"SIMPLICITY IS THE GLORY OF EXPRESSION"

mist subtracts the world
from itself bit by bit

where did those trees go
they were here just

a minute ago didn't
see them steal away

the house it would appear
we have lost it

the stream is still there
but only in its song-over-stones

an invisible cow lows
to another invisible lowing cow

the world has been
put in mothballs

wrapped carefully
in cotton wool

as if it was going to be
put into storage

stored somewhere
in an attic for when

we would be
needing it again

all that is left
is such a simple thing

me tied to you
like some emotional mountaineer

the guide rope
of your laughter

and every other step
a Whitman quote

leading me on
to home

not needing
eyes to see

your voice
creating the path


*

"SIMPLICITY IS THE GLORY OF EXPRESSION" - Walt Whitman

THE MAP OF NOWHERE

shipwrecked
on the tiny island of self
sends a message in a bottle

to her future self
who maybe can
rescue her

if she ever passes by
in the great ship
of memory

will she know herself
when the time comes
to step onto that horizon

balancing
like a tightrope walker
between heaven and sea

FIRST LOVE

I am new to
this

"love thing"
read about it in manuals

of course
but this is

the real thing.

Ok..ok so
she is just a dust bin.

I love her
rusty dents

she so very very tin!

Oh the metal of her.

The way she wears
her lid.

Her name is Tin(Sn) &

she has 10...10
stable isotopes!

I know the humans will
never understand.

A robot never forgets his
first love.

*

Broken toy robot sticking out of a rusty tin bin....I wrote them their love story.

RETURN VISIT

I see the Past
happen before my eyes

( here a not too bright
Cabbage White )

hides among the coal

my sister’s laugh

decorating a June night
so bright it’s almost light

my mother’s hands blue with cold
singing to her washing

the graceful notes
freeze as they leave her lips

birds like staff notation
sketching the gist of the tune

on telegraph wires
every now and then

moving up & down
a note

us in Spring
spinning ‘round ‘n’ ‘round

falling dizzy
to the ground

feeling like we’re falling
off the earth

pinning ourselves
to the ground

with sheer will power

as the blue sky
washes over us

&  our senses
drown

memories
scattered upon

the sands of time

like seashells
clutched in children’s hands.

THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD

The city inches towards
the dawn.

Most of it is still
( not awake )

but sleep
has disowned me.

I stand and stare
as this world

comes into being
as it dresses itself

in sunlight
the new moment

as it glistens
translating the now

into the song
of a passing bird

so beautiful
I call out

your lost name
amazed

that this world
moving through space and time

does not contain
you.

You who have gone
beyond even

the great silence

and my tears fail
to bring you back again.

"The beauty of the world
hath made me sad. . ."

I tell my reflection
gazing through glass

a startled bird
flying through my face.

*

The title is taken from The Wayfarer by Padraic Pearse ...a poem from my long long ago Irish childhood. My brother would have learnt this poem at school as well. Now its sadness has become my sadness.

The Wayfarer
by Padraic Pearse

The beauty of the world hath made me sad,
This beauty that will pass;
Sometimes my heart hath shaken with great joy
To see a leaping squirrel in a tree,
Or a red lady-bird upon a stalk,
Or little rabbits in a field at evening,
Lit by a slanting sun,
Or some green hill where shadows drifted by
Some quiet hill where mountainy man hath sown
And soon would reap; near to the gate of Heaven;
Or children with bare feet upon the sands
Of some ebbed sea, or playing on the streets
Of little towns in Connacht,
Things young and happy.
And then my heart hath told me:
These will pass,
Will pass and change, will die and be no more,
Things bright and green, things young and happy;
And I have gone upon my way
Sorrowful.

. . .WHILE THE MUSIC LASTS. . .

"Music heard so deeply
That is not heard at all, but you are
The music While the music lasts."

T. S. Eliot: The Dry Salvages - V

*

The door appears
before her

as if hey presto
out of thin air.

I have to sing it to her for her
to know it is there....is a door.

"Open the door Suzie!"

The Dylan and her name
activates its fact and function.

She is always amazed that
the world waits outside.

" A little bit of magic!"
she always coos.

"It's like the sky...the bird and trees
have been made...just for me!"

And each time she
carelessly loses the world

it is made anew
shiny as the first Creation.

She basks in the sheer
pleasure of me

brushing brushing
her hair her hair.

But seeing how much
comes off on the brush

she panics:
"I'm losing me!"

As if she were shedding
her self.

"You're losing it...you're losing it!"
I sing with great gusto.

She laughs and joyfully
joins in

with the corruption of
Blake.

Out on the street she
starts to take off her clothes

thinking she is
at home.

"Oh oh Suzie we
don't do that  'round here!"

But now it's time for
biscuits and tea.

She knows it because
I whistle some capriccio

of Zelenka's
whatever comes to mind.

She admits that I music her
back into being but

"...you can't whistle for toffee
or sing for nuts and your voice

is a bit too harsh and Irish!"

I do my best to
sing her through

the day's comings and goings
music taking her by the hand

leading her back
into a world

she no longer lives in
most of the time.

"Open the door Suzie!
But I ain't gonna hear it said no more.

I IS SMILING

Everything always is:

'I is...'

As in:

'I is...happy! '

'I...is...tired! '

Even to negate it, is:

'I is...not tired! '

'I is...not go bed! '

(with Churchillian scowl

& foot stamp for emphasis) .

I used to love

your construction

the simple syntax of your

sentences:

'Tilly & Mummy...is girl! '

'Dónall Dónall is...not girl? '

Now I is

remembering you

just as

you was

recall your words

just as

they is

& I

...is smiling.

IT'S A LONG LONG ROAD

You the proud
horseman of my shoulders.

My curls
your reins.

The sky dripping with
pure happiness.

The horizon a sheer line
of nothing

but joy.

I gallop off
into the infinity

of this one
and only moment.

The centaur of
my little brother's world.



Now you
are in your pudgy phase

and I can only carry
you on my back.

I tell you
you are my koala bear.

You like the sound
of that.

"I'm a Coca Cola bear!"
you chant.

"Yeah..." I huff.
"...right!" I puff.

You are too heavy.

You ask me if you
are "...too heavy?"

"Not a bit!"
I lie.

Field after field I
carry you through that summer.

"Huffpuffhuffpuffhuffpuff!"
I turn my breath into song.
"Huffpuffhuffpuffhuffpuff!"

"You ain't heavy...
...your'e my brother!"



Now I    carry you
within me

as the living must
carry their dead.

Your memory
light as a feather

resting upon the soul.

Your death too hard
for me to bear.

I carry you through
fields of summer

you will never see.

"Am I
too heavy for you?"

Your voice
echoes inside my mind.

"No...!" I lie.

You smile.

Knowing now...I lie.

"You ain't heavy...."
I feel his little hands

tugging on the reins
of my curls.

". . .you are
my Brian!"

LIFE CHANGES

I had 2 boy fishes
Bubble & Squeak
(but they croaked it) .
I cried when they died.

Now I’ve got 2 girl fishes
Kisses & Cuddles
(& they swim real neat) .
Sweet!

I lost my teeth
& Mum meets

her new boyfriend Trev.

Mum & Dad - split.

Dad got engaged.

My sister had her first kid
at 15.

I had my hair cut short
& was sad.

I think poetry...puberty’s
a bit of a change

because you grow tall

grow spots

grow more hairs

in private...
...places.

I got a lot older & I kissed my first girl.

Girls have changes in their chests
becoming outstanding.

