TRANSMISSION
a greater connectivity
This is what they said
when steel feet were firmly planted in stone
earth and five modern pyramids erected
towards a slothlike sun. Cables hung
over mountain shoulders as if this weight
would be carried without protest. As if
fibreglass snakes with forked tongues
pushing holes into perfectly sound earth
would lie underground undisturbed. These
sleepers do not sleep they elbow through
barren grass forced into a flatbed
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Over – and out
of the ground the feet went up as fences
went down, cables were cut and sleepers
overturned as systems thought to be
untouchable; and since the earth refused
the round black eyes of the state
it might be said that whoever planted their heels
against the uprooted soil and lit a match against
a mute sky / disconnected night did not
set fire to but merely blew a spark, fused
a few voices listening to what
the mountain said.
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LIANNE O’HARA is a poet and writer from Amsterdam. She lives in Dublin, where she recently graduated from the MA Creative Writing at UCD. Her work is published in Writer’s Block, Black Bough Poetry, Crossways, Amsterdam Quarterly, and Dedalus Press’ Writing Home: The ‘New Irish’ Poets anthology. Her poetry was longlisted for the 2019 Palette Poetry Prize. She is currently working on a novel.
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Read more by Lianne O’Hara
Poem in Crossways
Poem in Black Bough Poetry
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