IRENE CUNNINGHAM
-Writer-
ME ME ME
I don't like posing photos where people are instant statues with plastic faces or great smiles shoving themselves out into the air: natural capture of the human in action is always my aim. So my very critical eye also rejects most images other people snap of me, and that is why any pictures of yours truly I post on here will be odd or amusing; this one was taken at my friend's kitchen table as I allowed her to cut and dye parts of my hair while we reached the bottom of the second bottle of wine.
Quick, capture death
from a speeding train:
not waving or drowning
or dying, yet...just passing.
PONCHOS!
Dear old Glesga toon
Published in WRITING WOMEN …1993
​
TWO MOTHERS
My friend lived in a flat castle
with a door that smiled
out into the world
she was four stairs and a short
sprint to the chip shop.
I lived on the ground floor of a
stunted tenement
on the good weather side of the street;
our white stone sat
on top of Walkmill Street’s black
walls like a heavenly hyphen.
‘Different stone awthigither’
my mother roared often.
‘Slum clearance’
her nose sensed my admiration
of the prefabs.
She’d feed my friend on good thick
soup and slices
of warm dumpling.
‘They’re no proper hooses’
she’d say, sliding
the oven shelves back in
as the dumpling cooled on the table.
‘Could faw doon any minute’
My mother made me dresses
and coats with hats to match.
My friend wore trousers.
We smelled different.
Our walls were as thick as the soup;
hers
thin white chalk
like fish in batter.
Me...posing? Never
Daughter models my recent crochet obsession
Published in Northwords Now summer 2014
UNDER THIS SKY
​
The planet holds lochs, suffers
wind to make waves, snow
to cap our mountains and sun to
warm my shoulders.
Fern, the barking dog-star, shouts
at me, begs my attention
until I'm full of the world – she beats
my back, haranguing me
for a bloody stone.
My son's fashionable jeans slip.
He moons us.
I worry about the universe.
Ahhh, coffee
Oh and I am such a doodler . . .
​
THE KELPIES of FALKIRK
The famous Clydeport crane
This, is thee most
beautiful carpark
​
in Glasgow
Me reading at Callendar
poetry festival 2014