Testicles get bigger.

Both sexes change emotions.

The way I feel ‘bout growing up is

...I’m scared!
I got shingles because I was depressed.

I got foot & mouth for humans.

I got something wrong with my legs.

I don’t want to grow up but

I will have to just

...deal with it!

I swam with dolphins.

This is the Snakes ‘n’ Ladders

of my life.

* * *

These are not my words...I just strung them together on a string to see where it would take them. I was marking essays for the little ones who had just left the secure world of primary and were now floating around lost in secondary. They were given the essay title LIFE CHANGES and these are the words and life stories of 32 little people and how they see the world and themselves. I didn't change anything just collected and collated and put them together to make this pattern. This is their individual/collective poem. Their voices and view of the world is unmistakably their own!

AGENTS OF FORTUNE

Mr. & Mrs.
Death
lying side by side

in a morning that
has not as yet
made itself up

Mr. Death is snoring
waking Mrs. Death
it's always the same

Death is dreaming
he is living
inside his dream

"Fred. . .Fred!"
hisses Mrs. Death
but he dreams on

who would have guessed
that Mr. Death's first name
would be of all things "Fred"

"Fred!" she shouts
finally managing
to drag him from his dream

"Wot...wot!"
snaps Mr. Death
"It's time!" Mrs. Death says

Mr. Death mumbles
gets up unwillingly
grumbles

brings Mrs. Death
her breakfast
"Thanks love!" she smiles

"Well I must be off!"
Mr. Death sighs
"Got a busy day today!"

Death had been dreaming
that he had been alive
that he wore flesh

but the War
drags on and
always a war

he's wanted at the Front
Mr. Death so tired of it
all

"See you soon!" Mr. Death  yawns
but Mrs. Death has turned over
gone back to sleep

snoring she dreams
that Mr. Death doesn't
have to go to work

that they could be
just for once
ordinary folk

Mr. Death
closes the door
as quietly as he can

hums to himself
Blue Oyster Cult's
"(Don't fear) the Reaper"

THE LAST NOW

May my death be
an improvisation

a casual glance of sun
obscuring the scream of brakes

so that I may never know
I am dead

rather than the slow dying
of a hospital bed

the endless moment
overflowing

into the last
now.

And let there be
no funeral service

spare me your tears
so that only in death

do I become
the "good man" I never was.

Scatter me amongst
bird song

so that I am
now the sea...now the sky

the line in between
an end and a beginning

this new
horizon of self.

COMES A MOUSEY

"Comes a headache you can lose it in a day,
Comes a toothache see the dentist right away;
Comes love nothing can be done! "

she wiggles her fingers
she wiggles her toes
tries to mouth the words

she gurgles in her cot
waves her head about
hits her mobile toys

I sing her old jazz
standards from the first
day of her life

from tiny tot
to the toddler
of now

she can join in
and sing
with relish and delight

and demand of Daddy
"Sing me mousey
Sing me mousey!"

"Comes the measles, you can quarantine a room
Comes a mousey, you can chase it with a broom
Comes love, nothing can be done!"

Comes love, nothing can be done

Comes love...nothing can be done

Comes love . . .nothing. . .can be. . . done


*(


Comes Love" is a 1939 jazz standard. It was composed by Sam H. Stept, with lyrics by Lew Brown and Charles Tobias. It was featured in the Broadway musical Yokel Boy, starring Phil Silvers and Buddy Ebsen where it was introduced by Judy Canova. It was sung by me all around our house so that my little one soaked it up by osmosis and came a time when she could sing it along with me and being a little girl the comes a mousey was her giggly favourite bit and I would always let her take the lead.

MR. DADDY SOFT-SOFT

always her fascination
with me
shaving.

this her early morning ritual
observing each action
as if it were holy


I hide my face in foam
“Santa Claus! Santa Claus!”  
she chants

winces with delight
as the razor
(she gulps)

goes over my bump
without
slicing it off

the shaving
uncovers
the me she knows

“Soft…soft! ”
“Mr. Daddy Soft Soft! ”
she gurgles

in a lather of laughter
“Me now…now me! ”
she pleads with me

I take the brush
coat her reflection
with foam.

I shave her
with the tip
of my little finger

her reflection sniggers
&
she sniggers too

later, in the early evening
she appears
bearded in fresh cream

she shaves herself
with a lollipop stick.
“Me... Daddy now...see! ”

I cha cha cha her
on the tips of my toes
as she clings to my

fingertips
dancing around
the living room

one delighted
half shaved
little girl

one delighted
soft soft
Mr. Daddy

OMBRES
de nous-mêmes
ANCIENS



April in Paris
John Donne has indigestion
pines for words from the Isle of Wight

"...whether I be
increased by a child or
diminished by the loss of a wife..."

his baby is born
dead
his wife lives

words...words
these creatures
made of ink

he begins his Anniversaries
Elizabeth Drury becomes a symbol
for the death of youth and beauty

Ben Johnson scorns
such
extreme lamentation

"If it had been written of
the ****** Mary
...it had been something!"

"...she, she is dead; she's dead:
how wan a ghost
this our world is..."

"the imputation of having said
so much
...to say as well as I could...

an Emperor is
about to be
elected

the busy old sun
rests for a moment in
an empty room

AND THE BEAUTY THAT BREAKS FROM THEE THEN!

Here in Stratford
upon Avon

our love so
(so Shakespearean)      

“...this the very naked name of love...”

& here
upon this
naked hillside

hidden amongst summer’s
long tall grasses

each time
our loving

graced by the presence
of a windhover

as if Gerard Manley Hopkins
blessed our union

sending us this sign

touching us with the beauty
of his lines:


“...a billion times told...lovelier! ”


*

   This windhover(kestrel)       seemed to follow us through the unfurling story of our love and always appeared when we were making love whether it be a hotel bedroom or a sunny hillside.   As if it were the same windhover watching over us or a blessing from Fr. Hopkins whose poem I had always loved since I was a child.

    Here then was the beauty of this woman before me waking to our first morning ever together and her beauty almost blinded me and so the misquote of the Hopkins line...'AND the fire that breaks from thee then...' as her beauty flowered in my mind and almost eclipsed me. Her tongue had taught me comfort...her touch had quenched my tears...had touched my heart. Suddenly love had found me and I surrendered myself to the tenderness that befell me with even the littlest of her smiles.

   And yes...she was 'a billion times told lovelier' than I could ever have imagined her. I was blessed and she was my blessing.


And here is Hopkins...in all its wonder and glory!

                         The Windhover:

                         To Christ our Lord

I caught this morning morning’s minion. King-
  dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn Falcon, in his riding
  Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! Then off, off forth on swing,
  As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
  Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, -the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!
Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
  Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
  No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
  Fall, gall themselves, and **** gold-vermillion.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

"FACTS ARE VENTRILOQUIST'S DUMMIES."


“In the dark silence, in the void of all sensation, something began to know it. Very dimly at first, from immeasurably far away, but gradually the presence approached. The dimness of that other knowledge grew brighter ...”


― Aldous Huxley, Time Must Have a Stop



the shepherdess turns
and in turning
turns into porcelain

as does the chasing shepherd
as they are caught in that
one fleeting moment forever

an ormolu clock
announces that it is the ormolu clock
and that time must have a stop

which is the Huxley novel
the Duchess has been reading
before she expired

dust gathers upon
the chasing and the chaste
porcelain figures

the ormolu clock
stopped in its tracks
has forgotten all about time

the novel lies on the floor
as if a victim of crime
dogeared at page 39

what happens next
the Duchess will
never know

and her fancy
of the porcelain come alive
dies with her

the fire stirs itself
and a loose coal
burns a hole in the carpet

the cat sees all this
and thinks nothing of it
resumes the process of sleeping

SPRING  DON'T TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER

"Ok..!"  shouted Spring
"I know y'are in there..!"

