All Dead,
Definitely Dead.
It couldn't be by God's children could it?
Moses wrote:
Thou shalt not ****,
or was it,
Thou shalt Veto the living?
Where are the holy Joe's when you need them?
Running for cover.

I am old
And worn
And another year wanders to meet death
Should I
Or would I
In this rust bucket of my life
Look for love

In the dark of the night,
I will dig my own grave.
I will smile as I lie in it,
Looking at the stars.
The earth will caress me,
Like an old pal.
It wont judge me,
Or berate me for my absence.
And if there is enough spirit,
Left in me.
Perhaps a flower,
Will start to grow,
And replace me.

Some days are inspirational
Some days are not
Some days are happy
Some days are not
Some days are sad
Some days are not
Some days are rare
Some days are not
Some days teach us
Some days do not
But then those are all our days.

A lone Robin reminisces outside my window.
Casually flirting with the shrubs.
Holding his head sideways,
With suave glance.
That almost hands on the hips look,
That would melt any heart.
He is curious,
As much as I am.
And I've forgotten,
What it was that was bothering me.

He watches his son.
A smile like a voyage,
Crosses the sleeping child's face.
Tucked beneath the sheets,
Unaware of the years,
His father has held the night sky aloft,
With both hands above his head,
So that he would come to no harm.

Nor will he remember,
How he held those tiny perfect hands,
On  deadly adventures,
As they explored,
The gorges between the table and the chairs.

Nor will he remember the kiss,
That cured his every injury
As he sleeps peacefully.
Believing  there are no dangers in this world,
That his Dad cannot subdue.

There is no need of clapping or candles lit,
For the ordinary superhero.

I searched for the bench,
On Stephen's Green,
Where we sat.
Our touch was so intense then,
Full of future.

I found it today.
So many decades later,
Tried to recapture that memory.
All there is now,
Is the smell of fast food restaurants,
Serving takeaway moments,
And squabbling seagulls.

You asked me to stay then,
To make love.
But I was in a rush,
Had a train to catch,
To the past.
Funny how that even catches up on you.

These could be the best days,
I wouldn’t know.
There are no signs,
Written across our tiny universe to tell.

Even if there were signs,
Would I believe them?
Our lives are doomed to imperfection.
There is nothing that we think could not be better.

There is no wind that fills a sail,
That could not be better from a different quarter.
There is no taste of a luscious orange plucked from a tree,
That we have decided could not be better.

There is no gentle evening perfumed breeze,
That caresses a cheek that could not smell better.
Because of our own imperfections,
We abhor perfection.

Things never last forever.
Things are never fully complete.
Things are never as we experience them.
But the perfection lies in things as there are.

Nothing was ever meant to be perfect.
But we can dream,
And in our dreams,
We can make everything intimately and entirely our own.

Old Navigators,
Where they go or dream,  
Doesn’t matter.
As long as there is still,
Somewhere to go.

Meanwhile I'll just sit on the edge,
Well ahead of the crowd,
Waiting for the train to eternity.
Where it goes does anybody know?

While I wait,
I’ll sit on this deck,
I’ll dangle my feet in the warm sea,
Look at the sights.

And I’ll enjoy it all,
With the spirit I was given.
Perhaps I’ll whistle a tune while I wait,
Even if it is bad luck,
It hardly matters.

Maybe I’ll write in the log book.
And if someone after me reads the entry,
That’s fine.
And if they don’t,
That’s fine too.

I sleep less on vacation,
In case I waste time.
Everything must be in excess.
Even when she reins me in.
I have to make up for,
Every mundane working Monday,
And Tuesday,
And Wednesday,
And Thursday,
Even Friday.
For the average person their work is their life.
They believe it is fatal to be idle.
And yet the average person,
Can’t even prove they not just that,
Mediocre.

The memory of my Father
Is wrapped within me
Like a schoolboys lunch
Covered in greaseproof paper
Waiting to be unfolded.
And then like a sailor's voyage
It seeks out that beloved port
That has been left behind.

The secret drinker stays up at night,
Watching those dark programs,
On a blank screen of a turned off television.

The secret drinker listens,
To the ticking of the mantle clock,
As it times life away.  

The secret drinker measures the numbness of the pain,
By the counting of the bottles,gills , half ones,
Until it all seems sane.

