KNOT Magazine
Fall Issue 2022
Alan Patrick Traynor
IN THE SHADOWS OF BIRDS
We are born into the shadows of birds
two bones
walking sone
into
the desert
they quarantine, the only thought
that
ever listened
Love, to be
an empty
chair
thus
is
life
MODEL IN A RED DRESS
Mark me
in
French
I am torso
the eye of man
the white gothic prisoner of war (is a red dress)
that
bleeds
from her breast
Alan Patrick Traynor is a Poet from Dublin Ireland. He is the author of SEVEN DAYS OF ASHES, a poetry book written on the spirit of the Holocaust, and holocausts to come.
It has been said that his poetry is the mystical galvanic paint that sets the fields of Provence on fire. Traynor’s poetry shocks the eyes and soul at once, his poems are "deep veridicous spears in a rachis sky of black feathers that will unlatch and unhinge you."
Alan Patrick Traynor has been featured in Literary Journals worldwide, and is greatly respected amongst his peers.
"Edit not my soul" and "Edit not blood" are two of his own phrases that describe him best.
PEQUOD, THINE SAILS BEFORE ME
In thy frenzy of blood
they are shame
and the sorcerer blames the shallow speared
Barracuda
into the deep great white
the silvery white coloured
under(world)
of her dead
overthrown be her sparks above the fire
as the harpoon shatters
her waves
to Inn's savaged soaked
in their ales
the savage voyage quake of a yearn too hard to bear
oh south to thy Pacific south
so baled in bones
to wooden teeth that row around me row
oh one last breath
around me row
oh bitter sheets
Pequod, thine sails before me
mast to thine acre's flesh Ahab
to thine Maker's
wings thatched of men
and sky
to bargain hard the terms
of what secures both teeth to bone
Pequod,
are thine memories so spiraled
hone to the deep
last voyage
cold
and colder still are the bridges of thine depths
to the steam of great rock solid eyes
before the day when great men
might be sold
to her thousand winged anchors
that pull her
down
into the hull of sunk and duller mind
the talismanic awaits
you
pulling oars out from the dozen
thine holes build life
so greater
oh the depth of breath she breathes
I long to psalter
pain
like the smoke that bellows
thorns out from
the rain
I beg the waves to slaughter
like the siren so she sings
to bend
into thine chasmed fire
of harkened sorrow
Adown thine thorns of smoke
thine thorns of pain
we are breached
till the hunt
come thine swords of rain
Down rip mine sails
to thine Sacred
Marrow
oh chasm thy fire
oh chasm
mine fire