Birds rush and are busy
Breaking the days, laden
Twigs have broken, landed,
White clouds sail in breeze,
Sun has spilt, over gleamed
Gold on crest fallen, blue mountain,
Leaves lay with browned, under
Grown green matted grasses—
Whispers of spring.

all the while
the rain
was gently falling
& all the night
the stars
were simply peering
out from their
blankets
of velveted black
to watch me
surrender my thoughts
to the swirl of my
dreaming

Lead us, Evolution, lead us
Up the future's endless stair;
Chop us, change us, **** us, **** us.
For stagnation is despair:
Groping, guessing, yet progressing,
Lead us nobody knows where.

Wrong or justice, joy or sorrow,
In the present what are they
while there's always jam-tomorrow,
While we tread the onward way?
Never knowing where we're going,
We can never go astray.

To whatever variation
Our posterity may turn
Hairy, squashy, or crustacean,
Bulbous-eyed or square of stern,
Tusked or toothless, mild or ruthless,
Towards that unknown god we yearn.

Ask not if it's god or devil,
Brethren, lest your words imply
Static norms of good and evil
(As in Plato) throned on high;
Such scholastic, inelastic,
Abstract yardsticks we deny.

Far too long have sages vainly
Glossed great Nature's simple text;
He who runs can read it plainly,
'Goodness = what comes next.'
By evolving, Life is solving
All the questions we perplexed.

Oh then! Value means survival-
Value. If our progeny
Spreads and spawns and licks each rival,
That will prove its deity
(Far from pleasant, by our present,
Standards, though it may well be).

We smile at each other
and I lean back against the wicker couch.
How does it feel to be dead? I say.
You touch my knees with your blue fingers.
And when you open your mouth,
a ball of yellow light falls to the floor
and burns a hole through it.
Don't tell me, I say. I don't want to hear.
Did you ever, you start,
wear a certain kind of dress
and just by accident,
so inconsequential you barely notice it,
your fingers graze that dress
and you hear the sound of a knife cutting paper,
you see it too
and you realize how that image
is simply the extension of another image,
that your own life
is a chain of words
that one day will snap.
Words, you say, young girls in a circle, holding hands,
and beginning to rise heavenward
in their confirmation dresses,
like white helium balloons,
the wreathes of flowers on their heads spinning,
and above all that,
that's where I'm floating,
and that's what it's like
only ten times clearer,
ten times more horrible.
Could anyone alive survive it?

O stony grey soil of Monaghan

The laugh from my love you thieved;

You took the gay child of my passion

And gave me your clod-conceived.



You clogged the feet of my boyhood

And I believed that my stumble

Had the poise and stride of Apollo

And his voice my thick tongued mumble.



You told me the plough was immortal!

O green-life conquering plough!

The mandril stained, your coulter blunted

In the smooth lea-field of my brow.



You sang on steaming dunghills

A song of cowards' brood,

You perfumed my clothes with weasel itch,

You fed me on swinish food



You flung a ditch on my vision

Of beauty, love and truth.

O stony grey soil of Monaghan

You burgled my bank of youth!



Lost the long hours of pleasure

All the women that love young men.

O can I stilll stroke the monster's back

Or write with unpoisoned pen.



His name in these lonely verses

Or mention the dark fields where

The first gay flight of my lyric

Got caught in a peasant's prayer.



Mullahinsa, Drummeril, Black Shanco-

Wherever I turn I see

In the stony grey soil of Monaghan

Dead loves that were born for me.

Anny Horowitz
pressed her nose
against the glass
window pane

of Nero’s coffee bar
where you sat drinking
coke in ice in a glass
her ghostly

blue eyes
peered at you
a smile lingered
her small hands

were palm flat
on the pane
so that her lifeline
and headline were visible

where she pressed
you beckoned
with a nod
of your head

for her to come in
and she came in
and sat in the seat
beside you

her phantom
1940s clothes
seemed neat and clean
and her blonde hair

was ribboned
and looked fresh washed
Anny’s hand touched
the back of your chair

her eyes searched
about her
the fingers
of her other hand

toyed
with an empty glass
on the small
round table

she talked
in her soft voice
and asked about
the drink in the glass

and you told her
and she smiled
and was fascinated
by the bubbles rising

around the ice cubes
a couple came in
and a took a seat nearby
he went off

to order drinks
and she sat
and looked at you
then away again

not seeing Anny
sitting there
Mozart music
playing

in the background
Anny sat listening
her head
swaying slowly

to the music
she said
she remembered
the music

her feet
in black shoes
swung back and forth
under the chair  

she said
at Auschwitz
they played music
but it made her sad

to remember
you took out
your mobile phone
and spoke into it

did they play Wagner
at Auschwitz?
you asked
she said she thought so

the woman nearby
looked at you
wondering who
you were talking to

then looked away
what is that?
Anny asked
my mobile phone

you said
phone?
she said
it’s like the telephones

in telephone boxes
years ago
but smaller
and you can go around

with them
in your hand
Anny nodded
but the woman frowned

giving you a stare
you sipped your coke
nice and cold
refreshing

against heat
coming through
the coffee bar window
Anny gazed

at the woman
then put out
her hand
and touched yours

and it was cool
and soft like silk
as if a breeze
had blown

against your skin
you gazed
at her ribboned hair
her blue eyes

then she faded
and was gone
just the nosey woman
giving you a stare

not knowing
your little Jewish friend
had come and gone
and was no longer there.

brought back by an old greeting
of warm breath and soft skin
the hay-filled scent of childhood yearning
fulfilled once more
by the slender elegance of a whiskered muzzle
a place of sacred worship
where every sorrow was once laid to rest
from those beloved younger years
oh, how easily forgotten this place was
how swiftly it became tainted
by the red passing of first love
for the place that once guarded sanctuary
became a district of grief
yet here the fantasy of little girls is awakened once again
where the shrine of golden tenderness
rests anew within the eyes of a horse