New class, new teacher, change in point of view.
This one, I note, is interested, asks real questions
and listens to answers. What does your father do?
Lorry driver, docker, unemployed. Factory worker.
Come Friday the collection stays in the box.
I have a new word to ponder, torpor.
Rain in the afternoon, room overheated, we drone
a verse in bored, lifeless chorus then, suddenly:
you, Sprague, what do you want to be when you leave here?
I don’t hear the answers as he reels in the others,
realise with a soft shock what mine will be.
So, when he asks, I hold his look and say ‘A writer, Sir.’
Trailing home I will wonder, which of us was the more surprised?
Today’s poem is from Theo Dorgan’s recent new collection Once Was a Boy (Dedalus Press) which is Cork city’s One City One Book for this year.
This one, I note, is interested, asks real questions
and listens to answers. What does your father do?
Lorry driver, docker, unemployed. Factory worker.
Come Friday the collection stays in the box.
I have a new word to ponder, torpor.
Rain in the afternoon, room overheated, we drone
a verse in bored, lifeless chorus then, suddenly:
you, Sprague, what do you want to be when you leave here?
I don’t hear the answers as he reels in the others,
realise with a soft shock what mine will be.
So, when he asks, I hold his look and say ‘A writer, Sir.’
Trailing home I will wonder, which of us was the more surprised?
Today’s poem is from Theo Dorgan’s recent new collection Once Was a Boy (Dedalus Press) which is Cork city’s One City One Book for this year.
