Everything is a miracle. It is a miracle one does not dissolve in one’s bath like a lump of sugar. (Picasso)
Philosophical, inquisitive, humorous narratives show Gallagher’s talent for letting ideas be widely connotative – sharp and daring, quirky and knowing – these poems of wide-ranging themes and approaches are chock full of the unexpected, delivered in lively rhythms and tempo with an energy and way of seeing the world that is compelling.
Be the poems about an addiction to soap watching or searching for the `real’ flamenco to oddly philosophical glimpses into angels and bath time or Picasso and a sexual snap – these well-rounded poems are full of spark, moving one into seeing the grand significance in the mundane.
Darker angled poems zone in on death, on loneliness, on a graveyard visit, on war. These poems use original images to bring timely messages that are real and tangible.
A series of love poems incite gorgeous, off-centre views on love. Playfulness and tongue-in-cheek mix with sensuality and randomness, idioms catapult into surprises, there are implications and engaging twists and urgency.
From the cosmic to the domestic, from childhood flashback to adult matter-of-factness, from the simply chilling to the witty and authentic – cleverness and a surreal intensity entertain and enlighten, making Wrong Miracle an achievement of the amusing and the deep.
Gallagher is a poet of immense resource with a refreshingly original voice that will move one to exclaim – `Ah, what a great thing for poems to do!’
Table of Contents:
Decorum
A Bruising on the Bone
Woman in a Red-Head
A Lady in the Bath with Angels
All This Wonderment
Here’s Me in an Anonymous Society
Spring
Breakfast Cereals, Picasso and a Sexual Snap
A Poem that Thinks It Has Joined a Circus
Finding the Right Silences
Compartmentalise
Look What the Cat Dragged In
Sunglasses
Prelude to Getting One’s Act Together
Rooster on a Dangerous Bend (Or There Is No Satisfaction in Losing One’s Hat)
Spring the Life Fandango
The Loneliness of Not Being Equivalent to the Other
Soaps
The Sun Splits
Second Thoughts on Sunday
Graveyard Visit (1)
Deposits in the Heart Region
Small Acts
Waking a Grandmother
My Father Shows Me How to Sharpen a Bush-Trimmer
A Guide to Enjoying a Wet August
Letter From a Far-Flung Place
Bogeyman at Play
A Bout of the Sinister in the Everyday
The Woman with All Her Curtains Drawn
Mostly, My Dogs Excel the Gods
`Please Be Yous Good Till I Get Back!’
Sunday with Ritual
Episode iii: The Day the Shelling Started
Sun Over a Tree Line
City Roof Top
The Agony in the Garden
The Soldier Sways on a Swing: Episode XV
14 Seconds
Feet and Mouth and Shoes
Irreversible
Against the Odds, We Talk Ourselves into Things
Shuffling Feet in the Early Hours
In the Kitchen with Chestnuts and Tomatoes
Crazy Love
Falling Out of Love (or Remaining Untrained in Kite Flying)
Sing Me a Sort of Lily-the-Pink Song
Signs
Exposition of the Contents of a Heart
Small Consolation
Sometimes When You are Bent Over Chopping leeks ...
The Wrong Miracle
Love Exists in the Back-Boiler Room
Allow Me
Search Me (All Else Failing)
In the Dark, Listening to Rain
Cosmic Noise
A Breeze in My Hair
