Michael Magee
Michael Magee is a poet, freelance writer, reviewer of film and drama, and playwright. He has two recent poetry collections, Budapest After Dark, 2024 and Terra Firma: Sacred Ground, 2022. Magee’s plays and poetry have been produced and published in the U.S., England, and Greece. His chapbooks include: Ireland’s Eye, A Trip to Jerusalem, and the recently published Dementia: Love is a Blur and Vanishing Points (Beaux Arts Press, 2017). His play Shank’s Mare was produced at Northwest Actor’s Studio and later became a movie which won a best actor award at the Bare Bones, Script to Screen Film Festival in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A Night in Reading Gaol With Oscar Wilde was produced here and in Derby, England. He was co-editor of 2020 Tacoma: In Images and Verse and is editor and publisher of Beaux Arts Press. Recent work has been published in Cirque and Journal of Wild Culture.
2024 Jack Straw Alumni Poetry Series:
Budapest After Dark is a rotogravure of Budapest, 2023, taking us through the Hungarian National Museum and Art Gallery, Liszt Recital Hall, Varosliget Park, and Vajdahunyad and Buda Castles. He touches both sides of the Duna (Danube) from Pest to Buda, crossing the Chain, Margaret and Elizabeth Bridges where he explores the world of film noir as seen through art.
Budapest After Dark
At night I look out from my window
across the square, where Roma gather
to banter and dogs barking to the sound
of a harmonica as skateboards form a rhythm
section and people from the tavern are toasting
half-moon glasses while I am dry tonight here–
In the cell of my room more monkish than Kafka
although there are bars on our doors, I hear
singing and across the city I can see lights
from the Margit Bridge as a white halo appears
while above small lights appear in clusters
constellations in the hills of Buda, make
lovely ornaments for those of us in Pest.
