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.

OPENINGS
(for Onelia)

The openings of famous novels
follow me around

for days on end

or just lounge around
waiting for me to say them.

The opening of MOBY ****
has gone for a ***.

The opening of A TALE OF
TWO CITIES

has fallen asleep
by the radiator.

The opening of PRIDE
& PREJUCIDE
is sipping a cup of Earl Grey
tea.

“Call me Ishmael...Call me Ishmael! ”
pleads the opening
of MOBY ****
returning from the loo.

“Have you washed your hands? ”
I ask it.

“It was the best of the worst of times...”
declaims the Dickens
confused upon awakening.

“Say me...say me! ”
they all clamour...crowding around me.

I just stare
at them in silence

wondering how
I got into this.

MEETING W.B. YEATS FOR THE FIRST TIME

Curled up in a cuddle

fused into
the one telling the one listening

my big sister
recites Yeats

She whispers:

“Come away o human child...”

as the thunderstorm breaks outside
“...to the waters and the wild...”

as the night breaks open
over the poem

“...to a world more full of weeping...”

the lightning illuminates each line
“...than you will ever understand...”

I cry into her body great heaving sobs
And she says: “Shhh...shhh.. it’s alright! ”

and I only half believe her
her death etched into my mind.

THE SOUL GOES FOR A STROLL

My Uncle sleeps with pursed lips
as if kissed by a dream.

Perched upon this kiss
a butterfly sits

as if an Uncle's lips were the most natural
place for a butterfly to rest

or as if it were an illustration
of the soul (a symbol)

in a magical book
that explained such things.

Outside the trees breathe gently
inhaling & exhaling a soft whisper of wind.

Bees carve a map out of the air
for other bees to see.

Out on a limb
two birds sit & chit chat.

A fox(unseen)passes by
as if it had never been.

A big big bug topples off the top
of a tiny stone onto its back

wriggling its arms & legs
as if it were trying to swim

through the currents of its fear.

One of the gossiping birds
sees him as a tasty treat.

Eats him.

Inside the house's
El Greco shadows

a kitten exploring the newness
of the world it finds itself in

jumps onto the sleeping statue
of an Uncle

with a butterfly
perched upon its lips.

Kitten tumbles ooops
into my Uncle's crotch

before climbing the mountain side
that is his chest.

Takes a swipe at the soul
pretending to be a butterfly

just as my Uncle
awakens to this reality

& his soul flits just
out of reach

between the fireplace
& the mantle piece.

AS IS

mountain tired
of its human name
throws off the words

like so much
tattered clothes
walks naked

into a sunset
becoming its own
"I am"

rain too
pays no attention to
the human sounds

reinvents  itself
every time it falls
"I the ever becoming!"

the sky laughs
as words stuck upon it
fall off

"I the great un-nameable!"
pinned down
by a puny words

the moon disdains
all attempts to trap
her in human language

she
"the great she
who is"

who do these
humans
think they are

humans gasp
as the map
unfolds

the mountain has left
of its own accord
the rain falls no more

and the sky
doesn't even
want to know

the map now
a blank
piece of paper

BIG SISTER IS TELLING LITTLE BROTHER A POEM

kisses
like Japanese paper flowers
opening upon

touching water
blossoming into amazement
to bloom for ever in imagination

your breath
(lace curtains dancing
in the breeze)

carries carefully each word
letting it break fragile as a bubble
gently against my skin

your voice settling and unsettling my hair
the poem rising and falling
borne upon your breathing

like petals upon a stream
cuddled into you
a dream of a dream

forever you telling poem upon poem
your heart beating preciously
against my heart

I understanding completely
your mind...
is my home

MUMONKAN(GATELESS PASS)
( for Junie )

Here, now
sister mine

lost
in time

dead to this world

I offer you

my eyes
my ears

so that you can see...can hear
without fear of Death

always interrupting you.

Take this breath & live again.
I can see enough for two.

*

MYOJU(THE END OF LIFE)

After the bus crash her soul walked home
limping awkwardly now

leaving a trail of footprints
leaking time like blood.

