STARRY STARRY NIGHT

She switched off                the moon.

Plucked out                        the stars.

A little dog barked
as her scream scrawled:

“This time life has gone...too far.”

She took an overdose of sleeping tablets
in her big bright red car.

The day withers
that was once in bloom.

Petals fall
in an empty room.

The moon wept.
The stars cried.

Life was for living... Life lied.

INTRO TO STARRY STARRY NIGHT

You would have loved Frieda...everyone loved Frieda.  Frieda was the most alive.. most charismatic entity that I have ever known. Flaming red hair …crimson lipstick... scarlet dress...red Jag.  You couldn’t miss her.  She was the life and soul of everything and she desired only one thing: to be dead or as she put it “...not to be alive! ”  The only one it seemed who didn’t love Frieda was...Frieda.  

She was(as she admitted herself)      an expert suicidist  but a failure at pulling it off.  We used to joke that we would publish a book of her suicide notes.  Her last note simply said: “This time Life has gone too f*ing far! ”  She never spoke of Death only of  Life as if he was this bloke that one could run into on the corner of some little sidewalk café.  There would be Life(looking larger than Life)        sitting sipping coffee and he’d say to her: “Ah, ma jolie petite fille!  Comment ca va?  Asseyez vous, sil vous plait...baisez moi! ”  And she’d walk up to Life and kick him in the *****!

She often said that if I wrote a poem about her suicide she would come back and haunt me...I hoped I  would never have to.

When she was a little girl she was ***** again and again by her Dad and his two mates.  This started when she was 7 and stopped suddenly at 13.  As a little girl she looked up the word ****** got as far as insect...this horrible thing crawling all over your consciousness that you can’t get away from.  She decided to ask next door’s little girls if what was happening to her was...just what happens.  In their case it was the same so they decided to go to the girl next door to next door and see if this was so... and sadly it was. It seemed to be just a thing that Daddies do! One more house would have proven this untrue but...

When her Dad entered her and tore her and she screamed...he told her she was a bad girl and that she was disturbing the neighbours.  He got her to bite down on the yellow pencil she had been doing her Maths with. All she could remember were splinters of wood and graphite...flakes of yellow paint...blood and spittle.  At that moment she switched and created a Frieda to bear this hell and hid her self away inside her head.  She had put herself so far away inside her head that...not even she could reach herself.

It was this created persona who went on to be the Frieda that everyone adored and envied. The more successful this persona was the more the real Frieda hated her.  The only way to **** this Frieda was to **** the real Frieda.

All her life she claimed she was “me” & “not me! ”
It was the “not me” she would try to ****.

She used to play over and over again the beginning(just the beginning)       of  VINCENT and with an avid interest in astrology she would consult the stars to see if it was an opportune time to die.

I was going on stage when a stranger came up to me and said: ” You know that red-headed ***** you fancy...well, she’s topped herself...didn’t make it! ” All the time I was performing the poems I was writing STARRY STARRY NIGHT in my head so that at the end I decided to read it in her memory.  I was half way through it when a very alive Frieda floated in at the back of the room with a drink in her hand and a *** in the other! I looked as if I had seen a ghost!  She toasted me and said in a loud voice: “I told you I’d come back and haunt you! ”  Reports of her demise had been a little hasty and she had “made it! ” I was never so glad to see someone!

Originally the last lines of the poem were:

“The moon wept...the stars cried...that she was alone when she died! ”

This was the most terrible aspect of her death for me that someone so alive and had a life full of... people...people...people...should have no one when it came to the end.

She was a dichotomy...full of life yet full of hatred  for life.  She believed at once that life was for living but also that Life had lied to her. Both beliefs struggled inside her for dominance...sometimes one won... sometimes the other!

Years later she would phone me up at ungodly hours and no matter who I would be with and repeat them with laughter so that I was obliged to change them to the present lines!

This poem is for my friend Frieda wherever she may be.

IN PRAISE OF FOLLY

a gaggle of giggling
nuns on the town
remembering when they were girls

they wear Halloween masks
scaring little kids &
big men

I wonder if it is a sin
for them to remember
themselves then

all under a vow of silence
never to remember this
when they are back at the convent

they dump their false faces
in a trash can
their freedom come and gone

I sit behind them on the bus
listen as they discuss Erasmus
whether in the womb Christ knew he was Christ

they laugh as
little girl ghouls board the bus
give them smiles and sweeties

OVER YOU

A bust
of Beethoven

has fallen

in love with
a tiny statuette

of the Venus
De Milo

who has also
lost her head.

