Tessera

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 15h ago

I wouldn’t normally post things like this but this is a very perceptive, though not uncritical, review of my latest collection

they have stood on a touchline
in the rain
waiting for a match that may never start. Dermot Murphy's The Language of Place understands exactly that.
This is
not a book
about winning All-Irelands or
celebrating
sporting
heroes, although famous
victories and
figures
legendary
make
their
appearances. Instead, it is a meditation on what Gaelic games mean to Ireland itself: to villages, parishes, families,
emigrants
and memory.
Organised around Ireland's
32 counties, with a series of reflective poems linking the sections, Murphy attempts something
surprisingly
ambitious.
Each
becomes
county
less
a
sporting
historv than an emotiona. landscape. The poems rarely concern themselves with
scores or statistics.
Rather,
they
explore
belonging,
resilience,
disappointment,
identity and continuity -the invisible threads that bind communities together long after the final whistle.
That approach gives the collection
its
distinctive
character. Readers expecting page after page of nostalgic sporting verse may initially be surprised
how
restrained
many of the
poems are. Murphy is less interested in dramatic match reports than in the quieter moments:
volunteer
repainting pitch markings, the parent washing jerseys, the long drive home after defeat, or the child picking up a hurley for the first time.
It is in these ordinary rituals that he locates the true soul of Gaelic games.
His background perhaps explains
this sensitivity.
Having worked as a social worker,
management
consultant and now within hospice
care
supporting
young
adults
with life-
limiting conditions, Murpay writes with an awareness of human vulnerability that
frequently
elevates
these
podma nee nd sport area
endurance
shared
memory
recur throughout
the collection without ever becoming sentimental.
Some
of the strongest
pieces are the poems that
step away from
individual
counties altogether.
Ash,
which
traces
the
transformation of the ash tree into the making of a hurley, is among the book's finest achievements.

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 2d ago

Here’s one for #PromptCombo #Stand @jenthorne.bsky.social

The Stand Up
Knock, knock.
Who's there?
My mother-in-law.
My mother-in-law who?
My mother-in-law who says:
What the world calls necessary it has merely arranged, a soft machinery that cages truth.
The joke,
a small act of refusal, keeps open
what the world would seal.

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 4d ago

Here’s one for today’s #vss365

Il Bambino Infantino
Little Gianni wanted everything. The ball,
the whistle, both sets of shirts, the gate money
and the gate. He sat at the centre of the playground with his pockets full,
crying because
someone else had a sweet.
So they gave him another.
Then another.
Soon there were games in places no one wished to play, cups inside cups, matches bred like rabbits, summer sold to winter, winter sold to whoever
bid highest.
Still Gianni stamped his foot.
More. The other children
had once played
because they loved the game. Gianni loved the box it came in, the ribbon, the price, the hand reaching
to pay for it. When there was nothing left to sell, he looked around the empty playground, the grass gone, the goalposts gone, the children gone, and hugged the ball
to his chest.
Mine, he said.
Mine. Then asked who would like to sponsor
the silence.

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 5d ago

"Byddwch lawen, cadwch y ffydd a gwnewch y pethau bychain a welsoch ac a glywsoch gennyf i" (Be joyful, keep the faith, and do the little things that you have heard and seen me do) @bookwormsat.bsky.social

Gwnewch y pethau bychain
(Do the little things)
The world presses in, too much, too fast, thoughts tangle like brambles, news scrolls on without end.
Step outside.
Feel the air shift against your skin, watch how the trees move, not in urgency, but in time.
Breathe.
A bird lifts,
a river shapes the land without force, the sky does not ask to be noticed, yet it holds everything.
Do the little things.
Place your hands on the earth, drink slowly,
let silence settle where it will.
Not everything must be carried.

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 5d ago

Here’s one for #vss365

Pilgrimage
I thought the road would lead me there,
to the chapel on the hill, the stone worn smooth by other hands, the candle waiting to receive my need.
At the shrine there was no answer,
stone, flame,
the breath of strangers kneeling beside me.
I placed my hand where countless hands had rested, and felt nothing outside myself
that had not already begun within.
The journey home was the longer one.
The same road, the same dust, but every step leading away from the person who had set out.