*

KAEI(THE SHADOWS OF FLOWERS)

Often, I visit this moment
long gone

(that has never ceased to exist) .

I go to find my sister
calling her name

lost as she is in the middle
of this vast field

her blue dress a flower

at the very centre of it.

Here, Death
does not know her

name
only I call her.

She carries me home
in a piggyback.

I fascinated with the freckle
under the shadow of a curl

where shoulder
meets neck.

I lost in her laughter.

Both of us escaping
Her Death.

*

AME NO UTA(SONGS OF RAIN)

Here, Death
itemises her.

The bruised breast.
The torn spleen.
The broken ribs.
The hemorrhaging.

Death, leaving
his mark

on this
human being.

Familiar with her.
Owning her.

Memory tiptoes
into Death's great palace

& steals back
a freckle

lost behind
a curl

between
shoulder
& neck.

Death
has no need

for it.



RING THE BELLS
( for Junie )

I want to ring the bells
backwards into silence
un-weave Time itself

like some God I
create & re-create
your lost face

I construct your smile
see it rise again from
the scaffolding of memory

even your voice fades
flees before me
sunset scattered leaves

I un-make your dying
cry you
into being

Death laughs at my efforts
this you
made of words and tears

the bells advance
stride upon the air
Time re-asserts itself

I want to ring the bells
backwards into silence
un-weave even Death itself



Made a mad dash from Paris to Rouen and its cathedral bells and great horlogue inscribed this poem into my head.

*


ENOUGH TO MAKE A MOON LAUGH

old piano
in the tumbledown
shed

cobwebs
stretch from
note to note

I laugh to see
a kitten
on its keys

composing
a spooky music
all its own

even the moon
gets the joke
and laughs

at its reflection
in a lopsided
rusty rain barrel

Time is only
the wind
in the trees

I remember
your hand
on these keys

a bright sunny day
that seemed forever
light years away from here

your fingers
calling music
into being

some sad unseen
that seemed to sense
a future time

where cobwebs
would hold
the music captive

spiders spinning
from note
to note

weaving
what is to come
...what is...past

now only
this frisky kitty
make music

with its every move
startling itself
with incredulity

that every step is a note
completely baffled
by its new found musicality

it's enough
to make a moon laugh
I cry

SHOWING SOME ENTERPRISE DURING
DOUBLE MATHS CLASS IN 1969

"Look, Kirk..!" I stab at the map
"Yes, the Barzan Wormhole is unstable but~
it's our only hope!"

Kirk's face blanches
Spock tries to show no emotion
"Highly illogical, yet. . ?"

Now, 70,000 light years away
"My God, Capt. Dempsey.."" Kirk smirks
"...it worked...it...worked. . !"

"Worked...of course it worked!"
I bluff and bluster
Spock's tight lipped smile

"Ahhh...Mr. Dempsey..."
Sir's voice gruffly Klingon
beaming me back up to Reality

"...seems to be in
another universe entirely..."
snickers as he reaches for the cane

"So..." Kirk smiles
"The square on the hypotenuse is equal to...
"Shut it Kirk..!" I snap "...just shut it!"

I watch the parabola of the cane
"Warp Factor 9...now...quick!"
I order Mr. Sulu

*

OH THOSE DE LA SALLE DAYS! MY CANNED HANDS STILL REMEMBER MR. FINNEGAN...ALL TOO....AGGHHHHHHH....WELL!

THE IDIOT

“Isn’t that…”
I asked myself
“Dostoevsky?”

he and I
flâneuring
about Haymarket

“Hey Dosty
my main man
is that really you?”

and yeah
it really was
the great man himself

it was early July
1862-ish so
he was startled

to be hailed
by a voice from
a century not his own

and also that
he could understand me
and I he

I told him
I had my time machine
parked just around the corner

that it had a language decoder
that came with it
as an extra feature

“I didn’t know you
were in London?”
said he was just passing through

“Hey man…just been reading
your ‘Idiot’ as it happens
and no you wouldn’t know it

‘cos you haven’t
written it
as yet!”

asked him to come
for a drink in The Marquis
might even bump into Charlie

“You mean… Dickens?”
“Huh huh…” I said
“…he sometimes hangs out there!”

said I’d teach him
How to drink a Guinness
In 15 seconds flat

that convinced him
but of all the rotten luck
Charlie never turned up

probably out
on one of his
endless midnight walks

he said he had to
go see his friend
Herren

“Hear now
permit it
do not restrain me!”