Spring had the house
surrounded.

It had trees stationed
all about my abode

aiming their apple blossom
straight at me.

Already their perfume
had invaded the room.

I had turned into
THE INCREDIBLE SULK

sunk into
a blue funk

there was to be
no escape from.

Even my reflection wouldn't
look at me.

"OK..!' shouted Spring yet again
"...just look out your window....

surely you can see you
don't stand a chance!"

I couldn't help my self
I gave a panicked glance.

Platoons of daffodils
waiting to charge the house

yelling in yellow.

"Ok fella...this is your last chance
I'm going count to then...."

"Alright....alright...it's a fair cop
I'll come quietly!"

I kicked open the door
hands held above my head.

The trees had me
cornered.

The sunlight had me
blinded.

Happiness...sheer ******...happiness
grabbed me by the heart.

"Ok kid...easy now...easy!"
Spring soothed me

"Everything's gonna be ok...
...Ok?"

I sobbed on its shoulder
threw my despair away.

*

I had broken up with my girlfriend and was absolutely desolate. I would go to work and come home and just sit in my room and stare at the white white walls and the little window as it changed from light to dark and back again and...back again. I just cried and cried. Then one day I was walking to work not paying any attention to anything when all of a sudden I was greeted by a bunch of crocus and they were the first things to enter my mind and catch my imagination.

After a year I had finally noticed that something beautiful could possibly happen. And like the ancient mariner I blessed them even though I could not bless myself and I was blessed for loving the crocus just for the beauty of themselves.

The healing had begun and the voice of that wonderful English anchorite Julian of Norwich penetrated my loss and anguish and revealed to me that yes...yes...believe it or not.. . .

‘All shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well,’

The poem wrote itself inside my head and by the time the Underground had delivered me to my place of work it had emerged into hastily scribbled form and later that day beside the little window and the white white walls I typed it up and ceased crying bit by bit by bit.

"BE DE HOKEY!"

uncle's old hat
inhabited now
by a black feral cat

I remember the laugh
always fixed
beneath that hat

forever tilted back
ready with the quick quip
tongue in cheek

his green corduroy trousers
nothing but rags
to shine shoes

first colour photo
we'd ever seen
those green corduroys

were really green
as if the photo was
necessary to prove it

attacking with a pin
the dirt caught
in the green ridges

"See that tree?" he'd tell me
that used to be me but
I grew out of it!"

words loved him
and would do anything
he said

I the small boy
wearing the fabled hat
in the act of being him

wearing the much too big
green corduroys
rolled up...held up by braces

"Be de hokey!"
I'd exclaim
quoting him

"Be de Holy Dublin!"
his catch phrases on my lips
creasing him up

"Hey ya little *****!"
( pretending to be mad )
"Yer better than that Charlie Chaplin!"

me bathing his feet
in a basin after
he put the cows to bed

a black cat
inhabits the now
curled up in Mikey's old hat

*

Dry, droll, laconic and ironic...he taught me just by the example of himself how to create a world from just a bunch of works and shape them until they fitted your thought. Everything could be so surreal and real with him at the one and the same time.The man who made me the poet I am today. One of the three Corkmen who were the treasure of my childhood.

I once went for an interview to get into some college up in Dublin and failed miserably. To merely put me at my ease the interviewer said who are your heroes and I at once said: "My Da, my uncles Seanie and Mikey!" And the interviewer said:" No...I mean real heroes!" And I said:"My Da, my uncles Seanie and Michael." i knew even then that these were the men who were everything to me and shaped who I would be!" Their teachings were tender and gentle and I soaked them up by some emotional osmosis. I still claim that the best part of me today is...THEM.

MAKING THE MOMENT

Memory nails
one piece of time

against another
piece of time

until it bears
some ramshackle  resemblance

to the exact
moment.

Memory has left things out.
Memory has put many more  things in.

But for what it is worth
it could...pass for...the moment.

The sense suffices.

A hedgehog creeps slowly
across the bottom of the garden

as if it were in
a universe of its own.

A crow caws
across a sky

as if it were creating it
with its cry.

Well, well, so...
here I am again.

Sorta.
Kinda.

And here you are again.
Alive.

Not dead.

You flicker through
all the faces you

have ever been.

But bit by bit
time slips

and the moment
comes apart.

I stare into the nothing
you have become.

And my mind builds
and rebuilds

this exact moment.

Nailing one bit of time
foolishly to yet another.

Making the moment.
forever.

*
What the mind elects to remember....this tiny moment of not-much-ness gets played and replayed...yet it holds him as he smiles and turns to say something and then....he is gone yet again...and I can't remember what it was he was going to say only that he said it to me and every little second of him is precious...even this insignificant little thing that should have vanished.

Strangely enough there are three different times in this one moment....there is the hedgehog on his journey across his little world...then the crow dragging the sky across our vision...then just Brian standing against the window that looks out upon that sky...that garden...but memory elects to combine them all as happening at the one and the same time...the only common thing being his smile(as always)and his lovely laughter. A tiny moment made out of nothing at all and yet is the seed of everything I love.

"I AM persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love...."

Romans 8. 38, 39.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF A 9 YEAR OLD BOY'S SECOND WORLD WAR

the evil drone of
Heinkels ...Messerschmitts
"Ack-ack-ack..!"

the darkness
answers back
fear & fascination

the small boy
plucking them out of a sky
in his mind's eye

identifying  their shapes
clocking their markings
"I AM DEATH!" they say

his auntie's house
nowhere to be seen
the next morning

being comforted
that she's in Heaven
God uneasy in His world

Daddy a pilot man
who stayed up in the sky
because he died

auntie and daddy
lost in the night
with all the Heinkels ...Messerschmitts

making up curse words
when he let in a goal
playing on bomb sites

"Focke-Wulf
Focke-Wulf
FOCKE-WULF!"

SINGING THE RIVER

Walking with my uncle was never
the ordinary process of of perambulation.

in order to get from pt. A to
pt. Z.

We would sing our way west into
the field as if to

tame it
soothe it with sound.

"On Carrigdhoun the heath is brown..."
we'd sing to it

"...the clouds are dark o'er Ard-na-Lee."

The grass listening with its thousand ears.

And the field would swoon
and fall down

to the river at its border
( which as it happened )

was the real life river
of the song

"...to kiss the slumbering Own na Buidhe."

As if we had sung it
into existence.

And we would roll ourselves down
over and over until

we arrived at its dizzy waters
dangling our toes

in pure song.

And now( with a quick uncle wink )
"Let's walk home....backwards!"

And backwards home we'd go
just for the laugh of it.

The yes of it!

Confusing cows
and a few scattered clouds.

Trees and hedges tiptoeing
away from us.

The five-bar gate with
the sweetest wildest strawberries at its feet

proclaiming: "Is it mad...
...y'are or....wot?"

And the next day off we'd go walking eyes closed
in a darkness of our own making

to sing its song
to the river

the river chuckling
over stones to itself.

And the next next day would be
backwards with eyes closed

led along by our own laughter
and the odd mystified moo.

"Farewell..." we'd tell
the sleepy river "...farewell!"

leaving it dreaming
in a sunset.