The secret drinker,
Lifts the last drink.
Holds the liquid to the light,
And dies in life the same way of many a cocktail.

The greed in me buys a ticket,
Only when it’s over 50 million.
I wouldn’t know what to do with 1 million.
All that week I avoid the news,
Just to prolong the illusion.
Lost to imaginary purchases of Islands,
Yachts, houses, parties, paintings,
I can’t make up my mind.
I check the Sunday Times Property supplement,
What can I afford?
Then there is the property tax.
The security, insurance, indigestion.
What if the new car gets scratched?  
Everything I don’t need.

Eventually I check the ticket.
Relieved to avoid all that work,
And thankful I haven’t won.
But the greed will still get the better of me next time,
A Dark powerful magic.

I never put a banger,
Through an old ladies door,
At Halloween or any alternative time of year.
To the best of my knowledge.

I never bought those X-ray glasses,
For looking through girls clothes,
As advertised beside the Sea Monkey’s,
In the back of the superman comic.
To the best of my knowledge.

I never wanted to go,
When my mother broke up,
Our cowboys and Indians game,
On Saturday to send me off to confession.
To the best of my knowledge.

I never quite told the truth,
In the coffin room with the sliding hatch,
In case the darkly hidden man,
Dished out too many Hail Mary’s for penance.
To the best of my knowledge.

So,
I haven’t used pyrotechnics to frighten old women,
Nor used X-Ray glasses to spy on girls,
Nor told the truth in confession,
Nor I’m the most sensible of people,
Is this best of my knowledge?

What is this life experiment,
That we take without choice?
A tour through the material world.
Our spirit undertakes this journey,
Our soul experiences it.
We dream awake.
Some people have a great dream,
Which they fail to realise.
Others have no dream at all,
And fail to even fulfil that.
What we see is not what we see,
but who we are.

My shadow follows me everywhere,
A constant companion in the light.
Sometimes striding ahead,
Sometime pushing behind,
Often to the left ...or right.

In the dark playing hide and seek,
Appearing just to scare.
Just when I drift past some street lamp.
And then annoyed I stop and glare,
Standing there with arms folded,
Like it's rude to stare.

Often there to entertain the kids,
My shadow on the wall.
They squeal with delight,
As my shadow makes  dragons tall.
In the end I suppose,  
I would be lost without my shadow,
Nothing to link me to this world.

Only in Cork would the Station Master rush in,
Announcing “Anyone for the train for Mallow,”
“The bus is leaving now”.
Two girls kiss passionately sitting on the station seats,
While a woman in a woolly hat,
Standing behind,
Makes the sign of the cross repeatedly.
The apostolic sailors stand in a circle,
Kit Bags in the middle,
As they rotate in and out.
Searching for ***** while the train is delayed.  
And the pub still closed.
This is the start of my son’s stag,
A ritual passage to husband.
A beginning and ending of stories.

Autumn a variety of  gold colours,
Like a multi layered sponge cake
And candle soft birthday lights ,
That sing wind laden whispers .

Scolding when did we grow,
Too old to toss in the leaves .
Or wrap arms around a rooted tree,
Just to feel it move.

Or just stop and stare,
At dancing shadows,
Of a setting Sun,
And the creaking end of light.

Cool laden nights,
Of soft star lights.
Morning dripping windows,
And misty dappled light.

Our last comfort hush,
Before the torrid slush.
Autumn's sweet caress,
Before Winter's carcass.

Sunshine speckled bright on calm water,
A white deluge of hawthorn blossoms,
Pour on to the canal.
Fields of mono colour  yellow ****,
Bordered by green hedgerows.
Flash metal blue swallows skim the water.
Mother duck marshals her unruly ducklings,
To disappear into the green.
The reeds on both banks lean towards each other.
Armies of spears about to engage,
Commanded by a grey coated crane.
The sandy path stretches ahead alone.
I could be school walking,
Carelessly kicking stones with new shoes.

Two swans slide past.
Sailing dhows off Borneo.
Once one crossed fine on my port bow,
A manoeuvre around his stern.
From the bridge I watched,
A friendly wave as we passed.
Mariners from different worlds.
Dragonflies spin amongst the blooming Iris,
Lilly pads have surfaced,
With little yellow periscope flowers.
And a lone red poppy stands almost out of place,
Demanding  memory.

