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Patricia Walsh

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Instantaneous Puppets


Procrastinating to a tee, this magic endeavour,
welcomed back once famous, a fair endeavour.
Plastic latex bottles with the better institutions
worrying over rashes, a sore on your hands.


No form is the same, trite though it may be,
reading through incriminating diaries, an exhibit,
various battalions congregate over hills,
on not now needed, a humiliating slump.


Destined for greatness, happily savouring
lecture after lecture on the solitary useless,
the generous weather so far comes clean,
barely scraping skies, at least not yet.


Doing one’s own thing, a recluse in all name,
watching over screens an ego inflated,
this thickened blood clot arrests the impossible
saving more sanity and probable lives.


Never repeated at least on the open-mic,
taking singular care of a minion’s path,
now going to the highway, better for hell,
simple work crumbling in its own juices.


Taking to an early bed, never waking again,
this perfect wish over the breakdown commences
slaughtered in sleep, this wish abiding
divided through harassment and a simple ploy.

Patricia Walsh (She/her) was born and raised in the parish of Mourneabbey, Co Cork, Ireland.  She has previously published a range of poetry in publications across Ireland, the UK, and the US, and one collection of poetry, Continuity Errors,  with Lapwing, and two novels, The Quest For Lost Éire, and In The Days of Ford Cortina, in 2013 and 2021 respectively.  She lives in Cork City. A further novel, Hell for Beginners, is scheduled for release in 2024.

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