St Malachy’s

I take from the Collection —
silver and copper
palmed off the platter

I grow to be King
of the game ‘Lookalikes’
picking out the faces of the famous

I keep a straight face
kneeling at Holy Communion
acting transformed and saved

I lip-sync hymns
in my Sunday best and dream
of the bowling alley afterwards

I play with panache
the child part of Saturday
Confession

the expert manner
I deal with made-up Sin
and Penance

Me,
Myself,
I


Anthony Costello (UK)

This poem was first published in Orbis and is included in Anthony’s second collection Dreaming Tigers.

Kandinsky

If you could see the mauve spot
and the black circle as a Tube Station,
and the blue spot close by as a concept-designed Plaza,
then you are looking over my shoulder.
We could go south from here to the red square
of Fertility and Breathing,
loose and light in our appreciation of Beauty,
or we could go east along the signature black river,
turning right at Clarity roundabout
and on past the Pyramid
and the grey and green municipal buildings
to talk about the soul of things
on point and plane of the main shopping area.
Choose any coloured square — green, blue, grey —
and let's eat and drink Bauhaus style.
You once talked of this drawing
as an accident of paint-box and trigonometry.
Were you joking? Can you not see life is here?
In the cute eyelash lines and coloured dots (of various colours) —
the symbolist pyramid.
Come on, let’s take a walk to the Noughts and Crosses
we love... pink... white... pink... white.
How does it feel to be in it?
Not convinced? Put this down to me.
It is hard to encompass in words
the intelligence of this design.
Go then, go, but where to?
The outer rings to ponder things for a while?
Or leave here the way you came in?
Or stay with me in this paradise?
Stay with me in this Kandinsky. Or go?


Anthony Costello (UK)

The Shoes That Fit The Man

Our man is more Oxfords & Derbys
Than Loafers, Plimsolls, Trainers, Boots,
More P.G. Wodehouse & Evelyn Waugh
Than tabloidese and television,
Occasionally, on sunny days,
He brandishes a white umbrella;
Yet, today, at the Picture House
That snagging thought... all is not well -
Eleven years a single man!...
His only comfort classic films
About princesses, princesses
Of myth, fairytale, cartoons,
A looking glass to see right through
His classic shoes (a man in rags).


Anthony Costello (UK)