I let him go
making my own excuses
parking is up on my time machine

“English girls
are something else!”
he smirked

“Yeah…” I answered
“…married one
myself!”

“I have me
a keepsake
of their faces.”

then he vanished
into the fog
a real peasouper

should have asked him
to sign my copy of
“Crime and Punishment.”

but of course
he hadn’t wrote
that one yet either

“Ahh hell!” I stuttered
”My time machine’s
got a parking ticket!”  

*

“I almost do not exist now and I know it; God knows what lives in me in place of me.”

― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot

GHOSTS IN THE WARDROBE

there's ghosts in the wardrobe
a flotilla of dresses
that stare at my crying

frock after frock
skirt after skirt
they mock me with your absence

your presence
now
only in this absence

this dress
remembers that
picnic

this skirt
the kiss...that kiss
falling at your feet

the so many yous
hung on hangers
float behind plastic

here your perfume
still clings
trying to outface Death

Death smirks
stares back
it doesn't blink

all the different people you could be
blue and yellow and
I slam the door on them

between finger and thumb
I pinch out the candlelight
the dark crowds around me

*

I was sleeping in my mother's room before her funeral and there were all the dresses I knew and the different personalities they allowed her to be. The clothes seemed to be lost without her and the shoes seemed to suggest that she was hiding behind them and would suddenly pop out and tell me that her death was just a joke. I gazed at them all night without sleep and saw her everywhere and in everything.

REPORT

The liver
it should be said

was conspicuously
the worse for wear

whereas the brain
had remained curiously

young at heart
whereas

the same could not be
said for the heart

mostly eaten up
by the past.

There was no time
left in the body.

The soul could not
be found

which does not
necessarily mean

the dead poet
was soulless.

There remained one tear
not yet fallen

that had crystallised  
around a single memory.

The memory now
much decayed.

The body was
without truth.

There were dreams
to be found.

Wishes had congealed
around hope

and had calcified
on not being used.

There were still some
scattered thought

but it could not
be read.

The body showed
no signs of poems.

But the scar tissue
of writing

was more than
evident.

There were slight tears
perhaps caused by love

but this can only be
guesswork

as they were riddled
by perhapses and maybes,

These poet types
are highly susceptible to such.

Signed:

LLanod Yespmed

*

LLanod Yespmed is of course myself only backwards. The double L is pronounced in the Welsh way and the Yespmed is of course of Venusian extraction.
It seems so easy to die these days so I am writing my own death.

THE ALMOST EXACTLY OF YOU

My mind and I
stood at almost exactly

53.1474 Latitude
-6.83 Longitude

Time itself
seemed to have ceased

or its works
seized up.

The minutes and hours of a day
what were they to me...

The clock had flown
out the window

landing with a fearful clang
and just missing a white chicken.

What was reality anyway?

A moment in the sun and then
gone?

Death had taken the citadel.
The self had fallen.

I tried to remember
the latitude and longitude

of who you had been
but you had become the past

and were fading fast.

Already I had forgotten
the exact colour of your eyes

but not the moment
you had died.

I tried to forgive myself
but found I couldn't.

I wanted to steal you
back from death

but know
I can't.

