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Beware of armour
that shines too bright. Who knows if
it's never been used?
I will never be a professional dancer
I will never know how to do the splits
I will never be on dancing with the stars
But I'll always love to dance
Dwelling is a razor
regret, drip-fed poison
guilt, a creaking chain as it tightens around my neck.

Stockholm syndrome has me
in that
        lovelifedeath
grip.

And as my own jailer
I rail against myself
Caught in a purgatory-
safe
drawing blood
then consoling.                                

I can't see........
My corneas tear in the wind
there's some metaphysical connection, I know it
I don't want to look at my life as it is
The guilt twists my guts
I'm pathetic in my failures
and grasping at a fading light.

Ah perfectionism,  my abusive lover;
you endow me such power, then beat me senseless
I'm goddess, then mortal-
panicking
      frail
with nowhere but elusive horizons to go.

Phosphenes
those  bright spots of colour
as I rub my eyes-
Once again I wake too early
and that too-familiar cyanide starts to leak through my veins
and anxiety grips me
How'll I ever get it right
             make it out
             fix it all
             come out from under
             breathesucceedrelaxenjoybeworthsomething
  in short

has my bright patch of colour had its day?

I can't
face it.
Make me an angel, shoot me a star
I'm nowhere near, nowhere far
I want to go home, I want to be me
Lost in the wild, I'm finally free
Ink
Sitting alone in your room
The late hours of the night
The early hours of the morning.
Not being able to tell if  your eyes sting
Because you’re tired
Or if it’s
Because you cried out all fluids
Or if it’s
Because you still need to cry.
Those lustrous beads welling up
Needed to escape for so long.
And the inky black darkness bordering you
Makes it hard to look past whatever it is
You want to cry about.
And after being torn down so violently
And so fast,
Healing
Is the hardest part.
Your mind becomes nomadic.
It wanders around every memory
Every mistake
Every impression.
Fractured scenes
And dimmed pasts
Find their way
Looming over my ponderous mind.
And still I envision a perfect world
In which no one makes mistakes
And where no one gets hurt.
And my soul tugs at me to go there
But sometimes
It’s better to just
Forgive
And
Love
And then
Eventually heal.
I. Dark tree hanging above us in the night
Casting out shadows that try and steal babies in the silence
These creatures sway with the wind singing out tunes of old
Scratching at one another, fighting for superiority.
We watch as their shadows **** each other off one by one
The dark moon shining above gives us no warning of what’s to come
Sitting up there watching out over us, like an old man.
Grandpa sits in his chair and observes his children
Whistling into the night sky, joined by a chorus of stars
Each wrinkle, with a crater of its own, screaming out to us
Screaming about what was to come.

A dark rider pulls up in front of us
His bony fingers crack as he motions for you
As in a trance you are hypnotized by his gaze.
His dark cloak shining in the fire that blazes behind him
I can see dust resting on his shoulders, but you remain transfixed.
You’re eyes begin to darken and you grow dimmer.
Flickering as each second passes, flickering
Like a candle running out of time.
Flickering like a flame being choked out.
His dark eyes look deeply into your equally dark heart
Ringing out to him in a bass-like tone, that only the evil can hear.
Ringing, singing, tearing away from me, from our life together
Here on the top of this dark hill, above this dark town, in an even darker world.

The dark cloaked man rides off into the east as the morning sun rises
The only source of light, making its way up the ladder
As its dark counterpart retreats in the opposite direction.
I’m looking up at him as he warms my face
Father is home and has taken his rightful place on the throne
A light smile creeps up on my face as I look back at you
All I see is the empty look that your dark eyes return.

II. Train engines roaring in the background
Chugga chugga chugga chugga
Smoke rising ahead of him as he thunders on,
Through your thick eyeglasses you’re watching closely
We’re sitting in your room, an empty bottle of gin in your hands
Window open and the cool evening breeze blows in
Blowing your hair back like a model
The diseased air catches fire in your face.
As in a fitful rage you scream out like bells ringing in my ears.
The sun is smiling in making his appearance short as he retreats west.

