...plus ça change, plus ça reste le meme. . .


dawn tiptoes
over the horizon
me at the washing line

******* after pretty *******
adorn my line
the dawn blushes

I bend to the basket
***** after ***** after *****
push my hair behind my ear

ooops the twins are up
I blow a kiss
to the dawn...yawn

"Good boy...good boy!"
I cajole the lads
sobs cease at my voice

think the world of them
make a world for them
their chuckles...their gurgles...my delights

ouch my back hurts
snatched coffee whilst twins sleep
skip through last month's COSMO

"Oh gallant maker of babies!"
I address fat lump clamped in duvet
"Get...the f*. . .up!"

SHALL WE DANCE. . .

take the skeleton
by the hand and
we dance

it is a gloriously
sunny day
of childhood

the skeleton
just grins and
I sing I'm all shock up

mmm mmm
yeah yeah
yeah

can tell
Mr. Skelton is
well into Elvis

swings its pelvis
rattles its bones
"Go Skeletoney goooo!"

my da yells
"Donall son
leave the ****** skeleton alone!"

"Plant ya now
dig ya later!"
I jive talk him

the skeleton
comes to a stand still
dangles from a wire

out of his skull
I leave my Da's
army sports stores

I always amazed
that this
skeleton was once

a man
as alive
as me

years later
the army
thinks the same

and plastic
replaces
bone

he's finally buried
with full military honours
flag draped coffin

3 volley salutes
scattering the crows
a future he

could never know
become human
for the last time

then the boy
I was
becomes the man I am

lighting a candle
for my former dancing partner
"Rest easy Mr. Bones...rest easy!"


I wrote of 'him' way back in 2007 and then lost the poem so this year. remembering the lost poem, I wrote this version. Then I lost this version. And then I found the old version and finally the new version again! I found it interesting to see the different ways of coming into a poem...same facts but a different trajectory as one enters the emotional atmosphere of the poem.

*

COME DANCING


I take the skeleton’s hand
& man...do we dance?

I clasp his bony hand in mine
give him a high five and dude...we jive!

No one can touch us now
(we’re in a world of our own) .

We shake, rattle ‘n’ roll...yeah!
Shake, rattle ‘n’ roll
(then we)
*** into dat kitchen ‘n’ rattle ‘em pots ‘n’ pans
Den den den...den den den!

The skeleton flashes me a toothy grin.

“Man...you the one...you the one...what a groove...we’re in! ”

The transistorised air is alive as song after song drives me on.

The skeleton don’t break sweat!
Me...my scalp prickles...sweat trickles down my spine.

Sunlight spills in the window
& the dust motes go wild.

The skeleton places a bony hand on my clavicle
& I place my hand on his sacroiliac.

We waltz eye socket to eye socket
& patella to patella.

Gene Kelly sings:

"What a great day it’s been... what a rare mood I’m in
Why it’s... almost like being in love!"

He’s a fine medical specimen.

He dangles from a thread in his head
& the slightest breeze moves him
...gets him going.

I call him Mr. Bo Jangles.

He lives in my Dad’s army sport stores.

From the inner sanctum of his room
my Dad’s army voice booms:

”Donall...leave that ****** skeleton alone! ”

And goes back to counting his *****.

The ledger grows & grows.
(He mutters & mumbles to himself) .

“*****...soccer...50? ...50! ”
“*****... rugby...50? ...50! ”
“*****...medicine...50? ...50! ”

he intones as if chanting a mantra.

I shuffle out...trying to be cool
(in this heat?)

“Yo, see ya later Bo! ”

Years later I see him
in a tiny newspaper article.

Apparently the Army
realise they’ve got a real life skeleton on their hands

& decide to do the decent thing
(remembering the man he’d been)

& bury him

with full military honours

flag draped coffin
& shots fired into the air to scare the crows away.

I wish I could have...been there.

Say my goodbyes.

I smile & whisper
a little prayer:


”Yo, see ya later...Bo! ”

THE ONLY WAY OF LOOKING AT A BIRD

( "...it is an astonishment to be alive, and it behoves you to be astonished..." John Donne )

she looked at the bird
with all of her self
as if by some alchemy

of thought
she flew into
its shape

as it became the air
her mind opening
its wings to the sky

the house now
a little blue egg
far far below her

her voice curving
into a beak
that flung its being

into the song
of self
scrawled across a sky

becoming sunset
so that becoming
human again

was a grief
that could only be
expressed in birdsong


*


My little one being astonished when a bird came and stood beside her as just another friendly being. They both stood there looking at each other and then the bird flew away and her mind flew away after it.

A STITCH IN TIME

Memory
passes through
the eye of the needle

I purse my lips
coat the thread
with spit

ne eye
closed
one eye open

pass it like a baton
to my mother sewing
on  a loose button

the needle
a little silver fish
dashes in

and out
a frayed
shirt cuf

I walk down a street
in New York
as memory

whisks me back
to an Irish kitchen
a kettle whistling

and my mother cursing
"Ahhh son can you
thread that for me!"

COME ANOTHER DAY

"****...****..shishishi!"
whispers the rain
in Albanian



It sounds like "She...she...sheeee."

In Maltese it is....
xita which sounds an awful lot like "****...ahhh!"

In Korean it is bi which is pronounced "***."

I was trying to catch to the sound of rain falling on tatch and the Albanian came nearest.

Knowledge comes courtesy of a Maltese taxi driver.

Idioms for raining from other countries are something else!

In Irish we say "Tá sé ag caitheamh sceana gréasaí."
Or it is raining cobbler's knives!"

In Greece it is raining chair legs...

In Czech it is raining tractors...

In South Africa it is raining old women with clubs.

In Portugal, Brazil, and other Portuguese-speaking countries..."It's raining frogs' beards."

In Denmark it rains "shoemaker boys/shoemaker apprentices. In 1758 a shoemaker - Carl Jepsen - hurled three boys out the window from the 2nd floor for not doing their work properly. they all died)

Or nearer to the Irish:..."It's raining pocketknives,"

Now ya know



I know I know "cats and dogs' but I was going after ones I didn't know...that were common in those countries but surprising to us.

The poem I wrote about not having my grandfather's legs had the sheep talking in their own language of the countries they were found in so that started me off.

In Korea for example bees don't buzzbuzz buzz but rather go...get this...****. Ahhh isn't language a glorious thing so it is so it is.