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 6d ago

Here’s one for #PoemsAbout #LastTrain Many thanks as ever to @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk

The Last Colliery Train The future had gone
before the train did. I climbed the same steps,
laid my hand
on the same worn controls. The rails were rusting beneath us, as if the earth
had begun
to take them back. Behind me, the black wagons drew slowly
from the pithead.
On the bridges, men who had worked below, women who had waited children lifted high enough
to remember.
Nobody cheered. They watched us pass as they had watched their fathers leave for work, their husbands return
with darkness
worked into their skin.
For years, these tracks had carried coal from beneath the valley
and wages into its houses. That morning
they carried neither.
At the main line I brought her to a halt
and shut the engine down. The cab trembled,
then settled. And in the silence
that followed, it seemed the whole valley
was listening
for a pulse
that did not come again.

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 6d ago

Diogenes of Sinope rejected social convention and material comfort, living publicly and often provocatively. Much of what is known of him survives as anecdote. #Cassiopeian #wisdom @yeehawpoems.bsky.social

Following Diogenes
I decided to live as he did.
I began by giving things away.
My cloak, my sandals, a perfectly good bowl.
It rained immediately.
I attempted to drink from my hands.
This requires more practice than one might think.
Most of it ran down my arms.
A dog watched.
Diogenes did not look up.
When people came to ask him questions, I positioned myself nearby, nodding.
A man spoke for some time about virtue.
I nodded longer than was necessary, trying to look severe,
when the figs began to work.
This was not interpreted as philosophy.
Someone offered me money.
I said, as I had heard,
"Where would I put it?"
He answered less politely than I expected.
I slept outside that night.
There are, I discovered,
many creatures who also prefer this arrangement.
At one point I woke to find a goat
eating what remained of my dignity.
I shouted.
Diogenes slept.
Later, I asked Diogenes how one knows when one has enough.

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 6d ago

Today’s #vss365 is inspired by someone who like to think they live life with no brakes

No Brakes He found the starving too expensive, the sick
a poor investment.
Stock prices rise With one hand he closed the clinics; with the other opened the gates
to every ancient hatred.
Satellites circle the earth
The dead became savings.
The frightened, engagement.
The lie, free speech.
The mob, the people.
The billionaire,
once again, the victim.
Rocket and robot dreams Then he taught democracy to turn upon itself, sold fear back to the frightened, and watched
the numbers climb.
An IPO. A Trillionaire When the bodies rose beyond counting, he demanded proof from those whose names his efficiency
had erased.

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · last wk.

Here’s one for today’s #vss365

Malahide
The tide turns.
Boats lift, ropes ease,
the estuary rearranges itself without alarm.
For a while, nothing in me needs to be solved.

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · last wk.

Here’s one for today’s #vss365

Falling Asleep
At last the body yields: the jaw releases, the hands uncurl.
Breath by breath we descend, below the counting, below the mind standing guard over dangers
it has partly made.
There, the self we do not command takes over:
unbars the door, sets the chairs back, gathers the broken glass the day left scattered across the floor.
By morning
the world has not changed, but we have fallen far enough
to find the ground beneath it.

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · last wk.

After Mayo’s victory yesterday this needed a rewrite

Mayo, 2026
After the whistle, release
joy can also bring a man to his knees.
Around them,
green and red breaks open.
Seventy-five years find a single voice: its soft and craggy boglands, ts tall, majestic hills rathered in one great roar
When Coyne lifts Sam, he turns first to those who carried the hidden weight,
while the county held
the memory of souls it had lost.
Then he calls Mayo upright:
faces raised, proud now
of every year it hoped beyond reason.
Across kitchens, pubs, hospital rooms, airports and ferries, the scattered west comes home at once.
And Sam leaves croker, to visit every town and parish, past doors flung open, horns calling across the dark, the green and red no longer waiting for permission to rejoice.
After seventy-five years, not someday-today.

