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The Fox, the Whale and the Wardrobe
In Dónall Dempsey’s most recent collection, The Fox, the Whale and the Wardrobe, published on 1st March 2023, he continues to explore themes of time and memory in poems that are playful, emotive, absurd, surreal, funny and moving. Mining the rich resources of his Irish childhood, he introduces us to an uncle whose tales to nine-year-old Dónall cause an aunt to scold the adult for ‘filling the boy’s head with nonsense’, and with a little girl who constantly surprises and delights us with her discovery of meanings in life we have all but forgotten. The sorrow of loss is here, too: long-term personal grief since his beloved sister died when he was still a child, as well as the more recent deaths of his parents and younger brother, and the memories, happy and sad, of people he has met at the end of their lives. A film-noir enthusiast, in this collection he also unreels surreal narratives after gangster movies and murder mysteries. A child of rural Ireland, he gives voices to trees, rivers and stones and accesses their knowledge of time and the universe. And always his poems ring with his own joy in living and his vivid poetic imagination.
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Adèle Ward comments; ‘Dempsey is a master of the short, unpunctuated line that draws us into his world step-by-step, and it’s a place where we want to be immersed. A library returns to the woodland the books and furniture are made of, so that we stand among trees. Beloved relatives are conjured up from what remains, perhaps no more than an inherited hat. Although minimalist, these poems reach into the deepest subjects, taking us to a future where birds remain to recall how humans caused their own extinction. Through it all, darkness and light are woven together with deft magic.’
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Donall Dempsey: Eight Poems from The Fox, the Whale and the Wardrobe
THE NOTHINGNESS
I opened up
the nothingness
and there it was
. . .1956
only half way through
its journey
I thought: ‘Hey
this was a good place
to be born in’
the world opening up
to me and I
was mad about it
it had sky
and waves
and birds
as such
I just loved it
at first
couldn’t get
enough of it
but the years
stripped me of my innocence
and before I knew it
it was time
to go back
into the nothingness
I never could
get along with Time
it was always
bossing my mind around
but would I do it
again given half a chance
you can bet my life
I would
MY FAVOURITE BOOK
unable to read
I looked up
at my Dad
telling me stories
till the light
grew dark
new stories
bright and shiny
cobwebs on a dewy morning
old stories
round and worn
familiar in their telling
told and told
again
a bell in a cold crisp evening
able to read
(somewhat now)
I look up to my Dad
the best book
I
ever had
THE TALES TOLD BY BIRDS
for Shyam
the civilisation of the birds
will prevail
and they will tell their eggs
stories about how
the humans
nearly destroyed the earth
and how now they only survive
in the stories that birds tell
to frighten their little hatchlings
who don’t really believe
that such creatures
could ever have existed.
Buildings left to themselves
as if humans
had never been invented
nature reclaims
its domains
the animals return
a dinosaur takes
the moving stairs
a pterodactyl hunts for bargains
YES, MAYBE, NO
she dismantled her smile
tucked it away
in a golden compact mirror
she said nothing
she didn’t have to
say anything
I stood there
as if sculpted
out of silence
she turned
her back on me
it was a very pretty back
I felt I was
living in
a Philip Marlowe novel
now she was
only her high heels
clicking on the marble
I didn’t stop
to see her
go
and then
there was
no her anymore
only her perfume
creating the shape
of her in the air
‘Damn!’ I said
to no one
and again ‘Damn!’
my own words
laughing at me
in an echo
SANCTUARY
this one perfect moment
time rearing up like a wave
that never ever breaks
the train’s scream
the dog’s bark
chiselled into the silence
dancing to
the bandstand’s music
a flock of flags
birds
writing themselves…unwriting themselves
across a page of sky
this moment
flees from time
claims sanctuary in my mind
NUGAE,
‘Ramblings‘
The torrential rain of
55 BC
falls outside
Catullus’ window.
Here in AD 2020
the same rain falls for me.
Catullus rubs his lazy eye
as do I.
His then and my now
almost one and the same.
Only the torrent of time
that falls as rain
separates us
each from the other.
‘Vivamus…atque amemus!’
he tells his rain.
‘We should live…we should love!’
I tell mine.
His father is entertaining Caesar
whose voice not even the rain
can curtail
the tales he tells
about long-haired Gauls
blue Britons.
The finest Falernian flows freely
from cup to cup.
Slaves clatter plates away
almost fall over a frolicsome pup.
But now sleep takes me prisoner.
Catullus’ bedspread falls to the floor.
And in that instant
we both catch a glimpse
of the other
time falling like rain.
FALLEN ANGEL ON THE GRAVEYARD SHIFT
a stone angel
raises her eyes
to a Heaven
hands held
in supplication
wishing for a sign
snowflakes fall
upon her eyes
that cannot see
snow resting
quietly
in her palms
until she has a snowball
in either hand
wears a cap of snow
God’s idea
of a joke
I guess
enough
to make
the dead laugh
‘Go on throw it!’
I tell her and
…she lets Him have it
ITS OWN GOOD SELF
no God just
the sweet rain blesses me
with its own good self
a robin
unaware
that he’s my prayer
the miracle of sunlight
playing
with a kitten
wind sings
in a choir
of trees
The High Window 