Frank Phelan

Loneliness is a Queue

Amongst a trail of slumped shoulders

I stand for the first time in years.

Stigma stifles the tiny building,

sagging with neglect;

the intimacies of private struggles

boom from hatch to tiny hatch.

We are many,

huddled in this room closing in.

Leaflets Blue-tacked

flash warnings and accusations;

invite the voice behind the glass

to join the torment in your head.

Next! catches the weight in your chest.

A weary carcass shuffles

to a vacant hatch,

an acre of loneliness

in every step.

Biography

I am Dublin born and I live in county Kildare. I am 55 years old and I write about the political, the social, the personal, life’s irritants and things that just strike me as being funny – even if I’m the only one to be amused!