ALL THE WAY FROM CHICAGO
( for my aunt Peggy )

"I used to
know me
but now

I've become
someone else
another me

at odds
with who
I used to be!"

Aunt Peggy
in her American clothes
American mannerisms

glad to have changed
sad to have changed
at the same time

the girl who
was left behind
fading into a photograph

the young woman
who left
the lady who returned

she mussing my hair
"Gee you got curls
just like a girl's!"

she taking me
into her thoughts
despite my nine years

I loved her
just as
she was

two people
in the one
aunt

RACING WITH CLOUDS
(for Benny Kelly)

clouds racing
across a sky
across a river

we dive into the clouds
leaving behind us the sun
wondering where we've gone

two shouty splashes
with legs sticking out of them
the river covering us with stillness

we swim under the clouds
our lungs greedy for air
the silence roaring

we break back into the world
we had left centuries ago
our bodies shedding silver

we flop on the grass
like freshly caught fish
as if we have created ourselves

we the new
constantly coming
into view

we of an age
to be
immortal

a cuckoo's cry
stretching all the way
from there to where we were

joining the distances
together
the countryside dozing in the sun

it seemed that Time
would be always
this one moment forever

and so
it was
and is

THE SWAN & LEDA

How, like a...God
he comes

taking the shape
& the form of a

swan

who having had
his wicked way

longs
to be

on his
merry way.

But, wait
...what’s this

he can’t....shake
...his fine...feathers...off

feather upon
downy feather

locks him
into the costume

he had put on
& now...can’t be put off.

What magic
can this human woman

weave

& now
having been taken

takes great pleasure
in having her servant

a giant of a man
among men

****** the swan
& begone.

And once
the God

is well & truly
f

he’s plucked
of all

the finery
of his feathers.

Behold, the God
standing in the ****

shivering & ready
for the ***

the final twist
of this fatalistic plot

...his beautiful
neck.

That night
she dines upon

the subtle delicate
breast of swan

served in a creamy
pepper & garlic sauce.

She even has
an extra helping

thinking she can
always exercise it off.

Alas, poor Zeus
wishing he had chosen

to pose
in his usual tour-de-force

a shower
of gold

but thinks too late
(thinking even as he is eaten).

And now, she burps
(“Oh, pardon..! ”)

sleeps
& dreams

of a God
fit for a dish.


**

She was well wicked and gave that God as good as she got. It's always good to turn the tables on a God and put him on the table ready to be carved up...perfectly cooked. Go Leda...gooooooo! After all these years upon years upon years he had it coming to him.

LOST ANGEL

the universe
waited outside herself
like an impatient taxi

already thinking of
the next fare
after her

"Let it wait!" she thought to herself
In exactly 5
and 25 minutes

Christmas would arrive
in all its customary
vulgarity

it now an Xmas
rather than
a Christmas

she on the other hand
walked through
her memories

adrift  in an attic
looking for a lost angel
her childhood packed away

in boxes broken open
under the constraints
of time and age

days wrapped
in cobwebs
angel nowhere to be seen

here her headless horse
of the rocking
variety

somehow
getting by
on only three legs

Time hadn't been kind
to it and her being such
a boisterous child

and here at last
the angel that had
set her on this journey

of discovery
finding this
lost self

an angel absconding
from its duties
topping the tree

crushed
and glitterless
minus a wing

her first doll still
gazing lovingly
at her

through its one good
button eye hanging on by
a  blue coloured thread

outside Christmas came
without her even knowing
it was Christmas

mist hid everything
instead of snow
erasing reality

as it was
when she was
the little girl of before

the time being
always
a Christmas Eve
that excited hush

of expectancy
rather than
the day itself

the doll remembering her
as she was
when she kissed her

and cried all over her
"Oh oh...she's
beautiful!"

hugging her
once again
to her chest

the bells
mounting the sky
announcing her joy

*

Her daddy used to call her Angel instead of Angela and she called her dolly Angel so she went looking for an angel and found herself.

AND THE WORLD WAS AS SIMPLE AS SNOW

You are like. .  .all
the dark shops of my childhood
where you enter with the little ****** of a bell

and the world blossoms

into a myriad of things colourful to sell
stacked in impossible & impeccable order

all yelling shining glinting wild & glassy

and the cash register singing with the hard earned money
and the little ****** of a bell lets you out again

into a world
excited with the falling of  snow

& the palpable approach
of  a Christmas when Christmas was Christmas

and the world
was as simple as snow.

