...my greatest pleasure was to stop in country cemeteries, to stretch out between two graves,
and to smoke for hours on end. I think of those days as the most active period of my life.
Emil Cioran, The Trouble With Being Born

The once surrounding wrought-
iron fence has sunk with its slab
into the earth and left two tilting
bedsteads on an acre of alluring
green quilt which has sucked up
to a summer of rain still gathering
below and across the Roscommon
plains like armies hardly distinguished
in shades of black and towering greys.
Underneath, a democracy of dead:
Tommy Maxwell, the MacDermotts,
the King-Harmons and the two
to three interned daily for the first
seven weeks of black forty seven.

Joseph Woods has published two collections with Dedalus Press - Cargo and Ocean Letters