A forge like this

Tuesday, February 20, 2018 § 0

Poetry by
Arthur Broomfield

It’s a forge like all others
the blacksmith, flower-faced, hollyhock arms.
Songs drift from his toenails
perforate the elevenses and sing of tumours,
beget the night sky and seduce the sweat-filled cavities
between his carpet slipper toes.

Parsnips sprout in the recess of the ding-dong move along
changing room, vultures beseech the angel of death
for small favours: apples, bananas, earthworms
that eulogise ladies of the night.

All evening his world catapults
new stars to the firmament. Mars and mars bars,
the Teutonic plague, and lies heard
from the sacrosanct alter ego.


Dr Arthur Broomfield is a poet and Beckett scholar from County Laois, Ireland. His collection Cold Coffee at Emo Court ( Revival 2016)  followed his study on the works of Samuel Beckett  The Empty Too : language and philosophy in the works of Samuel Beckett (Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2014). His poems have been published in poetry journals in Ireland, the UK, and USA. He is a recent convert to Surrealism for which he thanks the UK poet Hilda Sheehan.