Not for you some distant sky
Nor river run by or tear to cry
Every moment, every hour
Shining brighter than before
Like a dial to the sun
That casts no descending shadow
Nor fades to some fatalistic motto
Not tedious nor brief
Seen through this dreamers eye
It is impossible in all but you
An angel of the epiphany
As beautiful as you are true
How can we feel in a digital age
A life so fast, no design left to last
And yet time is the one,
We can't learn to live without
So let us capture it how we may
Celebrate and live for this day
Skeleton workings of an antique clock
The precision of a true friends heart
Escape as we can irretrievable time
Tempus Fugit, a soul no less divine
Jan 4, 2025
Jan 4, 2025 at 1:24 PM UTC
I felt that i would age easier
never once having been young
Yet how could I hope to finish a race
that a starting pistol had not begun
So the crowds they stand assembled
with that ticker tape pulled so taut
I'm chipped and pinned from today
as my mortality begins it's rot
I'm digitised and I'm monetised
a childhoods faith long since lost
Personal decline shared communally
as another nail is mounted on this cross
Yet we slow reveal that we have a tribe
through a lonely sax on the mystery train
We shall survive to take another step
a radio dial through the driving rain
Towards that path of lifes confusion
to start again how would it feel
As night does fall and day does break
we mould these chains to our tribal wheel
Jan 4, 2020
Jan 4, 2020 at 6:42 PM UTC
Somedays that's all i got
And sometimes it's enough
Like a teenage recollection
Of a last picture show
Through a cinematic haze
Of blue nails and red lips
You're still with me here
These are my memories
These are my days
I can't even tell if it's love
But i always seem to reconnect
Just to know that magic dies
Buried deep in glass grey eyes
Yet they see that you're happy
And there is nobody here to say
If i'm really sad or just doing ok
There will be a light, a night
In a white sequin dress
Together we will be
Hours before your wedding day
Maybe i will read my bad poetry
Maybe i'll say, all i needed to say
Or maybe, we'll sit in a silent way
Captured as a series of polaroids
On a screen that's seen better days
Illuminate night as our northern star
I still need to breathe, i need to feel
And i want to still know your mind
I want to still see the world thru you
For sometimes that's all i got
And somedays that's enough
Somedays that's more than enough
Sep 5, 2019
Sep 5, 2019 at 2:54 PM UTC
I met you for the first time
Rather unexpectedly
On a Thursday night
An upstairs gig in town
Hadn't been in quite some while
And you, no never before
I arrive before the show
A lone man and concertina
Play a weeping lament
For the lost children of Aran
And the hopes they carried
To the devil of a western sea
It was standing room only
Save a few lonely seats
At occupied and chattering tables
For which i dared not tread
So I slunk to the shadows
To a half wall
Left side of the bar
And watched it all
As another now enters
I swear he's wearing my coat
He's younger but shorter than me
My soul knows that i wear it better
Yet it is he that unifies tables
That I but watch from afar
As introductions are made
Strangers transform
To like minded souls
No more lonely seats remain
Only lonely half walls
And half sentences of the mind
As once again,
I don't want to be
Who it is
I am left to be
Of who it is
I am meant to be
The show commences
And it does not take long
For the singer to introduce you
Through words and through song
Violet Gibson as Irish as can be
But it is to Rome
In a year long gone
That you go
To leave your mark
And to a fascist dictator
You fired your shot
Grazing Mussolini's' miserable snout
You aimed to ****
But it was not your day
As the crowds howl
They lead you away
Mad as a box of frogs and old rags
That is what they say
As they expel you back
To dear old blighty
Our old colonial foe
Not ten years since
Your country rose to be free
You find yourself back
Incarcerated in an asylum
For life and for death
A window
A blackbird
A rose garden
All that you are left to possess
For you never get to go free
Unrepentant and unbowed
A violet not a rose
As once again,
You remain steadfastly proud
Of who it is
You were left to be
Who it is
You were meant to be
May 29, 2019
May 29, 2019 at 12:46 PM UTC
we learn then unlearn
how to be free
as we trade secrets
with the magpies
of Arthur's Quay Park
it's' on these summer days
such promises are made
keeping us warm
through seasons change
as we dance
to The Golden Horde
where a two for one
concession on the door
grants access to Termites
and its' cider soaked floor
here in this world
we have all that we need
we feel it through
reverberations
of music and heart
we won't want for much
once we don't lose our senses
our senses of touch
the years would give
what the magpies stole
to a lakeside hotel
where the clinking of glass
greets a grand hall
wedding guests align
a ballroom of romance
two friends move
so lost in time
trying to adult
whilst never growing old
we won then we lost
and we won again
but i never promised riches
i never promised poems
so here is our world
and all that we have
we feel it through
celebrations
of our music and heart
we don't want for much
for we never lost our senses
our senses of touch
May 8, 2019
May 8, 2019 at 1:54 PM UTC
Last night once more
I ventured beyond the pale
To find Nanci Griffith
Awaiting me there
She's pushing E's
On her drum n' bass knees
Pleading with me please
To be the last
of the true believers
But I can't and yet I can
Feel her watching over me
From a distance
She is just another no one
That's been sent to deceive
Yet another love for sale
Beyond this pale
So I move on at least
To my fourteen year old self
Weak arms and weaker will
Holding back a door
All in vain
As the screams grow
The knives and living dead flow
My father at the kitchen table
Silver bangle adorns his strength
He laughs at his son
How could it come to this?