"WHAT DE. . ?"

the chairs eyed each other up
suspiciously
each waiting for the other to make a move

the table just stood there
not wanting
to get involved

the painting
turned its face
to the wall

the window pretended
to look
outside

the door thought
it was an open &
shut case

the phone
went to say something but
changed its mind

"Tick..!" commented the clock
but never tocked
shut its mouth again

then the first chair
laughed
breaking the tension

the chairs
all amigos once again
thick as thieves

the room relaxed
the flowers smiled
the curtains danced with a breeze

". . .tock!" said the clock
almost
blue in the face

when I walked in
I could sense something had happened
that hadn't happened

the room said nothing
I looked at the room looking at me
the room stayed schtum

DEATH OF A PERFECT UNIVERSE

puddles
capture
stars

throw them
at our feet
where we with each

hurrying footstep
destroy each
perfect universe.

and now that
we have gone
(lovers eager to be home)

puddles
patiently
reform

wrestle stars to the ground
(trapped in the rain’s
shattered mirrors)

reflect yet
another
perfect universe

that trembles
at the approach
of a pair of bright

newly
red
stilettos

THE STORM OF 1929

he carves the storm
into the wood
gouging its very essence

so that when
the storm ceases
it exists still in memory

it comes alive again
the wood speaking
in the great wind's voice

wooden waves
crashing over
wooden rocks

a seagull captured
in two swift strokes
flies above it all

all who witness
his wooden storm
live it at first hand

his old hands
trap the storm
carves it into the mind

LIGHTLY CHILD LIGHTLY

the wind is reading
Aldous Huxley's ISLAND
dropped among the hollyhocks

the wind speed reads
skips entire sections
a fat fly walks over the title

an obese raindrop falls
upon the author's name then
another & another &. . .

ISLAND
turns to mulch
raindrops batter the book

it comes apart
at his touch
islands of words remain

"...two thirds of all sorrow
is homemade and so far
as the universe is concerned..."

the rest is lost
but he can fulfil the words
". . . unnecessary. . ."

now here at your grave
my fingertips trace
the curves of your name

as a lover might
trace the taut
muscles of a back

a ladybird pauses on
the H of Huxley
as if learning its letters

their metal inlay
glinting in the sun
"...it isn't a matter of forgetting..."

your words scattered
across the years
"...what one has to remember is..."

"...how to remember and yet
be free of

the past..."

I still grieve my lost book
eaten by the weather but
glowing in my mind

I laugh and tell your grave
"Give us this day our
Daily Faith but...

...deliver us
Dear God
from Belief."

HER FIRST AUTUMN

I watch her
try to capture
things in words

her first Autumn
her eyes try to accommodate
what her mind sees

"The Autumn
is rusting
the trees!"

PASSING STRANGE

Rose, arose & having risen:
...was angry.

'You never call me
by my name

only love & darling.'

'A rose by any other name
would smell as sweet! '
I quoted.

'That's neat! '
she sweetly smiled.

'That's Shakespeare! '
I whispered in her ear

and kissed her
sweet sweet smile.

(Each reflected in the other's eye) .

'Oh, quote me that kiss again! '
she sighed.

'How I do love thee...! '
I cried.

'...let me count the kisses! '
she replied.

My lovely darling

Rose.

*

PASSING STRANGE is from Shakespeare's Othello...when the big guy tells his tales to Dessie and she finds them not only strange but...passing strange. I always thought of a series of inns along a journey...the first was the Ye Olde Strange Inn...then the next one was Ye Really Weirdy Strange Inn...and then surpassing all that... Ye Olde Passing Strange Inn. The Passing Strange of the title refers to the fact that the poem begins with the most strange off the wall wonderful brawl of a row and ends in the most sublime *******!
I had merely asked her(as many times before) 'Do you want a cup of tea, love? ' And all hell exploded until I could understand where she was coming from and kiss it better. Using 'love' in almost every address to a person is an Irishism that is visible to others but invisible to me as...I'm Irish. I don't hear my Irish accent until someone comments on it and its little pecularities. So, my mother would say:
' Make us a cup of tea, love? ' And I say: 'Yeah, love! ' Or a shopkeeper would tell you that that was: '...only a shilling love for all them nice juicy tomatoes love! ' And if you hurt someone, you'd say:
' Sorry, love! ' Or: 'I love you...love! ' It's like spice or flavouring... invisible until it's not there! '
Even if you are unhappy with what a person is doing and tell them in no uncertain terms...so...then the sentence construction is likely to be: 'Ahhhh for fu's sake... love! ' You still put the 'love' on the end of the sentence to show that it is their present actions that you are displeased with and that despite all this they still are your 'love! '
Frieda used to tell me that she loved being my 'love! ' And indeed if I didn't say it she would pick me up on it or ask if I didn't love her anymore! Her full name was Frieda Rose so I would call her so or just Frieda or just Rose or 'Frieda Rose love! ' Try it yourself...it's very hard to be annoyed with someone when you are calling them 'love.' In my part of the country even men would call each other love(in Yorkshire in England they still do as well) and all the normal courtsey and manners are extended to a gentleman as well as to a lady. That's why it's called common courtsey! This can be seen at the end of the Beatles YELLOW SUBMARINE where the guys make an appearance as themselves and not just their cartoons! John is looking worred and Paul asks him: 'What's the matter John, love? '
This time however Frieda went berserk and said 'Don't call me love...I'm not your love! ' It turned out that I had begun to dropp her name more and more and now she was permantently called just 'Love! ' to show how dear she was to me. There was not other word for her except 'love.' She was love itself to me...the very embodiment of the word. Turns out a guy who treated her real bad and cheated on her a lot would always call her love to make it easier for him to cover up his cheating. If everyone was love then he couldn't make a mistake. One day he broke his own rule and called Frieda Rose...Dolly!
Big mistake...they broke up and as he left he told her of his foolproof system of using 'love' for whatever woman he was with. She always hated it after that and until I came along she wouldn't let anyone call her that. She said I said it so differently and it sounded lovely in an Irish accent and I said it like I meant it! That day she had been thinking of him for some reason and all the hurt came back and I just happen to say: 'Do you want a cup of tea, love! '
My stepping into Shakespeare diffused the situation and we started playing around with the launguage and delighting in the words.
Frieda Rose didn't know much Shakespeare until she met me and then it was impossible...not to. just by the process of osmosis you would soak up my passion for the bard. She was just bored and didn't like him anyway but gradually she came to see what I saw in the guy...like.. wow! She gradually soaked up lots of poems and poets and became quite an expert in whom she liked. She had just gotten into the Brownings and this also makes an appearance at the end of the poem.
I brushed back her hair and kissed her on her neck just under her ear and she swooned and sighed 'Oh, quote me that kiss again! ' She was now fully in Shakespearean mode and her feeling and the language got married at the point and out came this lovely natural line. I wish I had wrote it(I only report it!) and I bet Shakey wouldn't have minded coming up with it himself. Today it is still one of my favourite lines of poetry and I still wish I had wrote it. ******* it...she had
out-Shakespeare'd me!
And so I had to write a poem to get my favourite line into it and so PASSING STRANGE came to be. I love reading it even if an audience don't get it or like it that particular night.
It makes me go 'Mmmmmmmmmmm! ' and I get a chance to say:
'Oh, quote me that kiss again! '
Everytime I speak that line...I enter forever the timeless time of that kiss and that's the only moment that exists!

MEANAGERIE A TOI

Ring! Ring!
“Hello...who?”
“F* you!”

“What the . . ?”
“Sorry...that’s Secherazade!”
“Who. . .?”

“My cockatoo!”
“Oh!”
“Fyou!Fyou!F*you!”

“Slurp! Slurp!”
and an even bigger: “. . .slurp!”
“What the. . .?”

“Sorry...that’s Harry!”
“Harry?”
“My Labrador!”

