A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT

the river stood up
its head in the clouds
marched off to find the sea

it took the river time
to find its feet but when it did
it ran & ran & ran

tired now the river
took the bus
spilling some of itself goin' 'round a bend

the river
kicked off the bus
for not having a proper ticket

the river
trying to hitch a ride
no luck

mini skirted blonde
tells the trucker
"This here river's with me!"

river weary now
just wants to lay it self down
and meander

at last the sea dawned
the river plunged in
losing itself in its joy

THE REST OF THE STORY


The dried up lake contrived to look both
surprised & embarrassed

like a lady in a bad dream wearing no clothes
whilst singing in church or doing the supermarket shop.

When I say 'lake' I mean the body of water
that lived up in the old quarry.

It always gave us kids nightmares.

Our parents always warned us not to
go there ...but go there

we always did 'cos it was dangerous.

And that was its attraction.
Danger barely tamed and still feral.

It would give us the creeps just looking at it in sunlight.

The police tape looked real pretty
fluttering in the slight breeze like an art installation

that everyone who was someone
deemed important without knowing its meaning

or if it had one.

But hey what do I know?

The lake wore its dead body
like a cheap glass ring pretending it was diamond.

When I say dead body I mean skeleton.

The skeleton wore concrete shoes
as if it had stepped straight from a corny gangster movie

riddled with cliché.

It just grinned at the police
flash photography as if it were a celebrity

famous for being a celebrity.

He still wore a heavy gold crucifix
on a thick chain around its neck

that shone in the sun.

The sun smiled down as if it were smiling down
on a picnic or an ordinary walk in the park

as if it were innocent of the things it seen.

'Hey, I'm Summer being Summer...! ' it seemed to say
'Dead guy eh...what a ******! '

The dead guy was alive in his death
as if he were soaking up being the centre of attention.

And yeah sure it was just another ordinary Summer
when I was 9 or ten or something like that

but this was just the beginning of the story...
...the rest of the story was somewhere else.


*


Guy told me this in Harry's Bar in Venice and all this just added up to how he came to finally live in Bethlehem in Pennsylvania. I was fascinated by the pre-story and his way of telling the story by interrupting his telling by a quirky "...when I say....I mean...." It was worth buying him a drink just to get drunk on that story.

The story was fuel'd by many a Bellini. The guy was a blend between Orson and Ernest as if they had both reincarnated at the same time and simultaneously tried to claim the one body. His name was Sinclair...I had never met anyone with the first name Sinclair before...he was better than a book. È tutto pepe indeed! Wot a guy! Che figata! Che figata!

He was highly energetic in both body and mind and telling stories about their times of being 4 or 7 and 11. This story came forth from man who at 90 was full of zip and zest. I only picked up bits here and there and never found out where his there was.

I was enjoying his speech movements and characteristic tics with that defining "When I say....I mean..." The story went by at a hundred miles ah hour but totally enthralled me and 50 years later still lives on in my mind.

I wish I could have captured his essence and this is only a pale imitation of how wonderful  he was. All the imagery is his too and I merely a Boswell to his Johnson.

Once saw THE MERCHANT OF VENICE...in Venice. It bobbed along with several different languages taking up the tale and done in a Commedia dell'Arte style. If that wasn't enough...gondolas glided by with their sixpence worth of kitsch touristy songs whilst a gangster movie blared out of a window and two floors up from that a couple made mad passionate ***....everything blended with everything else....real life and Shakespeare all sharing the same outdoor stage.

The best bit was when she( of the mad passionate *** bit )threw all his clothes outta de window and told him to 'cazzo nel culo!' The real life bit I'm afraid by then was beginning to eclipse the Shakespeare bit( sorry Will ). It was almost as unforgettable as Sinclair's rambling tale of "how we came to live in Bet-LE-ham!"

Venice was almost too luscious for words but Sinclair and his tale of how we got from here to there and then "that" production of TMOV was all just too much for this tiny little mind.

Went back again but nothing as spectacular as "that" ever happened again....guess I was in the right place at just the right on time. The mind going "Heeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

This be an experimental prose poem letting the prose ramble on in the voice and characteristic stops and starts of the speaker. The whole point of the poem is that you are going to get the whole prelude to the story and then not be told the story!

The danger is indeed very real....the adults know that...the kids know that....even the dead guy knows that! There was a broken worn down sign that you had to get near enough to read and possibly fall in! So the danger could be feral and turn on you with one little mistake or missed step. Hence the barely tamed! The narrator is very fallible!

". . .here
Buckle! AND. . ."



I have( somehow )
escaped( don't ask me how )

the ritual of the head
plunged down the toilet bowl

this the welcome to
secondary school

and flushed
their laughter and their power.

They have bidden their time
well

and although I believe
I have outfoxed them

....they have outfoxed me.

I tremble on my spindly
12 year old legs

surrounded by the sneering
pack.

They hang me from
a coat peg

laughing with great glee
as I try to free

myself
but can't.

I like a living coat
refusing to be clothes.

Then they tear
page by page

my poetry book
to pieces.

Pages like paper bees
crushedcrumpled at my feet.

They make me eat
Hopkins.

I spit him out
gasp for breath.

My tongue rebels AND
I fling Father Hopkins at them.

They recoil in astonished
amazement.

" I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding. . ."

The words sting them
into stunned silence.

This is not
how it should be.

My jacket tears
I fall at their feet

my voice soaring
now above them.

They run from the beauty of the words.

I pick, one by one, up
the fallen pages.

