Poems by Michèle Vassal

Drunk as Brendan Behan Lovers    lovers their empty skins hang limp in opiate closets pulsing between insinuations of naphthalene and the barbitural scent of forgetting, they swing embittered and toxic, mothy costumes of a play that lingers only on faded posters and skin. On the wrong side of midnight drunk as Brendan Behan I scooped up a last high king kneeling on Clontarf road          battled out knees sanded to the bone by the wet grit of ancient wars         singing         something about not worrying about a thing amongst Viking corpses on the steps of the Bank of Ireland where Wood Quay used to be we kissed ourselves an island.   I clinched a burned out arsonist        hands shaking      climbing railings in Stephens Green      ..fucking left an aftertaste of phosphorus         reeking red        like inhaling the soul of a cracked match.   I chased a light eyed dragon heart caving in to the count of nine elliptic filigree of sins I kept twitching inside a reliquary of abalone dreams whilst the rosary of Chopin’s Polonaise undid itself in silver beads. I slashed my defeats in the wrists of actors snorted stars on the mercurial mirrors of their well rehearsed eyes and DT-ed on night’s poitín when I drank neat the distilled dew glistening on the mouths of girls.   © Michèle Vassal, published in A Taste of Hemlock, Salmon 2011

Dublin 75   Nineteen seventy five and Mary worked Fitzwilliam square genuflecting at closing time for wretched men in nylon shirts too drunk to know too drunk to care that whilst on bended knees she thought only of communion.   From the Liberties to the Green   Dublin vomited poets and patriots under the gassy glare of streetlights leaning on convoluted shadows and not quite balladed out saints and scholars spewed up Spancil Hill and Dirty Old Town, like a bad pint In nineteen seventy five love smelled of stout and vinegared chips.”   © Michèle Vassal, published in A Taste of Hemlock, Salmon 2011

Michèle Vassal Michèle Vassal is from Barcelonnette, a small town in the French Alps. She moved to Ireland, aged seventeen, to learn English and stayed there for thirty years. Her collection, Sandgames (Salmon 2000), received first prize at Listowel Writers’ Week and some of her poems were short-listed for the Hennessy/Sunday Tribune Awards. She has been widely published internationally, in both French and English. Michèle currently lives and writes in France. Youtube Salmon Amazon Amazon

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