RAGE, RAGE…!!

My old friend tells me everything’s a bonus

after three score years and ten.

Do-gooders on the radio speaking

of the “elderly” as if we’re merely

walking frames stumbling into hospitals

as if years determine our state of mind

our physical fragility

but the whole universe of consciousness

bears down with a stark declaration

that there is an end to all this

breathing, this laughing, this sensory

carnival of the flesh –

a diamond shape hacked

out of the earth that has my name on it.

*

Biography

John Donaghy’s poetry has been published in The Derry Journal, Sarasvati magazine and in The Irish Times. He has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize in 2015. His poems have won first place in the unpublished section of the Poetry Ireland Trocaire Competition in both 2018 and 2019.