Patricia Walsh

Patricia Walsh
was born in the parish of Burnfort, Co Cork, and educated at University College Cork, graduating with an MA in Archaeology. Her poetry has been published in Stony Thursday; Southword; Narrator International;  Trouvaille Review; Strukturrus; Seventh Quarry; Vox Galvia; The Quarryman; Brickplight, The Literatus, and Otherwise Engaged. She has already published a chapbook, titled Continuity Errors in 2010, and a novel, The Quest for Lost Éire, in 2014.  A further collection of poetry, titled Outstanding Balance, is scheduled for publication in early 2021. She was the featured poet in the inaugural edition of Fishbowl Magazine, and is a regular attendee at the O Bheal poetry night in Cork city.

Closed Until Further Notice

The watered-down favour, cause for applause,
No aggressive poison can stop you now,
Not yet hit by lightning in a perfect silence
Kicking-out time braces the indigent signs.

Salt and roses, nourished by a set-up design,
Wrong tasks forever paving the perfect path,
No call for confusion, the bilateral ringing true
Opposite disenfranchised, coming for seconds
Reconstructive surgery laughed at, clockwork.

A clarion call that fared badly, blaring
Wasting time on profession at the going rate,
The token food betrays nothing too good
Broken apart transgressions rising through type.

Exacting credit gone into remission,
Mending the unnecessary silent slog,
Silenced drink eaten like a crosshatched bullet
Plain, yet pretty, the stranglehold righted,
Print layout view knowing where defeated.

Hardwired prices, clamouring for appointments
The supervised education not bilateral after all,
Training for the right door to bleed it through
Ingrained mistakes at a price, expressed.