GETTING TO KNOW YOU

carrying carefully
in my belly
your future smile

*

How my mother described the pre-Me before I actually came into existence as the me-Me that I now am...she said she had longings...to see my smile.  Then we sang GETTING TO KNOW YOU to each other from ANNA AND THE KING OF SIAM.

I trawl backwards and forwards in time...anyway the poet's mind is never chronological....this is the long long ago told in the forever present...I am a young boy getting to know...be aware of...my mother as she was before talking on the life task of being my mother...I am aware of her as the person she was...all the different selves....I could talk freely to her about everything and anything...I was always interested in the who she was and the why she was....I saw her as person in her own right...she was telling me what it was like being pregnant with me and how she longed for me....this was her lovely description of carrying me....and it lives forever in my mind in the present tense wishing for the future to happen. She was a lady in waiting and here via words I get to wait along with her...for me! So this memory hangs timeless in my mind...devoid of time....having no need of time and its tenses....not obeying any law but the law of love that does not abide by time's rules.

SHE SAYS SHE SAYS

she presses her *******
cold against the mirror
tries to enter her own reflection

she says she wishes she was
someone else
so that she could make love to herself

after her shower
her hair cups her *******
like two alien hands

she says she
breaks into my (absence)
to steal my (presence)

she says she loves
the way I adverb her
the gentle "ly" in my voice

somewhere she
feels she's made out of a silence
where no sound has every fallen

she accuses me of
stealing her dreams
whilst she'd dreaming

she says she
adores being
on the tip of my tongue

she says my voice
is like the vowel O
in the word love

*


I wanted to get a montage effect of voices and conversations that just come unbidden back...like Godard's UNE FEMME MARIEE montage of images only mine would be of thoughts...feelings...emotions... traces of the love that would by now have floated away into the ether but slip back into the unconscious.

NO. 31 O'HIGGINS ROAD, CURRAGH CAMP, CO. KILDARE.

I climb a stair
that isn't there
stand on a landing

in mid-air
each step I take
creates the next part

of the vanished
house
lost to time

as see through
as a cartoon
ghost

this was
(still is) for me
No. 31

O'Higgins Road
my world
the universe of me

what was once
my bedroom...is now a cloud
a window become a moon

night
and its storm
sit in our living room

a bird tiptoes
down the stair
flying through

nine year old me
reaching for
the light switch

to turn on
what isn't
there

YES WE NEVER FOUND JESUS

I was there
the night
Jesus fell to earth

a great storm
announced
itself

and a glow-in-the-dark
plastic Christ on a cross
wrenched itself free from

its nails
leaving its hands
and feet behind

before it could be saved
our Golden Retriever
snapped it up

and escaped
the house
with Christ in its mouth

when at midnight
it had returned
from the wood

it was without Jesus
having  either lost
or buried Him

we questioned the dog
but it
wasn't saying anything

Jesus
was never found
even after all this time

all four of us
made up stories
of how now

He lived his life
and whether He
enjoyed His freedom

perhaps as a woodsman
saving Little Red Riding
from the wolf

or as a hermit
charming
the birds

or telling parables
to a troop of toadstools that
had grown up around Him

or
preaching to
a curious fox

guess he was happier
now at one with nature
and all his creation

ALL TAFFETA & TULLE

(For Angie Baby)

Frightened by the storm
he crawls under

his mother’s skirts
all taffeta & tulle

clinging to her
ankles

before falling
asleep

upon her feet.

She continues playing
her cards right

winning all before her

as the candles
gutter

and almost
go out.

She remembers her body
wrapped about him

her flesh
protecting his innocence

as now her dress
encloses his sleeping

unconsciously stroking
his hair

with her
left foot

his dreams now
pooled at her feet.

*

She was a remarkable woman with only a stump for a right arm but could play piano beautifully with her left alone. She also had a talent for  being able to do things with her feet just like you and I would use the hand. I remember her little boy being born and watching him crawl into being a fully fledged tottering walker. There was a great big storm and we were reduced to candlelight and kept on playing cards. Her little boy, for little boy he then was, crawled under the table and fell asleep for comfort at her feet. She continued the card game but stroked his hair with her foot as she played and went on a winning streak A woman doing the fabled multi-tasking but with a unique
difference.

Someone once said why didn't i write that detail about the arm into the poem but this poem wasn't about that and anyway it didn't define her or her life. What was remarkable was the terrible tender gesture of her hushing him to sleep with her foot whilst stroking his hair and...winning hands down. It was the beautiful gesture in the fantastic situation that eclipsed anything else.

INVOCATION
( for Mary Forde )

See the dead
bring in the hay.

Hear them call
all the cows by name

as the evening
ambles in.

Take the horse
out of her harness

whisper their thanks
to her.

Hands...rough hands
that mend a fence

fix a hedge
collect eggs...feed pigs.

The thousand tasks
of a farm dressed

in the glorious summer
of long lost ago.

Call them by their names
as you call them then

the child you were
reeling them in.

See them come
eagerly alive again.

Loving that you
have not forgotten them.

"Mikey...Seanie...Sonny...Granny...Nellie!"

Ghost voices
on the wind.

Fields fallow.
Home a ruin.

How time
crumbles away.

I gather you in.
Name you one by one.

Do not allow
time or death

to touch you.

HAPPY NEW...WHAT?

the day
was standing
in the world

not knowing
just what
to do with itself

I was standing
outside
the world

not exactly eager
to be part of
the New Year

somehow I
had escaped
both time and space

but knew there was
no way out of it and
would have to return

a bird
sang
creation into being

and I had to step back
into the ways of the world
hoping against hope

that things would be
could be
better

but of course it was
more of
the same old same old


*


And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been.

Rainer Maria Rilke