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    Naming All The Stars
    Naming All The Stars
    Naming All The Stars
    Ebook106 pages23 minutes

    Naming All The Stars

    By Mike Roycroft

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    About this ebook

    Michael Roycroft’s debut collection of poetry has the intriguing title of Naming All the Stars. But ‘What are the stars?’ to quote a famous line from playwright Sean O’Casey, indeed the title, like the fan-shaped tail of the comet Arend-Roland, the poem which references the title, casts its sparkle on the ordinary which can become the extraordinary. Roycroft writes with insight and compassion about these things including the lives of people, and places, that convey a sense of transcendence and sprinkles the stardust to bring them into the light and makes them accessible and available to the reader. The poems are laced with humour and sadness, with a lot of ‘stars’ getting a mention.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLimerick Writers Centre
    Release dateSep 9, 2020
    ISBN9781005501839
    Naming All The Stars
    Author

    Mike Roycroft

    Mike Roycroft was born in Wolfe Tone St. (over Manifold’s shop). After a number of years working in the Regional Hospital, he went abroad teaching, in West and North Africa (but latterly working as an entertainer in Marrakech hotels). He has travelled fairly widely, from Svalbard to Kyrgyzstan, occasionally climbing unchallenging mountains. He now lives in Nenagh, where he is a member of Nenagh Writers’ Group. He’s been writing prose and poetry for many years and he was one of the featured poets in Sextet 2 (2016). This is his first collection of poems.

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      Book preview

      Naming All The Stars - Mike Roycroft

      Out in the backyard,

      the roofs with slates precariously poised

      and waiting for next November’s gales,

      it rushed –

      a still, silver smudge across the Milky Way.

      For weeks he watched it,

      pronouncing its strange name: Arend-Roland,

      and marvelling at how

      he seemed to hear its distant roar

      as he gazed upward.

      Finally, he’d feel the cold and turn indoors,

      back to classroom worries, the fire and the radio,

      confident he’d one day name all the stars.

      The Dream Topping Spider

      When you open the cupboard, there’s quite a good chance –

      if the kitchen’s not dark – that you’ll get a sly glance

      from a creature who may feel he’s the lord of the manse

      but I call him the Dream Topping Spider.

      When the light from the kitchen floods into his den

      he knows it’s the Giant come for something again

      but as concepts like ‘cocoa’ are outside his ken

      he just lurks near a box of Dream Topping.

      It can’t be much fun for him there on his own

      as he fine-tunes the webs in the press he calls home;

      does he wonder what Life is, does he mind being alone

      in mock safety behind the Dream Topping?

      Now Dream Topping Spider you may think it odd

      but giants like us have our own giant called ‘God’ –

      or we hope that we have, for if we’re here on our tod

      we’re like you, but without the Dream Topping!

      The Long Table

      It seemed centuries old,

      from a shadowy land

      and devoid of artistic design.

      Whether meant for a convent,

      a castle or inn

      no one could truly divine.

      Shed tears have dried

      on the rough wooden grain –

      fed by passion that’s long since grown cold,

      and laughter still lives,

      the sounds sunk in the grooves

      as lasting and precious as gold.

      Songs there

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