CONSUBSTANTIALITY...LIKE
REALLY REALLY. . . *****!
( for Eddie )

God the Father
God the Son
& the Holy Ghost

flat-share
at no.42 Holy Trinity Flats, Guildford.

Not exactly the best
idea in the Universe

for this rather dysfunctional
family unit.

God the Father
tries to get out

of doing the hovering but
(ha hah yes ... it’s Sunday ... His day ).

God the Son runs
a bath and when

the water’s just about
right ... then he... practises

walking upon it.

“I wish you wouldn’t ... do that!”
says God the Father jealously.

“Sorry ... God the Dad!
Just trying to get to ...haha...Carnegie Hall!"

‘Ere this Being
3 persons

in the one God thingy
is doin’ me nut in!

I don’t know how humans
get their heads round it!”

God the Father
harrumphs omnipotently

“I did it for a lark .. didn’t I?”
he wheezes asthmatically.

“Didn’t think they’d ever
believe it!”

“Now, the joke’s on me!”

“You seen THE HOLY GHOST?”
enquires God the Father pretend-politely.

“Naw ... our Da!
I thought he was ...like...with you!”

“Will you stop turning wine into water!
Anyway you got it **** 'bout ***..you & your party tricks!”

(“Sorry ... our Da”
squeals God the Son)

“Well, listen, you see...
(you listening to me?)

you tell him it’s his turn
to do the washing up!"

God the Father
storms off in a huff.

“Geeeeeez!” whinges God the Son.
“Geeeeeez!”

* Not to be confused with. . . .CONSUBSTANTIATION!

. . .which as you well know is “a theological doctrine that attempts to describe the nature of the Christian Eucharist in concrete metaphysical terms.” The God element and the bread element co-exist simultaneously until it's time for the God guy to pop out with his usual "Surprise!" One can almost imagine( if one were moi that is )the God sitting there in a coat of dough and reading the racing news whilst waiting for the priest to do his stuff.

SHADOWS HOLD THEIR BREATH
( for de Da )

I watch the world
ripple

on his arm
ink sunk into his skin

the U.N. tattoo
flexing to each exertion

crisp curls of wood
releasing their scent

pine flooding
the moment

that will forever be
1963

a ray of sunshine
opening a trapdoor

into the summer
air

a dimension or two
away

dust motes dancing
like overweight atoms

sawdust balancing
like pollen on his hair

as he sings
to the naked wood

"I think that I will
never see

a poem as lovely as
a tree..."

Of such a moment is
love made

the plane whispering
its secrets to the wood

the spirit level
winking its bubble.

*

The title is taken from Emily Dickinson's THERE IS A CERTAIN SLANT OF LIGHT wherein shadows do indeed hold their breath!


There's a certain Slant of light

By Emily Dickinson

There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons –
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes –

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –
We can find no scar,
But internal difference –
Where the Meanings, are –

None may teach it – Any –
'Tis the seal Despair –
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air –

When it comes, the Landscape listens –
Shadows – hold their breath –
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of Death –
Years after this incident he called me to hold something he was sawing and I was busy discovering Emily and was reading this poem when he called. I loved the tools of the trade but was no good at what he was so good at. My other brother Brian was brilliant at it and was indeed his father's son. All I had was my love of words and I am still trying to be good at that. I used to play with his tools and turn them into...transform them into....Star Trek thingys!

UNCLOAKING THE IMAGINATION

my father's Jack Plane
a Romulan Warbird
his spirit level my Enterprise

This is No. 31 O'Higgins Rd., the scene of my childhood. It is now just a boarded up wreck.

And now just a nothing...an empty space that I walk through in disbelief.

Me and my three big sisters.. I'm still the aggressive curly haired ****** who looks like he might give ya a Glasgow kiss just for looking at him. I was still a long haired liver from Loverpool...me Mam refused to let anyone cut a hair on me head. One day Dad kidnapped me and give me my first haircut. "Don't tell yer mother!" he warned but somehow she copped on. She locked herself in her bedroom and wouldn't speak to him for a week.



"IS IT YER SELF THAT'S IN IT?"
( For good auld Bud )

'Howya? '
said the stone

(in a thick Irish accent)

'How's it goin'? '
said another stone
to the left of the other one.

'So, you decided to
come home? '
sneered a passing breeze.

'Ah...leave him be! '
shushed a familiar tree

& an auld sod agreed:
'Let bygones be bygones! '

There I was
thinking in French

& gesticulating
in Italian.

'Are ya...sure...
...it's himself? '

enquired a changing cloud.

'Sure...I'd know him
anywhere! '
spoke up the road
that led in(& out) of here.

'Ah, Jaysus...
...he's cryin''

sniffled an old
gone-to-seed house

& then, it started
crying itself.

This place grew me! '
sobbed my tears

& now
(somehow)

either it or I
had changed.

Only the ghosts of ghosts
remained.

**

Going back to Ireland is often referred to as going 'back to the auld sod' and so it is that I have the landscape of my childhood question me as I remain silent in the face of fixed places such as houses melt into literally thin air and I walk through what is there but isn't there anymore. I am my own living ghost.

The Irish greeting of 'Is it yourself that's in it? ' always amused me as if the greeter was making sure that your corpereal shape hadn't indeed been taken over by the Devil and that you were now a man possessed! If the answer was 'Sure...aren't ya seeing me with your own two eyes ya ejeet or is it blind ya are or what! ' then that indeed was you. If a deep dark voice that smelt of sulphur boomed 'I am the Lord of the Underworld earthling and you will rot in Hell if you don't buy me a pint! ' then it was more likely the Devil himself or somebody with a wicked sense of of humour. Anyway and anyhow the Devil you know was always better than the Devil ya didn't know. Better to err on the side of caution rather than be having a hell of a time in the place down below.

