THE ONLY WAY OF LOOKING AT A BIRD

( "...it is an astonishment to be alive, and it behoves you to be astonished..." John Donne )

she looked at the bird
with all of her self
as if by some alchemy

of thought
she flew into
its shape

as it became the air
her mind opening
its wings to the sky

the house now
a little blue egg
far far below her

her voice curving
into a beak
that flung its being

into the song
of self
scrawled across a sky

becoming sunset
so that becoming
human again

was a grief
that could only be
expressed in birdsong


*


My little one being astonished when a bird came and stood beside her as just another friendly being. They both stood there looking at each other and then the bird flew away and her mind flew away after it.

A STITCH IN TIME

Memory
passes through
the eye of the needle

I purse my lips
coat the thread
with spit

ne eye
closed
one eye open

pass it like a baton
to my mother sewing
on  a loose button

the needle
a little silver fish
dashes in

and out
a frayed
shirt cuf

I walk down a street
in New York
as memory

whisks me back
to an Irish kitchen
a kettle whistling

and my mother cursing
"Ahhh son can you
thread that for me!"

COME ANOTHER DAY

"****...****..shishishi!"
whispers the rain
in Albanian



It sounds like "She...she...sheeee."

In Maltese it is....
xita which sounds an awful lot like "****...ahhh!"

In Korean it is bi which is pronounced "***."

I was trying to catch to the sound of rain falling on tatch and the Albanian came nearest.

Knowledge comes courtesy of a Maltese taxi driver.

Idioms for raining from other countries are something else!

In Irish we say "Tá sé ag caitheamh sceana gréasaí."
Or it is raining cobbler's knives!"

In Greece it is raining chair legs...

In Czech it is raining tractors...

In South Africa it is raining old women with clubs.

In Portugal, Brazil, and other Portuguese-speaking countries..."It's raining frogs' beards."

In Denmark it rains "shoemaker boys/shoemaker apprentices. In 1758 a shoemaker - Carl Jepsen - hurled three boys out the window from the 2nd floor for not doing their work properly. they all died)

Or nearer to the Irish:..."It's raining pocketknives,"

Now ya know



I know I know "cats and dogs' but I was going after ones I didn't know...that were common in those countries but surprising to us.

The poem I wrote about not having my grandfather's legs had the sheep talking in their own language of the countries they were found in so that started me off.

In Korea for example bees don't buzzbuzz buzz but rather go...get this...****. Ahhh isn't language a glorious thing so it is so it is.

"WHAT DE. . ?"

the chairs eyed each other up
suspiciously
each waiting for the other to make a move

the table just stood there
not wanting
to get involved

the painting
turned its face
to the wall

the window pretended
to look
outside

the door thought
it was an open &
shut case

the phone
went to say something but
changed its mind

"Tick..!" commented the clock
but never tocked
shut its mouth again

then the first chair
laughed
breaking the tension

the chairs
all amigos once again
thick as thieves

the room relaxed
the flowers smiled
the curtains danced with a breeze

". . .tock!" said the clock
almost
blue in the face

when I walked in
I could sense something had happened
that hadn't happened

the room said nothing
I looked at the room looking at me
the room stayed schtum

DEATH OF A PERFECT UNIVERSE

puddles
capture
stars

throw them
at our feet
where we with each

hurrying footstep
destroy each
perfect universe.

and now that
we have gone
(lovers eager to be home)

puddles
patiently
reform

wrestle stars to the ground
(trapped in the rain’s
shattered mirrors)

reflect yet
another
perfect universe

that trembles
at the approach
of a pair of bright

newly
red
stilettos

THE STORM OF 1929

he carves the storm
into the wood
gouging its very essence

so that when
the storm ceases
it exists still in memory

it comes alive again
the wood speaking
in the great wind's voice

wooden waves
crashing over
wooden rocks

a seagull captured
in two swift strokes
flies above it all

all who witness
his wooden storm
live it at first hand

his old hands
trap the storm
carves it into the mind

LIGHTLY CHILD LIGHTLY

the wind is reading
Aldous Huxley's ISLAND
dropped among the hollyhocks

the wind speed reads
skips entire sections
a fat fly walks over the title

an obese raindrop falls
upon the author's name then
another & another &. . .

ISLAND
turns to mulch
raindrops batter the book

it comes apart
at his touch
islands of words remain

"...two thirds of all sorrow
is homemade and so far
as the universe is concerned..."

the rest is lost
but he can fulfil the words
". . . unnecessary. . ."

now here at your grave
my fingertips trace
the curves of your name

as a lover might
trace the taut
muscles of a back

a ladybird pauses on
the H of Huxley
as if learning its letters

their metal inlay
glinting in the sun
"...it isn't a matter of forgetting..."

your words scattered
across the years
"...what one has to remember is..."

"...how to remember and yet
be free of

the past..."

I still grieve my lost book
eaten by the weather but
glowing in my mind

I laugh and tell your grave
"Give us this day our
Daily Faith but...

...deliver us
Dear God
from Belief."