LEARNING TO BE. . .

been dead a week
before I knew it

thought the world had gone
a bit transparent

people walking through me
like ghosts

only I was the ghost
just couldn't get used to it

bit boring being dead
nothing much to do

except hang around old haunts
and try to remember who

the hell I am
who I used to be

and what

happens now
I mean is there a part 2 or what

or is this it

and when does Heaven arrive
or

does it?

I watch the rain
falling through me

my 3 year old cries
her tears hurt me

I want to cry but
- can't:

*

A friend of mine "died' for a couple of minutes and I asked her did she float to the ceiling and look down upon her self or go towards a beautiful bright light at the end of the tunnel only to be turned back? Instead she said she saw herself as her own ghost trying to get used to "this being dead lark" and watching her little girl crying over her. She thought: ".. if this is the afterlife...it *****!" and made a conscious effort to come back and come back she did! Dying wasn't for her! She is at the moment living...happily ever after.

HEART GALLERY

you step forth
from your bath
as if

you were
a Bonnard
come alive

spread yourself
across crisp cool sheets
as sensationally

sensuous
as a Modigliani ****
or a Noguchi sculpture

here you
Matisse
if only

for a brief
moment now so
Ernst

now so
playfully
Picasso...ish

I smile
as you
Vermeer

"Come here & kiss me!"
you my Magritte
you my Dali

You my laughing
walking talking
'art gallery

!YOU AGAIN!

Your summer dress
comes to rest

upon the balcony

hung up on a thin
wire hanger

(an exotic bird)        

it cries for your body
weeps at being

parted from you
& your curves

a pool of tears
collects at its hem

as longingly it dreams of
the touch of your skin

asleep now
in the sun.

Later that evening
frightened by the approaching storm

it tries to escape
the clamour of its hanger

almost flies off
beyond the reach of my hands

run away to sea
seeking for further horizons.

I calm it
tame its panic

fold it tenderly

carry it like a dreaming
child

lay it to rest
at the foot of the bed

where all night long it sleeps
at your feet

awaiting your footstep

the sunshine
of being

you
again.

SCATTERED DREAMS

Whenever I fell
asleep

my father came
& cupped me in his hands

carried me to bed

as if I were as precious
as water
in a hot dry land

or draped like discarded clothing
on a couch...in a garden
on a bench or a beach

I would be gathered up

& awake to find myself
back in the safety of my own bed.

And I would have thought
I had flown

or being magically
transported by a spell

but it was only
the ordinary
magic of my father

cradling me
in his arms

gathering up the littlest
of my scattered dreams

stroking my hair

& tip-toeing backwards
out of the room

his voice
full of tenderness

casting a spell

“Good night son...goodnight...goodnight.”


*


Gold and other such treasure? Forget it...my Da was my treasure trove...moments like these richer than the most precious of gems. My Da was priceless...every second of him was untold riches.

SUCH A SUNNY DAY

the objects
in his pocket

have lost
their identity

their significance
to anyone but him

a hairy comb
photo of an unknown

woman
who can she be

a torn-in-two
train ticket

chewing gum
much masticated

yet put back
in his blazer's breast pocket

small change
a penny and a sixpence and

a button
from the cuff

no clue as to who
he had been

before the water claimed him
as its own

the disgust and fascination
of those

passersby who continue
to pass by

it such
a sunny day

for death to
intrude this way

the miscellany of objects
ownerless now

the waters of the Liffey
calm and unmoved

*

I was just coming up to O'Connell Bridge and the bus got snarled in traffic. It was a beautiful beautiful sunny day and as I gazed idly out of the window a body, sodden and shapeless but still all too human was being winched out of the river. So we were forced to witness this before the bus finally made it to the bridge. It was startling and cut like an emotional knife through the fabric of the perfect day.

My girlfriend at the time told of a friend of hers who had sometime last year thrown herself into the Liffey so that added an extra dimension to the horror. Everyone who had met her on that last day said she seemed so happy and were amazed that she had done so because "...it was such a sunny day." She only had a comb and a button and small change in her pocket...all she owned. A human life shrunk to so little.

"...A HEAP OF BROKEN IMAGES. . ."

She would sit beside him
like a distant constellation

trying on what it felt like
to be human.

He observed her
through the telescope of his hate

as if a scientific study
of her distaste

would make her more
understandable to him

but
it didn't.

He remained earthbound.
She an ever expanding universe.

At night they lay like grey
alabaster effigies on a tomb

the close but not touching
classic cliché

except for the cobwebs joining their hands
the odd broken fingers...the chipped chins.

Both pious in the death
of this their marriage.

They tried to resurrect
their long ago selves

who had ate up all
the promises made

before vomiting up
all they had said

like drunks unaware
of puke in their hair

Now *** was engaged in
although boring beyond belief.

He said nothing.
She cried.

Affairs offering little
or no relief

from the prison
of their bodies.

Both their lives
like kitsch touristy souvenirs

gathering dust
on an un-dusted shelf

tatty flamenco dancer
chipped porcelain matador

how they saw
what they used to be.

As if life were a cat
and would with a swipe of a paw

knock them off
broken upon the floor.

How two humans
could come to such an impasse. . ?

Don't. . .
even ask.

HOW COULD THE STARS. . .

how could the stars
have forgotten you
you who held them in

the surprise of your eyes
floated them through
your wind blown hair

& untangled them
from the tortured branches
of trees

when they had lost their way
or forgotten
who they were

you who had spoken of them
when they were silent
& couldn’t find words

spoke to them
so tenderly
shaping them into poems

now the sky is bereft
only the darkness speaks
as the stars search...seek for you