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Lost Republics
Poems by ALAN JUDE MOORE

| Paperback | 127 x 203 mm | 80 pages | ISBN 978-1-903392-93-5 | November 2008

Most of the poems in Lost Republics were written in Moscow. One of the world's great cities, Moscow's immensity extends a strange sort of citizenship to all those who live there, and these poems reflect that state of being; they come from the perception of a Western European living in the capital of Eastern Europe: simultaneously belonging and not belonging...

 

 

 

 

 

Steppe

I left her waiting, in international radio-waves.
A voice drifting between Western Siberia and Peking.
Minus nine but Spring will come;
you will ditch your great coat and famous automatic
for music and dip a toe in the water again.
Someone's secret code has been broken on the Wall
between the mountains and the Palace.
Tiny taps of a finger shocked into motion
like the hooves of horses tracking back along the steppe.
I left the compound radiator sleeping
and dragged through shadows of birds and dogs.
Above the wind the incomprehensible speech of satellites.
It is no-one's fault if we do not make our way home.
The mountain goats and bears leave footprints on Ararat
and disappear; the sailors climb over oceans
revamped by electricity.

 

Alan Jude Moore was born in Dublin. His poetry is widely published in Ireland and abroad and his fiction has been twice short-listed for the Hennessy Literary Awards. Translations of his work have been published in Italy and Russia. His first collection of poetry, Black State Cars, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2004. He moved to Moscow in 2002, returning to Dublin in 2006.
Sample Poem

Passing the Telegraph

Clouds open over the line
and fires burn somewhere across the flat topography.
We are crawling through the snow like an endless hunk of metal.
When we get there I will have nothing to tell you.
Only that along the way we were seated in carriage number five,
drew breath through the door that would not shut completely
and drank beers with a girl from Peter.

Trees continue across the plain.
It’s deep out there in the space between us.
A dog lay down on the platform at Tver
and maybe on kinder days was fed sausage by old ladies.
It’s harder now to look into peoples eyes
and reprimand them for having left
another living thing half dead and alone.

Bursts of daylight exhausted like neon explosions.
Night falls past the silent tapping of telegraph poles.
Having sold themselves across the Empire,
the women of the Kavkaz gather up their bags
and sit for a while beneath fluorescent lights.
Fires are burning somewhere on the flats;
we are waiting for the station to take us in.
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Salmon Poetry, Knockeven, Cliffs of Moher, County Clare, Ireland
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About this Book
About the Poet
Sample Poem
Other Salmon books by Alan Jude Moore:
Black State Cars (Salmon Poetry, 2004)

 


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