Poetry by Cathal Gunning

        Tasha Lutek CC



One Stoplight Town


One (rusting, dandelionized) stoplight is our horse in this town
An olfactory rush of turpentine and foxglove
Its heady air of no one around

Thousands of miles worth of burnt oil away,
I’m sleepless backaches and
Dreaming of coming home

Framed in a rain-dotted windshield, driftwood bog-land horizon opens
Early pink skies, iridescent veins of lingering constellations

Rumors of cirrus wisps congregate as you
Imagine jet streams

You day dream and I melt into melatonin restlessness
A shiver of liquid chill traces over our shoulders, worlds apart

We wait
Morning and night, layers stripped raw with time ticked off
The song stays playing— “Any day now”




If There Were Any Other Way Then This Would All Be Easy


And we would be
Between us
And no one else
Kissing in secret behind the
Rusted bike shed by the
Broke-down redbrick old wall with
Your back pressed bracing on the
Uneven off-white stucco plaster
The grass underfoot still wet with
Morning dew
The day not yet under way
The summer still not started
And we’d be frozen
Happy or unhappy or uncertain

Halcyon


​

Break in


Soles tread at odd angles, catalyzing mid-morning cat stretches
The stretch that cuts through you, the sort that hits the soul
Walking out a new backbone, breaking in new paths
Routes through you
Necks click and backs crack
Pre-release equilibrium
The soul is a muscle, one threaded over bones
Rearranged by the almighty will of her walk

Step in
Trepidation
Stand up
Determination
Walk on
Dedication




Black and Blue

​
You are a series of black and blue hues
As is all the whole world we share at this hour
And when I run my fingertips over your paleness
You are the color of moonlight

And your sleeping breathing moves on me, switching from nose to mouth
In answer
And your toes go search for the comfort of
Knowing I'm here

And I couldn'trade your brand of blackenedblues
For the neon screen-print pastel block-colors they tell us to paint the world in anew
Ones full of revolutionary potential
The black and blue of you is
All the revolutionary potential there is on earth

You glow in my dark

​

Cathal Gunning (25) is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the online literature, poetry, and non-fiction collective 'Cold Coffee Stand' (www.coldcoffeestand.wordpress.com). His poetry has been published in The Rose Magazine, Lonesome October Lit, and Lagan Online and his fiction has been published (or is forthcoming) in Tales From the Forest, The Honest Ulsterman, The Cabinet of Heed, The Runt, Snakes of Various Consistency, The Weary Blues, HCE Review, TRAIN, Funicular, The Occulum, Sleaze Magazine, and the collection 'From the Candystore to the Galtymore'. His debut novel 'Innocents' was published by Solstice in 2017. His work has been short-listed for the 2015 Maeve Binchy Travel Award and Hennessy New Irish Writing.

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