*

It is a love poem for my sister Junie...the YOU ARE LIKE. . .and then I am taken up on the wings of memory and she's alive again and I am 7 and always holding her hand as we go to buy my Ma 4711 eau de tiolette and my Da Old Spice aftersahve. I always got them these presents year after year in the time of my childhood..It took me 6 months to save up the money for them...and I would look longingly at kids ******* ice lollies in the depths of summer but save my little pennies 'til they grew into pounds and Christmas approached slowly and silently but I was always ready for it...and I would go with my sister June up to a lovely old chemist all polished wood and brass and glass...the little bell creating the wonder and with its ****** right on cue the snow would fall and I would hold my lovely sister's hand forever and ever and never ever let go...the delight was in my sister and her love and this is what the poem is all about....Christmas is just the backdrop to my always remembering her so. I can still feel her hand.

THE LANGUAGE OF WATER

You wait by the lake
alone

except for your self
&
your reflected self

as if the landscape
dreamt you up.

Your thoughts a flock of birds
scattered across the failing light.

Clouds laugh
run along the ground
on tiny unseen feet.

Trees stand on their heads
wriggling their toes in the air

& you
become as two

both real & unreal

as if a living
dream.

You hum
Pachabel's Canon

as sun & horizon
listen.

Not bad for a human
they both agree.

It's as if
I need a key

to enter this magical
dimension

as if I have to
invent one

...a magical one.
I take a little stone

whisper to it the secrets
of flight

and teach it how to say: "Splash! "
in the language of water.

The little stone
transformed  with its new knowledge

does as it is told

shatters
this mirror world

opens
the dream

and I enter
bewitched

as any fairytale
Prince

my voice
calling your sweet name

with longing

you turn
& we embrace

kiss
& look upon ourselves

as the dream
remakes itself

stitching itself
together with silence.

An old artist
(unknown to us then)  

places us
the lovers

at the center
of his composition

adds this
final brushstroke

and pleased
with his efforts

folds up
his chair

packs up
his paints & easel

smiles at our
kisses

wishes
us a goodnight

and is gone
eaten by the twilight.

Our laughter
frail & fragile

lingering on the night air

playing peek-a-boo
with the moonlight.

*

I was ill and in chronic pain and had just got off a late shift...I was sick and tired of being sick and tired'...long sleepless night...dead on my feet and this Serbian gentle man asking for directions made me raise my eyes to the sky and being given the gift to see and let the world shine through me. Human contact and a heavenly body reminding me that just being alive in this moment...despite all the pain and my life unravelling...was what counted.

He was delighted to know that I knew my Popa(and that he was one of my favourite poets)and of The Battle of Kosovo. As we walked he reeled off verse after epic verse and I had the immense pleasure of hearing it in Serbian. I couldn't understand it but the music was in the sound. in  He was a lovely man and so giving...and the final gift of the moon was sublime. His love for his wife and child glowed within him like a spiritual fire. I  had lost my wife due to my paralysis( "I don't want to be with no paralyzed guy!") and this saddened him greatly.

I felt like the Ancient Mariner inadvertently blessing the sea snakes and being blessed in turn.

"Their beauty and their happiness.
He blesseth them in his heart."

O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware:

Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.

"The spell begins to break."

The self-same moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.

THE GIFT

I wander home
lost to the world

wrapped up against the cold
in my thoughts.

Unbidden
the Heavens

blaze
above me

but I pay them
no attention.

The world covered in
the soft frost of sorrow.

Only to be stopped
by a lost soul

(loster than I?)

a Serbian
not knowing where he’s going

or which direction
home is in.

Lost in language
directions are useless

so I walk him
in the general direction

of where
home should be.

Seeing the poetry book
clasped in my hand

he launches
into verse after verse

of some battle
lost so long ago

but still flashing
in his eyes

alive as
if 1389

were only
yesterday.

He cries
at this old defeat

made new
by his tongue

his syllables
a field of blackbirds.

We arrive
at where

I know
he would not be
lost.

Home beckons
across the water

a sleeping daughter
and a wakening wife

dreaming of his return.

He wants to pay me
for my trouble!

I decline:
“No trouble! ”

Try to tell him
the passion of the poem

more payment
than could have been

hoped for.

He is upset
until...

“Look! ” he says
offering me the moon

(unseen by me
in sorrow) .

A moon so suddenly
throws off her clouds

and stands
naked before us.

“She is beautiful...yes? ”

The naked moon
now hides shyly

behind a massive
tower block

and now peeps out
the other side.

I take his thanks
sweet in his unknown tongue.

I take his gift
of the moon

and walk home
with the river

running beside me
keeping up a non-stop conversation.

Time flows
under the bridge.

Finally I arrive
at where I should be

the gift
of his moon

still tightly
held in my mind.