In the worst hour of the worst season
    of the worst year of a whole people
a man set out from the workhouse with his wife.
He was walking-they were both walking-north.

She was sick with famine fever and could not keep up.
    He lifted her and put her on his back.
He walked like that west and north.
Until at nightfall under freezing stars they arrived.

In the morning they were both found dead.
    Of cold. Of hunger. Of the toxins of a whole history.
But her feet were held against his breastbone.
The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her.

Let no love poem ever come to this threshold.
    There is no place here for the inexact
praise of the easy graces and sensuality of the body.
There is only time for this merciless inventory:

Their death together in the winter of 1847.
    Also what they suffered. How they lived.
And what there is between a man and a woman.
And in which darkness it can best be proved.

I used to think that monsters lived under my bed,
Hiding in the darkness, with eyes of ruby red.
I'd hide under my blankets, as if they were a shield,
And hope that in the shadows i would be concealed.

But then one day i realized that i had been mislead,
The real monsters i had, were the ones inside my head.
They quietly creep and crawl in the corners of my mind,
Whispering words that make me weep 'til I've gone blind.

They shatter my happiness and suffocate my dreams,
And make my ears ache with the shrill sound of their screams.
They wrap their cold fingers around my worn out heart,
And inside i feel as though they are tearing me apart.

She lays in bed at night, curled up and silent,
Desperately clutching the fabric of her sweater
As if its threads are keeping her together.
Her eyes like two fountains of glittering saltwater in the darkness.

Under the blankets of shadows she shakes,
Like a silent earthquake; trembling and destructive.
She's falling apart, but who would notice?
Her pain is masked behind a carefully constructed disguise.
Her plastered on smile has started to fade now,
Old wallpaper in this beaten, weathered house.

When the sun sinks under the trees,
Monsters creep into her room and whisper in her ears.
They sink their teeth into her skin and the poison seeps in,
Coursing recklessly through her veins until it has reached her very heart.
A heart that now beats timidly, crushed into tiny sharp fragments,
And grafted together by loosely tied glimmering threads.

Sleep slips underneath her eyelids like a gift,
A temporary escape from the storm brewing inside her.
"Help me," she whispers as she fades away,
Lifting off the dead decaying landscape of her mind.
Her life is a sad mournful song, perpetually stuck on rewind.

It was a lilac day, a dream of scented heaven  
what world sings of this blue, green summer?
Early morning raindrops splash giant maples,
droplets of sun, above far hills
alighting flowering fields, with flashing wings
of tiny sparrows

Cormorant swoops, the falling sky, far beyond
clouds of pink edge the bluest sky
silvery fish, below in cooling waves
blue herons stalk long where
seaweed sways

Sunlight poured, warming mossy woods
tallest trees breathing steam - spectrally
lichen blooms, tiny flowers in the sun
before the dawn of washing rain
a silent ancient forest

Sliding in the gray smoke of sleep
He seemed to see another version of the night

Where does this pain come from?
The broken concrete caskets of the innocents
Crawling toward the light
Poisoned by their own frightened governments
Who are cheering for their deaths.

Why does my heart hurt?
Brutal men in smug suits
Confident with closed faces
All they know is power
All they know is contempt
They know what is best for us
And will never answer
Why they hurt us so much.

In the throbbing of their brutal drums
The cacaphony of cowardice
They move

I see the Dragon lady come
Her face is tilted up
Eyes shining with the tears
Of many losses

She is not afraid
With her smiles of wise innocence
She still holds flowers
And stops to comfort an animal in pain

They are confused by her eyes
And her voice
Telling them to stop the lies

So she shows a different power
Like a matador
She directs their blind and massive charge
Into the stony walls

In the last vision before waking
I see her standing  
There are birds singing
And the sun is breaking through a cloud

I feel the caress of my own fingers
on my own neck as I place my collar
and think pityingly
of the kind women I have known.

After history with Mr Finn
about Saxons or Vikings
or some such thing
you walked home

from school
with Helen
along St George’s Road
the afternoon traffic

hustling and bustling by
and Helen said
that Cogan boy
pulled my plaits

and called me four eyes
and said I looked
like a pug
I think you look pretty

you said
do I?
she said
yes

you replied
and don’t mind
about Cogan
you said

tapping your jacket pocket
(where you kept
your six-shooter cap gun)
he said he’d smash my face

but he never does
he’s all mouth
and short pants
you said

Helen put her arm
under yours
and squeezed it
nice of you to say

I’m pretty
she said
no one’s said that before
and she looked ahead

and you stole a glance
sideward on at her
her plaits held in place
by two rubber bands

her thick lens spectacles
which made her eyes
larger than they were
and her small nose

beneath the bridge
of the wire frame  
you looked away
carrying the image of her away

storing it in your mind
and she said
my mum likes you
she said you’re not like

the other boys
around here
o
you said

thinking of her mother
large as life
pushing the big pram
squeezed into

the huge coat
nice of your mum to say
you said
she pulled your arm closer

to her
her dark blue
raincoat
against your black jacket

you sensed the six-shooter
against your ribs
thinking of Cogan
and firing a cap bang

in the back
of his head
my mum said
I can go

to the cinema
with you
on Saturday morning
matinee

Helen said
o good
you said
not caring what

the other boys might say
with her along side you
in the sixpenny seats
you in jeans

and open necked shirt
and she maybe
in that flowered
red dress

white socks
and black battered shoes
sensing her arm
on yours

as you approached
the traffic lights
at the big junction
catching a glimpse

of her smile
as you both crossed
the road
when the lights

turned green
the afternoon sky grey
rain seeming near
smelling it in the air

thinking of Helen
and of a snatched kiss
but you didn’t think so
or didn’t dare.