Derek Mahon seems not to be in print at all on my side of the Atlantic. This little Penguin selected is only book of his I have ever even seen, although a quick search shows lots of things available here & there. Maybe someone who knows all of him better could pick an actual book, but since no one has yet...
These stanzas from "Dawn at St. Patrick's" broke my heart the first time I read it, and have broken it again each time I've reread it:
as I chew my thumb
and try to figure out
what brought me to my present state -
an 'educated man', a man of consequence, no bum
but one who has hardly grasped what life is about,
if anything. My children, far away,
don't know where I am today,
in a Dublin asylum
with a paper whistle and a mince pie,
my bits and pieces making a home from home.
I pray to the rain-clouds that they never come
where their lost father lies; that their mother thrives; and that I
may measure up to them
before I die.
Speechless,
Pat