2005
Cranes creak and clatter
Concrete trucks trundle and splatter
Gull flaps, screeching
Boat rots, bleaching
I on old stone dangle my workboots over the Liffey and
it is not smooth.
The river is not smooth.
The sound around me and in my head is not smooth
The old stone is not smooth
but the new buildings
the new buildings are gonna be so smooth,
so soundless.
Like Leopold Bloom I walk along
the quay and what sun there is bleaches
me pale and Dublin’s stone, water, mud bleaches
the sound out of me, sucks
the wet salt of the Liffey
out of my eyes.