Predator killed wife;
Long back, he killed mother too;
Earth is no garden

Squirrel, at window,
Fearful of the heavy rain;
I, fearful of both.

At every sunset
A long queue for the burger;
The stomach is damaged.

Someone is knocking,
The old familiar friend; oh,
My Christmas welcome

Newspaper again?
The harbinger of sadness;
Don't get in, get lost

Bombs, best medicine,
Pours into hospitals and
The richest thank God

I must get down to the injured,
Groaning , but unheard of in the cacophony of vehicles,
And waisted in stony-heart men,
Who, like ******, let the blood ooze out
And brush away the whining.

I must get down to my little son,
Waiting at the school gate,
And I, like a crazy father,
Can't help stopping to receive him.

I must get down to the maimed,
And that's the work of a prophet,
And forget my son, and I know
A little bit wait will make him
What I'm today with this man

I was never born to be great;
I never believed it was my fate.
Not like the Beatles,
Who wrote the songs
That live with us all life long.
I wasn't here to invent
A vaccine to prevent laments,
Or destroy dementia,
Or unveil the answer
That cancels cancer.
I'm not up on investments
That provide the cash to crash hunger,
Or house the homeless and usurp anger.
No I'm not a man of wonder.
Yet, if you ask someone who knows me,
A child of mine, for one,
They'll correct my every regret,
And remind this man,
Lest we forget.

Brigid was born on a flax mill farm,
Near the Cavan border, in Monaghan,
At Lough Egish on the Carrick Road,
The last child of the Sheridans.
The sluice runs still near the water wheel,
With thistles thriving on rusted steel.
What's known of Nellie's early years?
Da died before she knew grieving tears,
But her eyes will burn in later years.
She's eleven posing with her class,
This photo shows an Irish lass.
Her visage blurred,
Her eyes look distant,
Yet recognizable
In an instant.
She attended school for six short years,
The three R's, some Irish,
With a Doctorate in tears.
Her Mammy grew ill,
She lost a leg,
And bit by bit,
By age sixteen,
Nellie buried her first dead.
Too young to be alone,
Sisters and brother had left the home.
The cloistered convent took her in,
She taught urchins and orphans
About God, Grace and sin.
(There were no vows for Nellie then.)
At nineteen she met a Creamery man,
Jim Lynch of the Cavan clan;
He delivered dairy from his lorry,
Married Nellie
To relieve their worry.
War flared up, and men were few,
A Coventry move would surely do.
(and thistles bloomed as they grew.)
Nellie soon was Michael's Mammy,
Then Maura, Sheila and Kevin were carried.
When war floundered to its end,
They shipped back to Monaghan,
To work the flax mill again.
The thistles and weeds
That surrounded the mill,
Were scythed and scattered
By Daddy's zeal.
He built himself a generator.
And powered the lights and the wheel.
Sean was born,
Gerald soon followed;
Then Michael died.
A nine year old,
His Father's angel.
(Is this what turns
A father strange?)
Francie arrived,
Then Eucheria,
But ten months later
Bold death took her.
Grief knows no family borders
For brothers and sisters, sons or daughters.
We left for Canada.
Mammy brought six kids along,
Leaving her dead behind,
Buried with Ireland in familiar songs.
Daddy waited for our family,
Six months before Mammy got free
From death's inhumanity.
Her tears and griefs weren't yet over,
She birthed another son and daughter;
But Jimmy and Marlene left us too.
Death is sure,
Death is cruel.
Grandchildren came for Little Granny,
Brigid, Nellie, her names are many.
She lived this life eduring pain
That mothers bear,
Mothers sustain.
And yet, in times of personal strain,
I may invoke her one true name:
                            "Mammy."