Fiftywords@fiftywords.bsky.social · 2w ago

This #PoemsAbout #BadHabits is taken from my current collection looking at the importance of Gaelic sport in Ireland. Many thanks to @thebrokenspine.co.uk and @alanparrywriter.co.uk (The curse of Mayo is explained in the comments)

Mayo Keegan goes down after the whistle, hands flat on the Croke Park grass, as if the ground itself
might steady what is left. Around him, green and red do not move,
no anger, no leaving, only the long habit of staying
when there is nothing more to say. Since '51 the years have gathered, hope stretched across generations,
children grown old
before the dream was filled. They call it a curse, but what endures so long can only be devotion:
to believe again, still. Green and red against grey skies,
fields broken by stone. The Atlantic always pressing, a county that leans westward,
yet never falls.
Exile has thinned it, but the voices return each summer,
airports and ferries full of those who never lost the pull
of pitch and parish. In Mayo, the game is the rosary recited on Croagh Patrick, the fiddle in a quiet kitchen, the sea-wind carving faces,
the cheer that refuses silence. A grandfather folds the paper,
knowing the score before he looks. A son stands at the door,
keys still in hand, listening. A child is lifted onto a shoulder,
told it will come right someday. All of them carry it, not hope alone, but habit, the weight of returning again,
and calling that belief.

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · last wk.

Here's one for #PromptCombo on #Perseverance Many thanks to @emteepoetry.bsky.social for hosting

The Work of Returning Love is not proved by how carefully
we avoid the wound. Sometimes the kitchen must fill with weather, a cupboard closed too hard,
two voices striking
against the same old stone.
We have both said
what silence would have spared us. Still, neither leaves the other alone
inside the damage. We let the metal cool inside the mouth,
let anger loosen
its grip upon the facts. Then comes the harder courage: the door reopened,
the room entered again.
The stubborn faith that what has been disturbed
has not been destroyed This is how a life together endures, by crossing the distance
we have made.
wo cups. A hand placed down
between us.

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · last wk.

Fantastic performance from Mayo. The curse is lifted! Maigh Eo Abú

Fiftywords@fiftywords.bsky.social · 2w ago

This #PoemsAbout #BadHabits is taken from my current collection looking at the importance of Gaelic sport in Ireland. Many thanks to @thebrokenspine.co.uk and @alanparrywriter.co.uk (The curse of Mayo is explained in the comments)

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · last wk.

I’ll repost this in the hope that the curse is lifted today #GAA #AllIrelandFinal #Mayo #Kerry

Fiftywords@fiftywords.bsky.social · 2w ago

This #PoemsAbout #BadHabits is taken from my current collection looking at the importance of Gaelic sport in Ireland. Many thanks to @thebrokenspine.co.uk and @alanparrywriter.co.uk (The curse of Mayo is explained in the comments)

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 2w ago

Here’s one for today’s #vss365

The Rhythm of Joy It begins before thought: a hand on a shoulder, two voices missing the note
and laughing into the next. In the kitchen,
music loosens the room. A daughter crosses the light and the day, briefly, forgets where one life ends
and another begins.
Joy is not escape. It is the body keeping faith with the world: skin answering skin, breath entering song, the self given away
without being lost. Sometimes it arrives
unearned, sunlight warming the knife beside the bread, a blackbird lifting
from the hedge. Sometimes we practise for it
for years: the difficult chord, the long forgiveness, the courage to keep
the hand unclenched.
Death keeps the measure. We hear it beneath the music, which is why we dance before we are asked, why we pass the cup, why love moves outward
as if it knows
there is no time to keep.
And joy neither ours nor the world's, but the bright threshold where each enters the other, beats once,
then again, and teaches the heart to spend itself
without fear.

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 2w ago

Here’s another for #vss365 After the majestic ride by Tadej Pogačar yesterday

Alpe d'Huez, 24" July 2026 After the Gods The mountain raised him into legend, past argument, ast comparisot o where the grea stand silently
beside their names.
For one moment there was nothing above him
but sky.
Heat rose from the road.
His breath came raw. The crowd roared as if immortality
were an ending. But gods are not permitted
to arrive. They must return, year atter year, to prove the miracle
was not an accident.
Another road.
Another summit. Each victory already diminished
by the past. What can the immortal
still desire?
To win is only to remain
where memory has placed him.
To lose
is to become human again. He raised his arms on Alpe d' Huez, salt drying on his tace, and beneath the noise the harder climb began: not towards greatness, but away from it, towards whatever life might still be possible
after glory.

