Three by Marty McKenna


i would squint at red.
part it to shards,
plant one calcium seed and soon
we would have a fresh light,
bright and born in that night sky.

my psychosis, my time. i would ask
for another pen,
another sheet of paper to record
my next poem title; and even, where
i don't remember, postits made
codified marks in foreign ink,
some alien, hyper-real transmission
to half of the world’s service workers;
from the future and wholly
in my head. propping up
my tech support, ensuring the world
turned.


              ‘i walked the floors as though on a journey,
              sang halleluiah at the top of my lungs.
              fit for my own laundry, after a while.

              ‘got out to the house;
              as the kids played in the streets
              and the sun beat in on the pile of post,
              cried.’



muldoon on the mirrors
of the lift, the building falls
backwards by wisps of cumulonimbus.

i haven't seen a building do that
since i was small.

away with friends as much as
a skinny kid could have been.
lost in that lesson until i emerged
today, diagnosed and recovering as
work turns over another day.

the view, still
mesmerises; how seagulls socialise
and drift on currents, how
like little angels they attract
the attention.

i miss you.

a nurse unpacks her car; i feel
a lesser, staying in this hotel
with muldoon etched
on the walls, real heroes in the rooms;
underpaid employees calling me ‘sir’.

i miss my little house, our little home,
with you, with her, them, then.

i finish my cigarette, go undress.



i'm thinking of holly,
her unpublished dreams;
her death so silent that night,

did he wake to her corpse?

i'm frightened my lungs would
give out; i'll go gently, cold and listless,

‘haunted by the ghost of your kisses’.                                                   ~ kae tempest

though i’ve had good practice
we only get to die once.

my anxiety
jumps like a close-up
and all the world seems
far too intense.

carving my life up; trickling away.
the focal shooting arena
starts with me smiling
and agreeing with everything.

i keep getting flashbacks
to episodes and stills
of my time there. how
a name made me feel,

how they flash so far and so hard
into now, have me stop and glare
into the space between sight,
blank space, a blind spot.


Marty is an independent Irish poet, born in Tyrone, now living and writing in Belfast. Marty works for the Belfast Trust and has poems published in both online and print journals. He is currently submitting work for publication from his forthcoming chapbook 'silent stigma, loud leaf'. It contains poems about living with schizophrenia.