". . . and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and **** gold-vermillion. . ."

The bell rings
for Maths.


*


I was a sickly kid and pretty lousy at school. Told I was not good enough to do the English Higher paper but that didn't stop me reading the stuff. There was a great TV schools programme on that I would tune into and out of this the great Brendan Keneally would walk forth from its tubes and proclaim THE WINDHOVER.
  
With his voice and passion for the poem I was entranced and made a fan of all things Hopkins. Years later I meet him casually at a bar where we happened to be having a pint together. I told him this story and all those years later I had the pleasure of him recite it to me once again in the flesh! It was a magical moment. We batted the lines back and forth to each other and plunged into the beauty of the lines.

The last time before that I had met him and his wife at the Grapevine Arts Centre in Dublin. I was a mere sapling then and just beginning to read poetry aloud. I was a country bumpkin and had to run for a bus and as I ran and as they waved goodbye to me I turned the corner of North Great Georges Street AND....fell on my ****! Oh the shame of it!

I used to belong to a poetry collective that hawked a broadsheet around pubs. My poem CRAZY LONELINESS HIJACKS MEMORY OF A BEAUTIFUL GIRL was the hit of the day and Brendan liked this very much. But my one moment of glory was reciting Hopkins with him in a crowed noisy Dublin poem...I had come full circle.

"...CHANGE THE WORLD, ONE SEQUIN AT A TIME..."

her wardrobe is mirrored
sliding doors
reveal her many selves

hung on hangers
she peels off her present
self

it falls
at her feet
in a froth of frills

she kicks it aside
she hates
herself in it

she takes a self
from a hanger
unfolds its role

'dutiful wife'
no...ha ha...tonight she
feels more 'vamp'

does she dare
disturb t
he universe

the many selves she is
hang limp
waiting to be the chosen one

she stares at her
naked self
that the mirror holds

longs to escape
the roles
she plays.

she gives
that little
Mona Lisa smile

descends the staircase
emotionally naked
willing to be

the person she used to be
before she became
his

a mere prop in his play
a must have
accessory

she smirks
at his shock
takes the dry martini

from his grasp
drinks it down in
one big gulp

CHINGACHGOOK SPEAKS

still see the saw
cutting through time
the small boy's mind

Da's spirit level
disappearing all the time
becomes my Star Ship Enterprise

the saw hums to itself
time eclipsed
with the smell of pine

the song of the saw
sunbeams & sawdust
dancing in time

and lo
wood becomes window
the small carpentry of miracles

a heart-shaped block of wood
becomes my saddle
on his crossbar

we fly through time
tame hills
the tick of bicycle wheels

lost in speed
down down Dobbin's Hill
we the bubble in the spirit level

we haunt the dumps
hunt for a wheel here...a frame there
Da creates a bike

new bikes from old
our "Frankenstein bicycles"
we the new masters of speed

"Look at me...lookame...no hands!"
the hill smiles to itself
"wheeeEEEEEEOOOOOOOOPS!!!!!"

trees breaking gently in our hands
become our bows and arrows
stolen from young plantations

I a nine year old Chingachgook
limp horribly home
an arrow in my left calf

my Da shaving wood
it curls
to his whistle

sawdust amongst his curls
my Da smiles
as the wood comes good

I still see the saw
pine
opens memory

*

We had to look upon a loved object( as a poetry prompt )and not mentioning it...free associate 15 words and write the poem from this list. THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS is and still is a fav. book of my childhood( I have still not finished growing up )and it bleeds into the memory of helping( little help that I was )my Da making a window...making a bike...making a fretwork Arkle...whatever he turned his hand to...whether it be a crop of potatoes or a cuddle...his hands were the hands of a God creating my childhood for me.

I never got around to reading THE WEPT OF WISH-TON-WISH but loved the sound of it....Dobbin's Hill( which I cycled down as a child and ran up as a soldier )became the Great Snake( what Chingachgook means )and I indeed made myself a Chingachgook. The rest is just memories held in haiku and bursting in time like bubbles.
From 30/30 prompt. . . I was reading THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS and helping my da with his work...whether it be wood or bikes from different bits.It was that eternal summer of childhood and I desired to be Chingachgook. Out of this tale of time lost...time found is woven the present poem. Here be the words that helped in some way went to the making of the poem. My da worked in wood...I work in words.

THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS

MAGUA

UNCAS

WAH-TA-WAH

THE WEPT OF WISH-TON-WISH

HATCHET

NATIVE AMERICAN

LEATHER BOUND BOOK

PROUST

TIMBER

WOODEN JIGSAW

FRETWORK

TOOLS OF TRADE

SUMMER

HAIR

A SILENCE TOO LOUD

the wheeze
of the sea
breathing in and out

a wall
crumbling back
to its beginning

as the wisteria
with all its gentle strength
has crushed it to the ground

a town
bleached
by the sun

as if it were a faded
photograph of
its long ago self

a silence
too loud
for the human ear to hear

A DOOR AJAR ON REALITY

the blackbird led
his wife
up the garden path

as if the crazy paving
had been laid especially
for them & their kind

I thought it odd that
they walked instead
of flew

as if they
were acting
the human

they both
deep in conversation
about bird current affairs

or gossip
about those
noisy robins

when they hit the deck
they both stood
in a deck chair each

continuing what
they had been
conversing  about

maybe blackbirds
had taken over
the world

& I
the last human
to know

or all other humans
had been changed
into blackbirds

they suddenly
made loud caw
I took to the air and flew