Mauvoise Foi

  Patricia Walsh

So much for camaraderie. Sorting your fix

by the bandwagon, take no notice

of what lies behind, samey, repetitive

cliché rears its grubby feet.

The blind man navigates the tables and chairs

compensated in senses for lacking sight

nothing is sacrilegious to my burning eyes

rotting through insomnia, coffee overload.

Too wired to function, condemned to be free

at a tight end, trademarks always suffice.

Consumer culture invades our privacy

hackers in the background make fools of us all.

Not sleeping, not eating, a ticket to a mess

of someone's making, not just my own

growing tastebuds to deal with the situation

sprouting aggressively to hold up pretence.

A voice in the cityscape cries out,

editing out typos to heart's content.

Navigating through a mess to stay afloat

references to failure finally going amiss.

Not posh, not eternal blue sky, am I,

but sprawled on the hard drive for evermore,

a song for the dispossessed soul, a lost and found

not exiting in glory but through spite.

Patricia Walsh was born and raised in the parish of Mourneabbey, Co Cork, Ireland, and was educated in University College Cork, graduating with an MA in Archaeology in 2000. Previously, she has published one collection of poetry, titled Continuity Errors, with Lapwing Publications in 2010. She has since been published in a variety of print and online journals, including The Fractured Nuance; Revival Magazine; Ink Sweat and Tears; Narrator International, and The Evening Echo, a local Cork newspaper with a wide circulation. She was the featured artist for June 2015 in the Rain Party Disaster Journal. In addition, she has also published a novel, titled The Quest for Lost Eire, in 2014.