Contemporary poetry by Paul O'Mahony



Pandemonium (Part 3)



There’s nowhere left to go.

If I go out into the streets the virus will get me.

I’ll be choked to death.

I’ll be driven into.

I’ll be beaten.

The virus is that strong.

I hear people saying:

“Together we’ll destroy the virus,

together we’ll defeat the virus,

together we’ll win the war.”

But do you believe that?

Are you one of the people who are so hopeful

that you’d be willing to marry the virus

in order to convert it

to a benign force?



May the force be with you,

I hear you wish.



There is another world in this wood.

There’s another world in this darkness.

There’s another world deeper than the one we’ve dug for ourselves.