I peep through the stars,
Past the Moon to the Earth.
Where the shadows of the morning,
Define the boundary of the day.

Where the oceans swell,
Rocks the land to sleep.
Where the humans work,
To make the rot so cheap.

Where throw away things,
And know away rings,
Slips to tow away strings,
Of paper Mache Kings .

And the ocean’s lonely whale,
Sings his saddest song.
He is alone.  
Soon to be gone.

He sings of the reckless,
Of the planet helpless,
Of the air breathless,
And a future defenceless.

But then nobody is listening to a 52hertz whale.

I sleep less on vacation,
In case I waste them.
Everything in excess.
Even when she reins me in.
I have to make up for,
For every mundane Monday,
I’ve crossed the portals of labour.
Time to look at the world,
Not through a mobile phone.
No point in resting,
Burn as brightly as the sun.
There will be plenty of time to recover,
And stories to tell ....at work.
It is an enigma of life.

I was eleven when it happened.
Bartley the man of the house,
As  judge and jury,
Passed the sentence,
Condemning the mongrel.
Peter took him to the shore,
He licked his face.
Tail wagged with trust,
As he wrapped the bailing twine around his neck.

Carefully selecting two stones,
Amongst the many stones of Connemara.
He hitched them to the bailing twine,
Using a made up sacred knot,
To deliver death.

Lifting him in the cradle of his arms,
Which in time would hold his son.
At the sheltered place where the sand was pure white,
And the little waves caressed the shore,
The dried seaweed crunched underfoot,
Creating the pungent smell of sea,
He threw him in the deepest part.

He struggled.
Broke the surface once.
Gulped the air.
Fell back.
In the crystal clear water,
Legs threshing in the sea of life.
Then his mouth opened to the ocean.
Wild eyes.
The last ****.
And then stillness.
The stillness of a carcass anchored,
To the sandy bottom,
With twin stones  from a worn rocky field.

I lamented the cruelty of it all.
But then for all its beauty,
Connemara was a hard and cruel place.
The gallows audience left,
Let the tide to do its work.
Never to swim there again,
A place tainted by the evil,
Of the drowning of the dog.

When the sun makes day,
With mist and dew,
In the camps of 1945,
The barbed wire still weeps.

In deserted land of West Mayo,
Abandoned potato drills,
And the hunger of 1845,
The barbed wire still weeps.

In the desert sun,
Of Sabra and Shatila,
And the now deserted camps of 1985,
The barbed wire still weeps.

In the African air,
The Sun of Zaire,
In the camps of 1995,
The barbed wire still weeps.

In  Jerusalem halls and Palestine walls,
In the morning light,  
Where Abraham calls,
The barbed wire still weeps.

If we ever  forget,  
Or if we ever regret,
The barbed wire,
Will weep for us all.

She stands outside the shop
Contra Natura,
On Rua Dos Correeiros.
I just happen to see while watching the Brazil match,
The fans in yellow rushing to the square...Park do Comerico

Leaning against the green tiled facade,
Cigarette in her left hand.
Dressed in faded grey jeans,
Black jumper, ***** sneakers,
She is beautiful.

The shop display holds a blindfolded manikin,
Dog collar and lead.
See through plastic underpants,
He looks happy.

She draws on her gauloises
Looks to her left.
And with a look of distain,
Dismisses that reality.

In her annual review,
Her boss Mr Costa has demanded,
That she sells more whips,
Beautifully she looks at him with same dismissal.



In her garret on Rua Da Madalena,
She reads Fernando Pessoa.
Cigarette in the left hand,
A glass of Douro red to her right,
Leg draped over a worn armchair.

This is her real life,
A world devoid of the Slavery of work.
Life and Slavery,
Two ships passing unknown,
Unrecognised,uncommunicative.

Her soul is an orchestra,
I can't decern the instruments.
Harps, piano, drums don't know,
I can only see the music.

Breakfast crunching cornflakes,
The sound of Roman legions
Marching down Appian Way.
Just sounds, word sounds,
The Dictionary of all sounds.

An empty polystyrene cup,
And loose change offered,
For many timed re-mortgaged soul.
Elbows on the altar,
Of a dried coffee ringed universe.

