Author: Sven Kretzschmar
The Gist
Sven Kretzschmar is a poet from the southwest of Germany. He has read Philosophy and English in Germany, Luxembourg, and Ireland, where he taught moral philosophy at University College Dublin. His poetry has been published in the OTwo magazine of UCD’s The University Observer, the catullan, Skylight 47, Ropes, Coast to Coast to Coast, The Wild Word, and Smithereens Literary Magazine among others. He was awarded 1st prize in the Creating a Buzz in Strokestown competition 2018. Further work has appeared with Poetry Jukebox in Belfast and is forthcoming in several anthologies from Irish publishers scheduled for autumn 2019.
TO PROFESS LOVE
Gone, the red brick
pavement on Grafton Street –
gone.
Yet, the sombre corners
around Four Courts still
in place.
English ghosts behind the red
brick facades edge off as a modern
haste takes over.
There is still that seedy elegance
MacNeice was writing,
scoffing and sneering about.
The Liffey brown and grey
and the sky’s the latter too –
too often.
Days are not soft to forget –
tough enough to remember the bullets
in Clonee, the Liberties, Drumcondra,
vermin pushed through side lanes
to the precinct. Still there is time
for thought –
by trade and by free will,
and I stroll around with a smile
on my lips to find
her heritage remains. Georgian
Dublin still stands still –
red brick upon brick.
