I tried
to throw it out
along with the bubbles,
the yellow duck,
and the knickers the dog crudely
chewed

pushed it amongst silled plants,
now it stands,
between Thick Cut Marmalade
and Chlorine Free Baking Cups
a token, painted green with white
Maori dots, symbolizing
the small dreamings
of a tortoise
                                                    
and since this house
is my body, see
how I have placed you
in the kitchen

and I cannot get beyond,
the simple meaning,
of daily needing
love like water, air

and how I don't seek
to see it fully
yet often find myself
checking if its there.

There they were,
all shining
clear
and see-through
plastic
the hole’s on top
like the Pantheon
in Rome
all open to the skies
the flies
the opaque yellows and pinks
mangoes and pineapples
with names like
rasbamango and applefluff
people walked accessorized
cups in hand
brains frozen
from the combination of low fat
probiotic,
bionic yoghurt and fruits
that could never, ever
have grown in Connemara.

It is far from ******* ordinary
the music,the traffic
this full moon.

you were a jungle bird
in high heels,colourful clothes
the rest were black crows
jaundiced beaks,
mean souls.

10/12/2008, FOOD

Tom Yum Soup
how you held my hand
growled in hunger
how I didn't know
if we were a couple

15/12/2008 FOOD

how happy I was
to convince you to diverge
from healthy eating
to Vanilla cream and wafers


21/12/08 MISC

a tinsel hoop
and drawing pins
for a sock to hold
a chocolate reindeer
to your door

02/01/09
new year
we were a couple no more

The clouds threw down
three veils of rain, married the sea
made witnesses out of you and me
and later I, in the silent room
said nothing,
and sat and stared
at the bowl at the top of the dresser
thinking of her hands,  in flour, 
the regular comfort of her bread.

I had the good fortune
to visit it twice,
the first time
it was like the Marie Celeste,
dark with blue doors
and old coffee dregs shining on the base
of deserted mugs,
a full perfume bottle of Narcissus
glowed on a mildewed window,
for shame I thought , sketches,
letters, catalogues
all congealed together
in sodden shop boxes

I wasn't supposed to be there

then again in a dream,
all the walls were dark pink
and shelves were filled with treasure
trinkets for sale, I stopped at a pair
of silver earrings
and crystaline figures
that danced in unison
gold and black drawings
hung the walls of a bedroom
with roses for a carpet
a melancholy light
stilled the air, I wondered
how in god's name
did he fit there,
that tiny bed

I paused here,
others came in.

standing like my father
staring into nothing
no, not nothing
usually something
boiling,
spuds , the kettle,
water.

swirls of pollyfilla
with the texture of halva
and osais, the green stuff
florists stick flowers into,
birds wouldn't nest in it.

She was as crazy as a Norse horse
with a wild bleached mane and madeyes,
always willin to do anythin for ya
with a ''come on then''
her moods would drive you insane,
wrenching compassion and anger from your heart in equal parts,
spewing venom when talking of her ma,
it would hurt to listen,  yet it was easy to see this sulphuric froth
as just rage being rage.
In her kitchen she concocted over spilling potions
banana and coconut breads, her time was your time,
her table always spread, with baskets and jars,
Valerian by the bottle she sculled to help sleep,
baskets with moss and golf *****, Scottish tat in a heap
and beliefs, worn and threadbare like the carpets
in her tiny,  orange doored flat
with a gerbil called ***** and a hamster called pat,
and dear wee Jamie who spouted that Halloween mantra ''crap bat''
we filled and hung balloons with sweets and let the kids skewer
the hell out of them, it rained chocolate in the corridor for weeks,
and that is what I loved about her madness,
is that it dived and it did, and it speaked

would we sit across from one another on trains
with bars of purple Cadburys
chocolate, squared by your large gentle hands

one bottle of luminous Rock Shandy between us
my crubeen feet cocooned in skin coloured tights,
now lodged between your legs, a gesture as natural
as our growing years, would this be
companionship at its best?

Here the people are the landscape,
their gestures the missing trees
I've had GOD BLESS YOU, shouted at me , and three date requests,
and it hasn't even hit 9.30 AM yet
This is LA
where the homeless are quick pilgrims to your heart
and where men polish stars,
on the streets.

The story of you is a picture to my ears
of you being a bit of a pup,
wearing headphones to mass,
driving the same priest mad
who later showed you how to play a bodhran in an empty church.

Imagine the happening of it
of you, standing in an empty field
looking at a well, wondering hard
how the water got to be there
or your eyes circling wider
in memory of seeing
and touching girls yonis for the first time
                              
you'd say “Ah Mam,
I don't want to go to Greaney's for shoes”
was Mr Greaney's dark and cold
with shelves packed thick with damp boxes,
white labels marking styles and sizes,
N for navy, B for brown, brogues, sensible,
that would have all the boys in school laughin at ya,
your ma pressin ******* the toes
to make sure you've a bit of room to grow into?

you talked to me late at night,
of young ones and of passing the seed.

