WORD FROM BABEL

buildings floating
on a sea of fog
passing me by in the night

out at sea
a foghorn moans
a great prehistoric beast

who would
at any moment
stomp ashore

a Godzilla gorging
on a human or two
before retreating to

the time before
time was
God not in his heaven

the ghosts of people
walk about the streets
the living and the dead

all the one
as the fog
eats the world

my building is just
several countries squashed
into several squalid rooms

no one would live here
if they had to
they have to

we the people
lost
even to ourselves

Finnish floats
out of broken windows
Spanish slides under bolted doors

Italian caught in
filthy Venetian blinds
Irish blocking up the sink

the great stink
of humans trying
to get by

?think?
the last thing anyone would
want to do

we get by
by getting by
weirdos amongst weirdos

a welter of tongues
each a stranger to the other
getting in a lather

the babble
from Babel
lost in language

I alone
remain alone
self kept to self

walk these mean streets
like a fictional detective
in some dime store novel

buildings floating
on  a sea of fog
passing me by in the night

The under shell of
the tortoise looked
like a sunset.
Blasts of color:
orange, maroon, burnt sienna.
I caught them in
the garden at
sunrise, eating a
tomato or chewing into
a head of lettuce.
They always looked so
serious.

I was just a
sunburnt boy, with
cutoff jeans and a
straw hat.
I caught toads too.
But when they peed on me,
I let them go.
I loved that land.
Ponds and streams,
fishing and climbing trees.
oh,
sweet, green
youth.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF A LITTLE GIRL

she's a mere three
demands to know
"...the history of me..."

well, now I say
that was a long time ago
"...try to remember..." she pleads.

I remember when you
first came out of your shell
hatched into a lovely little girl

you were my duckling
everywhere I went
there you were

I could hear you cry
even before you cried
you made me a good daddy/mummy

your dreams
staining the blue
pillow with golden curls

every night the moon
would come to our window
just to take a peep at you

one day your name
perched upon you
and never flew off again

you were a fairy story
I had never heard before
and wanted to hear more

once when you fell
you hit the road
"Naughty road for falling me!"

"No I never!"
she squeals
"Oh yes you did!" I tickle

"Is there any more of me?"
"Oh loads...loads more
but I too old and tired!"

"Well..!" she tells her dolls
"He tells a good story but
shhh...it's not all true!"

the dolls gasp in disbelief
having drunk  down
the dregs of every detail

I HAVE BROUGHT YOU A WAVE

she brings me
the sea to see
in her tiny hands

tamed in blue buckets
the captured sea
sleeps beside her bed

*

It was the first time she saw the sea and she patted it like a pet and said; "See...sea my friend!" The sea fell in love with her and she fell in it.

Her mother was sick and couldn't make it down to the shore so Tilly kept trying to bring back the sea for her to see. But alas the sea would trickle through her little hands so nothing survived the journey. She kept trying and repeating " See the sea Mammy...see the sea!" or "I have brought you a wave!"
She managed to smuggle some sea home in her bright blue bucket with the red stripe and she kept it by her bedside because it was her friend. She would also sleep with twigs and stones and shells she had also befriended that day. She regarded everything as a sentient being and loved them all equally. To her a stick or a stone had as much right to a life as a human being or a bee. I think she believed that we are all here in this moment and so all living beings sharing the same place in the universe. Loving and kindness was her religion and she practiced it daily and embraced everyone and anything she saw.

Why can’t we build a tree house?
In our own backyard behind the sky
away from a wailing world
far from where we lay and die
Why can’t we build a tree house?
To house and hold our dreams
our pictures pitched on wooden planks
’we were once ere’ inscribed on beams
A heart etched in a tree stump
Below where our forbidden kisses are found
No one to discover our hidden bites
Unless we let the ladder down
Our insecurities were safe up here
while I sketched your naked skin
every curvature and crease of secrecy
You read your poetry and let me in
on our backs, we gazed at the night sky
we sipped wine or drank some tea
In silence we shared unspoken words
wondering if stars have a tree
And now often I wish upon a star
now your another’s spouse
…are you happy?

…or dreaming of the same star
with our own tree house?

CENTAUR

hiding in the hay
me a terrified little boy
& my uncle like a terrified little boy

the voices in his head
telling him to be afraid
of all strangers...changes

he’s been like this
since the day his Dad(my unknown grandfather)
died

my Aunt’s voice
searching for us...
searching us out

her shouts like bloodhounds
hunting us down
her words angry & cruel

her angry voice
slurring us into:
“DonallSeanie! ”

as if we had fused
into one being
a metamorphosis of us

the hay cooks us
and we swelter
in our hidey hole

a chicken sits
on top
of my uncle’s cap

as if his mind had
materialised
into this shape

he rocks
himself
and rocks me

“Shhhh...boy...shhhh! ”
comforting
both him & me

“Don’t leave me! ” he clucks
words scattered around him
like newly laid eggs

I settle
into
his silence

my Aunt’s threats
freezing us
in this terrible heat

his chest hair
tickles
my nose

the cut on my left big toe
throbs through
the open sandal

my uncle cries in fear
I wipe away the tear
with the ***** edge of my sleeve

we escape to
the West field
me riding his shoulders

transformed into
a legendary creature
that only exists in myths

fleeing from
the realness
...of reality