NO DIRECTIONS
(in memory of my mother Ita)

South of Sorrow
North North West
of Pain

I search for you &...
...lose you
yet again

I calculate
your absence
by the stars

& you are near
though
you are far

I wander through
this Wilderness of Loss
...is this what loving you has cost?

East of Loneliness
West of Grief
...If only for one brief...

... your voice echoes inside my head
... I see you smile & laugh
... pretend that you're not dead

*

I wrote this for my mother but my younger brother Brain asked me to read it at his funeral. I laughed and said I would be long dead before him. But his heartattack at a young age proved otherwise. I read it from the pulpit looking down at his photo on his coffin and couldn't believe I was in this terrible position. To my horror the congregation applauded as if it was a gig!

SNOW FALLS

She wakes to a morning
with no reason for living

cries in the mirror
to be forgiven.

Puts on her make-up
takes off her clothes

sits there & bleeds
until she can’t feel

the blood in her veins
...runs cold.

The razorblade
bleeds...bleeds.

The cat cries
to be fed.

The batteries in her Walkman
go dead.

The Rachmaninov stops.

A letter she will never read
drops on the Welcome mat.

A mobile rings & rings &...stops.

A member of a minor political party
looking for her vote

rings the doorbell twice
slips on the ice    &   ruins his coat.

Curses.

A man laughs at another man’s joke.
It’s a big laugh...he’s a big bloke.

Laughter invades the square.

There’s a chill in the air.

A friend calls for her
(to go on a blind date)  

...she doesn’t hear.

Snow...
...snow...
...snow falls.

ARRIVALS & DEPARTURES

( for Bud on his birthday that was never to be )

Never to be
met by you again

at the airport
with a hastily scribbled sign:

"WAITING FOR GOD...
KNOWS WHO!"

Or telling me you were
expecting the Cat in the Hat.

One year a tip-top topper...
...the next a battered bowler.

Always. . .
your smile

my gold coin

your laughter
my treasure.

"Ahhhh Jaysus, Bud...tears?"
cries the ghost of you.

"It's all I get these days!
Dying is so...annoying!"

"Oh, before I go. . !"
the ghost of you smirks

before fading away
into an EXIT sign.

"I love the purple
fedora!"

SUN & MOON

your glance
like water
sliding over stone


your smile
a page
about to turn &


your eyes
the book
I read & re-read


your love
my sun
& moon

CREATING YOU

The seconds flock
about me

nibbling at the Who I Am
time devouring my existence.

My dreams walk around
naked.

A sky lies asleep
in a window.

My shadow crawls
up the walls

as if it longed
to escape  me.

The mirror shows a stranger
wearing my face.

In the candle's flicker I
live frame by frame

in a black and white
celluloid  world.

I can only touch you
with language

hold you
with words

create you time
and time again

as you come alive
walk about in my sentences.

As long as I write
you are living.

I dreading the final
full stop.

I see you
walk away

into an ellipsis'
footsteps

you fading into
its dot dot dot

on the snow drift
of a page

AN ANABOOBOO!

She takes off
all her clothes

just for
the fun of it

every now & then I
catch a glimpse

of naked ***

as it runs not   here
or there   but helter-skelter.

She who only
mastered the art of walking

not so long ago

now glorying
in her limbs.

'Hey Cherub! '
I call out to her

& she turns
& comes

not because she's
understood

but understands the love
dripping form the words

an honeycomb
of language.

She tries to clothe
the nakedness of her

experiences

in a dress
of words.

She is surprised
to find

that her
anabooboo

doesn't stick
to the cat

and the cat
wanders aimlessly off

discarding with disdain
her attempt

at naming him.

Soon the cat
will become its sound

(me! how?)  

then finally
making it to being

C A T
(just like that) .

It's a long journey
into knowing.

I almost prefer
her almost Martian naming

her alien
way of seeing.

I curtly call the cat that
and even name the next cat that

an ANABOOBOO

and still can drive her
mad

years later
in a future far from here

calling my teenage
daughter

to say her date
is here.

'Hey Anabooboo! '

& see a blushing
Princess

descending the stairs

lithe of limb
and(thankfully)  

fully clothed!



I draw/spell her
C/A/T
she copycats my cat



Teaching Tilly her letters in the long long ago...it's funny the little scraps that survive the years. I tore a bit off an old copy book and scribbled this C/A/T into being to her great delight...and here he is still prowling about in his own peculiar C/A/T way.

I LOOK AROUND AND THERE'S AN EN DASH FOLLOWING ME

first time
I've been
translated into Spanish

first time
I've seen myself
set out like - this:

Dónall Dempsey
— even put the fada
on my Ó —

(1956 – )
open brackets(then date then dash
then empty space)close brackets

"Ahem...eh...if you can
excuse me...eh that would be me
you'er very own personal en dash!"

it looked
very pleased
with itself

"You know for yoking dates
together and so...."
it said all too knowingly

"Yes yes I know but why
are you talking to me now!"
I said annoyed and frightened

"If you could inform me when
you are going to go so...
I could complete my function!"

I  snapped
the book shut
had a cup of tea

my demise now
written
upon the air

"But at my back
I always hear
Time's winged en dash

hurrying near
and yonder all before me lie
Deserts of vast eternity"

knowing there
will come a day
when that en dash will

stick its knife in
for that
"Et tu, Brute!" moment