James Finnegan

Co Donegal Ireland

James Finnegan - shortlisted for Hennessy Literary Award (2018), highly commended in the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Competition (2016, 2018), published in New Hibernia Review (2019), The Irish Times (2018), Poetry Ireland Review (2018), CYPHERS (2017, 2018, 2019), Skylight 47, The Honest Ulsterman – HU (Oct 2019), The Blue Nib (Sept 2019, Jan 2020), The Cormorant (Dec 2019), Boyne Berries (Apr 2020), North West Words, The Best New British & Irish Poets 2018, and first full collection of poems Half-Open Door (Eyewear Publishing, 2018).

Poem completed 7th April 2020

the simple arithmetic of our lives

after Charles Wright

no particular reason

these things were in the wind

by the broken bench below Skiddaw

up from the village of Applethwaite

if anything adds up it vanishes

     as speedily as the present

I guess one could say

there’s nothing much here

each here with its instantiated breath

     the tufted duckling

swallowed whole by a hungry heron

says there are now three and not four

a hard lesson in subtraction for its mother

     that magnetic pull no longer heard

if it’s not a heron it’s a rat

yet we still multiply

knowing that inbuilt minus

     sooner or later

will make our absence felt

we’re all undivided in that