"Shhhhhh..." shushed our footsteps
shhhhhhs walking backwards,

"When Donal swore, aye o'er and o'er,
We'd part no more a stór mo chroidhe."

"shhhhhhhhhhhh.....shhhhhhhhhhhh!"
"shhhhhhhhhhhh....­.shhhhhhhhhhhh!"

"....shhhhhhhhhhhh!"

*

Oh now that sense of play would be down to my Uncle Mikey who taught me the world in his own inimitable way. I believed everything he told me which used to annoy the hell out of my Auntie Nellie( God love her )who then had to put up with the both of us. She'd always be saying: "For Christ's sake Michael will ya stop filling the child's head with such nonsense...can't ya see he thinks everything ya say is true!" And true it was 'cos...I did and in a way...still do! He was one of the heroes of my childhood...a treasure trove to a kid...one of the jewels of my life.

THE GHOST CLUB

It's THE GHOST CLUB
you hardly know
when you're dead

it's just
a different kind of
alive

I hang around my old shed
touch & not touch
my rusting tools

some of the other ghosts
hang out at the bandstand
but only when it rains

we call ourselves
THE GHOST CLUB
chat 'bout this 'n' that

that 'n' this
you know the little things
that make a life

we keep in touch
with the living
shadowing them

pretending to be their shadow
hidden in a sudden
slant of sun

we shout and shout but
our words are invisible
it's like living

in a parallel
dimension living
inside a snow dome

when turned up side down
the fake snow falling
mimicking the real snow

falling gently now outside
I'd love to cry
but I've forgotten how

and I don't know
if it's allowed
it's a life of sorts

somehow
I get by
( I miss my boy )

bye. . .
bye. . .
bye

*

An old negative who had never known a photo...found floating face down in the ruins of my uncle's cottage. It's impossible to tell who they were...are. But I thought they bring them back as an illustration for this poem. Long may they live even in this ghost world.

STARRY STARRY NIGHT

She switched off the moon.

Plucked out the stars.

A little dog barked
as her scream scrawled:

“This time life has gone...too far.”

She took an overdose of sleeping tablets
in her big bright red car.

The day withers
that was once in bloom.

Petals fall
in an empty room.

The moon wept.
The stars cried.

Life was for living... Life lied.

She actually survived this attempt as she went into the hills where nobody could save her but...she had counted on a lone one man and his dog out for a last stroll. Paddy the dog went to *** upon the back wheel of the beautiful red car and started to whine. Paddy the man saw what was happening and pulled her out in time. Beautiful red haired woman in a beautiful red dress in beautiful red sports car...how could she even think of doing such a thing. When he visited her in hospital she was so enraged at being saved she threw a vase of flowers at him!

THE BECOMING OF ME

I'd be the first to admit
I was present at

my own
birth.

As was everyone
at theirs.

But I attended mine
with full consciousness

even if it was
my mother's

who in the telling
and re-telling of the tale

making me experience it
as it happened

down to the tiniest details
and so it was I was

born again and again
in her voice

in the tale of me until
her memory become my own.

So there I am
watching myself being born.

The labour ward radio
singing Ce Sera, Sera

either to sooth or
to drown out the screams.

My mother pleading with Doc. Cahill
"Oh will it be a boy...please make it a boy!"

And the Doc. answering in the demotic:
"I don't *know Ita...whatever will *be...will be!"

Then I put out a toe
to test the world and

Doc. Cahill is able to tell her
it's a boy at least!

And here I come
all 2 lbs of me!

All energy.
Speedy.

Popping out fast
heading for the end of the table

only to be caught by
an even speedier nurse who. . .

"Got ya....ya
little divil ya!"

It was '56 and I had come
prepared to rock 'n' roll man

sideburns better than
the King himself.

Only to be sung into being
by Doris that day.

"Oh he's got such a little *** ***!"
my mother moans.

"Don't worry..!" smirks the nurse
with the big big hands.

"It will grow!"
As indeeds it does.

And so they myth of me
begins.

I a tiny pebble in the stream
of my mother's voice

giving me her memory
for me to see

the me
of me.

"What are ya gonna call
this little fella?"

I get the kiss
and the caress of the Irish

"He will be
a Dónall."

A big name
for the little fella.

And see how the Irish
elevates me.

I, now no longer
a nameless entity but

"World Mighty
Spear Power!



It was almost like being there for me even thought I of course can't remember it for myself but I became my mother's memory and lived it vividly. Every birthday I would call her up and thank her for having me. When push came to shove...all I did was arrive...and she did all the work. I was tiny and she lost so much blood and nearly died and I spent my first six months in hospital with her.

". . .THE WONDROUS ARCHITECTURE OF THE WORLDE. . . ."

I laugh
the road over the Hog's Back
closed because....it melted

was the sun ever so
back in your day
eh Kit?

and what do I read
Mr. Marlowe?
why words, Kit, words

that word magician
Dr. Burgess he presumes
to bring you back

to life again
and so it seems
I see your blood Kit

streaming in the firmament
nay only a Deptford sunset
dragged screaming from memory

your blood upon the page Kit...
mere cherry juice it
stains the words

and so to Deptford I
do go
thanks to Madame Remembrance

I a poor
purveyor of poetry
clutching at words

and here
a great reckoning
not  in a little room

but on a lost street
staining the scene
a sickly yellow

and so enough
of Prologue...
Act 1 begins

a smiling ruffian
see his knife smiles too
the blade eager for blood

alas I
in so much pain I
have no fear of death

indeed would welcome
the flicked knife
if it would release me

from my life
a man prepared
to die if it be so

"Come live with me and be
my love..." I doth quote
in my best Passionate Shepard

"Wot?" he wots
scared of my insouciance
the ghost of Marlowe by my side

ahhh he the very villain
a scar from eye to smile
he aims to do the same to me

"Where rogue did
they get thee?" I mock
"VILLAINS 'R' US?"

Marlowe's ghost laughs
"Aye lad...ay lad
to him!"

"Only one of us..."
I warn my hellhound
"....will come out of this alive!"

I pause for effect
"And I'm afraid
it won't be( hee hee ) thee!"

I take a determined step
towards my would-be
now trembling killer

who all this wordage
being too much for him
he flees

ahhh the glint of words
defeats the glint of steel
he my Ortygius

"What sort of Feend,, or spirit of the earth,
Or Monster turned to manly shape
Or of what world or melted he be made...?"

I declaim to an audience
of cats and cans and
other streetly filth

I...I. . .unable to
find the next line
and so I etc., etc., etc.

and once more
I am of Guildford yet again
30 years or more away

and there melts a road
upon the Hog's Back
and I laugh to be alive

"Doth teach vs all to have aspiring mindes:
Our soules, whose faculties can comprehend
The wondrous architecture of the worlde.."

**

Ha ha spent all this morning writing this after Jan came in and told me about the melting road! On the hottest longest day of the year for 40 years I was reading Anthony Burgess A Dead Man in Deptford and remember one of only my two visits there. Of course this is where Marlowe was killed/assassinated.

For seven years after a head injury I was in immense pain and would have been grateful to be taken out of it...so my poor villain had met a man who didn't mind dying....hence all the verbiage and wordage.

BECOMING THE MAN MY FATHER ALWAYS WAS
(for Brian )

Each night
I would follow you

through the rituals
of what you had to do

being Daddy.

I wanted to be Daddy too.

