Two Poems by Maurice Riordan

Bugs Bunny to the Rescue

Some folks have called me cocky and brash.
They’re saying I’m way too big for my boots.
In actual fact, I’m just totally self-possessed.
I’m nonchalant, unflappable, a contemplative.
I play it cool, man – though I get hot under the collar.
I know all the ups and downs, twists and turns of the game.
And the game is all about the beauty of the chase.
I chomp on my carrot the same reason Groucho chomps on his cigar.
It stops me rushing too fast into the next routine.
See, I’ve long figured I’m appearing in an animation.
When it looks like I’m cornered and done for – don't you be consoined.
I’ve always got one more dodge up my… um sleeve.
It weally is only a big put-on when I scweam!
Let's face it, Doc, I’ve read the script. I know how it turns out.

Topology

Limerick Junction

No, we hadn’t seen the film but without a doubt
that's me in the teashop waiting. Waiting it seems
for my teacup to turn to a doughnut. And here you are
turning up, wobbly I can see, and for an hour
we’re watching through plate glass the almost-silent
comedy of a pair of forklifts grunting and shunting
at flatcars, all the novelty of boxed cargo
(the word containerization is unknown to us).
Then you rip open my present and gasp at the image –
scared and beautiful, far too hard ever to erase.
Then yes, you stand on those clogs, since the stars
or the maths have snipped our parts from the plot.
But leaving all the same this shadow on my lifeline.
Since there it was for a heartbeat, the doughnut,
before resuming the semblance of handle and cup.

Maurice Riordan was born in Lisgoold, Co. Cork, and lives in London. His fifth collection from Faber, The Shoulder Tap, is due in October. Among his previous books are The Water Stealer (2013), The Holy Land (2007), Floods (2000) and A Word from the Loki (1995). He edited The Finest Music (Faber, 2014), an anthology of early Irish poetry in translation. He is Emeritus Professor of Poetry at Sheffield Hallam University.