Ah, the centre of paralysis, Dublin!
How often in my mind have I walked
your dreamlike streets, misted with rain,
from the Martello tower to the school, from
the hospital to the brothel, then home again,
with the lost son who found his lost father
and the lost father who found his lost son.
Stephen’s mother was dead and he had
already left Dublin in his mind, refusing
to mourn her, as he refused to mourn
the city itself, though he never stopped
mourning both in his dreams. Ah, Dublin,
if only I could have walked your streets,
which he both loved and hated, with him
and his new-found friend! After the friend
had crawled into bed in the dark, beside
his unfaithful wife, where heaven was
a handjob on Howth Heath, Stephen was left
to stagger on through the night, lost in the hell
of his post-adolescent misery, all the time
saying goodbye, goodbye in his heart, to the city
he could never leave. Ah, Dublin, where the waters
of Liffey flow under the Ha’penny Bridge!
City of sleep, city of dreams, which he
would always grieve and I have never seen…

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Stephen Smithyman is the son of New Zealand poets, Kendrick Smithyman and Mary Stanley. He has lived and worked in Naarm/Melbourne for many years and is now retired there. A late developer, he has published two collections of poetry Snapshot in the Dark (2018) and Halfway and Back (2020), plus one of short stories Remembering Richard and Other Tales of Unease (2023), in recent years – all with Ginninderra Press, Adelaide. Stephen regards himself as an Antipodean poet, not belonging exclusively to either Aotearoa/New Zealand or Australia, but rather to both and believing that, for all their differences, there are many powerful affinities between them. He is also mindful of the Irish diaspora and the role that has played in shaping the cultures of both countries.

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