Mimicking your gait
becoming an exact

copy
of you

trailing along
in your footsteps

like a lone seagull
following in the wake

of some great ship
of state

watching the water
burn

'til it was all bubbles

then letting it
calm down

before filling my mother's
hot water bottle

carrying it to her side
like a lover's gift.

I was
your little shadow.

She'd always smile:
'Thank you Danny! '

'That's alright love."
was always the answer.

These the ritualistic words
in the hot water bottle ceremony.

Then he'd teach the clock
to ****

adjusting it with his hands
and wind up Time

so that it spit tick & tocks
all through the night

then go lock doors
turn keys
draw bolts.

'That's it, son! '

I used to imagine
being you

and now I am
my own man

winding up Time

bringing my missus
the gift of a hot water bottle

(the gift of me)

both equally
heart warming.

'Thank you Donall! '
she always smiles.

'That's all right love! '
I always answer.

Me the man
I am

because of you.

OH PHOTOGRAPHIC YOU!

you...yes...you
wearing the latest
cloud upon your head

living your life
in Kodachrome
leaving your B&W world

and see here
a tree in full bloom
growing out of your head

and see there you
with only half a head
in Polaroid Land

now you no longer
here or there
I love the photographic you

even all these
badly taken snaps
a treasure trove of you

all these awkward moments
tears that bring
laughter

now you gone for ever
but these holy relics
possess your smile

I shove them to
the back of a drawer
unable to look at them

but knowing I will
again and again when
pain bites through the soul

...AND I WAVE BACK

Outside the hatch
he turns slowly

and talks
but I can't make out
the words he says

they fall from his lips
dangle and float in space

outside the backyard fence
a hill grabs the moon

and then slowly
lets it go again

the moon floating just
out of reach

laughs; 'Go on...do that again! '

the hill smiles: 'Just you wait... just you wait! '
the moon beams
as a little bird

gingerly(as if at first unsure)
steps out into space

and then finds flight
take hold of it as if

it had only discovered it that minute
and absconds with it

the darkness
barks

and falls
into silence

and then another part
of the darkness

barks back

held in a gentleness
a leaf tiptoes down the breeze

as if descending
a spiral staircase.

Time holds its breath

outside the hatch
flat on his back

the earth a little blue ball he has let go of

the astronaut
slowly turns and waves

& I
wave back.

"MINÄ RAKASTAN
SINUA PALJON PALJON!"
( "I love you very much!" )

the sky
full of stars
as if suddenly

as if billions of stars
had been ordered
and crammed into place

he realised he
had become lost
in the silence

these were Finnish stars
and the silence too
was very very Finnish

he turned on his heel
and then turned
again and again

"Hello!" said the snow
only in Finnish
of course

"Hei itse!"
I answered it
as if we were friends

after an hour
the way home
finally found me

that night
curled up
in his life

he watched with his wife
Hiroshima Mon Amour
with Finnish subtitles

she translating
it into English
for his benefit

"...and then one day
my love you came
out of eternity..."

both of them
not realising they
had become pregnant

SCHRöDINGER'S SOCKS & THE REVENGE OF THE CAT

Schrödinger's cat
failed to see just what

all the fuss was
about?

It was all such
a reductive absurdum.

The cat couldn't understand
collapsing wave functions

decoherence
entanglement or whether

reality was really
quantum

to save its life.

It was aware of
one thing & one thing

only
. . .the diabolic device. . .

Cat in a metal box
with a Geiger counter

with a radioactive substance
blah blah de ****** blah

an atom decaying or something or
other &

releasing a hammer to smash
a phial of hydrocyanic acid.

Wot!

"I do not like thee Dr. Fell!"
thought the cat.

It was a very literary cat.

So all this palaver
about a cat( me? how! )

being both dead or alive or
neither dead or alive or

. . .wot!

So this is to be my great
to-be-or-not-to-be!

Welllll excuse me!
Say...doesn't the cat have his say?

So, I( clever cat that I am)
merely claw my way to the top &

disengage the device
by taking out the hammer.

So no cat was harmed
in the making of this

thought experiment.

It almost drove Schrödinger
out of his tiny little mind!

And he( hee hee )
never did discover

what ever
happened to his socks.

I forever stealing
one sock from a pair

from the open
washing machine.

Leaving him to ponder
just where socks go?

The other side of the Universe?
Oh come on Erwin...it's not

rocket science!

Now, to get back to
describing the behaviour of

a quantum entity.

"Mmmmm......mmmmmm?"

"Naw....I still don't get it!"

"Say ya couldn't see yer way
to giving me a scratch...could ya?"

"Up a bit....upabit....yeah...yeah
. . .there...just...there!"

A WOMAN IS CRYING

in the next room
a woman is
crying

a moon
perches upon
an hotel sign

unmoved
as a new millennium
dawns as bright as neon

the woman
still crying
her unknown despair

shifting silently
from one century
to another

human grief
unchanged
from age to age

a woman
is crying
crying

*

New York with one century becoming another and in this one moment on the threshold of a new age...a woman cries her own private grief...a sorrow that has no name but seems to be the grief of all ages now and to come. I never discovered the reason for such sorrow and the neon coloured it blue and yellow and then red.

JOLLY GOOD SHOW

All day
stuck up this ****** tree

in the middle of ****** nowhere.

All the landscape
shrunk to this crossroads

like the cross-hairs
on a rifle sight

brings the distance
into focus.

“****** Nora! ”
He swears to himself and laughs.

His mother’s name was Nora.

Always thought it was hilarious
to swear by her.

Remembers one time as a boy
swearing at her:

“And eh by gum
she didn’t half hit me hard! ”

“Blood seeping through the gum
still taste the taste of it on my tongue
****** ‘orrible it was!

Hated her ever since.”

“Now, look whatcha made me done! ”
she hollered at him.

“Yes…sorry our Mum! ”

He didn’t dare cry
‘cos she’d hit for crying!

“She was a hard one…our Mum!
Had to be with us ****** lot!

She were fun though when she were happy! ”

He hoped to God
that his man would come

so he could **** him
and be done.

Didn’t know him
from Adam

(leader of the insurgents
capable of getting men around him) .

“Dangerously charismatic! ”

Better dead
to keep the British peace alive

as the Empire lay dying.

The sun setting
dying him a golden brown.

“If he don’t come soon
I won’t have the light to **** him.”

“Remembering shooting game with our Dad
rabbit…pheasant...up ‘eath in sunlight

. . .such as this.”

The dangly ****** rabbit
turning into next night’s stew

eating a celebration
of what you can do

- do well...****.

How he came to be here
up a ****** gum tree

rifle in hand…staring
waiting for a man to ****.

Same ****** thing.
Simple ****** plan!

Waiting 3 days now
and no man.

“Keep your position ...over.”
“Maintain radio silence.”

“Report in when job done.”
“Roger ok that...over & out.”

“Eager to get job done so I can go ****** ‘ome!”

“Didn’t believe it myself
until I seed it! ”

Dot in the distance
translating itself into a man.

Just enough light left
for killing.

“And now, put out the light
...put out the light! ”

He muttered to himself.

****** Othello!
The only Shakespeare he knew.

“A lass I once knew
A real brain & chatter box! ”

“I only ever wanted to get into her knickers
& the only way to do so was to listen…so I listened.”

“Trying to teach ****** me Proper English
and she ****** well Scottish!

****** cheek!
...och aye...but nooo! ”

The crossroads funnel him into
the killing spot

“Trot trot trot trot!
like THE HIGHWAYMAN!

Noyes! No...yes!

Why think of
Marjorie Wallace and her ****** poetry now!

