Blood in the Shannon (Marcella Boccia)

The river runs red in the dusk,its current a slow burn beneath the grey sky,whispers of ancient bloodmurmuring beneath the surface,dragging the past with every breath.It was once a quiet thing,this river,a gentle path between hills and hearts,but now it carries the weight of storieswritten in ink and in tears,in every stone,every ripple,every silent scream.I see the shadows on the water,flickering like ghosts of a time long gone,faces I have never knownbut have always felt,their hands reaching from the depths,grasping,pulling,demanding the truth.There is blood in the Shannon—not just from the wars we forgot,or the bodies buried beneath the banks,but the blood of something older,something primal—the blood of love and loss,of hope and despair,of every promise brokenand every soul forgotten.I can hear it,the river,its song of sorrow and survival,its quiet rage at the world that forgetsthe price of peace.The wind picks up,carrying the scent of something lost—the last of the smoke,the last of the dreamsthat have never been more than dust.And still the river flows,its blood mingling with the earth,as if to remind usthat nothing is ever truly gone,that every tear,every cry,every drop of bloodleaves a mark on the worldthat time cannot erase.There is blood in the Shannon,and it is mine.It is yours.It is all of us,written in the current,carried in the flow,unseen but felt,like the echo of historythat never lets go.

The wind knows my name (Marcella Boccia)

The wind is a storyteller,its voice ancient,whispering secrets in the crevices of stone,where the world’s skin is thinand the pulse of the earth beats louder.It knows me,not as I am,but as the things I’ve lost,the places I’ve wandered,the days that slip through my fingerslike forgotten prayers.I hear it in the rustle of leaves,in the sigh that bends the trees,in the soft murmur that stirs the sea,like a name being spoken in the dark,a name only the wind remembers,a name I’ve forgotten to speak.It doesn’t judge,this wind,it doesn’t ask for reasons,it simply knows—the ache that haunts the edges of my heart,the silence I wear like a cloak,the parts of me I have abandoned,as though they were stonescast into the depths of the ocean.The wind touches everything,and it touches me too,a gentle caress against my skin,a reminder that I have been here,and I will be again,not as I was,but as the space between breaths,the tremor between thoughts.It carries my name across the hills,across the rivers,across the empty roads I will never walk.And though I may never hear it,I know the wind speaks it still,soft and constant,like the pulse of the earth,like the sound of the stars,like the truth we all forget—that we are remembered,always.

A thousand pints, a thousand lies (Marcella Boccia)

The pub is a temple to the ordinary,its walls thick with the scent of old regret,where laughter is poured like bitter ale,and the truth is drownedwith each swallow,each clink of glass.A thousand pints,each one an empty promise,a vessel for the stories we tell ourselves—that we are whole,that we are not brokenby the things we never speak,the silences that settle between our bones.The bartender knows the ritual,hands steady as he fills the glass,as though pouring the weight of the worldinto something that will never be enough.He doesn’t ask questions,because here,there are no answers,only the fizz of a moment,the fleeting escape,and the taste of something we will never remember.I drink with the crowd,a thousand faces flickering in and out of focus,each one wearing the same lie,the same mask of joy,the same hope that tonight will be different—that tonight,we will touch something real.But the truth is lost in the haze of smoke,in the bitter burn that crawls down our throats,and when the night ends,we are left with nothing but the dregs,a thousand pints,a thousand lies,and the weight of what we never said.

Hands I will never hold (Marcella Boccia)

There are hands I will never hold,fingers that will never trace my namein the quiet places where the soul slips,where words fall like autumn leaves,too soft to catch, too sharp to let go.I see them,those hands,reaching from the edges of dreams,from the places where love is not a choicebut an endless echo,familiar and strange,like the moon’s pale light on a winter morning.These hands have touched the fireof things I’ll never know,have held the weight of secretstoo heavy to bear,too cold to warm.They reach for me in the dark,but I am always just out of reach—a distance only time can carve.I will never know the feel of them,the softness of palms that could have beenmine,the warmth that would have slipped between my fingers,like tea running through cracked cups,slow, steady,until there was nothing left but the taste of what was lost.But still, I wait,hands open,for the touch of the hands I will never hold,like ghosts pressing against my skin,whispers in the spaces between heartbeats.And I listen,as if they are still here,calling me home.

