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
Impending Storm
Vivaldi's Four Seasons assails me on the telephone –
ruined and rasping confluence of violins
chopped and looped, stop-start, jumpy as I feel,
who linger at home waiting for the hospital
to sign me in, determine what is wrong. A storm's
promised, maybe the biggest this decade.
Already it swells, lifting things, and from outside
in the yard, faintly at first, I hear a robin
clear his throat – of airborne dust, grits of stone,
breadcrumbs, maybe even earthworms.
Big voiced then, he throttles up – avowal, espousal
of the body's worth, whether frail or durable:
battle-song, warning, celebration, before
a voice in my ear says: "We have put you down for..."