Bio
Patrick Deeley is a poet, memoirist and children's writer. His seventh collection, The End of the World, recently appeared from Dedalus Press. He is the 2019 recipient of the Lawrence O'Shaughnessy Poetry Award from the University of St Thomas, Minnesota. His bestselling memoir, The Hurley-Maker's Son, was shortlisted for the 2016 Irish Book of the Year Awards.
Patrick Deeley
Lying in Bed on Windy Nights
I picture us, by a process of riddance of the main edifices
of stone and slate, roofed only with moss, walled
around with smudges of lichen and pebble-dash seashells.
Such tricks the eyes and mind and capering weathers
play - still, our frailties make for life. We stand
on shifting carpets, grow in expectation of falling, hope
to be senseless when trusted to the ground. Carry ourselves
as far from solid, as bodies of thought, dreaming things
in empty spaces to make us the sum of all we haven't got.