XIǍO HÚDIÉ...XIǍO GŪ AIGŪ AI
(Little Butterfly...Little Sweetie)



stars
finding it hard
to keep their eyes open


moon
tucked up
in a comfortable cloud



already fast
asleep
turns & smiles



even the dark
is nodding off
dreaming of ight



even the cricket
has gone
asleep



even the fire
sleeps
in a nightdress of ashes



all this
dreamy
night



only the baby
(our little sweetie)
lies awake



playing with
the bright butterfly
dancing in her

dress of brilliant colour
bobbing on the string
before her.



she tells the butterfly
delightedly
over & over

that
she is
beauty



but the butterfly
doesn’t understand
the language of gurgle



somewhere
in the dark
Da da snores



Ma ma
sleeps quietly
only baby awake

BY ANY OTHER NAME
( for the miracle that a Brian Ings is)

the kestrel
hovers high
over the Devil's Mother

it knows nothing
of the names
that humans give to things

such as mountains
or indeed
its good self

it only knows
the heights
that it can fly to

and how
glorious a thing
the wind beneath a wing

if it's gaze could
penetrate
the gift of language

it would perceive
how time changes
mountains and name-ings

it watches words
mutate back into
the original Irish

so that the Devil's Mother
that it flies over today
was once the Demon's Testicles

"Magairlí an Deamhain!"
it screeches
the name

through the dense fog
of  Anglicisation
or Bastardisation.

or God forgive us
the virus of
Religion

and it would croak
with laughter
at its own

nomenclature
"*** Dearg" or
Red *****

it is thankful for this moment
of human sentience
so that it can laugh at itself

as a Red *****
flying over
the Demon's Testicles

but in an instant
the instant
is gone

and it is only this
miracle
of being

the beauty
of its flight
in the midst of a gale

"*** dearg
ag eitilt thall
magairlí an deamhan!"

it chuckles in Kestrel
before translating itself
back into the English

"A kestrel
flying over
the Demon's Testicles!"

*

Ballypitmave in County Antrim would be known in Irish as Phite Méabha ‘townland of Maeve’s *****’. Or as the good old Revn Cupples would have it ‘town land of the pit of shame’
We are talking of a Goddess here or a figure of mighty myth so the Irish would not be afraid to call a ***** a ***** and all hail the Goddess.

WE AS HUMAN

dawn breaks
the War breaks
her waters break

this child
at war with this world
this world at war

she gives birth
to death
glad the War will never find him

here a house
as if drawn by a child
crumbling with time

their names now
only alive in our voices
the characters eaten by lichen

here Time
has come & gone
lives written on water

fragments of them survive
in a yellowed letter...an old photo
ripples upon water

tourists we pass by
touched by time
we as human as them

will Time too
leave us thus:
ashes to ashes dust to. . .

TILL HUMAN VOICES WAKE US AND. . .

old house
the snow
climbs the stairs

asleep
on a rusted bed
snow

the snow
looks out the window
at itself falling

the snow
has the house
to itself

the snow
startled out of its sleep
by a human intent on remembering

the snow
more at ease inside
than the human

the human
tears in its eyes
the snow smiles

snow now
both
inside/outside

human footsteps
the snow
covers them up


*


Going back to the auld sod to find my childhood home nothing but a ruin and the window from where I saw my first snow fall in the bitter winter of '63 now I saw snow falling inside the house. I climbed the stairs along with the snow and there was snow lying on the bed just as the seven year old me did back in the long long ago. A home that now existed only in my mind. The next year it was just a muddy space and I could walk through where we watched telly and laughed. An old sheep passing between the ghost of the kitchen and the hall.

AND LO! THE POET AWAKENS

come
my machine
of bones

let us perambulate
around this
God-given morning

yes...you too
my flesh
and blood

do you
not desire
to accompany me

and spirit
If you are
willing

why not bring
your friend
mind

oh soul
surely you
will come for a stroll

and together
we shall be
this tired old

Donall Dempsey
this odd contraption
of a human being

see
Sunlight
welcomes us

how the roses
delight
in seeing us

and birds race to tell the sky
that the poet
has come amongst us

"Ok ok..
enough already
cut the crap!"

I admonish
the words
"I'm up...I'm up!"

PICKING FLOWERS

so young
that I can barely tell
it’s me ..myself


( balanced upon her knee )
trying to pluck
flowers from her dress


amongst the great
earthquake
of her laughter

HOW TO MAKE THE RIGHT DECISION AT THE RIGHT TIME

the clock shaves off
another bit of time
tick by tick by tick

it doesn't give a tock
a patina of time
covers the dusty ornaments

the eaves drip
Nature's clock
I measure time

by how long it takes
the cuckoo's voice
to travel

from the background
to the foreground of this
storm tossed morning

I feel myself as if I am
the personal measurement
of boredom

a fly lands
on a bishop's mitre
washes its hands

assiduously
then buzzes off
in case it catches religion

the chess pieces
resume
their silences

I feel like a female mammoth
frozen
in a block of ice

Time refuses
to move on
sti...sti...ICKS

my husband
plays chess
with himself

can never tell whether
he's winning or losing
"I'm a Gemini..!"

he explains.
like duh
"I'm just a poor little Cancer!"

he is beating
himself up
about beating himself

I watch him move from
one side of the table to
the other

like a Buster Keaton movie
an eyelid twitches but
is instantly repressed

the eyebrow
about to be
raised...instantly isn't

he is a bad loser
even
to himself

a hand raises a King
and a Queen
is taken

his lips
a taut straight line
displays no emotion

I am only wearing
a thong
getting goosebumps

I chew a Swano 4906
bitten to shreds
"Five...I said...five letters!"

loudly just to annoy him
beginning with an O and
ending with OP

"Stowed cables
below water line!"
what kind of clue is that!

I haven't got a clue
"Harold honey!"
I yell

"Orlop!"
he grunts
"Orlop deck!"

never taking his eye off
of his other self
watching his every move

"Who would have
thought..."
I think to myself

"That *** and money
could become so
boring!"

a pillowcase on the line
***** for help
it has lost a peg

holding on by a peg
the wind makes it pregnant
its belly billows

it swells
and takes off
like a ship setting sail

jumps over the wall
chasing its own
horizon

"Me an' all!"
I thank it
for the tip

decide to leave
Harold honey
by Tuesday...at the latest

calculus battle clue 6 down
“tanquam ex ungue leonem”
N E W T O N I fill it in - done it