“Down boy...down I say!”
“Purrr...purrr!”
“Are you purring?”

“No...that’s Brat!”
“Brat?”
“My cat!”

“Brat!”
“Your cat!”
“Anyway...how are you?”

!!!!!!!HOPPY BIRD DAY!!!!!!!

just shy of
almost 21 inches high
she perches on my arm

sobs into my shirt cuff
her 4th birthday looms large

for her
& us
...the big 04!

she cries she doesn't
want to grow old
& die!

fears her birthday as
the Grim Reaper himself
calling in person

"Birthdays..." I console her
are just like breathing
in&out

stop 'em & - you're gone!
you don't have birthdays then
no more you!

birthdays are how you
keep making you
happen!

my little eyassvall tears & snot
brightens up at this
sniffs & sniffles

I tell her
you are the sky
all endless & blue

time the wings
that lets you
fly

Death, snickers
standing by my shoulder
"Ahhh...ya old haggard ya

that's a nice pretty lie
to dry
a nestling's tears."

I watch her fly
into the endless blue
of her self

smile as she
embraces
her now

I hop on one
leg
hoppty hop

"HOPPY BIRD DAY!"
I shout against the glare
of time and sun

she squeals
excited now
as to the who

she is
going to
be

both of us
hopping down
the path together

WELL, KISS MY POPLITEAL FOSSA!

I remember the golden
tassels of my dress
touching the back

of my knees
as I was kissed
for the very first

time bent over
in a clinch as if
we were statuary

the tassels' touch
exquisite in itself
much more sensual

than the actual kiss was
I wondered( his tongue
dancing with my tonsils)if:

there was a name for that
sort of thing
(the back of the knees I mean)

"Ok Freddie!" I commanded
seeing as I seemed
to be in command here

"...that's quite enough of that!"
shattered he reluctantly
took his tongue out of my cheek

"Cheeky ******!" I thought
"should never have let him go
...that far!"

crestfallen he
stammered
a sorry

"You won't tell my mother
...will you?"
hid his ******* with his topper

I went in at once
and asked of father
"Is there a name

for the back of the knees?"
"Of course there is my love!
It's your popliteal fossa!"

I tingled to my toes
having discovered my first
erogenous zone

and knowing
that one day
I would become a doctor

*

Just as the inside of your elbow...the crook of your elbow ...the elbow pit is..is called the "antecubital fossa".
And that cute little bit just under your nose and above your lip is called...the philtrum.
The suprasternal notch (fossa jugularis sternalis), also known as the jugular notch, is another part of human anatomy that is known as an erogenous zone but remains nameless. It is that large, visible dip at the base of the throat.
And that bony part of your elbow is an olecranon which I should know as I broke mine very badly. I was known as "the elbow" and doctors would almost drool over how bad it was and forget their professionalism and go "Shitttttttttt!"

ANAM CARA
( Soul Friend )

the sun bursts
into the tiny room
seating itself on the sofa

the water boils
whistles impatiently
waiting for the human to make tea

she feels like an object
in a room full of objects
an object cursed with consciousness

milk gone sour
out of cigarettes
impossible to live without cigarettes

dashes barefoot
to the opening shops
out of her favourite brand

an impossibly old man
almost a living cartoon
turns the handle of a barrel *****

as if they had
being beamed down
from another century

the young Irishman
(she had heard him talking to)
the monkey in the red fez

when he was not
reading Hamsun's
The Hunger

the monkey yanking at
his manacled left foot
when he wasn't dancing

"Ahhh Anam Cara!"
he comforts the monkey
"Me monkey too in Chinese Zodiac!"

The Merry Widow Waltz
wafting above a tree
its music entangled in its branches

the barrel *****
erupts incongruously into
Abba of all things

she watches the Irishman
now from her bedroom window
a figure trapped in a painting

he reads all day
until the light declines
to help him

she wonders at what thoughts
roam inside his head
what images grow there

dusk comes quickly
as if it's in a hurry
to get day done

tiny stars nail the night
to the frozen sky
before morning tears it down

the Irishman
observes the lights go on
in all the windows  

he appears to be
outside of time
she wishes she had spoken to him

"Ahhh Anam Cara!"
she mimics his voice
comforting herself

not knowing what
the words mean
her voice touching their tenderness

he leaves
his Hunger behind him
on the bench

she pockets it
falls asleep reading it
dreaming of him

*

This was a park in Rotterdam as the evening declined and night came on...I was a very lonely young man. I was reading Knut Hamsun's THE HUNGER and just letting life stream past me as if I were a rock in a river. Then a barrel ***** with a monkey hove into sight and sound. I had never thought to have encountered such a thing as I had only seen them in films and it was as if it had squeezed through some wormhole and escaped into this future. It played all operetta interspersed with the hits of the day so surprising to have the Merry Widow one moment and then Dancing Queen the next. The old man looked as if he had been sculpted from pure sadness as did his monkey who wore a red fez and a dashing scarlet waistcoat. The incongruity of meeting a dancing manacled monkey dressed in human attire was not lost on me. It was like being in a scene from The Third Man and I expected to glimpse Mr. Lime at any moment as the night came on.

In the morning a barefooted woman from one of the flats across the road came and got some cigs and milk and stopped to look at me as I talked to the sad monkey in Irish. She smiled fleetingly and dashed back to her home. I had a sudden flash that maybe she was my soul mate and we were doomed to miss each other in that one mad moment. So I imagined her loneliness in her room and my loneliness in this park and how we we would never encounter each other ever again. And so my soul mate was to be this poor monkey as if we both recognised that we were both tied to this mysterious moment by a fake gold chain that let us dance but never escape the ***** grinder. I forgot the book when I was told the park was closing and the man and his monkey had long gone. I still had not finished it and it was only years later that I finally got around to its final pages.

AND ALL FOR NOTHING

the house waited for him
like the faithful dog
he had not got

"Hello...hello!" said the house
smiling
with all of itself

"Welcome!" said the mat
his own home at last
the silence filled up with his footsteps

"Read me...no read me!"
the books on his shelves
argued amongst themselves

made himself a G&T
watched the sunset
like it was TV

slowly the night
crept through the house
found him asleep in the chair

he startled awake
saw her smiling at him
from an old photo

he turned the photo
face down. . .a tear ran
into the edge of his moustache

"And all for nothing..."
he told himself
"...all for nothing!"


*

I never got to see this fabulous house. I met him in a pub and we just fell into talking...then he'd have to get a train back to Manchester to "my house!" But somehow the house in words was greater than any house he could show me. He was Greek and would always tell me that his wife was "the King of my house!" Because his English was not good( learnt from movies )he had picked up the King of Siam's "etc., etc., etc." phrase in order to fill in the thoughts suggested but unavailable to him in words. Every time I see this fabulous film I remember him and how his wife was "the King of my house and my heart!"
The big dream was to own his own home. Then he got married and his wife died in childbirth so now the big dream( ever since he was a little kid )was here but....empty.

I prefer the "not knowing" in the poem. The elements in the poem are the delight in having the dream house and then for the sorrow and the emptiness you have to imagine the rest...asking the reader to complete the poem with their imagination. An air of mystery...suffice it to say...something soul destroying has happened but the wondering what it is...is...another poem.

