Angels and outlaw ballads By Dennis Moriarty

The fire is fed, the whisky poured, the joint rolled.

I sip and inhale

watching a clock that does not tick, a pendulum

that does not swing,

time tonight is my best friend. I sing along to an

outlaw ballad,

my finger poised on the trigger of an imaginary

gun, a midnight showdown.

The room shimmers in the firelight, the hearth

a stage occupied 

by a seventies dance troop of angels gyrating

with the devil.

I hear spiders spinning their webs in darkest 

corners, openly mocking.

Suddenly the clock begins to tick, the pendulum

begins to swing

between sanity and madness, time is a two faced

lying bastard.

I squeeze the trigger and the song lays dying

on my lips,

the angels scream and melt into the devils arms.

The fire spits and hisses

like a bad tempered snake on speed. The glass

is drained, the joint is smoked.

Dennis Moriarty was born in London, England and now lives in Wales. Married with five grown up offspring Dennis likes walking the dog in the mountains, reading and writing.

In 2017 he won the Blackwater poetry competition and went to county Cork in Ireland to read his work at the international poetry festival. Dennis has had poems featured in many publications including Blue nib, Our poetry archive, Setu bilingual, The passage between and others.