If I can unwind
the strings of your heart
and pull them until
your heart pulls apart
and looks like a nest
blown down from a tree
then I will say yes
if you still want to be.  x

There once was a world
that stood on it's head

and wriggled and jiggled
and shook out the dead

and shook off the living
and all of their stuff

'til nothing was left
in it's pockets but fluff,

'til nothing was left
but a world upsidedown

that shakes in the wind
as it's spinning around

like a ragged old lady
with thin and threadbare

clothing she's no
longer willing to share..

On the day
her body burned
she asked the
winds to be
her friends
and they
picked her
up and poured
her through
the fingers of
their hands
like a river
without ending
that won't
be tied or
bound, until
every trace of
dust embraced
the freedom it
had found.

When my years are
stretched thin like elastic

that is at breaking point
or just past it

I'll be glad that I keep
my best memories deep

in the grooves
of a black slab of plastic.

I used to think
that solitude would suit me

and on my soul
I wore it like a glove

until the day
your poetry seduced me

and turned it
into loneliness my love...

When I am old
and still alive
like embers in the ashes I
will burn the hands
of all who try
to tidy up too soon...

Do you remember
that midwinter night
the one with ice
in the air
the one that
we burned
until it
turned white
that nobody
else could
stand near
do you remember
the dance of
the slender
flames as they
tortured the cold
when they
were done
you glowed
like the sun's
tongue had been
licking
your soul.

In the end
it pulls
free of
its chain
and settles
inside like
a flame
and my
only concern
is how
long will
it burn
before I
have chained
it again

She heard him on the ceiling
slowly sliding off the wall,

sinking, gently spilling empty
promises to break his fall,

she listened for their landing
and they landed everywhere

and she gathered them like corpses
and she burned them, then and there...

He cast off his clothes
and his soul he laid bare
as he knelt with his nose
to the floor in prayer
then someone mistook
his crack for a rack
and parked the front wheel
of their bicycle there...

I believed a life of solitude would suit me
and mostly it has suited me a treat
but when my tongue is bitten raw
in the company of others
I feel so ******* lonely
I could weep
.

There's beauty in words,
but often I find
more in the ones I have heard
than in mine;

more in the sound
of the ones I have read,
than those at the tip
of the tongue in my head..

The night
sky spills
past and
fills the store
beneath with
pools of
blue shadow
and silence,
they are all
there, the
books, on
the shelves,
waiting
ready to drop
like Sundance
and Butch
making good
their escape,
if only I'd
seen how
they'd been
squeezed
in I could
liberate them
all, wrong
verb (perhaps),
but.....
     ...... what
use will be
tomorrow's
sunrise
with no
book to read
by it's light ?

When the water is warm in July
beneath the Merseyside sky
he sets down his Pimms
and goes for a swim
on his back to keep his nuts dry.

Free flow the waters
of the river passing by,
though we thought
we'd caught her sleeping
when we heard their lullaby,
and though
with a thousand bridges
we bound her where she lay
still her waters pass like lifetimes
and we watch them slip away.

He'd been closing more doors
than the ones they'd agreed,

so she emptied the drawers
and she readied to leave,

when he asked her for why
she said look at that sky,

that's the breathing space
my lifetime needs.

Even the bones
she throws clenched
he thanks her for...

A certain song the sea wind knows
it sends thru puckered lips,

like kisses blown, across the bows
of drowsing sailing ships;

and stirs their sleepy sails
from their slumber with it's tune,

unfurls their folded petals
and brings them back in bloom.

Prayer Before Birth (1944) - Poem by Louis Macneice


I am not yet born; O hear me.
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the
club-footed ghoul come near me.

I am not yet born, console me.
I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,
with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me,
on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.

I am not yet born; provide me
With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk
to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light
in the back of my mind to guide me.

I am not yet born; forgive me
For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words
when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me,
my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,
my life when they ****** by means of my
hands, my death when they live me.

I am not yet born; rehearse me
In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when
old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains
frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white
waves call me to folly and the desert calls
me to doom and the beggar refuses
my gift and my children curse me.

I am not yet born; O hear me,
Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God
come near me.

I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my
humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,
would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with
one face, a thing, and against all those
who would dissipate my entirety, would
******* like thistledown hither and
thither or hither and thither
like water held in the
hands would spill me.

Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.
Otherwise **** me.



Louis Macneice

Age
discovered
a heavy
door
and gently
pushed
to look
inside
and as
it looked
it pushed
some
more
and I
ran out
of time
to hide

Leaning on the grass
like the late September breeze,

she traces as a path,
the pattern pressed into my knees

to where the lines are thickest,
finds my fondest memories,

and softly drops her kisses
like the falling autumn leaves.

There once was a man
with the gravest of frowns,

hung like a ham
by the folk of his town

who wanted to see
if his sad mouth might be

any happier turned upsidedown ..

She smashes mirrors

and watches them spill

over their edges

and onto the floor

like tiny glass tears

not birds, but still

she smashes mirrors

she's looking for more ....