LADYBIRD SUMMER

was it back somewhere
in the January of '76
that I was 'Wide Eyed and

Legless" and becoming
pregnant without
even knowing.

totally in love with
Amen Corner
making love to it

now July swelters
a terrible time
to carry a baby

and heavy shopping
up three flights of stairs
each step crushing

hoards and hoards
of ladybirds
over and over

the roads
melting
sticking to my footsteps

"Sun, sun sun -  here it comes!"
now blasts from
the tiny transistor

Summer heatwave
wave of nostalgia
for the Beatles of my youth

but fancying
Steve Harley
head over heels

even my soon-to-be born
child somersaults
inside me

I will call him Steve
or Stevie if it's a girl
father now only a photograph

RUNNING TOWARDS THE LIGHT

fear of War
walks upon the air
strides across a countryside

like a gigantic
demonic **** in Boots
a Grimm tale let loose

upon a world
that can only offer
in its defence

the beauty of this spiderweb
thrown across
the space between

hedgerow and fence
this the last sunset
that will ever know "Peace...

. . .in our time."
I fear Mr. Chamberlain
has got it - wrong

Herr ****** has caught the bus
a hawk hovers
in its beauty

I sit making
its jesses
and leashes

already I can see
I stand in the ruins
of my life

an ordinary man
turning into
history

War invisible
yet totally tangible
its hand touching

my landscape
an ancient chalk man
holding the gates open

the what will
be...will...be
a sunset caught

in a spiderweb
the last time
I ever was me

I HAVE NO GIFTS TO BRING

I bring him back
bits of the world

like a child would.

Broken green glass
among the grass

like grass on fire
with green.

A cat that yawns
and every time it yawns

it has the bark
of an invisible dog

sound and sight
synchronised for a laugh.

A swan sitting on
a park bench

as if it were a park bench
for SWANS ONLY.

All these useless
bits of broken world

that my father will never see
I carry them back in words

like a child trying to capture
the sea in a blue bucket

trying not to spill a single thing
that's seen

back to Nass
General Hospital.

Offer them up like treasure
as only the child I was

could.

And then and now
your smile

treating them
as wondrous to behold

"Is the world so?"

"It is so!"
I say

both as man and boy.

The glass grins
shining in the sun

like a little green
fire.

A cat caught
mid yawn

by some ventriloquist
dog in a lonely backyard.

A swan who thinks
it's human.

You smile
at these gifts I bring

such little thing

to offer
to your dying.  

*

We used to be at the hospital from morning to night. When others came I would leave so that he wouldn't feel crowded. Outside Nass hospital there is a large pond where many many swans and lots of different ducks hang out! When I came back he would ask me if had been talking to the swans again. And of course I had.
I only inherited his smile and his love of words. The other boys inherited his good looks and musical talent and practical ability.

I could only bring him things in words.

All that was to be seen were the things that made it into the poem...little things of little or no interest. A very buxom jogger jog by in pin skin-tight spandex singing of all things in March....The Little Drummer Boy. She didn't make it into the poem but she did kickstart the idea of the gifts.

I would bring him back whatever I saw. He would always ask and laugh at what I had to report. They were simple things but things he would never see again. These become precious just because of that. He found it difficult to breath an yet all he wished was that he could play his harmonica again and be at home setting the fire. Again simple pleasure but out of his reach.

THE SCENT OF LAUGHTER

their laughter gathers them
together
forehead to forehead

as if one being
the world seen
from the one mind

their laughter
entangled
in the scent of roses

that rises now
from a past long since
gone

like a half forgotten fairy tale
the scent still present
to his remembrance

as if
that then
was still now

what are they
laughing at...?
he fails to remember

only
their nearness
the scent of roses

RUINS

here now
even time
has died

people and place
alive
only in memory

as if a past
had never
existed

all trace
of who or
what they were

gone now
lost on the wind
that roams over stones

where dwelt
this house
and all of its people

and I by sleight of mind
a great magician
making it all happen

once again
as if it never could
fade away


*

My old home is just stone and nettles and birdsong as is my uncle's farmhouse with trees growing inside the house. The house I grew up in was just mud and air the last time I saw....you just walk through the nothing there.

SPRING  DON'T TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER

"Ok..!"  shouted Spring
"I know y'are in there..!"

Spring had the house
surrounded.

It had trees stationed
all about my abode

aiming their apple blossom
straight at me.

Already their perfume
had invaded the room.

I had turned into
THE INCREDIBLE SULK

sunk into
a blue funk

there was to be
no escape from.

Even my reflection wouldn't
look at me.

"OK..!' shouted Spring yet again
"...just look out your window....

surely you can see you
don't stand a chance!"

I couldn't help my self
I gave a panicked glance.

Platoons of daffodils
waiting to charge the house

yelling in yellow.

"Ok fella...this is your last chance
I'm going count to then...."

"Alright....alright...it's a fair cop
I'll come quietly!"

I kicked open the door
hands held above my head.

The trees had me
cornered.

The sunlight had me
blinded.

Happiness...sheer ******...happiness
grabbed me by the heart.

"Ok kid...easy now...easy!"
Spring soothed me

"Everything's gonna be ok...
...Ok?"

I sobbed on its shoulder
threw my despair away.

FUNNY THAT!

he was
knocked out
by the Wagner

it had fallen from
the first floor but he had
never liked Wagner

his body fell
in the shape
of a broken *******

funny that
blood ebbed
into the snow

below his head
like a badly drawn
map of Ceylon

she had been throwing
her boyfriend's belongings
...out...out...out!

clothes
Wagner
an etc. of her anger

the Wagner
was barely
scratched

but
the phonograph
was completely kaput

there was more blood
than
damage done

the enraged young lady
went on to meet and marry
a postman who adored Cesar Frank

no one knows or cares
what happen to the chap who
owned the discarded possessions

the poor passer-by-in-time
recovered and went on to
write poetry though

he had never written poetry before
funny
that

He never tired
of telling of
his great escape when drunk

indeed
he had been
very drunk that day

didn't know
what
happened to him

it never ceased
to annoy him when
he wasn't believed


"Yeah yeah...sure sure!"
after that
he never liked music

*

The phonograph missed up by an inch otherwise he would have been dead but the Wagner record skimmed him just at the hairline so producing an inordinate amount of blood before settling on a bank of snow without even a scratch.

I had asked her how she had met her husband and she started telling me this tale and I thought she had married the guy she nearly clobbered but not a bit of it!  She had got rid of " 'orrible boyfriend"  and all his things through the window and the passerby was just collateral damage. She disliked Wagner and " 'orrible boyfriend" and the neighbour on the top floor came down to see if she was ok and that was that. Out with the old and ring on the finger for the new. She had heard him play Frank's Symphony in D minor in that long snowy month. So you could say she chucked Wagner for Frank.

The passerby boy was just unlucky is all and in time came to write a poem about it. Whenever he got drunk he would recall it all. They all knew it  happened as there were actually eyewitnesses to the event but they would pretend to not believe him which drove him mad and to another drink.

Funny. That!