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 2w ago

Here’s one for today’s #vss365

The Mountain Remembers
The climb spirals inward. Each turn strips another layer
until the body becomes raw,
a fragile truth pressed against the sky. The stones are white with silence, older than the wheel, older than the idea that we must conquer
to matter. At first, it was about the summit,
the thin line between earth and air.
But the mountain is patient. It waits for you to understand: the ascent was never about height,
but depth.
Each pedal stroke unearths you,
a rhythm echoing through bone and breath. You carry every failure on your back,
but here, where the air cuts thinner than memory, you feel their weight
begin to fall away. When you reach the summit, it is not triumph you find,
but the stillness
of a wind that knows your name.

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 2w ago

This #PoemsAbout #BadHabits is taken from my current collection looking at the importance of Gaelic sport in Ireland. Many thanks to @thebrokenspine.co.uk and @alanparrywriter.co.uk (The curse of Mayo is explained in the comments)

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 2w ago

Given the day that’s in it, I’ll repost this #Hurling #AllIrelandHurlingFinal #Galway #Limerick #Speirgorm

Fiftywords@fiftywords.bsky.social · 3w ago

I’ve been a bit quiet on here of late awaiting the publication of this. Poems rooted in Gaelic sport that looks beyond the scoreboard to the deeper meanings carried by the places that form us, the games that gather us, and the quiet inheritance of belonging. #Speirgorm #GAA dermotmurphyauthor.com

Book cover of Language of Place featuring a hazy Croke Park stadium

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 3w ago

Here’s one for today’s #vss365

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 3w ago

Here’s one for today’s #vss365

Galibier, 1998
after Pantani
He rose not with tactics, but with need, as if the mountain
owed him something. Rain blurred the road
into memory. Mist licked the hairpin bends
like breath
on an ageing mirror He was out of the saddle, but never out of pain, only deeper inside it, driving toward some clarity
the flat could never give. Behind, the peloton twisted,
calculating.
But this was not maths. This was poetry
on a gradient. He vanished into the cloud, a wraith in rain, all ribs and rage and the hunger to be more
than what they saw. He reached the summit
alone.
But glory is not shelter. Headwinds met him on the descent, and the storm
waited
on every bend.
The Galibier gave him one day
when nothing touched him.
Not the rules.
Not the whispers.
Not even gravity.
And then, as all gods do,
it let him go.

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 3w ago

Here’s my contribution for #PoemsAbout #ExitWounds Thanks as ever to @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk

Créacht na Staire
The Wound of History The empire sailed away, or so the history book said, a small engraving of ships
diminishing into weather. But it had already hidden
inside the mouth.
Our rivers answered
to names they had not chosen.
Mountains were corrected. Fields divided themselves
obediently on maps.
At school, we were given rulers. We learned to draw straight lines, to underline the subject, circle the object,
and call possession grammar. The old words survived
as contraband: in kitchens, at wakes, under the breath of women who knew a language could be beaten
without being killed Still, when we speak,
the wound opens: claim, clear, settle,
own. A conqueror's verbs, passed down
as ordinary speech.
The flag was lowered. The alphabet remained, some letters missing,
others drilled into order. And somewhere beneath each careful sentence, the tongue remembers
what was taken from it.

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 3w ago

Here’s one for today’s #vss365

$Stage 1 The illusion of control They roll out as if motion were harmless, just another flat day in a land that never forgets what wheels can do to flesh. The roads are clean now, but memory sleeps beneath the tarmac: the rattle of cobbles, the teeth of wind, the instant a wheel slips, and time fractures like a myth exposed to weather. It is too early for victory, too late for innocence. Everyone knows you cannot win the Tour today, but you can lose it in a blink, in a rut, in someone else's fall. Elbows sharpen. The peloton bunches, breath held like a verdict. And up front, the sprinters smile, marking time. They've waited all winter for this one clean cut through chaos.$

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 3w ago

Here’s one for #vss365

In Hoc Signo Vinces
Before dawn they painted the sign
upon our shields.
The Emperor had dreamed it. We had carried eagles,
invoked Mars,
whispered to Mithras underground. A soldier learns how quickly heaven
changes its name. Across the river men tightened straps, touched small gods,
thought of home.
We were told
a god had chosen us.
At the bridge I drove my sword
beneath a man's ribs. He fell against me, his face pressed
to the holy mark.
That evening
it was called it divine. I washed the shield
in the river.
The blood came away.
The sign remained.

