2018 Highly Commended - Melanie Butler O'Reilly

Our 2018 runner up for the Eoin Murray Memorial Scholarship is Melanie Butler O'Reilly. 

Melanie already has an impressive writing CV including publications in Quarryman and The Motley She writes both poetry and short stories dealing with themes such as loss ('Balloons in July'), mental health ('Bridges'), and the act of moving on ('Drinking to Death').  We look forward to seeing Melanie's writing career develop and congratulate her on being runner-up in a very competitive group of emerging writers.  We publish her submission here:

Melanie Butler O'Reilly

The Last Supper

I sit front and centre

hands spread, a victim of your choices.

The red wine stains my lips

swirls in my mouth like poison.

Twelve different voices crowd my ears

this is goodbye, but we do not know it yet.


If I could climb inside my own artwork, I would

change the past, present and future.

The moment I announce the betrayal

of all we have worked for, beautiful chaos.

You clench your fist and withdraw

A pretty penny was your price, so easily bought.


You took me here, you see, to Italy

where we could sit and marvel at what remains

each stroke of Da Vinci's masterpiece eroded

just as our own has been.

We do not take the Father's name in vain in our house

instead, we find receipts for jewellery our mother never received. 


You are our Judas Iscariot

now the red wine stains the table cloth with blood

you will not climb a hill to place your head in a noose. 

Yet still I pray for the resurrection, the salvation

of your name disappearing from the divorce papers.

Jesus Christ.

(It was all in vain.)