HIS PRAYER

Good Friday he'd always
take Christ down
from His cross

talk to him
as if Christ
was his little child

put Him near the fire
****** His crown of thorns
watch it burn amongst the coals

then he held
the Christ
near to him

croon lullabies
cuddle the tired body
watch over His sleep

Christ as dear to him
as his own child
dreaming upstairs

no Rosaries for him
loving Him for real
this the only prayer he knows

*

An old gent I used to look after from the auld sod. He lived his religion in his mind and loved Christ as if he had met him in the world of today...somebody to care for...to love. This is how he prayed...not one for rosaries on bended knee or church but prayer in his actions and how he treated people in his own life. "Be a Christ!" he would always say..."Do the things a Christ would!"

CREATING THE WORLD

the sky was walking
around the world
the land trying to keep up

the weather can not
make its up its mind
what to be

"Whatever!"
the weather
thinks to itself

the sky was keeping
its clouds in order
whilst managing a sunset

the land was out of breath
becoming only a shadow
of its former self

the sky and the land
now the same dark
until the moon is turned on


*

Waking with my little one she suddenly came out with the fact that 'the sky was walking around the world' and so the rest of the words made themselves up on the spot. A poet should always carry his three year old for inspiration....she always seeing the world in her own image. Tilly creating the world.

I WISH YOU WERE OLD AND WEATHERED

I wish that
you were old
and weathered

that wrinkles
irrigated
your face

that your hair
was a halo of white
that your bones ached

that you complained
with coughs and curses
about your great old age

rather than
Death held you
young & forever

locked
in the center
of his ageless eye

*

This is my sister Junie...the most gentle of souls...she'd stroll into your mind as if she was lifting a latch and walking right in. A fairytale in herself.

CARDINAL BALUE'S CAGE

I have fallen out of myself
like a naked soul embarrassed to be seen
without a body

I seem to no longer exist
just thoughts flying about
without a human to nest in

I don't know if I mean
anything anymore
the world is losing its grip on me

I am down
to the dregs of myself
half a human being if you know what I mean

the world has become so
2-D to me
& I a one-dimensional being

oh how I long for to be
3-D
when the world was in love with me

I feel like Cardinal Balue
imprisoned in a cage for 6 years
by Louis the something or other

*

Ahhh grief...that invisible unseen woe that no man may know unless he also in the depths of it. I am not talking about the suit and trappings of it but as to how it manifests itself behind the eyes of the person enduring it. Grief is the presence of absence or the absence of a presence. It is like living under a bell jar with the oxygen running out. Only when one throws one's thoughts against the glass and sees them slither down the glass in words or just hang there does grief achieve a brief visibility. Or throwing thought against some invisible force field that has entrapped one's being and see the such thoughts spark into words and fry against this unseen. This only holds for the once that one tries this and is at once different yet again when words are brought to bear...these pathetic words illuminate my father's death and yet fail to grasp the nature of the pain

Louis XI (3 July 1423 – 30 August 1483), called the Prudent (French: le Prudent) His taste for intrigue and his intense diplomatic activity earned him the nicknames the Cunning (Middle French: le rusé) and the Universal Spider (Middle French: l'universelle aragne ), as his enemies accused him of spinning webs of plots and conspiracies.

The great wooden cage in which Cardinal La Balue expiated his treason to Louis XI. The Bishop of Lerdun, who was the inventor of the horrible contrivance, suffered a like fate, and the people, who had but little sympathy with either of these worthies, used to sing:

" Monsieur La Balue A perdu la vile, De ses evesches;

Monsieur de Verdun N'en a plus pas un, Tous sont despesches."

For three years he remained caged, unable to stand, sit, or lie. Louis XI. used to visit him occasionally, and with his favourite, Olivier, would stand and jeer at the prisoner through a hole in the door.

Considered as a State prison of the period, the Castle of Loches was quite a model establishment. Just within the entrance was an even more terrible cage, where Philippe de Comines, the great historian of Louis XI., spent eight months, unable to turn round, but contriving, nevertheless, to write a great deal of the wonderful Memoirs which have rendered him so famous.

The baseless story of his detention in an iron cage originated in Italy in the sixteenth century apparently but I used the story of it as shorthand for "fallen out of the world."

He was supposed to not to be able to stand up or turn around and Louis would come and mock him. Gone into myth and legend now but apparently he was kept in luxury but the horrible story is too good/bad to resist.

"IF YOU TICKLE US. . ."

moon intently
listens
to the open air

production of
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
- in Venice

this delicious summer’s night
(hemmed in by houses)
where we discover that

“The quality of mercy
is not
strained...”

as a couple upstairs
come home and proceed to make
long loud passionate lust

“...it droppeth like.. “
another couple scream and fight
as windows smash and plates crash

“... the gentle rain from Heaven...”
“Agghhh! ”
“Cazzo in culo! ”

and throws his clothes out
the now broken window
“...upon the earth below...”

as a gondola ghosts by in mist
with an atrocious tourist version of
“O Sole Mio! ”

as another window
lights up
and a telly bellows

a dubbed in gangster shoot out.
“Aggggh!
"Fongool”

we are enthralled
(delighted and enraptured)
not only with

the splendour that is
Shakespeare
but also

the real life drama
of this gentle
Italian night

and of how
we got
our “pound of flesh."

STRAP HANGING

Yikes! Von Eycks's
The Arnolfini Marriage
gets on the tube.

Circle Line....either it or
someone very like Vladimir Putin
and Vladimir Putin in drag

at the next stop
Grant's American Gothic
jumps through the door

just as it closes
they strap hang
looking every inch of themselves

paint dripping from a graze
above an eyebrow
it's very unnerving

sharing a carriage
with great works of art
come alive

I really want to see
who gets on next
Van Gogh without an ear

but this is my stop
and work beckons
I get off but

nobody gets on
not even
a quick sketch

I mind
"...the Gap!"
almost trip over myself

the Arnolfini Marriage
and American Gothic
are discussing do they need

a ticket and what is money
they stare at me as if
"We know where you live sunny Jim!"

"Don't you dare tell!"
they yell
silently

the Putin look-alike
draws a finger
across a throat

the American Gothic
draws a zipper across a mouth
I give a frightened nod

the doors close
and somewhere
in a gallery

their empty frames
stare at
the dumbfounded tourists

NOW, WE IS: 60!

a Year 8 child
enquires
how old I be?

"I be
just...60!"
he gasps

"My God...you're very
active
for 60!"

60 for him is
a distant planet
in a galaxy far far

from here
yea...another
dimension

I smile
my 60 year old smile
perfected by now

I am starlight
that will only reach him
when he is 60 himself

if he ever
remembers what he has
long ago forgotten

*

Now We Are Six is a book of thirty-five children's verses by A. A. Milne, with illustrations by E. H. Shepard. It was first published in 1927. My title is of course a corruption of that as I begin the slow decay into the nothing at all.