Helpless in supplication,
Bargaining with the Devil,
For three immortal lines,
Or three immortal words,
Or even two?
And No.

The telephone lines hum even on a clear still day.
When I lie on my back and no wind disturbs the leaves,
I can still hear the call of whispered conversations,
Along the copper wired humdrum messenger .
Margaret is pregnant again....joy or sorrow ?
Johnny Underwood died last night ...drunk or sober?
“Don’t say that on the phone you never know who might be listening”
And Ellie the ever eavesdropping Post mistress indignantly cries,
“How dare you insinuate I’m listening”
The vibrating copper linking souls to an engaged tone.

The canal today is mirror deep,
Reflecting all the trees that weep.
The grass is fridge frost white,
From the cold of last night.
The trees are dripping snot clear tears,
Sparkling in the sunshine glare.
An empty ***** bottle on the side of the road,
In the distance shines Morse code.
The houses in sharp relief,
Like stricken ships on a reef.
On this winter morning all fears,
Are lost like unwanted souvenirs.

Each day I cross the canal,
With its corrugated water,
To the recently harrowed field.
A leather jacket laid on the green grass of the dunes.
Your curls spill on the hedgerows.
Propped on my elbow I dive headlong,
Into twin infinity pools.
Lost in twining souls of string.
A girl balling the wool,
As I hold it gently between outstretched supplicant arms.
We were seventeen.

Each day I cross the canal to the harrowed field,
Where the now winter wheat delicately erases,
The leather jacket on the grass of dunes.
It was once a summer,
Where no world anchored us,
No past taunted us,  
No demands listened to,
On the cusp of transition.
We loved as never again,
When we were seventeen.



Each day I cross the canal to a green field.
The colour warms a winter morning.
Blowing into cupped cold hands,
No longer brings heat,
Only faint clouds of breathtype mist.
The cold invades my toes and fingers.
There are things I must remember.
Next time I will wear my leather jacket,
I’m no longer seventeen.

I had a midlife crisis yesterday,
So I bought a yacht.
Now I’m going to live to be over a 100,
Isn’t that amazing?
Maybe I should repeat it,
Every decade or so.
Just to keep it topped up,
Like a pay as you go phone.
This is the secret to eternal life.

On the Non Fiction shelves,
One Thousands and One Places to visit before you die.
Or for those for whom time is short,
One Hundred and one Places to visit before you die.
And then for the imminent,
The Place to be,
A life to be measured in coffee table books,
Full of opinion and failure,
Just live .

I contemplated becoming a suicide bomber.
Even took the class,
The instructor said “pay attention”
“I’m only going to show you this once “
But I was lighting a cigarette
And missed the crucial part,
I should give them up,
Cigarettes will **** you ...you know.
And then there are the choices,
What religion to align to,
Looking at the A la Carte religions,  
It’s so diverse.
One offers eternity in hell,
With some imp sticking a red hot poker,
Up your ***.
Another offers 70 odd virgins,  
Think of the expense,
Hair do’s, make up,birth control,  
And then, them all talking at once.
I’d almost go for the imp which was the least popular choice.
I was just looking for a woman in stockings,
Wearing heels,
Of easy virtue,
Who would lie to me,
And tell me I’m great.
Maybe that’s Calvinism.
So I’ve put these plans on hold.
Next week I might become a fireman,
I’m a bit fickle like that.

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.

The surgeon’s scalpel poised,
Dressed in scrubs,
Hidden by a mask like a bank robber,
Not even tights or stockings pulled over her head,    
Like she cares.
She could have worn heels at least.
I scream that I’m not anesthetized.
"You need to feel the pain,
I’m here to rip out your heart",
You’re insane!
"You'll scream and scream.
Then I’ll drain your love
And you’ll be right as rain !"
"What scheme are you on Dear,
Do you have Love Insurance?"
Does it  matter, it’s going to hurt!

The Moon searches out the night
During the day sits in the background
Probably knitting a scarf of clouds
Pick one drop one, Cirrus follow by Cumulus
Allowing the Sun it’s all day brilliance
At night trumping all that coloured time
With a soft monochrome thrill
Wrapped in its unravelling grey black scarf
Bit of a night owl our Moon

Throws quite a few shapes
During it’s month
Revealing a little Edwardian anklet
And then to tantalise
Following with its full scandalous magnificence
A bit of a flirt our lovely Moon.

