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John Roche

 

 

Dublin – Ireland

 

 

 

 

 

Super Hero…..

 

I sensed she was a damsel in distress

just waiting for someone to take a chance;

I took a look into the mirror, and

slipped on my super-hero underpants!

 

 

 

Intro:   What am I doing here…..? I’ve asked myself that question too.  Despite appearances, I’m trying to better myself as a poet after being invited to this site by some good people who just plain didn’t know better….( you know who you are!!)

 

So far, there is one acceptance and many rejections to my credit, but work continues to tip the balance more in my favour. 

I hope I’m getting there and if I do, I’ve a lot of ‘thank you’s to write.

 

 

Age:                             32 and growing…

Favourite Poet(s):       Still building a list….plenty of EP folks are vying for the top spots.

Favourite Poem(s):     Stop All The Clocks (W.H. Auden), Brown Penny (William Butler Yeats)

Favorite website(s):    Emerging Poets, Wikipedia, Skysports

Favorite author(s):     J.R.R. Tolkien, Stephen Donaldson, David Gemmel (yes I do read too much fantasy), John Irvine

How long have you

been writing poetry?: Just over a year, but really only working the basics out now.  A long way to go….

Greatest Inspiration:  Those around me with whom I share this patch of grass, especially my wife who sometimes seems

                                    way too good to be real.

 

 

4:00 a.m.
 
 
I exhale the remnants of too little sleep;
vapour clouds, which form
before cold lips,
keeping time with the slow regularity
of my heartbeat.
 
Driving through 
quiet streets,
I marvel at the change;
a setting normally viewed
through eyes coloured by cynicism 
seems different at this hour.
 
More beautiful?
Maybe not - just more at peace
with itself.
 
Yesterday's chaos, 
put to bed for a few hours,
today's mayhem still slumbering,
a slowly brewing storm
that for the moment,
seems a lifetime away.
 
Revellers catch my eye;
the last bastions of good time,
still courting the Old Lady
as they make their way
by foot
to wherever they lay their hat.
 
 
 
 
They are younger than me, for sure;
but are they young enough, 
to justify this feeling I have
that they are from a different generation entirely?
 
I think not.
 
Yet I can't shake the feeling.
I was one of them once, but no more.
Now I am Mr. Corporate, Mr. Responsible,
with an ego to feed, a machine to fuel
and I've forgotten what it was like
to roam the city streets
at 4:00 a.m.
for no good reason,
other than to live a little.

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Still room for improvement, but that’s the acceptance.  
As I’m working out, it’s never finished anyway!!!

 

 

Footnote:  Also in a period of stasis on a work in progress novel.  There are lots of words down; I’m just struggling with plugging a few gaps in the logic.  I keep a hold the dream of getting it finished and out there for someone to read, but at the moment the dream is moving slowly.

 

 

 

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