Poems by Matthew Sweeney

The Coin


There is a bright coin on the street,
probably a £2 coin, hopefully a £2 coin,
but the traffic is relentless, like a river.
Even when the lights stop it, a truck
is over the coin. Should I slide beneath 
the body? But these lights aren’t red long,
and the driver won’t know I’m down there,
under his load of carpets, or chairs, or TVs.
I’m thinking of what I’d buy with the £2 -
a sausage from the market, with mustard,
or a quarter pound of minced steak and
a small onion, or even half a rye baguette.
But what if it’s only a shiny 2p coin?
I’d get nothing with that. No point in
thinking like this, I say to myself, seeing
that a woman has also noticed the coin  
and is poised to jump. I glare at her, inching
to the edge of the pavement. So it must 
be a £2 coin, and I must beat her to it,
at the risk of being run down by a bus.
The lights are turning again. I’m a diver
on a board, and I go, as a taxi screeches
to a halt, horn blaring, with further
screeches and wailing, but no smash.
My fingers clutch the £2 coin, which it is,
while my teeth bare in a grin for the woman
and all the drivers who are scowling at me.
I get to my feet and make for the market.


​

The Hook    


My great granddad lost his right hand
to a tiger. He bought a hook instead,
then he emigrated to Salford to work
on the excavation of the Ship Canal.

Any navvie who laughed at the one-
handed man got the hook in his face,
so scarfaces sat in the Salford bars
every evening and toasted the hookman

who refused to join them because he
didn’t like the beer. It had been better
in India. He had his father dispatch
cases of his locally infamous poitin

which he slugged alone in his bunk
while reading dark tales by candlelight,
then he’d drink a gallon of tapwater
so he’d be right as Mayo rain for work.

My great granddad lost his right hand
but his hook attracted photographs,
and at each snap he extracted a fee
which allowed him to retire at fifty

but he stayed in Salford and opened
a shibeen, which he called The Hook,
and he travelled once back to Mayo
for lessons in the making of poitin.

Matthew Sweeney was born in Lifford, Ireland. Sweeney’s latest collections of poetry include Black Moon (2007), The Night Post: A New Selection (2010), Horse Music (2013), and Inquisition Lane (2015). He has also written poetry for children: The Flying Spring Onion (1992) and Up on the Roof: New and Selected Poems (2001).
​A recipient of the Cholmondeley Award and the Arts Council England Writers’ Award, Sweeney has held residencies at the University of East Anglia and South Bank Centre in London. He teaches workshops and classes in the community and has served as poet-in-residence at the National Library for the Blind (UK). 

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