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 Jun 2013
Seán Mac Falls
Startled ends, the consummation
Of hours, last days sparkle, begin,
I was made and I, was cast away,
Unsaved, born of oceans drowned
Pressures unwaved, unfounded
Yet strung alive, blood draining,
Torn inside and your voice, supple-
Clarion, your little hands roping mine
Subtle vines, tangled in unrest
Provisioned, sweet song, poison
Wined, what sorcerery, what shame
To forget ones grounded name,
To live, now only in shadow, sun
Only in shade where every room
Remains—
Empty, the golden light washed
Out in the seeping tides of ruin.
Though I was spent open, betrayed,
Always waiting, deaf hope listened
For deaths' floating midge of feathers
Drop, wish I never knew, never ran,
Came by you, never saw the mirrors
Ends, only wish for peace, day lights
Dull untold innocence.
 May 2013
Seán Mac Falls
Man of science,
Only sees what is there,
Wants to build the fence.

Man of religion,
Out of nothing sees everything,
Wants to envision the fence.

Man of philosophy,
Out of everything sees nothing,
Wants to sit on the fence.
 May 2013
Seán Mac Falls
I, round the brae of Howth in chalky light,
Lamented my lot more spent in sport than play.
There, land appeared disinterested and sight
Was a teary well.  Cold was the shivering day,
And my frame, a ghost of shadow, was erased,
It receded like the fog.  Just then, overhead
I saw brave birds engaged, a raptor traced
A mourning dove’s faltering flight, how it fed
Its own shining sense of purpose, for not
Wanton sport or lordly state do falcons
So hunt, nor did the bird in peril belabour
His reason, rather he tried avoiding those talons.
A question answered itself within my breadth,
Survival resides in a pageantry of death.
 May 2013
Seán Mac Falls
A hundred crows from all corners,
Flew into view, and whirled about,
As if the cracked earth set quaking,
As if the sky was tiding, sloe black,
What ominous undulations accrued,
What murderous tribulations due?
The very sound they made was tear,
Was tirade and all those black flecks;
Dark sparkles of sun, shadows of fear.
 May 2013
Seán Mac Falls
The heron spreads his wings and preys.
His stony stand a beachhead sloughing
The salt sea, a sepulchered wading.

Leaven the broken bred, unshell
The teeming waters, a fisher of mermen
Unlordly low this lying father,
His wings are palms,

His rock a mount, his wings a bay,
And deafness, tears in the outer shores
And exaulted seas the forgiven waves,

Swells the briny blood and kelp.
Vains are streaming to the fisher king,
Lordy he lands the lying father
His wings are psalms.

A tiny flood that arcs the sky
Marks lord in miniature, a King
Fisher flies, His wings are
The waters calmed.

The otters bask and preen, mermen
Jostle in the laddered rays of the sun
They mark their surf, insouciant play,

Wavering the fisher of men, he sways,
Simply they circle in song singing hours,
Dancing as do the murmuring waves,
Their strokes are psalms.
 May 2013
Seán Mac Falls
Beyond the massif peaks of Europa,
Above the ancient pillars of Heracles
Where rain and ocean are weaving,
Lays a fabled kingdom born of waves
And noble strands, my beaten hearts
Haunting, the lost, lush sylvan lands
Of Galicia.
                   Where Incomparable, dark
Haired women, mythic, of Amazonian
Fairness, side the valleys and moors
Of soon forgotten dreams and secretive
Wolves slide amongst warmed runnings
Of the ram and moans of ewe, where
Way bountiful seas are over spilling,
In octopus and pearly gemmed shells,
The scalloped pilgrimages unfolding,
Where incense burns with under stars
Encased, the lost Atlantean temples
Of Egyptian sands and storied Gaels,
The clad forests of wandering Titans,

Where snow white beaches end forever
Unmapped in told footsteps, castaway,
As was the magi gift of treasured yards,
Enlightenments, of old and golden isles
Pearling the coasts, sailing the sweet airs
Crossing Iberian gates, to Elysian, eternal,
Galicia.
 May 2013
Seán Mac Falls
"I shall welcome the majesty of the ******
Loam, the honour of being the daisies mantle
The goodly fortune to sleep under the golden
Stars who birthed my dream of grace and light.

World, ply my ship and sail it to the seas
Of love, poem and song, I was unworthy
Shaper and so, whereby cold fates decree—
Lay one, whose name is traced in vapour."
 May 2013
Seán Mac Falls
I saw a hunter by a country road,
In tandem with me he sailed as I drove.

His hoody-head set monkish to the soil
Conjured up music so soundful, sacred,
And I unmoving over a tired flesh—
Coloured vehicle felt naked and dead

For he so saintly robed and dressed to ****
In the colours of the sky prayed with wings,
My harrier, his eyes cleansed purity and gold
While mine unsightly piebald pale and blue.

But want of food dovetailed two craving
Creatures, yet, over fed I felt rusty
Below his steely hunger and what saving
Grace God might offer either mice or men.
 May 2013
Seán Mac Falls
Novice, heed my diction—
The learned, the schooled, the politic,
Are but fools with conviction.
 May 2013
Seán Mac Falls
Coastal mist and mountains blue as ache—
Troubled waters in midair, streaming across
Such mirage of openness and tangled range,
When will the gathering skies sing me aloft?
 May 2013
Seán Mac Falls
Backward-man loves his dog.
Ties him up before and after
His walks, likes to goad his pet
Too, speaking as the weather wails
And howls then dog looks down,
Sad on his master dumbfounded.
A chain is worn as it scrapes
The ground connecting dog
To his master.  They both love
The sound of it hissing as it strikes
The concrete pathways, sometimes
Man and dog feel free, not a part
Of each other, the chain may break,
And fear is for forks in the road,
The rusty pockmarked grip of his links
Have always been there on walks
Ahead and behind though it makes
Things confusing as if in a dance
And sometimes they wonder which way
They might end up after all—
And when the dark and golden
Rope, as always, is finally tied
To some old fruit tree, the man
Is happy his dog has both sun
And shade, but also has joy watching
Dog beg for ripe apples he cannot
Reach.  Some people might come
To think that dog thinks those apples
Are not for eating.  Everyone loves
Fruit, don't they?

Backward-man built his dog
A house as cold as a three-
Storied barn, out of things
He could not afford, things much
Too good for dog to not care
About, maybe man built dog's
House for himself, he cannot
Really impress his dog.
Backward-man likes to think
He knows what dog is saying.
Barks and whimpers have deep
Meanings, 'world is a good place,'
Dog says, but when pooch says,
'World is cruel,' crying, disobedient
Whines gets him a serious kick
Out of old anger from backward-
Man.  And man can be a hell-
Hound on his own, the way
He twists and unravels the things
He needs, like truth and food
And love— that goes without
Saying for backward-man hates
His woman, but loves his dog.
 May 2013
Seán Mac Falls
In the dark room
Sparks fire—
Whispers of the sun
And silence blankets the sky,
I was born amongst the ruins
Of gentleness and wounded love,
By the dug kurgans of the Amazon,
The brands of rains ever burning
And foils of hope, fated, turning,
An outer beast eyes and howls,
The merciless stars ever sweep
And cowl in coldest sparkle flame,
Merest minded words, fainted, stab,
Drop in the down volumes of space
Evaporating under the brooding
Mortal emptiness.
 May 2013
Seán Mac Falls
Snowy white and blue,
Mountains behind crow alone,
  .  .  .  Winter still appears.
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