Our Moon has many beautiful scarfs
Holding hands and touch shoulders scarf
Or soft hand on the cheek while lips meet scarf
Hide under here together and pretend we are alone scarf
Let’s do something mad and feed the ducks at night scarf
And that warm promise don’t break my heart scarf
Bit of a romantic our lunatic moon.

The slamming door,
The picture falls,
The empty seat,
The ripples on a pool.
The shiver of passing cool,
A little movement in the corner of the eye,
They are out there when they die.

The missing keys,
The car lights on,
The Sunday paper when it's gone,
My favorite screwdriver disappeared,
Hammer and chisel lost I know its wierd,
Even in fading light,  
I can tell they have been passing here at night.

In the the sitting room too,
My  alcohol is being consumed,
A rowdy bunch without a doubt,
I guess they have been all about.
And then the bathroom loo
My aftershave is gone too
Can't be true
Isn't it true Ghosts don't shave ?

They have no lengthening whiskers,
No 6 o'clock shadow just a shade.
Even if they waxed their legs
For some spiritual tango on their pegs
They wouldn't use an aftershave glaze
Just some moonlight shadow mixed with cloudy greys.

In the late night when I cannot sleep,
I walk the house in bare feet,
And wonder when my boys became men,
Looking as the soundly sleep,
Its Saturday night they clearly reek,
Of Bourbon, aftershave and feet.
No wonder the Ghosts they leave them alone,
Is it just me they want to atone?

There is a pebble somewhere
It rolled from my pocket in a dream
I found it in my imagination
Then lost it in a moment of forgotten clarity.

It was smooth and oval
When I last rolled it between my forefinger and thumb
I noticed it had a slight crevice of perfection.  
Caused no doubt by years of tumbling in a future
Before I imagined it.

It happily lay deep in my pocket
Between a tossing and furtive sleep
I noticed it was gone before I awoke
Lost on some sandy beach.

As I slept something made me smile
Funny, important and then forgotten
Locked in time by a whispering kiss.
If you find my lost pebble, mind it for me
I miss the familiar feel of sand pebble dreams.

Where is death today?
Busily hiding the bodies,
Or hunched beside a car loosening wheel bolts,
Placing a dark hand over a traffic light,
Squeezing the shotgun trigger,
Or strapped in a wheelchair
Disguised as a patient and wheeling rapidly around the hospital wards,
Removing the soap.

Or maybe cycling down the motorway
The large black cloak neatly bundled into the waistband
Right trouser leg tucked into a black sock
A bone poking out the toe
The Reaper strapped to the bicycle crossbar
Blade hanging to the rear  
But not obscuring the red reflector
Wearing Kevlar gloves when handling the scythe
And Vis a Vest neatly tied with a bow
At the very least a reflective armband.

Or possibly fixing a puncture on his way to my home...Bad form then
On arrival should I greet with “Come in, you look perished! ”
Discuss the weather as a distraction
I could offer new socks
Like every interview this might not go well.

I think about Shane in the middle of the night,
For no apparent reason.
No telegraph arrives to remind me.
Just immediately caught unawares,
By the timeline of months days and hours,
Since he left.

There is substance to his departure.
He doesn’t park in my spot anymore,
His seat on the couch is empty,
His opinion is not heard,
He doesn’t come with us to the matches,
He doesn’t eat hotdogs at half time,
He doesn’t buy his round anymore.

There were many beginnings to his departure.
Some noticed and some dismissed,
The shaved head,
The weight gain,
The staying in bed,
The tiredness,
The missed team practice,
His soft quietness rather than his razor wit.



There was a documented record to his departure.
The consultant’s diagnosis.  
The recorded return of the tumor like a badly made film sequel,    
Chemo 1, Chemo 2, Chemo3.
The morphine drip beating out the measuring of the waiting.
The finite final breath.
Our hearts stopped with his as he departed the room,
Dressed in a suit and Despicable me Socks ….Only you Shane!
The Final notice in the paper recording the date and time of departure.  

There were things left behind after his departure.
Mainly my daughter’s young heart.
As I lie awake in the darkness where death accompanies me till the dawn,
And then as one bright day follows the next,
I dismiss my own departure,
Until I think of Shane again.