Beethoven with his
shattered hair

admires what is there
of her body

Christ!
with his left arm

snapped off
comes between them

keeping them apart.

Christianity
is harsh.

I pass & leave them
to their broken hearts.

Buy an egg
timer

made of brass

from a man
who looks like

a monkey
even more

than a monkey
do.

I turn the sands
of time

upside down
& then again

upside down
again

and with much fuss
catch the packed bus

in the non-stop
rain.

Home again
I boil an egg

that is neither
hard nor soft

hum Tchaikovsky
as I chew burnt toast

and cry

over you.

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

*

Kinda weird to see your own death coming at ya and to dive into the blackness of the nothing only to resurface back into the light and a human voice asking you "Are you alright?" And being polite you say "I'm fine...fine!" Such polite lying but there we are pushed back into the good old world with time back again ticking on the clock. And to think...there was me...without an I...about to become nothing! That's...like...really something!

MOVING HOUSE

"Shhhhhhh!"
Uncle shushed me
"See that there now!"

I looked at
the house and the house
looked back at me

"That wee house wasn't
there yesterday!"
Uncle whispered

"Really?" said I
"Really!" he said
I stared at it

"No! Don't look
at it or
it might...!"

"Uncle never
finished what
"...it might. .  !"

the house it seemed
terrified of being caught
crept back into its shadows

it crouched
by the side of the road
as if at any moment

it would up sticks
and do a runner
at great speed

we walked on
warily by
careful not to scare it

"Let sleeping houses
lie!"
Uncle warned me

I not being
used to countryside
I was blinded with green

so that when
Uncle brought me
a different way

I was
none
the wiser

"See what did
I tell ya!"
the house had gone

"That wee house
likes to
roam about!"

and then the next day
and "Jaysus!"
wasn't the house back

Uncle kept this up
for a week or more
bamboozling my mind

and for all
the summers of me
being 3 and 4

I heartily believed
in the moving house
and its comings and goings

Uncle smiling
at my innocent
belief in him

*

Auntie Nellie used to always give out to Mikey and with always the same words"For God's sake Mikey will ya stop filling the child's head with nonsense....can't ya see that he believes everything you say!" Mikey would always smile and say his catchphrase: "Be the Hokey!" It was his stories such as this made up on the spot that seeped into my imagination and I soaked up my Uncle's storytelling through emotional osmosis. He made me the poet I am today.

PASSING STRANGE

Rose arose
& having risen
...was angry

'You never call me
by my name
only love & darling.'

'A rose by any other name
would smell as sweet! '
I quoted

'That's neat! '
she sweetly
smiled

'That's Shakespeare! '
I whispered in her ear
and kissed her

sweet sweet smile.
(each reflected
in the other's eye)

'Oh, quote me
that kiss again! '
she sighed

'How I do
love thee...! '
I cried

'...let me
count the kisses! '
she replied

my lovely
darling
Rose

THE EMPEROR OF NOW

robin in church
hopping from pew
to pew

a miracle
made real
its sheer joy of being

I hum Haydn
to its every step
Menuetto: Allegro

my little emperor
dances on the altar
it has become the music

it gazes at itself
reflected in the gold
of the tabernacle

a host of sunbeams
chase each other
little fishes of light

now robin
balances on the head
of the Christ

this the secret
prayer
of the moment

leaving me
bereft when
it finds the open door

*

Haydn's Quartet No. 62 in C Major, Hob. 111:77( Op.76 No.3) - the 'Emperor.'  It's Menuetto: Allegro was the musical equivalent of its happy hopping through the sunny church....as if it was the manifestation of Haydn's notes. It was a little epiphany...a kindness given to me...this robin was my only religion.

When they were in Rome, Severn used to rent a piano and play Haydn for the dying Keats in the next room and Keats was delighted with it and said:  "This Haydn is like a child for you never know what he will do next."

It was also accidentally the soundtrack to my daughter's first tentative tottering steps...as if the music was holding up her tiny frame and propelled her along.

I love robins and I used to have an extremely friendly little chap who would follow me as I turned over soil. I paused to wipe my brow with one foot still on the lug of the ***** and he came and perched on the other side of the lug so I stayed the way for a good five minutes and so did he. Both of us alive in the world in that self same moment and sharing this little scrap of time...both just mortal creatures enjoying being alive.