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Flaghopping
by Michael Pattwell
Format: Hardback
Publication date: 14th December 2010
ISBN: 978-1-908024-09-1
Price: €18.00
The late Bryan McMahon in his short story, “The Crossing”, said, through one of his characters, that writing is “a compulsive venting of the fermenting cask of my passion”. I have always admired McMahon anyway but I have never found anything that so expertly defines ‘writing’. Many of my poems in this book were written at times in my life over the last twenty years when my head was literally exploding with feelings of one kind or another, from intense love through to dejection and near despair. If the person who casually takes up this book takes the time to read the poems within I think this will become very obvious. Starting with my Inis Meáin poems right through to poems about family and relationships at the end of the book I am only too well aware that I have probably exposed more of myself than many would care to do. I think I have a reputation for direct, no nonsense, plain talking and I believe I have done that in this, my first, collection. One thing that I hope does come through is my huge love and admiration for my parents, now sadly deceased, and for all of my children and, of course, my wife.
About the Author
Michael Pattwell was born in 1945 in Clonakilty, Co. Cork, Ireland. He has worked as a bakery worker, Customs Officer and a Court Clerk, businessman and a lorry driver. He took up the study of law as a mature student in 1971 and qualified as a solicitor in 1976. He was appointed a judge of the District Court in 1990 and still sits in the North and East Cork district.
Misers’ Gold
Gold that is hidden has no value or beauty.
What cannot be seen is formless mass.
Love that is secret and locked in the heart
When it is needed may very well pass
Into darkness and faded memory -
Like the glow of a sunset as it loses it’s light
Turns gold into silver; turns silver to grey;
Turns grey into blackness; turns day into night.
For love that is silent
Is love of the self
And love of the self
Isn’t loving at all.