Your dizzy eyes look into mine singing out to me
“Chugga chugga chugga chugga”
You say to me laying on your back in a drunken haze.
Your locked door groans under your father’s fists,
And he comes raging in like a train steaming down the tracks.
Kicking and throwing himself around, lashing his eyes at you and me,
Wreaking havoc on your room, the wild creature rears up to fight
And scared I run out the window, escaping the hell that you’re stuck in
Like a fly trapped in the web of a spider at lunch time.
I hear the faint
“Chugga chugga chugga chugga”
In the background under the noise of my feet on the concrete.

III. Your engine roars in the early morning air
Raising hell underneath it, and fire in its past.
Roaring like a lion on its prey
The tires screeching like the prey itself
As you come to a halt in front of my house honking the horn
Screaming for me to come out.
I already know what’s in store,
Why you’re here,
And here I am stuck in this place
Like a prison and you’re my jailor.
If you think I’ll develop a Stockholm syndrome you are sadly mistaken
Your mouth running wild with the horses in the fields
Like a sailor on a ship
Raising war with every sentence that you speak
Singing in the rain of hatred in your eyes
As you look me down with your laser vision
Eyeing me up like a hawk swooping on a field mouse.
Sharp talons sharpened daily
You raise fear with your body,
A shiver flows through my veins deep down in the soul
I feel cold with you staring at me like you do.
Hovering in the thick air above my lonely prison cell.
Looking only at me.
1.

I know now why the world was sad,
With so much good to make it glad;
Why all things loveliest and best
Have stirred vague sorrows in my breast,
And sweetest days that life has had
Have vexed me with such vast unrest.

2.

I know why I have pined and toiled,
And found all aspirations foiled;
I know why I have gained and spent,
And never learned what riches meant;
I know what lack and loss have spoiled
The treasure of my soul's content.

3.

Like day- dawn on the darkened earth,
Like sun and rain in drought and dearth,
Like spring, that wakens flowers so fast
When barren winter- time is past,
Love, long- deferred, has come to birth —
And I am satisfied at last.

4.

My heart is singing; tears are shed;
I, that was starved, am warmed, and fed —
For love is fire and food and wine,
All comfort earthly and divine.
Now I am living that was dead,
And all that life can give is mine.
After the wolves and before the elms
the bardic order ended in Ireland.

Only a few remained to continue
a dead art in a dying land:

This is a man
on the road from Youghal to Cahirmoyle.
He has no comfort, no food and no future.
He has no fire to recite his friendless measures by.
His riddles and flatteries will have no reward.
His patrons sheath their swords in Flanders and Madrid.

Reader of poems, lover of poetry—
in case you thought this was a gentle art
follow this man on a moonless night
to the wretched bed he will have to make:

The Gaelic world stretches out under a hawthorn tree
and burns in the rain. This is its home,
its last frail shelter. All of it—
Limerick, the Wild Geese and what went before—
falters into cadence before he sleeps:
He shuts his eyes. Darkness falls on it.
The world is in such a state
of disarray.
People hate each other,
**** for sport,
and burn words of anger and envy into the hearts of their neighbors.
Countries drop bombs,
**** women,
**** children.
Why? We all ask.
It does not start at this scale.
It starts in the hearts
and minds of each one of us.
It starts in our households,
our neighborhoods, and
our communities.
A collaboration of the vibration
from each one of these communities
shows its ugliness and we
all ask why?
We must, as a humanity,
purify our own minds
and our own hearts.
Love your neighbor.
Love your enemy.
Not for what they have done to you,
but for what has been done to them.
The only reason someone hates
is because they have felt
the stinging pain of someone else's hatred.
The only reason they do not love
is because they have not felt
the natural warmth and transcendent power
of love.
So,
love your neighbor,
love your enemy,
and slowly our hearts,
then our communities,
then our countries, and
eventually the world will begin to change.
Each thought and vibration of energy
is like a stone caste into a lake.
The ripple starts small,
but can cause waves on the other shore.
So throw beautiful stones
and leave the ugly ones to rest.
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