No poetry in killing
just plain ****** prose.

Dead is dead is dead.

A blown rose
fading on the periphery of his vision.

The cross-hairs
come to rest

like a deadly spider
on the rider’s face.

He’s ****** grinning.

The man doesn’t even know
he’s already dead!

Won’t even know what’***** him!

(Probably thinking of a sweetheart
and getting her into ****** bed)

Just like I am.

Just the gentlest of squeezes

like stroking a lassie’s ****
(Oh Marjorie ****** Wallace!)

Then - that’s it!
The rifle spits and speaks

in the language of the dead

and only one man understands
what’s said.

And where there was a head
there is now no head.

You see it only
for the briefest of seconds

and can’t really believe it!
How the head blossoms!

Like a sudden flower
and then fades

in that
instant.

Mindless now...

he plucks the faded rose
(or whatever it is it’s called around here)

reminds him of
England.

Pops it into
an amo pocket.

Good clean ****.
Head shot – one shot.

Tries to pretend...
but it always hits him hard

taking a closer look
at his handiwork.

Kicks the body:
“You poor stupid ****** ******! ”

“A man no less a man
than I am...”

Faceless.

Lying there in the dirt
as he were only having a kip.

Becoming dirt.

Breaks radio silence:
“Come and ****** well pick me up! ”

“Jolly well done! ”
The radio cackles back.

“Jolly good show! ”

*

Brian was the gentlest and nicest man...he had a great sense of humour and always greeted me with a big sweary hello. He was always delighted to see me and I him. He was a delight to be with. I knew he had been in the army but didn't know the where and when of it. One evening as we sat in his room with the sun bathing us in gold he suddenly came out with all of this...inside this lovely man was the practical let's-get-on-with-it killer....a job to be done no more. I've tried to keep his voice and his telling and the sense of self...letting him tell the story as he did that day without any comment.

THIS MAN WHO IS NOT MY FATHER IS MY FATHER

This man
who is not

my father

is

my
father.

The others laugh:

“It’s not your turn but
he calls only for you! ”

And so I go
& clean him up

his skeleton thin body
splashed with ***** & sh.

I laugh & joke
with him.

He chuckles
as I tell him:

“Johnny....you used to be
so full of crap
but sh...now you’re not! ”

Lucky
our Irish sense of humour

extends this far

say anything with love and
it becomes so.

It is a tired old joke
but like a child he

pounces on its nuances
relishing each pause and stupid syllable!

I bathe
him

this man
who is not my father

gently as if he were

my child.

I sing
to him
all the old songs

I learned
at my father’s hands

as he bathed me.

“...why does my poor heart keep following you...”

We sing together
softly as I bathe him

dress him
anew

in the memory
of my father.

This man
who is not

my father

becomes
my father

as my hands learn
to care for him.

I settle
a pillow

behind
his head

wipe sweat
from his forehead

stroke
his hair

until  his sleep
is full

of dreams

...dreams.

*

He was only skin and bone and very weak...one could imagine Death standing by. He was always amazed that "How does a young fella like you know that" or as I would bathe him when he soiled himself I would sing the "Old Refrain" and again he would  say "But how does a young fella like you know a song like that!?" And the answer was always the same "My Da would always sing it to me when I was small and he was bathing me!" Or my Da would suddenly recite to me when tying my shoelaces or combing my hair "Jenny kiss'd me!" Or sing to me as he worked in his plot...'Liverpool  Lou.' And so the love of these would be passed from my Da to me and so to him. We all loved these things in a line stretching all the way back to my Da's young days in the 1920's. Love never goes away it just changes into another person  and an old poem and an old song would be the means to carry that love.

OH FRABJOUS DAY!

“Well well!”
chortled the Jabberwock
rising to greet me

“If it isn’t Donall
of the Dempseys
to be sure to be sure!”

I beamed
at the Irishism and
gave him a great big hug

he took an enormous
fob watch out of
his waistcoat pocket

“Is that the time?”
smirked the Jabberwock
“We haven’t met since…”

“…I967!” I answered
“From ’67 to now
that makes you 67!”

“Were you scared
of me way back then”
snickered the Jabberwock

“Naw…I knew you were
just a load of nonsense
fun with sounds and words!”

he put down
his vorpal knife and fork
said he had to fly

another reader
had opened the book
and he had to jump

into his Tenniel
illustration
and play his part

“But dear boy…dear boy
how wonderful it was
to see you after all this time!”

he smiled
over his shoulder
"Oh and tell Alice...

I was asking for her!"
and he was gone
flying off into my imagination

DRESS WITHOUT A WOMAN

dress without a woman
high heel without a foot
ring without a finger

who you were
reduced down to
items in a second-hand shop

death erases you
( memory tries to... )
death erases you

a palimpsest of selves
I try to make you
exist

my fingertip
writes your name upon
a frosted window pane

CRÚISCÍN...CÍSTÍN BAISE
(LITTLE JUG...LITTLE PALM CAKE)

Auntie Mary’s
currant cake & blackberry jam

“Mmmmmmmm”

The jewels in the crown
of our forever summer

holiday

precious Corkonian objects
brought back to the lowly lowlands of the Curragh.

All the blackberries
that ever were

bursting with sunshine
& childhood

Jumping into
the jar for her
as if it were
an honour.

They & I
transformed by her

love
& lovely laughter

cake baked
with smiles & chuckles

winks & singings.

Me on her knee...tiny
being kissed to bits

Me being devoured
by an enormous hug

smothered in bosoms
many many yellow flowers on her purple pinny.

Her blowing my curls
out of the way

so that her smile
could kiss me

more &
more...er!

Me unable to
comprehend anything

of her
Cork accent.

Me saying “Yes..? ” & “No..? ”
in all the wrong hilarious places

(to my great embarrassment
& her great amusement)

her breath
tickling my cheek

telling me
she loved me
...loved me...

& that I looked
so good

she could
“...ate me! ”

*

( Homely little terms! A little jug of milk and a little cake in the palm of your hand.)

A cístín baise is a little cake made on the side of the griddle especially for the child...eh...“helping” with the baking.

This was written for my Aunt Mary who passed away recently leaving me with nothing but the memory of her love...her all abiding love...that not even her death can diminish. I simply adored her.

The Cork accent is like fast fluent French cross pollinated with sing- song Welsh...almost impossible to understand unless you are immersed in it for a couple of months! But of course she would also play with me and make up a whole lot of what they call in Cork... “glig glag”...silly talk.

She was so easy to love.

A child’s delight!

DANNY DEMPSEY'S SON

my name
floated free
from me

like a child's ballon
taken prisoner
by a sky

here at the Old Head
of Kinsale where
my father had been born

I had become
"Ahhh Danny Dempsey's son!"
"Ahhh Danny Dempsey's boy!"

my Donall-self lost
in their delight of my father
"Where's my name gone?"

"He's the spit of ya!"
"The very echo of ya!"
"Hasn't he stole yer face!"

everyone having an opinion
of who it was
I was

and wasn't I only
delighted to be
" Ahhh Danny Dempsey's son!"

*

It was the first and only time I had been taken to my father's birthplace. And despite being long away from here he was instantly  
known by strangers who could tell him by just the look of him. And it turned out everyone was a second or seventh cousin. They delighted in him...sheer happiness to be in his presence as in the wild sky generation after generation linked together in the cry of the gulls.

The lighthouse was too dangerous to go up in so we stood at its base with a storm rearing its head. It was odd that nobody referred to me by my name only as "Danny Dempsey's son!" I wore this naming like a medal...always delighted to be his child.

