AND I ONLY THE MOST RECENT INCARNATION

thousands of voices
flowing through my head
the ancestors are restless

I borrow their faces
use their voices
inhabit this present

let them live
through me
I a cast of many

and who
will borrow my face
many ages from now

thousands of voices
flowing through my head
the ancestors are restless

I borrow their faces
use their voices
inhabit this present

let them live
through me
I a cast of many

and who
will borrow my face
many ages from now

COMING IN FROM THE COLD

searching
in a second-hand shop
among the bric-a-brac

I found you
in a white Mac
I in a white Mac too

as if
we were both
spies

& had arranged to meet
here to hand over
secret dossiers

I kissed
the top of your head
as I always do

‘cos that’s how
far you
come up to

“The secret word
is Love! ”
I whisper into your hair

“Love! ” you echo
as if it actually were
a prearranged signal

although
only chance
had brought us here

us two
secret
agents

in the  sacred
espionage
of Love

WANTED:

run down human
being
heartbroken

at the end of a tether
wannabe poet
sixty somethingish

must have own mind
Irish or at the very least
able to do the accent

be unable to tell
a lie  & must have
the double initials D.D.

must have seven heads
"Begobs..!" says I
to myself says I

the very job for me!"
I could do it standing on
one of my heads

apply within it said
and so I did on a whim
the job was mine

as long as I could be
all seven of my selves
...simultaneously

TO WOOF OR NOT TO WOOF

There wasn't a word
out of the room.

The furniture
was silent

didn't say anything
at all.

A drunken chair
leaned over and

touched the floor
with an arm.

A tipsy table stood up
on its hind legs

looking very very guilty
at being caught thus.

Books ran all about
the floor

like birds that couldn't
fly.

A glass looked shattered.
Milk raced across lino.

"Wot...wot!"
barked Hamlet

the great Dane

trying to look
innocent

lifting his leg
peeing against the wallpaper.

THE ME I AM

I laugh
with a dead man’s laugh
(a man I never knew)  

my grandfather’s laughter
flowering like Springtime
blossoming in my mouth

not
listening
to the years

Time
joins the dots
Painting by Numbers

I see
with my mother’s eyes
the world

stealing into my mind
become music
anything it chooses

Time joins the dots
Painting
by numbers

This gesture
is my big sisters
gathering me

up into her
nearness
tenderness

Time
joins the dots
Painting by Numbers

My father’s love
beats in my heart
sings in everything

it touches
amuses
me to see

how I am
all those others
as well as me

Time joins the dots
Painting
by Numbers

FESTINA LENTE FESTINA LENTE
(for Bud the Brian)

Up the Green Road
under an arch of sunlight & leaves

I travel through Time & Space
mastering speed.

Balance still a little odd
as I try to...cycle faster...keep up with my Dad

who is forever far ahead
calling: “Come on,Dónall – that’s the lad! ”

All that time I am
that eternal summer

always

struggling to learn

how to do

7 x Tables
(tie my shoe)
master bicycles.

Down the Green Road
under an arch of Time & Autumn

I cycle faster with the wind
behind me...calling to the man

who languishes forever
far behind me:

“Come on, Dad...”

“Take it easy, Dónall lad! ”

*
Festina Lente is the Latin for Hurry Slowly!

STANDING NAKED BESIDE ITS SKIN - SEQUENCE

(1)

A CHAIR SITS IN AN EMPTY ROOM

the woman unhooks
her shadow
drapes it over a chair

she plucks her reflection
out from the mirror
stashes it away

she looks into
the mirror's
nothingness

she strips off
her skin leaves it
on top of the chair

she
switches off
the light

the chair just
sits there
absorbing the darkness

the woman
becomes
her footsteps

light from the bathroom
throws itself into the room
falls just short of the chair's legs

the razor blade
slashes
through flesh

the bites
the tip off
her tongue

she watches her blood
whirlpool down the sink
(she does not stop to think)

washing away
the pain
washing away

this self
a chair sits
in an empty room

(2)

THE MOON REFUSES TO SHOW ITS FACE

an owl is the darkness
only its voice is visible
to the naked ear

it gives voice
to the darkness
the darkness says nothing

it lets
the owl
speak for it

the darkness transforms itself
into the owl
owl becomes darkness

the moon
refuses
to show her face

silence seeps back
the owl
says nothing

the darkness
says nothing
a human cries

(3)

MANY MOONS

she remembers an apple
standing naked
beside its skin

apple cut and cut and cut
like little slices of moon
fallen on the ground

the apple no longer a thing
to be eaten
now only a thing of fascination

the many scattered slices of moon
the earth a black sky
ants walking on the moons

she picks up one of the moons
licks it clean of ants and dirt
places it upon her tongue like a wafer

soon she remembers
nothing
nothing at all

her life the empty space
where she had cut herself
out of her photographs