I have no idea how long,
I’ve stared at this blank page.
Only the following words will know,
An incremental of some measured time.
A twilight of an idea,
Poised in the head,
Just below the visible horizon.

Many navigators have been here before me,
I'm armed with neither compass nor sextant.
Adrift,
I'm  looking at the texture of the paper,
For direction.
And doodle  boxed rectangles,
To fill the gap until some lifeboat saves me.

Afternoon of summer’s lazy days,
When teenagers are weeded from their beds,
Lounging,expecting entertainment.
Then its hoods up grunting at the screen,
Ninja nomads,
Suckered into distraction.

Vast tracts of time,
How long is a day?
How long does it feel?
Trying to remember how it stretched,
Like waiting for a Mass to end …
And then,  
Time trembles like an Olympic runner.
The time children with their hands over their mouths,
Giggling in the corner.
Just as you glance away,
Time sprints to tomorrow,
Bringing you closer to regret and
The “I wish I had done that day.”

Once you lose that grip,
And close your eyes,
Or look away in some distraction,
It’s gone forever.

Opening the wardrobe
It’s there beside the suits and shirts
Hanging to one side
Next to the black funeral coat
The Cliffs of Mayo
Or Craggy coast of Portugal
Seagulls shaken awake like dandruff
And lost on the brink of a decision
I just daydream
Before breakfast

I stayed up with Cobh,
As the hopeful lovemakers,
Transversed the taxi pick up point.
Couples waiting,
Beneath the magna lights,
Glued together like flying ants.
The dripping water of fishman's pier,
Lends a beat,
While at 3am the taxi rank decends,  
To the loud benediction,
Of "Tantum ergo Sacramentum".
Like a mirrowed engagement of dead souls,
The repeated dance of weekend love.
As if a Friday,Saturday or Sunday,
Were the exclusive days of love,
And once again be overcome with the street light lustre,
As they wait for a lift home.

The cottage in the hollow,
It’s beams and rafters a rotting ship.
The walls are pinioned together,
With spiders' webs.

The two black gaping windows,
Reflect the sockets of souls.
Abandoned during the days,  
When all time brought misery.

The creatures that inhabited here,
Bore every genus of distress.
Sleeping in their bed of filth,
With the same dream in collective misery.

Lost to an indifferent world,
Buried in an indifferent ground.
Mocked by indifferent words,
Forgotten by indifferent thoughts.

The Famine potato drills now waves of grass,
Left to the wandering sheep.
Original human sin repeats itself in every form,
Somewhere,  Eternally, to The Unkown.

She was definitely no ******,
With her black hull and green antifouling,
She was a **** in heels and stockings,
Like she had been half dipped in ink,
Even with all that heartache I loved her.    
Out of the water impulsively she needed to be touched,
A rubbing hand caressing her curves,
A worn hand placed on her bow,
With a sigh of exasperation,
Was an immediate  kiss to a universe of promise.
Sails, rope, the smell of hemp,
Seducing her with sweet sailor talk,
The magical language of blocks, tackle, sheets and monkey’s fists,
She had beautiful curves and definitely a lovely ***,
Trying to keep this wild thing broke my heart.

On a moonless night,
With stars reflected in the mirror of a calm sea.
We are together suspended in space, almost weightless,
Slipping her from her moorings,
We glide past the Metal Man light,
With his white bony finger pointing to deep water.
Tack to starboard while she picks up the breeze past Dead Man’s point.
Pull on the sheet and trim her for speed,
She hasn’t a straight line.
The curve of her naked hull exposed as she lists to starboard
The soft white billow of the Jib as the sail fills
A breast revealed for caressing.

Bringing her around to port,
Just enough to keep the Blackrock lighthouse abeam,
As the light winks trying to attract her attention.
Ease the sheet, wrinkles on the Main,
Squinting eyes looking up, letting her head settle gently on a bearing for the pier.
I feel her tremble through the tiller,
The sternpost radiates her joy,
She is laughing, waves lapping the sides,
As she cuts through the water,
The freshness of the odd blown back spray.
Giddy in anticipation of the journey, the excitement, the arrival,
Our unique voyage together.

Astern the vague outline of the Ox Mountains,    
A glimmer of heaven as the summer sky lightens,
The outline of Maeve’s cairn
On Knocknarea , the hill of Kings
The magic shadows of Sí playing on the beach,
I swear hear their fairy shouts
And the laughter of the stolen children.

With the tingling freedom,
I kiss the glowing dew laid compass
Feeling the moisture on my lips.
We are heading west,
West is the Atlantic!
West is the flying fish free in the air between swells!
West is the Sargasso Sea,!
West the magic sea sparkle luminescence!

And West is the myth of youth.
Before the dark cold winter clock of morning calls
Alone,
Wrapped in the bed sheets,
My hand flung across the pillow,
Empty,
Wake to the mundane,  
When did  I lose it all?

I’ve become  invisible
Maybe it’s a virus and I’ve just got a touch,
The automatic shop door didn’t open so I’m left in a lurch,
Even when  I stood on the spot once blessed by the church.
Then the shop attendant missed me in the queue,
A car nearly knocked me on the footpath too.
Clearly I’m unseen.

As this progresses will my eyelids become translucent?
With my eyes shut how will I sleep?
Maybe I should wear dark glasses and not take a peek.
If I wear clothes will it be funny?
I will definitely get a job as a shop window dummy.
Is that what happens in the invisible limbos,
We become manikins in shop windows,  
Watching the world looking at them,
What we the invisible will be able to tell.

From my shop window I imagine at half past eight,
The people hang out or just walk past straight.
Starting with the kids skipping school,
Uniform tucked in schoolbag to fool,
Shopping bag used for energy joule,
Inhaling glue this hallucinatory fuel.
Each step these children take,
One step closer to heartbreak.

Then the anxious wife meeting her lover.  
Leaving behind her domestic bliss,
Sealed this morning with a husband’s watery kiss.
Waiting awkwardly in her Totoro dress,
One button behind and a zip does the rest .
Trying hard to be invisible too
This could all end in her being blue.

The rushing shop manager dressed in a suit.
Cuffs worn thin, pens in a group,
Red, blue and black,
A tick for success or none for the lack.
Mumbling along the company mantra,
“Think outside the box” there’s as good fella.
The only box he has ever known,
Are the imaginary boundaries in which he has grown.


A dog and his master trundle along.
He has been dead for years as he moves on,
Wearing a shroud of a used up life,
The dog squats down beside the tree of life.
Observing this stool in the daylight,
He compares to the Hematochezia he did last night.

A husband contemplating murdering his wife,
As the news of her lover has just come to light.  
He looks at the manikin with some delight,
Seduced by its empty invisible soul,  
Only to discover he owns that hole.

Then evening descends the lights are all up,
When work is all over it’s off to the pub.
Not for the invisible manikin though,
Who stays in the window dressed in a bride’s trousseau.
An invisible exhibitionist this poor sod,
So when you walk past it's polite to nod.
Now I’ll take two Aspirin and a cup of coco
And hope to God this invisibility will go go.