Pious old man
Reading the Quran
Always watching skies
For non existing storms

His daughter, my aunt
Silent like a pond
Longing for her child
Sitting next to her

Her husband, a martyr
Captured in a frame
But surely his soul
Floats somewhere around

Their daughter, a mum
Peaceful like a dove
A physician in love
With some plants and seeds

Her daughter, a child
Curly nasty hair
Annoying as hell
Innocent as dawn

Her son, a school boy
Hungry like a crowd
Surrounded by books
Distracted by clouds


And me.
                   *(doing poetry)

Rain comes down,
Heavy as ache, wet as blood,
Makes dirt sound
That shatters ground and mood
Drumming onto leaves.

Rain scabs earth,
Murky as love, dark as wound,
Sprinkles the cold
Forest that smokes out light,
Sun smothers into moon.

Rain races down,
No things seem to matter much,
Creatures disembodied
Come and go in lazy rushes
Even heart withholds.

Rain cleanses not
And there is no sky these days
For flights so empty,
Lost in the faraways of nows,
Sun blots away by moon.

if ever there were
gods or goddesses of desert
of the drylands
of parched earth some call home
they would be surprised to learn
                     of the miracle of
                           this Spring deluge
                                unfurling forth                
                            from deep within  
                        the crusty dermis
          of this sublunar territory:
          hydrangea and ***** apple flower,
          intermingling their hues
          of mauve and lilacs,
                              as well as the color of sky
                               blooms of the succulents
                    popping open
                    in celebratory dance
                                   in wild fuschia
                                sunray butter:
a dazzling botanic trance
          hollyhocks of magenta,
           veils of bougainvellia, too
                    sweetpea clusters
             curling in the trellis
weaving heavy-scented magic
through and through
a private orchard of lemon tree, and apple
olive and pistachio grove
One would not guess
the endless giving
of this desert treasure trove

And I feel like a goddess
              of mythology softly spun
like Demeter, or Ceres
ancient Egyptian Renenutet
my hands spread out
in the licks of gentle sun
for as spring pours forth its honey
all through this barren land
I , too reawake
and flush out all the infected,
dust-scratched sand
I welcome in
the waters of abundance,
of love, of light under stars
let new energy wash out
old poisons
my radiance spilling far
Reaching out unto the Universe,
cradling this heart
         I cup the buds of blooms,
                                      of nectar
to inseminate my dark
       allowing me
to release the past
and seed within me, lit
         the atoms
of  new
               start
unfolding bit
by tender
bit

I wake in this city
This city that didn't bear me
This city that didn't raise me
And yet it's this city that i seek to find something of me
Not in the pubs or the clubs or the karaoke bars
Where revelers conspire to dream and drink to the stars
Nor the cafes where poets and artists in a foreign language create.
Pass the market stalls where secondhand books and vinyls are stacked like freight
It is to the quietened streets of the old town I go
Where i long for the walls to speak once more
To reveal their hidden histories
To help fashion some sense of a man
One unknownst to me, my fathers father whose name I share
A fine skilled seamster, thus a tailor by trade
Not arriving to this city for work on fabrics of nylon and silk
But to stitch and sew the flesh of limbs in a paramedic corps
Another pawn of the Great War under King George's command
Driven only by economic necessity from a penal homeland
Not of conscription, politics or some moral conviction at play
For the price of neutrality is one that poverty simply refuses to pay
Returning home to an Ireland of hostility or silence at best
Medals now lying deep in pockets not proudly pinned to chests
Irish heroes don't fight in a British war for a King's crown
No such stories from father to son shall ever pass down
And now, a grainy photograph, three medals for a sons son to take
A dog tag that bears my name, a number and RC to depict a faith
From a man exiled in his home as a forgotten prisoner of war
To honour a legacy i find myself in this city afar
Asking the same questions of him as to me
Is this city the last place he truly felt free?

I want to slice open this blanket of illusion
that seems to coat
reality the way the night sky should,
because here it thrives:
pouring over the lit up city and it's cable lines,
in the iPhone 7's
and the moving wallpapers,
in the water (soda) that I drink everyday,

I feel it in the wasted seconds that tick on by,
the petty, whines
of shady drawn, stick figures
surrounding me, it feels like
sickeningly sweet, sticky fingers from having pried open
a can of sugar coated lies,

like a dollar bill floating upon
the wind,
my high pitched giggle is snatched by blaring car horns
swallowed by an adolescent's carelessness,
stomped on by the
cross guard transporting kids and air across the cracks
in the sidewalk,

I can feel it underneath my drooping eyelids,
how they
beg for truth (or sleep) in the middle of the night,
when I can't seem to get the **** math problem done,
in the slouching of my back on my
black, duct taped chair, for we all know
it is duct tape that holds you together these days,

I flail around with words and colors
flashing in my mind, showing on my skin,
I try to stick my earbuds in
and blast pretty worlds across the scenery,
but even then until the very end
the illusion doesn't go away...
and I still feet so empty and sweet,
kind of like bleach
being poured
into a cake batter,

and so on I dance and writhe through each day,
still feeding myself poison disguised as
comfort food,
still covering reality with
the blanket of illusion,

still complaining of my stomach ache,
and claiming that for some people,
nothing will ever be enough.