Orfhlaith Foyle

I’ve been wanting to read this poetry collection for a while now. My interest was originally raised last year after reading her short story collection “Somewhere in Minnesota and Other Stories” . Whilst researching for the post I wrote on that book, I found out she wrote poetry, this caused me to dig deeper and I found this anthology, but like a lot of books it went on to my wishlist until finance or some other reason bumps it up & I purchase it. This was my reason….

I Saw Beckett The Other Day

I saw Beckett the other day
in the doorway of that café
where you took his photograph.

You know the one
...when he looked up at the lens
and realised how he could
haunt us all.

'Hey Beckett,' I said
rejoicing in my discovery of him;
his hand on the door, his eyes
skimming over the interior image
of cigarette smoke and coffee.

I stood beside him. He rubbed his face so
he might recognise me. I smiled and
said even I didn't know what was
happening these days.
Even I could not stop the end.

He nodded, coughed and looked sly; his teeth were
yellow over the pink rim of his lips.
He mentioned the photograph. He said his face
had collected worms under the skin as if ready for
death and he smiled to show them dance
spasmatic with age-spots and veins.

Someone entered the café. Someone left.
Beckett touched the hair above my ear.
I stood on tip-toe so he could whisper down.

He said nothing. It was just a kiss
with the cold wind at our feet and the
smoke and egg friendly air
released in draughts between
the opening and closing of the café door;

which he stepped through to find his table
and entered some other world,
under greasy lights
coupled with table shine and coffee cups,
and thoughts of death, where she stood
groomed for an entrance, were held back by
the odd moments of life
that still strung the useful breaths
Beckett used to blow his coffee cool.

I love the conversational tone of this poem & those lines “You know the one...when he looked up at the lens and realised how he could haunt us all” ,it instantly calls to mind those iconic images of Samuel Beckett, staring off into some distant space, the look part defiant, part fearful, haunted or haunting I'm never quite sure, just that the eyes bore deep, deep into you.

Words said to a Poet just before her/his demise

Poetry is useless.
It only uses words and
they can be rubbed out.
Same way as we
rub you out.
Blank.
You're gone.
Just a vacancy,
not even a breathe left.
But
- if you insist
to exist – in books
well … then …
we can burn you up...
all over again.

Red Riding Hood’s Dilemma, starts with a short poem of the same name, whose opening lines “Should I kill the wolf – or invite him to tea”, reflect (I think) a question running through this collection, we have poems of love & life cheaply spent, of death & of passions strong, here bodies ache, hurt, not in theory, the torment is real, as are the questions left unanswered.

http://parrishlantern.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/red-riding-hoods-dilemma-orfhlaith....… (plus d'informations)

In this collection of tales by Órfhlaith Foyle, we meet a cast of disparate characters, that at first glance appear to have little, if anything, in common yet it doesn’t take long to realise that they all share one trait, that being - in one way or another - each and everyone of them is broken. These are individuals that initially appear fine, even normal. You or they would instigate a conversation, which would follow along standard lines, you’d possibly discuss the weather, the subject’s not important – but at some point the fracture would reveal itself, it may not even be that first meet, but a moment will occur and you will realise that something is not right, that whatever humanity they have, in one way or another has been damaged.

There are nineteen stories in this collection, and from the very first one, you are fascinated, and by this I mean in it’s old sense* - to render motionless, as with a fixed stare or by arousing terror or awe - and yet you are caught wanting to know more, wanting to follow the tale to its conclusion. In one of the tales - Two Vampires, we watch a pair of male vampires sitting in a cafe stalking their next prey….

“Robert loves the death he forces into humans. He loves how their skin tears under his teeth and their attempts at screaming turn to nothing in his ears. He has stopped remembering anything of his life before, yet in the beginning, like Frances, he presumed he could not forget. He had expected to remember how the smell of fresh bread filled a morning or how he always longed to be clean…… but he forgot it all.
Now he appreciates the distance between him and humans. Their lives are alien, only their blood means anything. Robert had once tried to explain it to Francis who did not listen, not because he was not interested, but because his hatred for Robert – although finally vague after all these years together – remained inside him still.”

We follow this pair, who like some old couple who now loathe each other and yet, whether through necessity or through a habit long devoid of reason, are still together as they isolate and then feed on their chosen prey.… (plus d'informations)