On my first Holy Communion I was taken to Dublin for the great day. We were walking down Moore Street with the women selling their fruit and vegetables in full voice. A babble of voices....crazy as gulls.
When they saw us the whole street as one stopped and smiled with glee. One after another they declaimed: "Ahhh sure if it isn't Danny with his little fella!"  I was petted and patted and hair ruffled and oooh'd and ahhh'ed over.Money and fruit...fruit and money were ****** into our hands despite our protestations.

I thought it was the Cork effect happening all over again. It was like my Da was The Beatles but they had simply mistaken him for someone else. And the more he tried to tell him who he was...didn't they laugh and say: "Ahh sure isn't it a terrible man y'are altogether...always the joker.!"

We tried to give the money back but they wouldn't be having it. I whispered to my Da: "Who are they...do you know them?" He gulped; "Know them? No!" I gulped: "What do we do?" He told me" "We take the money and run!"

And so we did...dropping oranges and apples as we made our escape. The stall women shouting after us:.."Don't forget to come back!" I still wonder what happened when their Danny turned up!

FESTINE LENTE FESTINE LENTE

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, Donall – 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, Donal lad! ”


Festine Lente is the Latin for Hurry Slowly!



The man who made me...the man I am.

THE LONG HELLO

I left
my memory
in a run-down hotel

all damp patches
peeling
plaster

who am I?
wish
I knew!

maybe I'm a salesman
travelling
in lady's underwear

naw...that don't seem right
I looked into the blur
that formed & unformed

before me
constructing in my mind's eye
a Hollywood smile

that's all stage set
nothing behind it
but...fakely real

she had an Art Deco heart
she wore on her sleeve
bit frayed 'round the edges

and a laugh
that lingered
like perfume

'Hi, Petal! '
her lopsided grin
was all femme fatale

she spoke
in Film Noir
I knew the lingo

'Remember me? '
she sighed softly
as if caressing herself

remembering
me
caressing her

sure wish I remembered it
in intimate detail
I'm a stickler for detail.

this broad was slim
but with curves
in all the right places

if ya get my drift
if ya know
what I mean

her laugh was all
lightness and lavender.
'Good...good! ' she cooed

'I see your ******* is
at least listening! '
I involuntary

covered my crotch
with both hands
as if I was naked

I wish she was
her curves flowed
like very runny honey

over the back of a spoon
trickling on to the tip
of a tongue

she was strictly
yum as in YUM!
then she went

all Cubist on me
as if she'd been badly drawn
by that Picasso dude

I felt like a 2-D drawing
as she approached me
in 3-D

my conscience found
its voice(down behind
the back of the couch)

it wheezed
and wheedled
like it was Peter Lore

'Ouch! ' I ouched.
'Ok...ok! '
I announced

in a too loud voice
'I believe I know...
....who done it! '

'It was...' I stammered
'It was...' I stuttered
"It was...'

'Cut it...Cutes! '
she snapped
like knicker elastic

'I guess we both know the score.'
she somehow contrived
allowed her dress to fall

to the floor
where it pooled at her feet
like a green silk puddle

'Hey has anybody told you
you look just like *** a chelli's
Birth(I burp) of Venus! '

'Cut the wise cracks Jack...
it was the drink
...done it! '

'You just had one
bottle of Baileys
too many! '

'But now...it's finished...
ya hear
...finished! '

she threw the bottle
over
her naked shoulder

I listened to her
in glorious
Technicolour hangover

she poured her body
all around me
like jelly in a mould

'Hung over sure...but
I think I got the cure! '
her kiss was like
the last page

of a **** good Who
...dun it!
finally falling

into place
I kissed her
lovely face

YOU WITH YOUR FRESH THOUGHTS CARE FOR...
(for Amandip)

The tree
undresses itself

shyly sheds its leaves

stands naked
in the setting sun

its golden clothes
about its feet.

She cries
for what she sees

as the death
of the tree.

I put her
on my knee.

Kiss her
sobbing head

whisper words
of comfort

into her tangle
of golden curls.

Later, from the table
the sellotape dispenser

appears to have gone
missing

leaving behind an emptiness
where it should have been.

I smile to see
each golden leaf

returned to
the lower branches of the tree

clumbisly sellotaped
back in place.

'Tree better now! '
she seriously tells me

as starlings
swoop & sweep

across a sky.

*

I guess this is my modern updat of Fr. Hopkins's SPRING AND FALL: TO A YOUNG CHILD which I have loved ever since I first encountered it as...a child. Little did I think then that I would live my own version of it years later with my little girl. I used to say this poem to her to make her go to sleep...she didn't understand the words but loved the tone and the fall of the words.

I guess(I am doing a lot of guessing!)    that I had in mind also....one of the first haiku I ever fell in love with....Moritake's beautiful little peice of real magic as the fallen flower floats back to the branch.

The poem is dedicated to Amandip because of her constant kindenesses and her smile which lights up even the darkest corner.

Spring and Fall: To a young child

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

*

Moritake's most famous poem:

    The falling flower
    I saw drift back to the branch
    was a butterfly

THE FOREVER FLOWER

she hands me a stalk
"The flower's dress
fell off!"

"Fix it!" she cries
I by sleight of hand
fix her flower but with a different colour

"It's a different colour!"
"The flower..." I tell her
". . .changed its dress!"

this flower
with its dress fallen off
I hold forever

*

This is my little Tilly from long long ago and that flower or non-flower by the time I got it...is the only treasure I could wish to have. It's just one of those tiny moments that get lost in the flux of time. At the time I didn't write so I was delighted when it just popped back into my mind. It's like an emotional Polaroid.

IN XANADU....IT'S...COMPLICATED.

"Life should not lived
in black and white...

...but, in colour!"
Coleridge thinks.

"Man should not believe in
'No-can-do"

but in 'Yes...
we can!'

Even a legless man can
dance the Can-Can

with the uppermost part
of his body and

dancing with imaginary
legs!"

Sammy( sometimes he )
displaces himself into

the  third person
decanting the fine wine of the mind.

"Naw...scrub that line
don't know where in hell I was

going with it.
Gawd! This laudanum is strong!"

And so, he sits, sips and pens
in a vision or a trance if you like

a dream of future-time
where people can be made

into paper replicas
of themselves.

The "picture-graph"
he calls it

for want
of a better word.

And now he pushes the boat out
pictures that can talk and walk

so that even the dead
will flicker for a second

back into the life
they had.

A world going to ***
and other such drugs.

Machines that can take your voice
and fling it over to...say...Japan

and back and forth
again.

The world shrunk to your hand
" a miracle of rare device."

Just think!
Think of it man!

Or to be Blake-an about it:
"What is now proved was once, only imagin'd."

"I have a dream..." the poet proclaims
beginning to sound like a speechwriter

"...that one day man
may fly...sitting down in the sky!"

Oh I'm really getting going now!
Laughs at his mind's daring derring-do!

Gawd....this laudanum is strong!

And that one day facebook(sic)
will come to be.

"...things unfathomable to man!"
These the dark caverns of the mind.

Cute cat videos...selfies
whatever!

"Look here is a picture
of my dinner!"

Relationships: It's...
...complicated.

He crosses out "unfathomable"
writes "immeasurable" above it.

"...miracles of rare device..."
So good I've said it twice.

Such "...mingled measures..."
will life be really so?

Suddenly a 'ping" or some
such thing!

A message request from
Kubla ****** Khan.

