2 Poems by Niall O'Connor

House

Oh give me a house without straight lines,

without the rule and dictate of second level equations

without the tyranny of right  angles

and plumbed lines:

everything fixed, pinned, painted and placed

angled, measured, metred, mitered and moulded.

Give me a house without straight lines,

let the chimney breast be proud

and the roof tiles rise and fall like the sea

let the walls trace the travel of a drunken hand

and its timbers, the sun's arc and the winds' caress.

Yes, give me a house without straight lines,

never a predictable path to travel

every projection a product of chance

no calculations forging my bondage

no metre measuring my rhymes

Oh yes, give me a house without straight lines,

so I may rest my head there

and travel its lines forever new,

and when rounding its curves,

find at least one corner true.

Tea Leaves

A sunset fills the bottom of my porcelain cup,
born between thought filled hands,
transparent from the fierce breath of a kiln
whose sole purpose was to destroy or immortalise.

When they have settled,
and the evening sky is clouded,
the leaves gather gossiping
to tell their final tale.

So I tip the cup upside down,
and turn it once, twice, three times,
all the time chanting the tinker woman's chant,
willing one future to reveal.

But when I clutch the base one last time,
I am unwilling to see,
and quickly turn to the tap instead
and scatter runes like stars
to the sink below.

Each leaf in falling takes its own path,
all leaves spiral home.

Bionote 

Niall O'Connor is a published poet and blogger, in print and electronic, and reads regularly at the Writer's Centre and other popular Dublin venues. O'Connor's poems have been published in The Examiner and most recently in The Stoney Thursday Book, thefirstcut#, A handful of Stones, Carty’s Poetry Journal, Madrush, Outburst, Corvus, God’s and Monsters, A Blackbird Sings, Connotation Press, and others.  He was a featured poet at the inaugural Fermoy Poetry Festival 2012.  He blogs at the very popular dublinepost.blogspot.ie