by Rose Rushe
BORN in Croom, Clairr O’Connor joins national and international writers in ‘Dream of a City’, the City of Culture published anthology of poetry. She’s a novelist, playwright and short story writer who has had radio plays on Warsaw Radio, BBC Radio 4 and RTE Radio 1.
Below is ‘Pause’. And it is, a realisation rooted in the real-time of burnt toast, of charm not writing up another’s book anymore.
The hint of what is done is monstrous.
Note O’Connor’s use of the dash (-) to punctuate, always indicative of sloppy thought.
Pause
He accommodated no one except when distracted/ by love. Now, his life derailed – something urgent/ would not go away. Accustomed to using his charm to effect – this moment he felt only fear when the uniformed/ police and two detectives – the uninvited visitors stood/ notebooks at the ready, his useless anger – /
why couldn’t they wait a bit longer?/
He engineered a further pause as unhurried/ he silenced a Gregorian chant on the iPad.
Sudden shouts and screams./ The photo albums, the long record/ of family life, were now abandoned/ on their stands. This evening, something/ long longed for was paused./
That afternoon’s charcoaled toast and paté/ rose in his throat. The night closed in.
