Charlotte Murphy
A regular reader at the White House
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A regular reader at the White House
A regular reader at the White House
A regular reader at the White House
A regular reader at the White House
A regular reader at the White House Poetry Revival, Tom Moloney grew up in Raheenagh, Co. Limerick, Ireland. He now lives in Broadford, four miles from there, where he has his own grocery business. He has primary degrees in Arts, Business and Social Science as well as a Masters degree in Cultural Studies. He is a regular contributor at poetry readings in the South of Ireland.
Published in 2009, Tom's first collection, 'My Register', was published in 2009 by Linden Publishing Services Ltd. (ISBN 978 1 905487349)
POEM
(1)
It's Really About
He is simply like one in a hurry
Where the thought is always going to be
Blunt, its less-than-romantic circuitry
Making him a cut-to-the-chase lover,
Nicknamed after his one-way tendency
To ape Aristotle's imprimatur
To be the only premise of story.
But more than that model could ever be
He searches for the one word to be sure
To give him the voice to say it's about
The essence - one thing and one thing only
Even though other lovers may hail
The multiple chimes of a midnight bell
To be more like it than the one about.
POEM
(2)
Divine Comedy
Throughout his ex-life he'd heard about being
Assumed naked to a new beginning.
He'd stand there like one found-out, about to plea
How sorry he was for always doubting
Through body's words like the sure head-shaking.
He'd promise to make amends 'till the last day,
Be led by his new buddy Virgil, knowing
That the pits of the Inferno were just
What to expect from Dante's Comedy;
And even if he didn't see his way
He'd seek sanctuary, in between crying
"This place is no five-star hotel, damn it,
More like a 17th Century French dungeon;
And the smell; it smells of Charon's cargo.
Faulty karmic winds must have hurled me
Onto the path of someone else. I see
A gatekeeper, his latest job, checking;
Palestinian, Jordanian maybe,
Short-tempered, left wife and everything;
Fisherman, first pope, keeper of the faith,
Messenger boy; said he wouldn't deny.
I'll ask if there's a Café on-site
For a cup of coffee, a place to rest,
To be quiet, to more fully die."
POEM
(3)
Balthazar
Balthazar told astronomers years later,
that he loved surprises in the way
The sky delivered Jesus up a mountain.
Outside the stable, on the night in question
He remarked to Caspar that he had never seen
A new-born Child looking so divine;
Euphoric, as he confided to Melchior,
"The arthritis in my knees seems to have gone.
You saw how I struggled to kneel in there."
He spotted donkey dung on his sandals
But something told him to let well alone,
Just as he had left no e-mail address,
Placed no calling card on
Top of the frankincense during adoration,
No contact number if the Child ever
Wanted to emigrate to Arabia for
Work, to see the wonders of the East,
To go on a student exchange for a year.
He took a deep breath, climbed on
Molly, his camel, then displaying
A bit of culture, he turned
To his star buddies, his right hand waving,
Tongue-in-cheek, "long live the kings;
au revoir. "
He reined Molly then to turn army left,
At the same time giving a final
Backward glance towards the sky, to marvel
A second at the brightest Star of all.
Molly farted, disturbed the moment's magic,
Jolting Balthazar to plan on his back.
He'd return home by a different route,
Turn left to avoid the M-1,
Its guaranteed checkpoints. To begin
He bent forward on Molly in order
To elude the cameras of Big Brother,
The foreign state he was passing through,
Comparable to a Nazi country of the future.
Remaining focussed, he held his nerve,
Whispered hut-hut to Molly.
Being a king of the desert, he spent
Hours, days, weeks alone. It meant
He had developed the habit of talking to
Himself; a lot.
Molly was used to his self-debate.
Balthazar went on,
"if the media get wind of where I've been
I'll never get back incognito to my harem."
As he bent forward, he continued,
"I just hope, Molly, that the guards think you're
One of the many strays, in from the desert."
Ten kilometres down the dirt road
Leading to the desert, he stopped,
Switched on his tranny, tuning into
Desert news on the half-hour on Lyric.
He liked to listen to up-to-date bulletins.
The murder overnight of holy innocents
Was the lead story. Mass murder
Like the futuristic night of the long knives
In Germany.
His blood pressure rose to think
That might was right. He regretted
Not bringing his laptop when he set out.
He could have sent a message of protest
To his Twitter page or gone viral with it.
He left the goddamn country forever.
Thirty-three years later, while he was resting
In between writing and thinking
About justice and beauty and so on
In the company of the favourite one
Of his one hundred and fifty wives
He turned on, out of habit, the News
On the half-hour on Desert Lyric.
Charlie Arafat was reporting live from
The via dolorosa on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
By then Balthazar was relatively deaf
So he had to turn up the tranny to catch
What Charlie was reporting.
Balthazar gathered that the Passion was a play,
An unusual development for Desert Lyric.
He continued to listen, was delighted to think
That Jesus had grown-up to become
An actor with a lead role in a dramatic play
About good and evil. Balthazar mused,
"There was something about that kid
In the manger. I knew he'd be successful
At whatever he tried his hand at.
Just then Charlie Arafat reported Jesus
As saying, "weep not for me but for yourselves
And for your children." Balthazar thought,
" His performance is so authentic. Good Lord,
Correct me if I'm wrong on this one but
If he keeps this up, he's going to be around
For a long time to come."
They said:
'For years I have been listening with delight to Tom Moloney giving his thoughtful, humorous viewpoint on aspects of the human condition, at venues from the White House Poets in Limerick to the Poetry Festival at Newcastle upon Tyne. This collection brings those reflections together for appreciation by a wider audience'
- Louis Mulcahy
'Although 'after the boom came the recession', these poems hark back nostalgically to 1963, with a passionate innocence almost as defiant as Kavanagh's.
- Medbh McGuckian
'Tom's well-crafted poetry is always entertaining. His philosophy of true-to-life filters through on powerful emotive subjects and with a sweet uniqueness. - Donal O'Flynn
'Tom Moloney writes with the twinkling eye of a story maker and the voice of a storyteller. There is a community of awareness in his work, which is at once, modern and traditional. His poems say 'walk with me' rather than 'hear this'. If you do, you will delight in the journey and likely chuckle along the way. A sage in the making.'
- Brian Blaney