MARIAN O’Rourke is an accomplished poet from Limerick who has published internationally and performed on radio, from RTE Lyric fm to New York. She’s particularly vivid with imagery, the poems being full of colours, sensuality and real-time feeling.
From Limerick City of Culture anthology ‘Dream of a City’, here is ‘Courting the Muse’. She channels the panic of a writer in fear of desertion – by their mode of expression, wordpower, inspiration, life’s breath. Call it what you will under the silky taunting mantle of Muse.
Another attractive element to ‘Courting the Muse’ is the sense of culpability and pleading; this is no cherchez la femme buzzsaw of blame. Mermaids kickass too with that whiplash tail.
Courting the Muse
Troubled by her absence I turned the radio off,/ allowing silence and the traffic’s rhythm in./ Inhaled, exhaled, and wondered if she’d come.
My living-room floor blurred to sand/ and sunbeams licked it and out of the sea/ a mermaid. She shimmied and shook her/ fishy hips; her wine-brown hair wild/ as a dancer’s veil. She said
you hardly know me/ put everything before me/ and give me such little time to grow
and I knew I would never leave her again.
Astrolabe Press 2014
