DRIVING A FERRARI INTO THE FUTURE

the house floated out of the darkness
as if it had been flying about in the fog
before perching on the mountain's side

the house was embarrassed
to be seen
in its ruin

this was the somewhere
she had come from
it now no longer existed

she felt that she too
no longer existed
an equation erased on a blackboard

she became naked
wearing only the lake
and moonlight

water flowed over her
like a silken garment
she the empress of this nowhere


only when she stood dripping
on the edge of this nothingness
did she feel the cold and shiver

the stars were like an atlas
of themselves...the Milky Way
reaching over a hedge...lapping the lake

time fell all about her
like a sudden rain
the seen and un-seen together

she drove her Ferrari into the future
leaving behind forever
the girl she once had been

HOW UNPLEASANT TO KNOW MR. CROW

"Hello!" said the crow.
"Hello?" I answered

thinking: ("Talking to crows
is a bit of a no-no?")

"Do I know you?"
I asked politely.

"I'm Ted Hughes' CROW
....you know!"

"I didn't know that!
I admitted.

"You look like every other crow there is to know."
I impolitely pointed out.

"Every crow is CROW!"
it pointedly pointed out.

"Say...something Ted Hughes-ish then!"
I challenged it.

"In the beginning was..."
"...scream!" crow screamed

and then a load of begatting
to give the Bible a run for its money.

Nothing and Never both begatted
to make crow.

It made me remember the only time
I had been in Mr. Hughes' presence.

One shift leading into another shift and yet another shift so that
it was falling with tiredness I was.

Was it on Thursday I was
to meet the girlfriend

on Friday Street or
Friday I...just didn't know no more.

Ted grasped the podium
with crooked  hands

as if he were Tennyson's EAGLE
or a Heathcliff grown old.

He glared down on me.
I trying not to fall asleep.

He like a cliff come alive
as if rocks could talk.

His words....CROW'S words.

Ted now
merging into the crow

gazing upon me as if
I were carrion.

Crow now losing his human voice.

His raucous caw
echoing inside my head

as he takes to the skies.

I should have listened to
what my mum said.

"Don't talk to strange corvids!"

THE BELL GOES FOR THE END OF HISTORY

her head all algebra
trigonometry and Heaney
and...boys...boys...boys

her mind crept
nearer & nearer...him
longing just to touch his...

she watched a trickle of sweat
make its way down his neck
imagined herself lick..ing...it...off

it is the end of WW1
thank heaven for that
she watches him....mmmm...stretch...yawn

his name surrounded
by doodled hearts and flowers
her first poem....ahem...HYMN TO HIM

she had eyes only for him
he had eyes only for Siobhan Winterson
she hated Siobhan Winterson

oh my God oh my God oh
he just looked. . .
. . .past me

oh please oh please oh please
look at me
he doesn't give her a second look

she cries herself asleep
dreams of him
requiting her unrequited love

years years later
two kids and a divorce later
HYMN TO HIM in a battered shoebox

she reads her
13 year old self
sobs her heart out

A GREAT HURT

your death hath done me a great hurt
the sharp blade of absence hath
pierceth my heart

Death speaks in italics
and an odd old fashioned diction
that's catching

all this hath & hath not
you present only
by your absence

day after day I have to live
your death...
...hath done me a great hurt

*

THE ORDER OF THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD.

I was remembering fragments out of this as by the waters of the Liffey I sat down and wept.

"MAN, that is born of a woman, hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.

In the midst of life we are in death. . .

Thou knowest, LORD, the secrets of our hearts. . .

FORASMUCH as it hath pleased Almighty God. . .

I HEARD a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Write. . ."

SCHRöDINGER'S SOCKS & THE REVENGE OF THE CAT

Schrödinger's cat
failed to see just what

all the fuss was
about?

It was all such
a reductive absurdum.

The cat couldn't understand
collapsing wave functions

decoherence
entanglement or whether

reality was really
quantum

to save its life.

It was aware of
one thing & one thing

only
. . .the diabolic device. . .

Cat in a metal box
with a Geiger counter

with a radioactive substance
blah blah de ****** blah

an atom decaying or something or
other &

releasing a hammer to smash
a phial of hydrocyanic acid.

Wot!

"I do not like thee Dr. Fell!"
thought the cat.

It was a very literary cat.

So all this palaver
about a cat( me? how! )

being both dead or alive or
neither dead or alive or

. . .wot!

So this is to be my great
to-be-or-not-to-be!

Welllll excuse me!
Say...doesn't the cat have his say?

So, I( clever cat that I am)
merely claw my way to the top &

disengage the device
by taking out the hammer.

So no cat was harmed
in the making of this

thought experiment.

It almost drove Schrödinger
out of his tiny little mind!

And he( hee hee )
never did discover

what ever
happened to his socks.

I forever stealing
one sock from a pair

from the open
washing machine.

Leaving him to ponder
just where socks go?

The other side of the Universe?
Oh come on Erwin...it's not

rocket science!

Now, to get back to
describing the behaviour of

a quantum entity.

"Mmmmm......mmmmmm?"

"Naw....I still don't get it!"

"Say ya couldn't see yer way
to giving me a scratch...could ya?"

"Up a bit....upabit....yeah...yeah
. . .there...just...there!"

"AN ETERNIday. . ."

The lost Tarot card
doesn't know what to do.

it hadn't foreseen
getting lost &

finding itself
drowning in a puddle

as big as a lake
or so it seemed.

It smiled at the irony of
it being

a card of water
and moon

and the little boy
who will grow up

to be me
falls in love

with its
mystery.

The small boy doesn't know
it is a Tarot card.

Only that
the beautiful woman

pours eternity
from a jar

and that it  
flows through

every atom
of his being.

Right now she is
drying out

in summer sun
and curling

up at her
edges.

She leaves in the mouth
of a passing dog

who snaps
her up.

The boy's tears
chasing her

into
the forever.

THE MUSEUM OF THE MIND

"Has anyone seen
my memories..?"

she'd ask in a faded voice
worn about the edges.

"I've lost all of
1963!"

As if 1963 were
something one could lose

down the back of the sofa
or leave out on the rain.

We all knew her
memories-off-by-heart

and so could always
replace them if she lost them.

We were her prompters
she the great actress

floating across whatever stage
of her life she chose to be.

We'd drip feed her
a word or two here and there

and she'd be off...lost
somewhere in 1963

as if it were a place
one could be at will

if one wanted to be
a cut price holiday destination

she a tourist
of herself.

"Did I ever tell you when..?"
she began

and we'd always say: "Why, no..!"
and listen to her again

be a girl
of seven

and 1963
was hers to have

forever and
forever.