Voltage and current: the stanzas
themselves a switch board
channelling energy through lines; a passage
of resistance contends with the zap
making its way – yin and yang communicate
and counterpoint.
This power source fizzes in the background.
Live-wiring spectral in brief
phantom-flashes about angles
– in distortion-pulled and -suspended time –
a diaphanous downwarp, it gives glimpse into
of otherness. Circuitous resistance pushes back
against it. Threatening the cosmos
is the chaos: a universal constant,
their mutual resentment
vimming and singing away.
Born in Dublin in 1988, PETER DONNELLY’s first collection, Photons, was published by Appello Press in 2014. Following its publication, playwright Frank McGuinness commented that “Peter Donnelly already shows he has a strong imagination; indeed, a savage one presents itself on occasion when the beautiful and brutal confront and confound each other.” His second collection, Money Is a Kind of Poetry, was published by Smokestack Books in 2019.