Moybella Press

Moybella Press is a small not-for-profit publisher based in North Kerry, established to bring the work of local emerging writers to a wider readership. Moybella Press is run by John McGrath. John is a Writer, Teacher, Editor and Poet whose first collection “Blue-Sky Day” was published in 2007 and launched at Listowel Writers’ Week in May of that year. His second collection, Closing the Circle, was also launched at Listowel Writers’ Week in 2015.

Blue Sky Day (2007)

I love poetry.  I love its music, its mystery and its infinite variety. I cannot remember or imagine a life without it. The poems in Blue-Sky Day were written over a span of thirty years or more and are as random and varied as the life they represent. I hope you find among them something to enjoy.

I hope you enjoy your visit, drop by anytime to http://www.moybellapress.com
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Closing the Circle (2015)

Many poets are adept in their use of grammar and poetics but only produce poetry that is
cold and formulaic. What John McGrath also brings to the table is the flesh and blood of
empathy and feeling, of verve and effervescence. Treat yourself to this well-crafted coffer.
Mike Gallagher – Editor

Closing the Circle is available from moybellapress@gmail.com
(€10 plus postage, €2.00 – Ireland, €4.25 – Rest of world)

Closing the Circle

It’s peaceful here.
The deer come down at dawn
to graze on funeral flowers.

Sometimes when the wind sings
I hear the voices of the old ones
Calling to each other
across fields and ditches.
Bridget and Tom,
Delia, Pa and the others,
Busy with hay in Mayo,
racing to beat the rain.
They speak to me
when the sun is warm
on the strong green grass above me.
Great weather for hay in Colorado,
warm blue skies and never a cloud,
no rain to wash the gravestones,
only the soft sounds of summer
and the singing of the breeze
in the cottonwood trees.

 

My first wife sleeps beside me.
My last love visits in the cool of evening.
She likes to sit and help me reminisce
on people and on places that I knew
before we met. She stays ’til sunset,
kisses the granite when she goes.
Last week she brought a visitor,
my brother’s boy from Ireland.
We talked a while
of neighbours and of places we both shared,
of cool spring wells and whitewashed cottages
where he and I were reared but never met.
He found a smooth glass pebble by the gate
when they were leaving. Just one of many,
like the teardrops in this place.
Picked it up, weighed it in his palm,
dropped it in his pocket.
I saw him nod as he looked back
and knew that he would do
what must be done
to close the circle.

It’s peaceful here; no deer, no funeral flowers.
Only a pebble by a ruined door, and everywhere the ripple of the rain.