LIVING ON THE CEILING

crisp white sheets
gleam white
I don't even know I'm dead

I'm on the ceiling
like an abandoned
Christmas balloon

the next tick of
the clock goes on with-
-out me

"Hey, it's...kinda groovy being
dead. .!"
an answer without a question

from my fly's eye view
I can see
the doctor has a growing bald spot

there's that nice new nurse
she's so cute
this is her first death

I can see her thinking
her words carved out of the air
"...don'tdiedon'tdiedon'tdie..."

Death is a free ride man
"...goin' all the way?///...sure am!"
"Hop in. . !"

"Ok, everyone stand back..!"
then the pain floods back &
I'm back...****...in this body

"Whoa...we nearly lost
you there good buddy!"
doc scratches his bald spot

the nice new nurse
her tears stop
half way down her cheek

I cursed my luck
I liked living
on the ceiling

"...A STRAIGHT LINE DRAWN CROOKEDLY INSIDE ME..."
( for David Olof Carney )

"Six months, if that...eh?"
inside the cancer
eating him cell by cell

life now
a death sentence
he couldn't live with it

"If it be now..."
Hamlet's solliquoy
comes to mind

in the car crash
his last laugh: "Thank you God!
You're a good sport!"

*

The title is taken from Alvaro De Campos aka Fernando Pessoa's  MARITIME ODE.

"But the song is a straight line drawn crookedly inside me.."

Curiously enough my friend Jan survived both the crash and the cancer. He thought he was dead on both accounts but would have preferred the car crash as a way to go.

But he pulled through at the last moment which as it happened wasn't his ...last moment. He fought bravely against his cancer and life still has its grip on him ten years down the road.

He's beginning to think he will never die. Don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing! But yes Jan lives on....long live Jan!

THE NOW AND THEN OF A DÓNALL BECOMING THE THIS AND THAT OF NEW NOW

me master of the trike
my own time machine
dashing from the past to a future

still always me
despite time gone
the time to come

still only me
with just a bit of time
added here...subtracted there

playing chicken
with the arcs of
my life's narrative

crashing into who I was
colliding with who
l will or. . . might be

*

Me dashing across the road at No. 31 O'Higgins Rd., on my trike and wearing my Dad's army hat. Les girls are sitting on the grass facing THE BATHS. My Dad has just probably come home and is inside kissing my Mam. I used to wait for cars to come and then dash across the road in a Russian roulette with my little life. But my trike and I were fast and survived these dare devil antics. The Military police were informed and asked me to desist in my trike thrills. I love the pile of bikes lounging around at the gate. That was the known mode of transport at the time...bikes and bikes and trikes!

They are sitting on the bank just across from the baths...me....I laugh death in the face....I think I'm untouchable...100 cars and counting....and I'm still not dead...I must be immortal!

As you can see although I was an immortal little boy...I didn't have a big head....that cap is nearly bigger than me.

I had a big mind and a small head back then...now...I've got a small mind and a big head!

The Maddens lived next door...Pete Madden was a lovely guy and ran the baths and only got slightly mad when we put a football through a window. Mrs. Madden was gorgeous and even as a little boy I was madly in love with her.

I love( still )the crusts off bread and she would cut all the crusts off her bread and give me a bag of crusts. I was in heaven and went around with a crust sticking out of my gob pretending it was a cigarette and I was a wise guy like Bogey making wisecracks and smoking crust-of-bread cigarettes.

Here's looking at me kid!

At least we'll always have the Curragh.

THE BIG HAPPY EVER AFTER
( in ego Nursery Rhyme vixi )

she was one cool chick
dressed -  
très chic

she curved in all the right
places - if ya get my drift
her name was Miss Dumpty

claimed
her father Humpty
had been pushed - taken the fall

for some Mr. Big
and got his
I remembered the case

his smile was cracked...yoke all over
his face legs scrambled at an unnatural angle
the autopsy pics made me sick

said she had gone to
Sam ***** to dig up dirt
but no dice

Sam's paid..he's off the case
she spat the name out with
a thanks-for-nothing look

"So. I came to you.
See what you can do!"
"What's in it for me!"I smirked

"Me!" she clucked
in a Linda Darnellish way
turned out it was

Little Boy
would ya believe it
...Blue!

jealous of Humpty's
easy said-ness
and how he

got recited
more often than
Mr. B. Blue

Nursery Crime is
increasing
so they tells me

too many modern authors
making ***** parodies
or in the *****

Limericks Business
scaring the kiddies away
putting the frighteners on parents

me and Miss Dumpty?
we're going for the big happy
ever after!

AND THERE WAS ME WITHOUT AN I

Time dawdles
stretches out the crash
to an infinity of now

casually I watch the car
crash into my side
as if it were someone else's story

car runs red light
the crash about to happen
taking...its. . .( time )

I watch my door buckle
as if an invisible monster
wanted to eat its way to me

time...finally(stops):
I fade to black
karate chopped from luggage from the back

I drink up unconsciousness
thirsty for
the oblivion it brings

the world leaves me now
even my thoughts
don't even know me

I am no more
a me
without an I

"You knocked. . ?"
Death asks politely
"No..just...passing through!"

Life swims back to me
from a distant
horizon

"Hey!" shouts Life
"It's me!"
"Do I know you?" I ask

MONKEY IN A RED FEZ DANCING TO ABBA

I watch the children play
on a sunny Sunday in Rotterdam

like a stereotypical alien
studying humans.

Their cries rise and fall
like seagulls as they swing

sea-sawing or blurring into one
on a brightly coloured turnstile.

A man looking
like a badly drawn cartoon

turns the handle slowly  of
a broken down barrel *****.

A monkey in a red fez
dances on the end of a chain.

The barrel ***** spews out
everything from Abba to Franz Lehar.

The decrepit old man
and even more decrepit monkey

appear as if they have
stepped out of another century.

I am far from home.
The day is dying.

I read from my battered book
Hamsun's HUNGER.

It's lurid cover torn
half hanging on/off.

The park deserted now
as night steals its colours.

The last words of
of this the final chapter

are lost to me
swallowed by the dark.

The barrel ***** persists
the soundtrack to some forgotten film

The monkey's red fez
fallen at its feet.

The monkey blissfully
asleep.

The music caught
entangled in branches and  leaves.

I watch the yellow lights
blossom one by one.

Houses like cut-out silhouettes
an old stage set.

The last lines revealed
under a passing  lamp

"...where the windows shone so
brightly in every home..."

I laugh at such
a coincidence.

Leave the book on the bench
for some other me

to discover
when the sun comes up.

And return
to my space ship.

SLOVO LJUBAVI
(THE WORD OF LOVE)  

Here I am
nailed to this hated bed

with the bright shiny
nails of cancer.

Death smiles
& wants to take me

as his
bride

but I
remain unfaithful
to him

elope with life
(if only for this night)    

spending golden moments
as if there were no

tomorrow.

I fling my laughter
in his big stupid grinning face

as if he thinks
this is all a human is

a something to be
taken.

I hope to sneak out
when he is not looking

or looking the other way

before he discovers me
alive in your heart

(untouchable)    

my memory
safe in your memory

so that to **** me
he will have to **** you too.

So beware my friend
you will become

a marked man

& Death
cheated of my soul

will hunt you
down

and rip me from
your heart

to finish the job.

But I know
you will
hide me

hide me
among your words

little seeds
of me

that will propagate

so that Death
would have to **** the whole world.

I laugh to see
the little seedlings

of me
sprout in other

minds
other voices

see my laughter
blossom

on  a strange
tongue

unknown to me
but known

Death furiously
glaring.