Hello old friend
Step across the door and have coffee with me.
It’s been so long since we have talked.
Sit at my table and I’ll get the cups,
How many sugars do you take?
Ah I remember, black, you still haven’t changed.
Now what brings you to this part of town?
You’re usually prolonged at the hospital seeing the sick.
All in good time I suppose.
Won’t you let me take your coat, and let us sit by the fire?
I have caught an awful draft in this kitchen.

Sit here and ill throw another log into the fire,
I can’t believe you wouldn't let me take your coat
The temperature will soar in a moment.

You were always a man of few words,
So I guess I’ll talk.
It’s been a long year
The days have worn like the shoes of the drifter
This has left me feeling ragged.
Many acquaintances I once had have passed in to the life after
And has left me a lonely old soul
But the sickness hasn't found my bed yet.
And I have my health to look forward to.

My friend I find it quiet rude
To sit in the house of a friend and not speak.
What keeps your tongue?
Conversations are no good to be one sided.

****, where must this draft enter from?
It has followed from the kitchen
And cut through the warmth of the fireplace,
And found the tips of my toes and fingers.
You look pale. Are you sick?
Have you come down with the sickness?
You must leave if you have
For I do not wish to pass from this life!

I am not your friend, I do not know you.
I come because it is your time.
You see you are not in the good health you feel
You must realize that you are dead and I am your keeper.

You're out of my reach
you're thoughts are no longer my home
you're here yet i feel so alone
who are we fooling?
who are we fooling, when the silence is a barrier we cant overcome
i've loved them all; all but one
you'd always be the first at my door
now you're the last to know when im on the floor
you passed me up, and i let you go

I’ve had it.
You’re so oblivious.
It must be deliberate.

I’ve been waiting
For you to see me,
Pay attention.

But now

I’ve had it.
Your jokes aren’t funny.
They’re old and tired.

And soon

You’ll realize
That what was good,
You could’ve had it.

So please

Spare me.
I’ve had as much as I can stand.
My time is precious.

And now

You broke this camel’s back.

There's a party going on upstairs,
your invited, to come and have a scare.
H.G. Wells, will meet you at the gate,
costumes required, hurry don't be late.

Vincent Price will be tonights D.J.
Halloween is his favorite Holiday.
He's spinning "Thriller", while dressed up as "Kiss".
Watching Claude Rains do the "Transylvania Twist".

Steve McQueen came dressed up as the "Blob",
he's serving up the zombie shish-ka-bobs.
Elsa Lanchester placed real bats within her hair.
While Marty Feldom keeps yelling "Frau Blucher".

At the stroke of the witching hour,
St. Peter amps up all the power.
A disco ball drops down from a cloud.
Out on the dance floor, forms a massive crowd.

Michael Jackson then leads them all in dance,
while Lon Chaney and Karloff take their chance,
to join the angels in harmony,
While "Monster Mash" is sang by Lugosi.

Even the Devil made it through the door.
He's the one sporting an Elvis pompadour.
So much fun is had by one and all,
at Heavens Annual Halloween Ball

It is December in Wicklow:
Alders dripping, birches
Inheriting the last light,
The ash tree cold to look at.

A comet that was lost
Should be visible at sunset,
Those million tons of light
Like a glimmer of haws and rose-hips,

And I sometimes see a falling star.
If I could come on meteorite!
Instead I walk through damp leaves,
Husks, the spent flukes of autumn,

Imagining a hero
On some muddy compound,
His gift like a slingstone
Whirled for the desperate.

How did I end up like this?
I often think of my friends'
Beautiful prismatic counselling
And the anvil brains of some who hate me

As I sit weighing and weighing
My responsible tristia.
For what? For the ear? For the people?
For what is said behind-backs?

Rain comes down through the alders,
Its low conductive voices
Mutter about let-downs and erosions
And yet each drop recalls

The diamond absolutes.
I am neither internee nor informer;
An inner émigré, grown long-haired
And thoughtful; a wood-kerne

Escaped from the massacre,
Taking protective colouring
From bole and bark, feeling
Every wind that blows;

Who, blowing up these sparks
For their meagre heat, have missed
The once-in-a-lifetime portent,
The comet's pulsing rose.

'We were killing pigs when the
Yanks arrived.
A Tuesday morning, sunlight
and gutter-blood
Outside the slaughter house.
>From the main road
They would have heard the screaming,
Then heard it stop and had a view of us
In our gloves and aprons coming
down the hill.
Two lines of them, guns on their
shoulders, marching.
Armoured cars and tanks and open jeeps.
Sunburnt hands and arms.
Unarmed, in step,
Hosting for Normandy.
Not that we knew then
Where they were headed, standing
there like youngsters
As they tossed us gum and tubes of
coloured sweets'

I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbors drove me home.

In the porch I met my father crying--
He had always taken funerals in his stride--
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand

And tell me they were "sorry for my trouble,"
Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four foot box, a foot for every year.