TRAVELLING ACROSS THE HOURS OF DAYLIGHT

the sea
herding its flock of islands
through a sunset

I fall to sleep
with a warm breeze for a blanket
a cloud for a pillow

a cloud
balanced on the tightrope
of an horizon

clouds
form their own mountains
above the mountains

a crescent moon chats
to the sleepy hill
a bird eavesdrops

the sun
bleeding into
a river

I travel across
the hours of daylight
to meet a harvest moon

moon and I
both arrive at the mountain
at the same time

moon rests
on the mountain's shoulder
I lie at their feet

birds
***** a barrier of song
". . .this space is mine...mine. . .mine. . ."

we march into town
the Present & I
the Past lumbering behind

RIEN NE PESE TANT QUE UN SECRET

asleep she
looks like a photograph
of her self

her expression
the weather of her face
evaporates

lipstick smudges her pillow
a false eyelash
flutters to the floor

she sleeps like a statue
as if centuries
mean nothing to her

an awed moon
gazes in upon
her dreaming

a silk lilac *******
like a little animal
caught crawling across the carpet

a rather fetching
matching bra
dangles from a candlestick

impossibly high stilettos
stand still
pretending to be an art installation

a silk stocking
hangs
from a doorknob

a new millennium
enters the room
a clock ticks loudly

*

Rien ne pese tant que un secret. [Nothing weighs more than a secret.] ~ La Fontaine

The secret being that she has conceived...only her body knows this secret and keeps it so for a while! When she counts backwards she realises that this was the night of nights. The poem doesn't let on either except for its title! The poem only observes and doesn't comment...just sees her and the state of the room for what it is...the new millennium cometh and makes her a lady in waiting.

The poem insists on keeping its mystery....it is not necessary for it to give it up! The explanation lives amongst the comments with the little afterglow of knowing if one wants a little more insight into what was going on....although one does not have to know that!

LOOK! IF THE DOG SAID HE SAW IT, THEN....HE SAW IT! OK?

The dog said
he saw it.

The cat said
she saw it too.

Now, that cat hadn't
seen nothin', but...

wishing she had
she pretended she had.

That cat was
a notorious liar.

One couldn't believe
a meow

she had to say.

And yes, a passing parrot
seen it( or so it was said )

but, having just escaped
a cage

had paid no attention
whatsoever to it.

Parrot was greedy for
that blue stuff

folks called
the sky.

Fly away into its forever.

Truth to tell
there wasn't

a human to be seen.

So, that left only
the dog & the dog's

shadow
panting in the sun.

An old umbrella
lay abandoned &

had nothing
whatsoever to do

with it.

A baby's shoe
lay shipwrecked

amongst a sea
of *******.

It was a golden yellow
with a bright scarlet stripe.

The dog was thinking
about food.

That dog was always thinking
'bout food.

The dog snapped
at a flea that was

bitting it's
right buttock.



"What...was it?"
I hear you say.

"What...was...it!"

Well, now - I guess
you'd have to

ask the dog that. . .


This was an empty street in Malta so whatever was happening or had happened was...neither here or there. We were looking for the house Jan lived in when she was only a barefooted little urchin beside the bomb crater and the lemon trees. Crater and trees all gone now but the house( hemmed in now by newer modes of habitation)was still there. It was even too hot for the locals and I was busying expiring from such extreme heat but Jan was living in her memories and felt nothing but the glow of remembrances. When we got to the centre there was nothing but us and this here dog who woke up and woofed: “Wot?” Even the streets couldn’t take the heat and acted as if even they wanted to be somewhere that wasn’t there. Everyone had just vanished as if they had never been or been ****** up in an alien craft for experimentation.  A science fiction spaghetti western. So this was my attempt to write about the nothing of it all so I pressganged the dog into the telling of the tale in order to make something of a nothing. Never did find out what it was all about…dog gone it.

THE CAT'S COMMUNION  

oh my head
splits open..spills
my memories on the floor

all these
little Donalls
running here and there

curiously
mostly me
at age 7

making my Holy Communion
and just taking
the Host upon my tongue

when Charles
our champion mouser
pounces upon my little self

at this very
holy moment
"Holy Mother of God!"

now our cat
who is normally
a nice chap

swallows me
down in one
big gulp

I wonder if this
constitutes a cat's
Holy Communion

but I am sicked up
slimy as slimy can be
a slicked fur ball

after that
all the many memories
I am

manage to somehow
pull themselves together
make it back into my head

well I wasn't
going to do that again
in a hurry

the cat eyes me
nervously now
looking very very holy

as if a Voice from
up above declaims
"This is my beloved

cat in whom I am
well pleased
...feed ye him!"

