February by Maurice Devitt

Having used the dark, dismal days
of January to shake off

my survivor guilt

and watched the fading tail

of some stellar resolutions

flicker for one last time,

I wake to a neat and tidy month: 

just four short weeks to get through,

calendar still unsure

whether it is winter or spring.

Mornings are candle-lit

with the first flame of magnolia,

a late flurry of snow

pixelates the otherwise clear air

and the street hurries itself

into an almost forgotten future,

where nothing unusual happens.

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A graduate of the MA in Poetry Studies at Mater Dei, he won the Trocaire/Poetry Ireland Competition in 2015 and published his debut collection, ‘Growing Up in Colour’, with Doire Press in 2018. 

His poems have been nominated for Pushcart, Forward and Best of the Net prizes and his Pushcart-nominated poem, ‘The Lion Tamer Dreams of Office Work’, was the title poem of an anthology published by Hibernian Writers in 2015. He is curator of the Irish Centre for Poetry Studies site.