Swan song in the docklands (Marcella Boccia)

The city hums beneath the weight of the evening,iron skeletons against a bruised sky,and the river, thick as forgotten grief,carries the last breath of daylight,a sigh slipping into shadow.The swan glides, silent,its wings cutting through the water,a ghost in the skin of the world,the pulse of its heart lost in the thrum of engines,the call of its song stolen by the steel of the docks.I watch as it moves,its body a question no one asks,its eyes filled with the things we leave behind,the things we never know how to mourn.And the water answers,ripples trembling like broken promises.The lights flicker, tired,casting halos that only the dead would recognize,and the swan, with a final beat of its wings,disappears into the night,a shadow swallowed whole by the dark.I am left here,on the edge of everything,where the river’s cold arms reach for the city,and I wonder—is this the end,or just another place we forget to leave?

The ferry to nowhere (Marcella Boccia)

The ferry rocks in the mist,its hull a whisper against the water’s skin,the river yawns wide, a mouth full of secrets,and I step aboard, heart full of questionsthe wind will not answer.There’s no map, no compass here,only the soft hum of the engine,like a prayer that has forgotten how to speak,and the cold, the ever-present cold,licking at my bones, reminding methat even the sea is a liar.The shore fades like an old photograph,edges blurred, faces lost to the fog,and I am left alone with the hum,the pulse of a world I cannot touch,the vastness of everythingthat never quite reaches me.The captain, silent, his eyes swallowed by the dark,leads us nowhere,and we sail, aimless,toward the thin line where sky and sea bleedinto one.Perhaps this is where we’re meant to be—suspended between worlds,where words are too heavy to fall,and nothing has a name.Just the endless rocking,and the cold that waits,as patient as eternity.

St. Stephen’s green in the rain (Marcella Boccia)

The park sighs beneath the weight of grey,its trees trembling in the soft, steady weeping.Each drop a kiss from the sky,each leaf a prayer to the endless dusk.A woman passes, umbrella tilted,her coat a shadow stitched with regret.Her footsteps leave ripples on the path,like memories sinking slowly into the earth.The fountain, broken but still whispering,offers its water to the air,a gift to the ghosts who haunt the benches,waiting for something they’ll never name.I sit, hands wrapped around the warmth of a cup,watching the rain blur the world—a painting left unfinished,a face I once knew,a love that slipped through the cracks of silence.And St. Stephen’s Green,bathed in quiet sorrow,becomes the space between breaths,the pause before the end of a songno one remembers.

The cobblestone lament (Marcella Boccia)

Night spills like stout on the streets of Dublin,thick, dark, foaming at the edges of song.The cobblestones hum with the weight of old feet,echoes of boots that marched and danced,that staggered home, hands full of ghosts.A fiddle wails from a Temple Bar corner,its cry threading through rain-heavy air,a needle stitching past to present,pulling grief tight into the seams of the night.Under the gaslight’s shiver, I watcha man trace his sorrow in cigarette smoke,his breath a prayer to no one,his pint half-full, half-forgotten.The Liffey murmurs something I almost understand,a lullaby for the lost, a dirge for the dreaming,and the city, drunk on memory,keeps singing anyway.

Black wood and ghostly whispers (Marcella Boccia)

The trees lean in, hushed conspirators,their spines black against the salted dusk.Wind threads through the branches,a cold hand slipping through ribs.I walk where the earth swallows footsteps,where silence blooms in damp lungfuls,where shadows wear the faces of the deadand call my name with mouths of leaves.Somewhere, a fox slips between the roots,its breath white, vanishing—a ghost that never learned to haunt.I envy its quiet escape.The wood hums with voices I cannot name,soft as apologies, sharp as regret.They settle in my bones,and I let them stay.

I knocked on hell’s door (Marcella Boccia)

I knocked on Hell’s door with winter-knuckled hands,three times, slow, like the toll of a broken bell.The wood was warm—sweat-slicked, pulsing like something alive.No voice called, no key turned,only silence, thick as blood in the throat,only the scent of burnt prayers and Sunday sins,curling like smoke from a lover’s mouth.I pressed my ear against the grain,heard laughter, low and familiar,heard my own name, whispered backin the voice I buried last December.The handle kissed my palm like a promise,but I turned, boots heavy with ghosts,walked back into the cold,where even the wind refuses my shadow.