Now one is being poked
by some bloke

an Alf
from Porlock it would appear.

Good Gawd is that really his
Profile Pic...he looks sick.

Claims to be a Jehovah's Witness
and can he come 'round and

have I found
Jesus?

Jaysus no! Delete...delete!

This facebook is
"...a savage place...

as e're beneath a waning moon
was haunted..."

Bit flowery that but
it will have to do.

Now **** it all to hell
where ****** was I?

And now...now...this very now
a poem put upon my timeline.

My timeline's mine!

Yet another poem by some
"woman wailing for her demon lover."

Is it my imagination or
are there more demon lovers around

than this time
last summer?

Humming some **** tune
by that Olivia Newton John.

An annoying earworm.

Ada Lovelace
wants to be my friend

even though she isn't
even born.

Oh get a life!

Do I 'heart' Byron"
"Wot...that ***!"

Describing her mindset as 'poetical
science."

Goes on and on
about an analytical machine

and how individual and society
relate to technology

as a collaborative
tool.

She makes me feel
a fool.

I deign to
decline.

This stately "pleasure dome"
device is not for me.

I delete my future
account and listen

to the dear  birds
( alas no albatross )

in my lime tree bower
as they twitter.

Make myself a cup of tea.
No sugar.

Constipation is
killing me.

Eat an egg out of a tea cup.
A fat slice of ham.

Gawd! This laudanum is strong!

I do not like things
"...flung up momently..."

"I close my eyes with
holy dread and cry

Beware! Beware!"

Have... God...
**** run out of laudanum!

And so set out
for Porlock

avoiding Alf
if I can.

NOLI TIMERE

to how small
he was
back then

the big barking dog
appears
a monster

a Grendel and
a Grendel's mother
put together

just as in
the telling
of the tale

his sister's voice
weaving a Beowulf
along the journey

every atom
of him
totally frightened

"Don't be afraid..."
she whispers to him
"Here...hold my hand!"

she stares the creature
straight in the eye
"Hello...Mr. Dog!"

and the creature shrinks
back into
someone's favourite pet

we walk on
into our future
without looking back

now here
at your death
I can still feel

your hand
in my hand
even

in a world
without you
I tremble

with
the loss
of you

and Death shrinks
before this great love
the tiniest of touches

"Don't be afraid..."
you whisper to me
"Here...hold my hand!"

IS THIS. . ?

Is this the face
that ate
a thousand chips?

Is this the fez
...that launched
a thousand quips?

Is this the vice
that launched
a thousand whips?

Is this the vine
that launched
a thousand sips?

AFTER THE ROW

built an over large
snowman
on your front doorstep

&
hid behind it
rang your doorbell

until you were
annoyed
by it

“Yes...yes! ”
you flung open the door
to be confronted

with a snowman
telling you
he loved you

until slowly
your heart
began to melt

HAVING THE TIME

my first Dutch disco
clinging to the wall
your cliched wallflower

a beautiful blonde
enquires of me
"Have you got the time?"

"Yes it's just about
midnight"
she looks nonplused

"No no!" she smiles
you have the time
...yes?"

only realise
she's asking
me to dance

we hit the floor
she a whirling dervish
a tornado on legs

"What..!" she yells
above Blondie's
"Rip her to shreds!"

"...is your name please?"
"Donall!" I yell back
she looks aghast

slaps me hard
across the face
storms off

just then JE T'AIME
is spun by the DJ
just for fun

"Oh, my love
Like the undecided wave
You’re the wave, me the naked island"

couples clinch
and smooch
I do the walk of shame

her had imprinted
on my burning cheek
cling to the wall

trying to disappear
into its pattern
of flowers


"Come, let me sing into your ear;
Those dancing days are gone,"
Yeats whispers in my ear

"Leave it out, W.B."
I snap at the dead
poet's ghost

Yeats laughs dances off
"I carry the sun in a golden cup,
The moon in a silver bag."

for ever after
I ask Dutch friends
"Now don't get mad but..."

I take a step back
"What does Donall
mean in Dutch?"

"Why...nothing?" they answer
"Nothing!" I say
"Yes...nothing!" they affirm

and so the mystery remains
I still feel the sting of her
slap all these years after

HIDE AND GO SEEK

"You know...
Granny's dead?"

"Yes. . ?"

"How long is she gong to be
dead for?"

"Well. . ?"

I think she
senses I

don't know
the answers.

She walks away
holding her dolly by the hand.

"It's just...Dolly misses her."

She throws the words
casually over her shoulder

then steps away into
a doorway

filled with the morning's
sunlight.

Granny smiles
from her photograph

trapped behind
the glass.

"...99...100. . !"
floats on the summer air.

My daughter's voice
sing-songing

"Here I come..."
( the hide and seek of )

"...ready or not. . . "
(life).

SUCH GENTLE VIOLENCE

unseen
a shoal of fishes
turn &...turns again

above them
a moon covers her nakedness
with a passing cloud

the lovers make love
with such a gentle
violence

the waves argue
insistently with the shore
"Shhhh,,,!" says the shore "...shhhh!"

a noise stops
and becomes
a mouse

mouse
stops
gazes into an owl's eyes

its shriek lost
in the faraway barking
of a little brown dog

the lovers at long last
asleep
turn and turn again in the heat

a small breeze
whispers its secrets
to the warm dark

unseen
a shoal of fishes turn &
turn again

CENTAUR

Hiding in the hay
me a terrified little boy
& my uncle like a terrified little boy

the voices in his head telling him to be afraid
of all strangers...changes.

He’s been like this
since the day his Dad(my unknown grandfather)
died.

My Aunt’s voice
searching for us...searching us out.

Her shouts like bloodhounds
hunting us down

her words angry & cruel.

Her angry voice slurring us into:
“DonallSeanie! ”

as if we had fused into one being
a metamorphosis of us.

The hay cooks us
and we swelter in our hidey hole

A chicken sits on top
of my uncle’s cap

as if his mind had
materialised into this shape.

He rocks himself
and rocks me.

“Shhhh...boy...shhhh! ”
comforting both him & me.

“Don’t leave me! ”
he clucks

the words scattered around him
like newly laid eggs.

I settle into his silence.

My Aunt’s threats freezing us
in this terrible heat.

His chest hair
tickles my nose.

The cut on my left big toe
throbs through the open sandal.

My uncle cries in fear.

I wipe away the tear
with the ***** edge of my sleeve.

We escape to
the West field

me riding his shoulders

transformed into
a legendary creature

that only exists in myths
fleeing from the realness

...of reality.

THE FOREVER KISS

between this second &
the next...Time somehow
goes astray: here - the kiss

the camera captures us
with its black & white click
we all shadows and sunlight

the camera perched
upon a rugged rock
proud to have taken it by itself

us now
this "that" framed photo
kissed every morning by the sun

I watch us as
the photograph comes alive &
we step out into the wallpaper

we run amongst
the Paisley patterned paper
like a giant surreal field

here by the light switch
would have run the river
we cross it on a sunbeam

and where the mountain stood
now stands an overflowing bookcase
we scamper amongst its tomes

we our younger selves
arrive at the French window
where our town should be

our little animated us
so black & white & tiny
passing through the darkening glass

the sunlight of this today
newly beginning to
fade away

this sunset now
an unimaginable
40 years away

I let them run
escape their photographic fate
caught in the aspic of youth not age

this photograph we
unaware of death and that now
there is only...me

between this second &
the next: Time somehow
goes astray: here...the forever kiss.