WAS THAT THE TIME?

the town was exhausted.
now all the humans
were dreaming dreams

the town
could relax
into the darkness

tomorrow had come
without their knowing it
yet here it was

as if it had
crept up on them
the future ready to pounce

the early risers
yawned into the dawn
switching on their minds

with a click
the birds woke up
the day.

and the town
the town got on
with the business of being

the town
doing what
it had to do

the humans leaving
their dreams
scattered across pillows

spat into the sink
yelling: "Ohh....
is that the time!"

and
it was
it was

BIG SISTER

you were older than me
now I am older
than you

can ever be
(forever 18 &
forever dead) .

I felt so guilty
when I passed
that age

wishing
I could exchange
some of the life I had

so that you could
experience
the life you never knew

I used to talk to
your grave
as if it were you...

always
beginning:
“Hiya, kid...”

now I find you
everywhere
instead

the sunlight
on the garden
smiles like you did

the ladybird
stumbling
over the furrows of my fingerprint

has the same graceful
awkwardness
your body lent to every movement

you are younger
than me
& will always be

and I am older
than you
...will ever know


* * * * * *


The sound of my sister's voice.  We lived in a house not made of books.  The only  texts existed in the texture of the telling...my sister finecombing my hair and soothing the pain with...shussh...stories.

'The little toy soldier is covered with dust...'

...exists only in my mind and the vague trellised traces of Junie's voice.  It is here breath against my skin as I fall asleep. It has never entered my mind through print yet it is printed irredeemably...indelibly in my mind.

'What is it again? '

I am following my father...gogging my Dad doggedly for the words of a song.  I scrawl the words across the page of my mind as exasperated his patience explodes:

'As down the ****** glen one ****** Easter morn...how many times do I have to tell you! '

My sister Moira is slightly tipsy.  I glow with pleasure as the pattern unfolds.  When she is more that slightly tipsy she will softly and sadly sing.

'I know my love by his way of walking and I know my love by his way of talking and I know my love by his eyes so blue and if my love left me what would I do...? '

I am drunk with her words.  There is a slight smell of loneliness off her breath.  I hang   on   her   every    breath.

I have had four teeth pulled and my world fevers and frets. The smell of sausages sidles up the stairs and seduces me to the top of the stairs.  When I am safely ion danger the smelly magic no longer supports me.  I fall and float down the stairs.  Junie comforts  and croons.  I am lying in her arms in her bed.  Again she sings.  'Again! ' I plead.  She sings again.

'Black is the colour of my true love's hair...her lips are like...'

Her body vibrates with sound and the words echo through me and echo through the memory of me.  For a long long time
the only way these words were written down ws in the breath entering and leaving her body.

When I remember to write...

I write to remember I write to forget.

I write to recover what has never left me but exists in a someplace of my mind.  I write to find out who I am and if I ever was. I write to discover where I went when the wordl went away.

As the bus crashes the book is torn and burning.  The world dies.  A child cries.  I WRITE TO REMEMBER I WRITE TO FORGET.  The book leies strewn across the motorway.  It's spine is broken and its leaves flutter away in dismay.  The book is burning.  It is unreadable as it reads itself to the night's wind. It is an image torn from a dream that is really real.  Its spine is broken and pages turn themselves over and over in the night.

I write...to remember...I write...to forget.

Sunlight streams through the bedroom window...sculpts a sister.  Creates Junie.  She is telling me the story of Orpheus and Eurydice.  Every time I cry.  She says she will not tell me again because it always me makes me cry.  I promise not to cry if she promises to tell me again.  She tells me again.  I cry  every time.  She is not dead.  She is telling me the story of Orpheus and Eurydice.  She is created of sunlight.  Dust motes dance in attendance.  It can not be...more real than this. I write to remember...I write...to forget.  I write to recover the times of her not dying...when she is sunlight and breath.  When she was my book.  When the sound of her was all...around me.  Writing to remember...I forget so much.  I write because I am - lost.  I write to find an exit door in my mind.  The book is broken.  The book is burning.  Pages...fiery pages flutter like lost souls escaping into the darkness.  I write to reach the light.  I write to enter the darkness.  I write to escape the sound of the book burning. I write to forget...I...write to...not forget.                             Remember.

* * * * *

FALLING ASLEEP WITH MY BIG SISTER - TANKA
  
  5 half-moons rising
on the hand that strokes my hair
bracelets like music
whispering softly in my ear
“Shhhshhh...therethere...shush... shush...there! ”

THE SAXOPHONE GOING CRAZY

the smoke appears
to fall up
to the ceiling and then

languidly
down blue
it dances to

the shiny saxophone
as if it drunk in
jazz

the cigarette smoke
music made visible
here it is

a spiral staircase
the going up and going down
the one and the same

now here
a dissolving double
helix

now again
a sudden sketch
of how naked

we will come
to be
entwined with the music

with bodies of smoke
the making and un-making
of us

our laughter and words
floating up to the ceiling
frozen in the air

clinging there
for all to see
our love written

in music and smoke
the saxophone going
crazy

FELINE FRIENDS

curled up on the couch
with a curled up kitten
cradled in your lap

both of you
(totally)
out of this world

I smile
at such
a lovely double take

tiptoe 'round
the flat
(afraid that you should wake)

I kiss both your noses
& you both sniff & shift
adopt new synchronised poses

I can only
love 'n' sit 'n' watch
as one of you makes a move

that
the the other
will match

I take a Polaroid
as I am leaving
place it between

your toes
where
(on awakening)

it will be seen
to show you
how

very
beautiful
you've been

"SPRING IS HERE, I HEAR. . ."

I carry the sky
across the street

stumble under
its weight.

Now I carry the buildings
and finally some trees and a dog.

The dog barks
at itself.

I look like a mirror
with legs.

A mirror walking
down the street.

We, dance partners
it & I.

I all huff & puff
the mirror calm as anything.

The edges of the mirror
bite deep into my palms.

I am tired of carrying the sky
place it against a red-bricked wall.

Finally the mirror
half cracked at the top

has time to
reflect upon its new home.

I have saved it from a fate worse than
a skip.

It gives my little room
an extra dimension.

A room that isn't
there that I am

always walking in( ouch! )to.

Sometimes I talk to
the me in the other room.

I paint my room bright
bright yellow

fill it with jonquils
and daffodils.

A red skirting board
runs around the room.

The flowers rejoice.
Spring, it appears, is:

here.

There is no you nor
ever will be

again.

I sit with my reflection.

Both of us say nothing.

We have
nothing

to say.

& AGAIN: "YES!"

He stepped out of
the photo

stretched and
gave a great yawn.

He had been standing by that
wall it seemed forever.

The sun shone
in black&white.;

Outside it was
night.

He had never seen  his grandson
who lived in colour

on the mantlepiece just
newly born.

He strode out boldly
in 3-D

with the strange gait of a 2-D'er
trying to put his best foot forward.

It was a long long way to
the photo of Tipperary

and the smiling newborn boy
but by God he made it.

His grandson lay smiling
in a shaft of sunlight

that rocked him gently
and gently.

He stepped into the colour
and turned into a nice sepia.

He held his grandson
against his chest

smiling
in Kodachrome.

Then put him back
in the frame.

He managed to return
to his own black& white

as headlights travelled
across the ceiling

before the telephone rang
and the morning awoke

and sleepy feet from above
went to answer it with a yawn:

"Yes...yes. . ."