She traced
the patterns pressed
by the grass
into my knees

with gentle lips
and fingertips
as light as
falling leaves...

The world was at her feet the day
she knelt upon its promised ground

expectant, waiting for the meek's
inheritance to be passed round,

with patience and the dead she waited
wondering as years grew old

if her lifetime had been wasted
on the stories she'd been told.

She continues
her struggle
of keeping them in
but they're
starting to bubble
up over the rim
of the dam
when it breaks
the flooding
will make
such a wonderful place
to swim.

Under my skin
and my bones is a room
nobody visits
nor anyone see's

it's dark and it's cool
and it's mine and the rules
like the gaps in it's walls
are governed by me;

comfortably safe
by myself in this place,
a question persistently
troubles my sleep

has all the pretence
that's been it's defence
saved me or left me
buried too deep.

She grew tired
of having to hide
from her need
to look deeper outside

so she struck up a match
and she burned
down all of her prisons
and never returned.

I once
met a man
with a thousand
yard stare

and a club
in his hand
in Trafalgar Square

and the blood
on his club
matched the blood
in my hair

one fine and fair
morning in spring;

Snow (January 1935) - Poem by Louis Macneice

The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.

World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.

And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes –
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one’s hands –
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.


Louis Macneice..

Each time
he opened up
she took a part of him
and kept it for a bullet

each time
he opened up
he waited ...
...expectantly

and was disappointed

but in the end
because it was the end
she opened up too

with every bullet
she'd saved

until his screams
burned remorse
in to her eyes..

I could do nothing
else but stop
and step inside
this blessed shop
to breathe again
the heady air
of knowledge that
is stacked in here
on quiet shelves
in dusty lines
of books that would
look nice on mine
but I have spent
my money so
I'll just choose one
and quietly go.

Shhhhh!

This morning at daybreak
and half awake still
he bundled his memories
on to a stretcher
and carried them up atop
Cothelstone hill
and sorted them through
for the moment he met her;

the memories bandaged,
the ones with bruised limbs,
he laid on the heather
like hospital beds
but the one of their first kiss
he threw to the wind
and asked the wind's help
for to help him forget..

Moonbeams tread softly

on shining wire   

death waits

haunting shadow

hoping for cloud

and an unfortunate sole

to step forward..

Autobiography (september 1940) - Poem by Louis MacNeice

In my childhood trees were green
And there was plenty to be seen.

Come back early or never come.

My father made the walls resound,
He wore his collar the wrong way round.

Come back early or never come.

My mother wore a yellow dress;
Gentle, gently, gentleness.

Come back early or never come.

When I was five the black dreams came;
Nothing after was quite the same.

Come back early or never come.

The dark was talking to the dead;
The lamp was dark beside my bed.

Come back early or never come.

When I woke they did not care;
Nobody, nobody was there.

Come back early or never come.

When my silent terror cried,
Nobody, nobody replied.

Come back early or never come.

I got up; the chilly sun
Saw me walk away alone.

Come back early or never come..


Louis Macneice.

Using silence as the means
to express his dismay
he was going to make a statement
and say nothing all day
but his mother just assuming
he had nothing much to say
sent the silent revolutionary
back outside to play.
Outmaneuvered by his mom
and her total disregard
for his wild campaign of muteness
the rebellion fell apart
peaceful protest hadn't worked
he should have guessed right from the start
it makes no difference when you're quiet
if no-ones listening very hard.

They said  'Above us,
rising soon,

will be a shining
supermoon,

with the sharpest
shine for years'.

We raised our blinds.
The sky closed hers..

I've been watching
the band for
so long
I can dance
like I almost
belong
and I've learned
every word of
the song
but I'm ******
if I'm singing
along...

At the end
of the path
to the top
of the hill
through cloud
and the crowds
coming down
from it still
to the
twinkling stars
lit by
neon below
in the dusk
as a rust
coloured moon
says 'hello'
and rests
on his back
reflecting
with me
at the end
of the path
on the world
we both see.

your words
give me flight
like a child dreaming,

but childhood
dreams have all
of a lifetime to land,

silence rushes at me
as sharp and
as deep as grief.

Dark-eyed poet
in the long night
come and burn
your time with me
let's set our whole lives
on fire tonight
and breathe each other's
smoking dreams..

If by chance
your prayers be answered
ever, could I trouble you;

whilst your palms
be pressed together
and fair is fortune's mood;

could I trouble you to pray
there some time soon will come a day
your need of prayer is gone away,

without appearing rude?

There are those
who keep
their future rich
with uncertainty,
but Ive never
been more certain
of the one
that waits for me,
if I ever catch
Fate's finger
spelling out
whats going to be
then I'll wrench it
back to front
and start
re-writing history.

From the back
of a quiet
bookshelf
inside a dusty
***
she heard
her husbands breathing
rattle and
stop,
she heard
the bedside sorrow
in a tender kiss
farewell
then stirred her ash
with menace
and welcomed him
to hell