Absentmindedly
I foreplay with nature
and finger the air, contemplate
that even the bananas
appear to be spooning
while two oranges,
nestle in their woven
straw pod,for heavens sake!
even the pink pan and brush set
are celebrating their design
of fitting, matching,belonging,
together,and those ivory bowls
see, how one is carried,
the other sheltered,
and dont get me started
on the shoes, the boots
the pairs,oh my god
the pairs...

I wanted to send
an X,
equidistant
from four corners like

two swords
crossed, a stitch
on a blue screen

a multiplication
of nothing
no sweet thing flanking
its side's

just one X

loud

Twas there they convened
framed by a doorway
a triangular composition
with gods light shining
on their grey and balding heads.
an oratio ad contemplatio
of an evening.

6 o clock dandelion
fluffy wish wand fairy dusters
filled the fields where
wild flowers fizzled
over a rough green sky.

Sometimes
I imagine,
low flying gulls
pilfering dreams
then selling them
on Leith walk
for 1.50.

when I see newly

vacum packed, black
plastic haystacks

two things
come to mind

that they look
like fair smoked

round Gubbeen
cheese's and would Monet

have ever painted them?

I was shocked then excited, when she came to the door
asking, have ya got any food for me or maybe somethin more?

so I ran to the kitchen, skipping my feet
wondering what in gods name a traveller would eat

kidney beans, coconut milk, marmalade, rice
so unsure I was, I had to think twice

so I settled on tomatoes, relish and canned
and ran up the hallway with both in my hands

well, she opened her bags and I popped the stuff in
making stupid remarks about taste buds and tins

and I wanted to chat to her and I wanted to gawk
but she looked right and left, and then she was off.

a Moroccan lamp hangs
like a bee's eye glowing,
Kate Bush adds honey
I have red finger nails,toes
black net stockings
and four posts, I dance around
this large room alone
no one knows this shape
and shake, of my ***, I pull cards
Acceptance, Divine Order
Magdalene, Love
a foamy green yoga mat
is my runway strip for energy
the rest is used for mopping,
sweeping,grinding floors.

Let's
get up earlier
witness more mornings like these
before breakfast

collect as many symphonies in our hearts
as we can, be like the sun
touching surfaces

lets catch glimpses of tiny fat birds
sunbathing on high wires,
be like cars sheathed
in crusted ice,
waiting to be born into tones
of different colors
by the warmth of the coming day

let's awaken to the crunch
of a silent frost of a morning

and sing.

grant me the awareness so that i don't call my ex '*******'
after parting painfully on a street
that i don't waste my energy conniving ways
to hurt him even more,
amongst which include
rotten texts
returning gifts,
imagining his feelings finding them
on his front steps
in a bag,
that i pull the plug, fuel and batteries
on fantasies that include obliterating him from my
life forever in one
big, jabby
sweep.

love letters on facebook are just not the same
many years later you'll search not in vain
for pieces of paper all crumpled and spent
to remind you of lovers that all came and went
now its all passwords and clicking on keys
how can there be any mystery while we scroll through our LED histories?
what's happened to pondering, to stories absorbed
where is the space in this illuminated world?
space to leave letters under dark beds
or maybe deep recesses in the back of our heads
space to understand a beginning and an end
space to let go of a magic weekend
space to know what's gone is gone,
when to shove that box away,when its time to move on...

These sporadic
slow white
flakes fall
like a shower
of ash
in a town
with no Vesuvius

in the black swamps of Coill Bhearna
dead trees wore tights of patterned ivy

and in a passing spotlight of sun,
some moss, gave an outstanding performance.

Grey faced, wearing all black,
I thought you were mad
lisping spitty words to yourself
till you revealed the rosary.

                                      
You muttered,
“I thought it would stop raining,
they said it would, you’d want
to go early to get a whole
day out of it, and
did you hear of the bomb
 in Dublin, Our Lady in Achill said it
was our prayers that stopped it”.

When you are gone
I will miss you
I will miss your difficulties and the issues that surround you
Your troubled past,
will be a vacant gap,
no longer something to troubleshoot

I will miss counting wine bottles
in your car, behind doors, in corners,
under chairs,
All of this, I will miss

I will miss the size of you
Your small blond head, almost,
but never fully
leaning on my chest, I will miss,
your tentativeness

I will miss your slurred words and glazed eyes and the sight of you seeking respite, in liquids,
gold and white
Your hands shaking, and my heart breaking
Yes, all of this, all I had of you
I will miss

showering love in your direction
is like throwing seeds at the wind

never resting, never taking root
no flowering heads ever to greet me.

we walked together
for a while

himself around eighty
on bad legs

me, twenty seven
wearing cheap red
shoes

both of us, precarious 
on wet autumn
leaves.

my life is like this, she said


and she tore a sheet of paper


and threw the pieces in the air.

serve food
with broken hearts

pack shelves
with broken hearts

take your order and smile
with a broken heart

remember this
while your curled in bed

the door closed, your back
to the world.