& again:
"YES!"

THE CUPBOARD OF THE YESTERDAYS

The War marches
across the map

on little coloured pins

blood red for us &
bright green for them.

The colours faltering
in the candlelight

after the lights
had gone out.

One can still see holes
from the previous War

that pinned men down
so that they

would never move again
they the never returning.

THE CUPBOARD OF THE YESTERDAYS
falling from mother's sleepy hand.

"War is a cruelly destructive thing..."
it both begins & ends.

Men wriggle under
coloured pins & die.

Saki smiles sardonically
from THE TOYS OF PEACE.

I move a pin to where
father maybe is.

I am glad
mother sleeps at last.

In the somewhere of now
a bullet splinters bone

my father falls

the agony of the moment
revealed in the telegram

that will come
a month later.

Father has become
History.

Mother will read her Saki
and cry and try

not to let me see
her cry.

I, a small boy
can't cry.

Death appears
like a fairy story.

What War
awaits me?

*

The Cupboard of the Yesterdays," a short story written by Saki aka H. H. Munro a few years before he was killed on the Western Front in 1916,.

"War is a cruelly destructive thing," said the Wanderer, dropping his newspaper to the floor and staring reflectively into space.

But the old atmosphere will have changed, the glamour will have gone; the dust of formality and bureaucratic neatness will slowly settle down over the time-honoured landmarks; the Sanjak of Novi Bazar, the Muersteg Agreement, the Komitadje bands, the Vilayet of Adrianople, all those familiar outlandish names and things and places, that we have known so long as part and parcel of the Balkan Question, will have passed away into the cupboard of yesterdays, as completely as the Hansa League and the wars of the Guises.

At the start of the First World War Munro was 43 and officially over-age to enlist, but he refused a commission and joined the 2nd King Edward's Horse as an ordinary trooper. He later transferred to the 22nd Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers, in which he rose to the rank of lance sergeant.

More than once he returned to the battlefield when officially still too sick or injured. In November 1916 he was sheltering in a shell crater near Beaumont-Hamel, France, during the Battle of the Ancre, when he was killed by a German ******. According to several sources, his last words were "Put that ****** cigarette out!"

Munro has no known grave.

TALKING TO MY BROTHER

"Pssst....pssst...it's me!"
whispered the tree.

The aspen quivered.
Shivered in the sudden breeze.

"You..eh...talking
to me?"

I dared to
question the tree.

Tree talking!
Hope nobody hears me!

Nobody told me this is
how grief would be.

"It's me...yer brother
for ****'s sake!"

The tree getting
slightly annoyed.

"But...yer dead!"
I said.

"Ok..." snapped the tree.
"Let's not go there!"

Ok ok I thought.
Keep yer leaves on.

"Yer a bit more poplar
than you used to be!"

I quipped
with a smirk.

The tree
was not amused.

"Why an aspen then?"
I enquired.

"Don't you remember
any of the mythology you taught me!"

I wasn't having the best
of this conversation.

"Yer aspen dear brother
communicates with the next world!"

The tree could see
the fear flit across my face.

"Remember when we was little
we promised that whoever

died first would come back
tell the other...what was what?"

"But that was a kid's promise!"
I quibbled.

"Promise is a promise!"
the tree waved its branches.

"I was afraid that if I appeared
as you knew me...you would be scared."

It paused as a kid
threw a stone and ran away.

"It would give you a heart attack
And then where would be be!"

"Dead right!" I mused.
I had to admit the tree was talking sense.

Sure enough the old ticker
isn't what it used to be.

"So what's it like being a tree then!"
Trying to make light conversation like.

"Much better than being
dead...that's what!"

A jay came and perched
on the tree's thoughts.

"****...the light is dying!"
rustled its leaves.

"Meet me tomorrow
at noon."

The tree commanded
beginning to lose its voice.

"Ok!" I said choking up.
Kissing the tree,

"Alright Bud" I said.
"See ya Bud!" said the tree.

"Tomorrow it is
then!"

THE MERE MAID'S TALE

I feel like a mermaid
dripping on his kitchen floor
I want to drown in his love

I feel mythical
he just thinks I'd be nice
saucy

I sleep in the bath
he only wants to part my legs
I flick my tail at him

I balance on my tail
run( so to speak )
through the roaring rain

alas I climb out of
the fairytale
he yet another bland Prince in 2-D

I run away to sea
can taste the salt on the wind
its waves welcome me

I need
a Hans Christian Anderson man
a he who...understands me

GRANDAD TENDS HIS DAHLIAS

the fog
walks among the tombs
"I encounter my first ***

he was a man
he looked just like me
as if I were...killing myself!"

stretching back
through space & time
the instant of that moment

the German falls
beside a tomb
like a badly written play

Grandad bayonettes
the German...looks surprised
to be dying

Grandad plunges the bayonette in
twists it about
the German almost grins

then the dance
of the living & the dying
in strict time

the German goes down
on one knee
as if proposing to Death

Granddad stabs the German
through the lifeline
of his left hand

the dying German's
left outstretched hand
like a man about to sing a song

"As he fell
his hand touched my hand
'This...' I thought '...is hell!'"

all his life
the touch...that touch
impossible to shake off

Grandad tends his dahlias
the dying German
still clouding his eyes

THE SNAKES AND LADDERS OF TIME

she gasps
at the faded photograph.
a crease hides my smile

"What...you. . .
you
were four?"

she's never considered
this before
I smile at her disbelief

that this fat old man
could ever have been
surely not her age

she acts as if she is
the first four
ever to be

ahhhhh
the snakes
and ladders of time

"Oh it's a long time since
I was four...but four
...I was for sure!"

I laugh at her incredulity
"So where did your four go!"
she asks like a defence lawyer

turning to
the judge and jury
of her lined up dolls

"And how did you get so old?"
she clinches the conversation
convincingly

yes...where did I go
I question myself
four year olds never die

they play hide and seek
in the minds
of fat old men

popping mischievously up
with a now and then yell
"Here I be!"

"But if you were four
once upon
a time ago..."

I feel her
argument
close about me

"Then you should know
why
I don't want to go to bed!"

I check with my former
four year old self
sure enough he says: "Yup!"

I have to admit
she
has got me...there

trapped by my child's
impeccable logic
...******

and so we have 4
extra Snakes and Ladders
played with all her

extreme hysteria
stops only
when I fall asleep

she covers me
with a towel
from the bathroom

puts her self
to bed thank
you very much

tells Mummy
"Shhhhhhhh...
Daddy's sleeping!

MY WAR

the bomb fell on the graveyard
the dead laughed
they were used to being dead

the moss had eaten their names
the dead could not remember
who they were

a batch of kids
clutching gas masks
afraid of the sky

blackberries and air raid sirens
his name on cardboard around his neck
they were living the war

the war
had invaded their lives
bombs had become normal

the gas mask
left out in the storm
filling up with rain

he didn't like the gas masks
they turned people
into insects

"A carrot on a stick!"
instead of an ice cream
"but then I'd never had ice cream!"