LOVE REMEMBERED


all that remains
her cigarette smoke
crawling lazily to the ceiling

her footsteps
echoing down the hall
the angry slam of a red door

from the pavement floats up
the clickity-clack of red stilettos
the Morse Code for loss

a Focus LP
caught on a scratch
caught on a scratch

the same pale pink
lipstick kiss
on cigarette and champagne glass

rain falling now
in the open window
wetting the still sleeping cat

a church bell
scatters crows
a drunk staggers down the road

the end never appears
to be the end and then
it just is

I stumble against the record player
Focus get back into the groove
"...'round goes the gossip...'.round goes the gossip..."

THE OPENING OF THE HAIR





my crying
short cropped little girl
all slobber, snuffles and snot




hair cut off
because of a school lice infection
sobs her heart out




"I can't open my hair
I want to open
my hair like Mummy!"




Mummy trots in
with her high ponytail
let's lose her flowing locks    




tresses cascading
over shoulders with
an almost audible splash



a red river runs
down her back
the effect is  wondrous



as if the hair sang
its heart out a madrigal
a little ordinary miracle




mummy takes her
dressmaker's scissors
cuts jaggedly her magic hair



as if breaking a spell
a crescendo
of clips and snips




a red river
weeps
at her feet





Tilly gasps
in awed
astonishment




my crying
short-cropped
little girl





my crying short-cropped woman
both so
uncannily alike




now even more so
"Me and you Tilly
me and you




will grow our hair
together
and when we've done






we will open our hair
and let it down
for daddy!"







*

My little girl loved watching her mother let down her hair or put it up.  So did I as it happens...she had a red river of hair that flowed down her back and it was a wonder of our world to see the hair fall so gracefully as if it were an alive thing. A magical creature.




Tilly used to call this action...the opening of the hair as if it was a wonderful ceremony. She came up with it herself and it was only much much later when engaged in Shakespeare studies that I actually found it was an Elizabethan expression.  The other expression I found was a "cup of news!" So here is my cup of news!




When the lice infection struck Tilly had to lose her hair and was distraught. She just sobbed and sobbed to lose her golden curls so that Queen Mummy took drastic action and sayeth; "Off with my hair!"  And so she sacrificed her glorious hair for the sake of her little one. It was like an Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale. When I came home to this solution I also cut off all my hair. And so we were as one. I took a Polaroid of all us baldy one and placed it next to a photo of us in our glorious hairy day.s The family that goes bald together...stays together.  All for one and one for all. Tilly was delighted now with our new fashion statement and glad not to be the only one.




It was quite a while before the "opening of the hair' ceremony could be held once more.

AN RUD A DÚIRT ÉAN BEAG LIOM
( A Little Bird Told Me)

- for David Cooke -

"For a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter."  - Ecclesiastes 10-20

"Oh!" said the bird
" A human who..."

( and I never saw such
a surprised starling )

"...can understand
our language!"

"You can speak!" I blurted out.
"So, I see can you!" gasped the starling.

"The strange thing is...!"
I framed my words carefully

"...we can understand each other!"
the starling finished my sentence.

"But how..?"
being human I had to ask.

"Forget the hows and whys!"
friend starling replied.

"Just relish the moment
the such and suchness of it all!"

I made up my mind
to do so.

"Everything talks if
you only listen!"

the starling continued
its lesson.

"The mountains talk
to the seas continuously!"

The starling so
informed me.

"But humans never ever
(well hardly ever)listen!"

chirped the starling
playfully.

I see it had been listening
to Gilbert and Sullivan.

"And..." the starling went on
it was us birds who taught them!"

I could tell it was proud of
the whole nation of birds.

"Well, I'ill be...!" I sad.
"Yes..." said the starling "...a poet!"

"Poets know the language
of everything"

The starling stated
as if it were a law.

"What the reed in the rushes
told the lake..."

"Or how the sky sees
and says it all..."

Then its feathers trembled
with the change in the air.

"Well, I must fly!"
chuckled the starling.

"Well, well..." boomed the sky
in perfect Blueness.

"Was that a human
I saw you talking to..."

thundered it vastness
dark clouds looming on its horizon.

"Noooo - not me!"
lied the starling

for whatever
reason.

"Hmmm..!" hmmmm the sky suspiciously
"He looked a bit Irish to me!"

"Níl Gaeilge ar bith agam ar chor ar bith!"
stammered the starling.

And the day continued on
talking to Time incessantly.

*

The éan beag that told me all this against the wishes of the sky...was the drud or druideog...the common starling or as in the W.B. Yeats' poem THE STARE'S NEST.

It liked to quote the lines to me in its own charming voice.

"We are closed in, and the key is turned
On our uncertainty;"

And here was my little stare friend opening my mind out and turning the key.

When caught by the sky telling tales to humans the little fella tries to get out of it by telling the sky "I don't have any Irish at all!" but in Irish. Of course the sky although knowing everything didn't however know any Irish!

I was uncertain of the lines about uncertainty in the Yeats and was trying to remember the Callimachus about people not listening...how a mountain never listens to a sea. And David Cooke when he was staying with us was delighted to find some Greek that he both loved and could indeed read and I thought I betcha David could tell me. But of course not having a David Cooke at hand I stumbled along in these lines and offered up the poem to him.

CROSSING THE BORDER

I smuggle you

despite your death

across Life's borders

here I hide you
between the in-

breath &
the out-

breath

hidden in
the silence

between note &
note

the space between
word and word

death will never find you
again.