at thin wispy ends with diminished thoughts and caged responses my deserted smile departed. Jill
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River Linnet

River Linnet, A chalk stream In Bury. Rubbish, Let’s bin it Instead of Filling it. Edith St-King
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Behind Your Smile

Behind your smile, Is a heart that's filled with pain, Behind every gesture There's a walk down memory lane. For yesterday's troubles, Are torments of the soul, It's so hard to be strong, When life takes its toll. With every step that's taken, There's compassion for another, A listening ear always there, Guiding sons, daughters, mothers. Always so much easier, To hold up for a friend, When to go with your feelings, Seems to lead to no end. The whispers locked inside your head, Remind you, you're alive, With pretending and avoiding, You can easily survive. Giving in's not an option, When there are others to care for, So easy to pretend, When there's no help at the door. Depression, like a broken leg , Needs nurturing and healing. Don't treat it any differently, It's normal to have feelings. Out there is the help you need, To help and cope and manage, The troubles burdening your mind, To unload all the baggage. So while right now it seems each ...
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Spreading Health

How much better it is to use a hanky or tissue than to propel germs, bacteria, viruses. How much better to keep that hanky up your sleeve then to wash it in 30 degrees or to compost that tissue for bugs and worms to consume making soil to grow food for health. Sue Foster Photo by Diana Polekhina via Unsplash  
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Torn Apart

Afterwards it was a long process, two years rolled into ten, of letting go, letting it out. She stumbled through days, drank warmed milk or camomile, paced all night. She worked; walked in the green; bathed in geranium and rose oil hot baths; and only talked to those friends who made her laugh. No sugar, no wine, went vegan, but tears, so much wetness like the churning of rainwater tumbling into a ravine frothing, drowning she fought for breath. She tried counting her blessings. She put on the lost smile, pretended. She made consciously positive statements about herself, about others. No-one knew. She went to happy places, spent time with good people. She allowed the tears, gushing taps, to drench at night kissing her lips with salt, with stinging, with coldness. Sometimes, now, even after all these years words needle her memory, but that is the stitching pulling, snagging. Soon there will only be a scar. No getting over it. Just a mend to staunch the bleeding. Sue Foster
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Cardamine Pratensis

after Laurie Lee, ‘Milkmaid’ ‘Tender cress and cuckoo-flower: And curly-haired, fair-headed maids, Sweet was the sound of their singing’* A pretty name, the ‘cuckoo flower’, just one of many guises: ‘Our Lady’s smock’, or ‘fairy flowers’ that come in varied sizes. The flower, they said, could bring bad luck so rarely picked for remedies; but sometimes risked to use like cress to pepper up the lunchtime cheese. The ‘May flower’ tells us when it blooms while ‘coco plants’ confuse the mind, the rustic ‘milkmaid’ seems to show an image that is less refined. The name suggests a dainty wench, just like the flower, a pleasant sight, who tends the herd in shaded barn in frilly smock, all dazzling white. They say the blooming coincides with cuckoo’s call; they may be right but milkmaids conjure up the mood of summer’s idyll at its height. Lee’s marigolds and buttercups and ‘brimming harvest of their day’ reveal to us a bygone time, remind us of those country ways. Julia Duke *From a 15th or 16...
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Who Is Saving The World?

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Decay and Madness

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Very Important Invitation

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