"Carrots can't
stand them to this day!"
clouds reflected in his eyes

Daddy was up in the air
fighting in the sky
I never cried when he died

he went up in the air
and stayed there
"Next door to Heaven!" Mum says

strange creatures in a field
cows I think they're called
I'm afraid they'll eat me

PEELING APPLES SOMEWHERE IN 1914

the War not yet
a week old
already tears that will last years

she can still see
his pale hands
peeling apple after apple

the apples
looking startled
**** beside their skins

the naked apples
the flamenco swirl of their skins
his hands pale as death

now where the apples lay
that day
the telegram of his death

she can still see him
turning into the shadows
throwing her an apple with a smile

she is angry with him
for dying
her love not enough to protect him

under her apron
the baby kicks
it will have his smile

XIǍO HÚDIÉ...XIǍO GŪ AIGŪ AI
(Little Butterfly...Little Sweetie)



stars
finding it hard
to keep their eyes open


moon
tucked up
in a comfortable cloud



already fast
asleep
turns & smiles



even the dark
is nodding off
dreaming of ight



even the cricket
has gone
asleep



even the fire
sleeps
in a nightdress of ashes



all this
dreamy
night



only the baby
(our little sweetie)
lies awake



playing with
the bright butterfly
dancing in her

dress of brilliant colour
bobbing on the string
before her.



she tells the butterfly
delightedly
over & over

that
she is
beauty



but the butterfly
doesn’t understand
the language of gurgle



somewhere
in the dark
Da da snores



Ma ma
sleeps quietly
only baby awake

BY ANY OTHER NAME
( for the miracle that a Brian Ings is)

the kestrel
hovers high
over the Devil's Mother

it knows nothing
of the names
that humans give to things

such as mountains
or indeed
its good self

it only knows
the heights
that it can fly to

and how
glorious a thing
the wind beneath a wing

if it's gaze could
penetrate
the gift of language

it would perceive
how time changes
mountains and name-ings

it watches words
mutate back into
the original Irish

so that the Devil's Mother
that it flies over today
was once the Demon's Testicles

"Magairlí an Deamhain!"
it screeches
the name

through the dense fog
of  Anglicisation
or Bastardisation.

or God forgive us
the virus of
Religion

and it would croak
with laughter
at its own

nomenclature
"*** Dearg" or
Red *****

it is thankful for this moment
of human sentience
so that it can laugh at itself

as a Red *****
flying over
the Demon's Testicles

but in an instant
the instant
is gone

and it is only this
miracle
of being

the beauty
of its flight
in the midst of a gale

"*** dearg
ag eitilt thall
magairlí an deamhan!"

it chuckles in Kestrel
before translating itself
back into the English

"A kestrel
flying over
the Demon's Testicles!"

*

Ballypitmave in County Antrim would be known in Irish as Phite Méabha ‘townland of Maeve’s *****’. Or as the good old Revn Cupples would have it ‘town land of the pit of shame’
We are talking of a Goddess here or a figure of mighty myth so the Irish would not be afraid to call a ***** a ***** and all hail the Goddess.

WE AS HUMAN

dawn breaks
the War breaks
her waters break

this child
at war with this world
this world at war

she gives birth
to death
glad the War will never find him

here a house
as if drawn by a child
crumbling with time

their names now
only alive in our voices
the characters eaten by lichen

here Time
has come & gone
lives written on water

fragments of them survive
in a yellowed letter...an old photo
ripples upon water

tourists we pass by
touched by time
we as human as them

will Time too
leave us thus:
ashes to ashes dust to. . .

TILL HUMAN VOICES WAKE US AND. . .

old house
the snow
climbs the stairs

asleep
on a rusted bed
snow

the snow
looks out the window
at itself falling

the snow
has the house
to itself

the snow
startled out of its sleep
by a human intent on remembering

the snow
more at ease inside
than the human

the human
tears in its eyes
the snow smiles

snow now
both
inside/outside

human footsteps
the snow
covers them up


*


Going back to the auld sod to find my childhood home nothing but a ruin and the window from where I saw my first snow fall in the bitter winter of '63 now I saw snow falling inside the house. I climbed the stairs along with the snow and there was snow lying on the bed just as the seven year old me did back in the long long ago. A home that now existed only in my mind. The next year it was just a muddy space and I could walk through where we watched telly and laughed. An old sheep passing between the ghost of the kitchen and the hall.

AND LO! THE POET AWAKENS

come
my machine
of bones

let us perambulate
around this
God-given morning

yes...you too
my flesh
and blood

do you
not desire
to accompany me

and spirit
If you are
willing

why not bring
your friend
mind

oh soul
surely you
will come for a stroll

and together
we shall be
this tired old

Donall Dempsey
this odd contraption
of a human being

see
Sunlight
welcomes us

how the roses
delight
in seeing us

and birds race to tell the sky
that the poet
has come amongst us

"Ok ok..
enough already
cut the crap!"

I admonish
the words
"I'm up...I'm up!"

PICKING FLOWERS

so young
that I can barely tell
it’s me ..myself


( balanced upon her knee )
trying to pluck
flowers from her dress


amongst the great
earthquake
of her laughter

HOW TO MAKE THE RIGHT DECISION AT THE RIGHT TIME

the clock shaves off
another bit of time
tick by tick by tick

it doesn't give a tock
a patina of time
covers the dusty ornaments

the eaves drip
Nature's clock
I measure time

by how long it takes
the cuckoo's voice
to travel

from the background
to the foreground of this
storm tossed morning

I feel myself as if I am
the personal measurement
of boredom

a fly lands
on a bishop's mitre
washes its hands

assiduously
then buzzes off
in case it catches religion

the chess pieces
resume
their silences

I feel like a female mammoth
frozen
in a block of ice

Time refuses
to move on
sti...sti...ICKS

my husband
plays chess
with himself

can never tell whether
he's winning or losing
"I'm a Gemini..!"

he explains.
like duh
"I'm just a poor little Cancer!"

he is beating
himself up
about beating himself

I watch him move from
one side of the table to
the other

like a Buster Keaton movie
an eyelid twitches but
is instantly repressed

the eyebrow
about to be
raised...instantly isn't

he is a bad loser
even
to himself

a hand raises a King
and a Queen
is taken

his lips
a taut straight line
displays no emotion

I am only wearing
a thong
getting goosebumps

I chew a Swano 4906
bitten to shreds
"Five...I said...five letters!"

loudly just to annoy him
beginning with an O and
ending with OP

"Stowed cables
below water line!"
what kind of clue is that!

I haven't got a clue
"Harold honey!"
I yell

"Orlop!"
he grunts
"Orlop deck!"

never taking his eye off
of his other self
watching his every move

"Who would have
thought..."
I think to myself

"That *** and money
could become so
boring!"

a pillowcase on the line
***** for help
it has lost a peg

holding on by a peg
the wind makes it pregnant
its belly billows

it swells
and takes off
like a ship setting sail

jumps over the wall
chasing its own
horizon

"Me an' all!"
I thank it
for the tip

decide to leave
Harold honey
by Tuesday...at the latest

calculus battle clue 6 down
“tanquam ex ungue leonem”
N E W T O N I fill it in - done it