A useless seed born with
a breathless kiss
Leave it to me comes his hiss
Tough love is for sale
Beyond this pale
To a foreign city
With the few friends I've left
It is anxiety and fear
That begin to whisper in my ear
You do not belong
You should never have come here
As the skies start to tear
Separation comes next
The rain empties the nest
Two by two, one by one
Friends and companions
To this city are gone
Desolate in a storm
Lies a desperate man
With a lonely love for sale
Beyond this pale
Tonight once more
I shall venture again for sure
As I pray to the gods
That I will not see you there
For my ecstasy would dissolve
At the closing of a door
As you walk out on me
Towards a rank only you see
That last cab to set you free
So tonight do not appear
Nor take to their stand
To settle their score
Let them be the ones
To finally understand
True love is not for sale
Beyond the pale
Apr 17, 2019
Apr 17, 2019 at 12:15 PM UTC
Criss Cross
Moments arise
Thoughts and life
Perfectly align
Synchronized
Harmony
One true life
Felt effortlessly
So seldom seen
To scarcely believe
Life more ordinary
Thoughts roam free
Running wild
To Dissipate
Claustrophobic
Fragments form
Ghosts of War
Nosebleed
Apr 9, 2019
Apr 9, 2019 at 9:32 AM UTC
Meeting below Shannon bridge
under April skies
From where
we could just about see
your Da's office in the
National Bank
They say he did the State
some service there
but as far as you were concerned
you didn't care
Sur' why else would you be here,
mitching school
with nothing to give
or leave in this world
but
Twenty John Player Blue,
this boy from the council estate
and a mark to be made
from a golden can
of aerosol spray
We laid it there beneath that bridge
with those of others
that had gone before
Above "Iron Maedin" spelt with the
e where the i should be
and the i where the e
And to the left of that
"Brits Out"
and
"Up the Ra"
I wanted to place a ****
before the Up
but sharp as a tack
you realised
that we had left our names
and it wouldn't take a genius
with or without
an i or an e
to figure it out
so I just
let it be
We joked that you
had the looks and the brains
and if only I had the brawn
we'd have been sure
to make lots of money
and opportunities
Instead we sat back
smoked
and enjoyed our craft
How I marvelled
over the beauty of your name
next to mine
added to a date
that now goes
unrecalled
But recall I do,
how when the April breeze
would blow
even just a little
that that bridge would whistle
and how it would seem
to carry
a song of hope and expectation
over the river
through the underpass
and straight onto
a promise
from my lips to
yours
Looking to the past
it seems as perfect now
as it was perfect then
and yet it passed
without that kiss
that had been dreamed for so long
now held up
in the breeze
of crippling fear and the ease
of not knowing
and
could have beens
I consoled myself
with the notion of stages
and building blocks
for closer binds
but blocks
they build walls
that blind
as they get too big to climb
and moments do pass
as dreams do die
under whistling bridges
and
April skies
I still have occasion
to walk that bridge
and still it whistles
fainter now than it used to do
a more distant song
carries a nostalgic air
for I don't dare
to go under
nor wonder
of the existence
of a golden mark
of an April day
For the ease of not knowing
our names go unseen
two more
long since lost
could have beens
Apr 2, 2019
Apr 2, 2019 at 9:36 AM UTC
Sure, i was born working class
But that hero he was never in me
Does that leave me something to be?
Other than this mess of insecurities
Those that i seek to pass on to you
With these bats in my eyes and spiders in my bed
How do I see through the webs of deceit?
That dark the night but flame the passions of the free
Running wild within a solitary cell
An inner longing endlessly persecutes me
Hell is round the corner offering sympathy and tea
Laughing sarcastically, a mirror of 1988
A parish hall, a community, a church fete
Still life of a young boy of Corpus Christi
Stealing cards, running yards, playing to be hard
As I pray to the saints and plead for relief
Mother calls as supper lays on the kitchen table
Boy complies, studies hard, proves to be able
Now those days are gone, left far behind
All freedom is lost through the estates of the blind
Where are they now, his prayer and his plea?
Grey eyes, grey suit and grey tie
Nothing is left, there is no one to be
This is the hero, the hypocrite in me
Mar 25, 2019
Mar 25, 2019 at 5:05 PM UTC
On another long *** haul flight,
just thinking about my life.
Or one of them at least,
don't wanna confuse this write.
I get to my late night hotel
and throw my bags on the bed.
So that i can curl up on the floor
and try to sleep once more.
Waking at 3, take to my phone
to stream free **** till i ***
Throw those same bags on the floor
and somehow sleep on till morn.
Rising in the bed next to the door
unruly, unkempt and disheveled.
Oh New Orleans, how i expected
a promise of so much more.
And back in dear Dublin
at St. Michans' protestant church.
Some **** just gone stole the head
of an ancient Knights Templar.
Mummified by the limestone
or from some methane gas there.
800 years he's been laid to rest,
greeting tourists and locals alike.
2019, taken on a last crusade
by some thieving dublinian scobe.
Sent floating down the manky Liffey
a river that stinks like a vikings robe.
Dublins' archbishop Michael Jackson
tells the papers that he's shocked.
Thats' right, Michael ******* Jackson
how weird and steaming is that.
This story i heard from a
blind boy with a bag on his head.
And he said he wanted to cry
for he so often visited that crypt.
Well i guess i've never been
and had never really planned.
But christ it still makes me sad
another switch I guess just tripped.
But hey, whats it got to do with you
and whats it all got to do with me.
Well me, i'm back on this hotel floor
trying to keep my own head.
And as for you, well you go right on
cry me a river to float me on dreams.
For me, for you and for above all,
that Templar Knight of New Orleans.
Mar 1, 2019
Mar 1, 2019 at 11:43 AM UTC