BAREFOOT

I follow the road
of my father’s voice

journey with him
along white roads...over green fields

barefoot
to school & back

(shoes if at all...worn only to church)

picking up the cuts & scabs
stubbed toes

his going to school
would entail

in the early years of the 1920’s
only so much history to me

real
to him

his toes
knowing the wind
in the grass

for what it is

his toes
clasping a rock
fording a stream

Irish & poems
bubbling through his head

babbling along
the tongue

words thrown to
those lost summer skies

startling a blackbird
spouting his poetry

with poetry
of his own

(3 miles to school...3 miles back)

his mind a skimmed stone
dancing along a river

over unforgiving
stones

thorns attacking his feet
with undisguised relish

the vehemence of glass
glinting greedily

for the next footstep

the menace
of the twisted rusty nail

& its treachery
betraying the next footfall

as he walks over
the unremitting years

into my eyes
wide with wonder

listening to him
tell of himself

as a little boy

to his little boy
the me of then

my eyes now

following the road
of my father’s voice

as it wanders
barefoot

LISTENING TO LIZ

( for Liz Berry )

We all felt
as if our collective mind

had fallen
and grazed a collective knee

so to speak
and that Miss Berry

with her lovely Dudley accent
would say" "Oh and did you fall

you poor little thing?"

And we all wailed: "Yes...
yes...we falled!"

And Miss Berry soothed so
our mind that

we felt better
just because of her

mind gently so gently
touching our mind

tears drying on our collective face
as she read

and that she was the best teacher
we would always forever remember.

SCATTERED DREAMS

Whenever I fell
asleep

my father came
cupped me in his hands

carried me to bed

as if I were as precious
as water

in a hot dry land

or draped like discarded clothing
on a couch...in a garden
on a bench or a beach

I would be gathered up

& awake to find myself
back in the safety of my own bed.

And I would have thought
I had flown

or being magically
transported by a spell

but it was only
the ordinary

magic of my father

cradling me
in his arms

gathering up the littlest
of my scattered dreams

stroking my hair

& tip-toeing backwards
out of the room

his voice
full of tenderness

casting a spell

“Good night son...goodnight...goodnight.”

BECOMING MY WORDS...

I've been so many
Donall Dempseys

it's hard to remember
which one is which.

Every time I arrive
at a different me.

All this making and
unmaking me

to greet the next
moment I am to be.

Death, I guess
will be a holiday

from myself
the new me I'll never see.

Ahhhh, as Walt once said:

"If you want me again look for me
under your boot-soles."

Hopefully one day
I shall become

my words only
only my words.

NEW YORK STATE OF MIND

Walt Whitman
walks by me
somewhere in 1891

I nod to him...he nods to me
lost in himself
Clinton is being inaugurated

Brooklyn Bridge
saunters by
dressed in the summer of '67

the subway
wears its best graffiti
the music of trains and Coltrane

the Flatiron Building is jaywalking
the Empire State
chats him up

a child's hopscotch
almost washed away
a moment's masterpiece

Robert Moses
looks across Long Island
longs to build the city only he sees

he gazes into my future
I look into his past
I pass Robert Mapplethorpe

a man in a white suit
nailed to the darkness
by so many stars

an old saxophone player
busks Rogers and Hart in Central Park
"...I didn't know what time it was..."

two obese Chinese
take up most of the sidewalk
both speaking fluent - Irish

Leaves of Grass
lies scattered across the road
read now by the wind

a car caught in traffic
blares out Joel's
"New York State of Mind"

I laugh at such
a happenstance
a walk-on-part in my own movie

escaping the borders
of the body
I walk through times

I am all the times
of the world
they intersect in self

Walt and I
sitting on a park bench
waiting to go somewhere else

an 1990's rain
falls on an 1870's NY
they are beginning Brooklyn Bridge

I meet my self
coming and going
an older and a younger me

time held prisoner on the wrist
I turn and walk away
into this the newest of centuries

A TIDY MAN

My  ghost came
to see me off.

"Just thought I
would introduce myself.

"You see...I'm you
in a few hours time

when you've shaken off
( as the cliche goes )

this mortal coil
as it were."

"Is this the done thing?"
I enquired politely

"...not to sure of
the protocol...so to speak?"

"I'm not used to being dead..."
I excused myself.

"Oh it's the new Heavenly Scheme
introduced by Him Above!"

I tried to catch my breath.
Found I couldn't.

"Oh well...let's
get on with it!"

So I hung my soul up
on the back of the door.

The wardrobe was packed tight
with all the selves I'd ever been.

I folded my life up
neatly.

I was always
and forever

a tidy man.

WAVA
(baby)

Clouds gather
as we gather

cloudberries

the hidden
secret

precious patches
of fruit.

My wife
smiles

ripens
to my touch