FOR THERE YOU WERE

The room was
restless.

The room waited and
(held its breath )and

...waited.

The room didn't know
what to do.

"Where....were. . .you?"

I looked in all the places
that you weren't.

Hoping I
could wish you into being.

The room was getting annoyed
at my going out and...

....going in again again.

Even the sea and the sky
were getting agitated.

Somewhere between a
tick and a

tock I
fell asleep.

Woke to find the room
flooded with sunlight

looking pleased with itself
as if it had created you.

For there
...you were.

A NAME BY ANY OTHER. . .

She smiles in Russian.
"What's your name?" I ask her.
"Is Tina!" she laughs.
"Ah...Tina!" "No not..Tina!"
"Istina!" "It means...the Truth."


she winks
slinks as if she's
in inverted commas

hidden inside
her smile
(the kiss )

she disappears 'round the
corner leaving in the air
a perfect perfume replica of her

the grand piano
sits in its silence
dreaming of music

FOLLOW MY HEART

'Yes! ' I thought
' I will remember...'

how to get
back to
this place

your laughing face

a bird
writing on the sky

with the calligraphy
of its flight

this passing cloud
shaped like a heart now

breaking up into
Rodin's THE KISS

the laughter of kids
entangled in trees

a slight breeze
saucily lifting the hem

of your skirt
as if examining

the workmanship
of it.

Suddenly the wind's
a tailor?

The sea's voice
whispering far off

'Come & see... come & see! '

like a shy hawker
at a carnival.

One little brown knee
placed delicately
over another little brown knee

your skirt
like surf

crashing over it.

Yes I will
always remember

how to get
back here

follow these
directions

follow
my heart.

"La vita è una scuola di probabilità."

I appear
to have fallen

out of myself
no longer the me I am

but as if I had become
the statue of my self.

A pigeon **** tear
runs down my granite cheek.

"La vita è una scuola di probabilità."
the pigeon perched upon my head announces.

"Probably..?" I answer.
More a maybe-perhaps.

I am now an actor
playing the part of myself

unsure of what is expected of me
"What's my motivation?" I ask the director.

But he has been taken off
this picture.

The Donall Dempsey I used to be
no longer exists.

Someone or something
has broken into my head

and stolen the me
I was.

I now have no dialogue
only a walk-on-part

in my own life
an unimportant footnote

somewhere on page
42.

"What will I do..?"
I whistle the Berlin tune

the pigeon flying off my head
taking my thoughts with it.

IN PARTICULAR

We stand
in the sea

my shadow &
me

looking at what
is not there.

"It's more...something than nothing?"
my shadow surmises

"I see it more as...nothing."
I beg to differ.

My shadow
furious with me

crunches back up
the shingle

gets in the car and
leaves.

I remain standing
in the sea

looking at nothing
...in particular.

THAT WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS MOMENT

An apoplectic God
furiously reads note

attached to branch
in place of apple.

“This is just to say
we have eaten of the fruit

that was in
the middle of the garden

and which you told us
not to.

Forgive us
it was so sweet

and deliciously
Knowledgeable.”

So much depended upon
that rain glazed red apple.

They stand wailing
and gnashing their teeth

beside the bitten
red apple

with the white teeth marks.

THE HAPPENING

"So, what...happened?"

I was emotionally
broke

taking the boat
going back to my own folk

had had
enough of England

to last me
a lifetime.

"Yeah, and.."

A car went by
belting out Stevie's HOTTER THAN...

...JULY: the 27th
I think it was

useless with dates
that's me

wearing a kilt
reading  poem

sweltering in the heat
when...

"Yes, when. . ?"

Love...
happened to me!