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 3w ago

I’ve been a bit quiet on here of late awaiting the publication of this. Poems rooted in Gaelic sport that looks beyond the scoreboard to the deeper meanings carried by the places that form us, the games that gather us, and the quiet inheritance of belonging. #Speirgorm #GAA dermotmurphyauthor.com

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 3w ago

Here’s my #MapPoem thanks to @thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social‬ for hosting #promptcombo

THE BORDER: NOT TO SCALE
KEY
- road
no river
border home history
what cannot be shown
..
• THE BORDER • •
drawn through the page
not through the rain
not through the language not through the dead
× checkpoint
× watchtower
x road cratered overnight
× the name of the man who did not come back
The line remains useful.
It tells the state
where its authority ends.
It tells the map
where to change colour.
It does not tell the child why the road to school crosses history twice. (x)
It does not tell the field
which country it is in.
It does not tell the river to turn back.
YOU ARE HERE •
though the map has placed you
somewhere else.

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 3w ago

I’ve been a bit quiet on here of late awaiting the publication of this. Poems rooted in Gaelic sport that looks beyond the scoreboard to the deeper meanings carried by the places that form us, the games that gather us, and the quiet inheritance of belonging. #Speirgorm #GAA dermotmurphyauthor.com

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Thanks to @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social and @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social Here’s my #fragmentsfriday and my final Joyce inspired piece for the week

An Ordinary Epic
Man buys kidney.
Teacher thinks.
Dublin talks.
Funeral, lust, memory, kindness.
Woman remembers.

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Here’s one inspired by the #PoemsAbout theme #OutAfterMidnight @thebrokenspine.co.uk

Helen is fixing her lipstick. Penelope is sitting on the counter, shoes abandoned somewhere
in a previous century. The music outside
thumps through the walls. A girl is crying
in one cubicle. Three strangers have already assembled
to tell her
she deserves better.
"That's nice,"
says Penelope.
Helen nods.
"We could have used that in Troy."
A silence. Helen studies herself
in the mirror. "I still get blamed,
you know."
Penelope laughs.
"Of course you do."
"A thousand ships."
"Apparently." "I never asked anyone
to launch a thousand ships."
"No."
"They could have stayed home."
"They could."
"They seemed very enthusiastic,
from what I heard"
Helen smiles despite herself.
Midnight at The Elysium
Another silence.
"You waited twenty years."
"Did I?"
"The songs say so."
Penelope rolls her eyes.
"The songs say
I spent most of that time
at a loom or staring out of windows."
"You didn't?"
"I was running a kingdom."
"Fair." A woman enters holding one heel,
a handbag, and what appears to be
someone else's jacket.
Nobody comments.
"You ever get angry?"
Helen asks.
"At Odysseus?"
Penelope thinks.
"Sometimes."
"Because he left?"
"No."
"Because he took so long?"
"No."
"What then?"
Penelope shrugs. "Because every time
he tells the story
he becomes more of a hero." Helen laughs so hard she has to steady herself
against the sink.
"That's men." "Think they're heroes for
just washing up."
Outside, someone has started
arguing over a woman. Helen and Penelope
exchange a glance.
Neither moves.
Neither looks surprised.
"Think they'll ever learn?"
asks Helen. The girl in the cubicle
starts crying again.
Immediately,
three voices answer:
"Forget him."
"You're too good for him."
"Honestly, Pandora,
He's just after your box"
Penelope pauses.
"See?"
"What?"
"That's

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Here’s one for today’s #vss365

Podium
Mexico 1968
Three men stand where victory was supposed to be the whole story.
The flags rise.
The cameras click.
History wants a photograph.
Instead,
two fists enter the frame.
Not clenched in anger.
Clenched in memory.
Clenched for those
whose names would never appear on a medal table.
The moment lasts seconds.
I he consequences last vears.
Yet what survives is neither the punishment nor the praise,
but the sight of two men standing perfectly still, asking a question
the anthem could not answer.