JESUS CHRIST IS ALIVE AND WELL

She is thoroughly soaked
through & through

as if  a someone(I don’t know who)  
had upended over her a bucket of water.

( The rain holds
a conversation with itself. )

“Where’s your new coat? ”
we incredulously ask her

as she continues to drip at us.

( The rain is laughing
at something it has told itself.)

“A poor woman hadn’t one...
...so I gave her mine.”

She explains as to a child
whilst we her children stare at her

hair plastered to her skull
a large drip at the end of her nose.

My mother could be kind
in an almost Biblical New Testament way

as if she were Jesus Christ
before he had gotten himself crucified

and was alive and well and living in her.

KNOWING EVERYTHING AND NOTHING

"How much does
my shadow weigh?"
I have to think about this

"As much..." I answer
"as the thought that
thought it!"

she scratches her head
displaces a butterfly bow
perched upon her curls

"Is that heavy?" she asks
"Heavy!" I say
"I say it is!"

"See!" she scolds her dolls
"I told you he'd know
he knows everything!"

the dolls stare at me
incredulously
I pray they don't give me away

PLAYING IN THE MUD WITH CHRIST

Memory shapes that summer
in its own image

the long days of sun
forgetting the rainy ones.

My little one asking
again and again

for "the puddle poem"
and so Christ

rising from the 7th Century
old Irish words

stands like her
barely five.

Blesses the puddles
He had made.

She blesses them the same
with great childish show.

Watches amazed as He
creates birds out of mud.

Sees  them fly away
at the touch of his voice.

This her excuse
for the scattering of mud.

She sees herself
a Christ

and how words
can create birds

made of the mind
that fly beyond time.

*

If I was listening to Joyce she would come and listen to his Finnegans Wake with me...not the least put out by the difficulty and dexterity but the dance of sound even without meaning.

So that summer and I reading old Irish poems from a long ago that had long vanished she would pick up on that...loving the seventh century THE BOYHOOD OF CHRIST and how Christ and her could be the same grand age of barely five. And when she looked into the reflections in a mud puddle she could reenact the poem in her mind and be at one with Him in something she could understand. A Christ in a mud puddle...now there was the Christ for her to be be a playmate with.

She also liked the baise fri tóin( slap on the ***)epigram AN INSULT from the ninth century amazed that there could be someone called anonymous and how some words could win you horses and some words win you...cows!

I hear
he won't give horses for poems.
He gives what his style allows:
cows.

But her great favourite was Pangur Bán with the cat and the monk getting along famously and to be content with each other and the work they had to do...the one chasing down words...the other...mice.

She also was a one for modern Irish-isms such as "Are ya stuck in a shuck( stuck in a ditch )purely for the sound of it and appreciated the sardonic phrase "I will...yea!" meaning "I won't no!"

And the phrase " Ahhh it will take donkey's years to do that" she always heard as "donkey's ears" and made her howl with laughter.

THE BOYHOOD OF CHRIST

When He was barely five
Jesus, the Son of God,
blessed twelve water puddles
He moulded out of clay.

He made a dozen birds
-the kind we call the sparrow-
He made them on the Sabbath,
perfect, out of clay.

A Jew there criticized Him
-Jesus, the Son of God-
and to His father Joseph
took Him by the hand.

"Joseph, correct your son,
he has committed wrong.
He made clay shapes of birds
upon the Sabbath day.

Jesus clapped His palms,
His little voice was heard.
Before their eyes -a miracle-
the little birds flew off.

The sweet, beloved voice was heard
from the mouth of Jesus pure:
"So they will know who made you
off with you to your homes."

A man who was there told everyone
the wonderful affair
and overheard they all could hear
the singing of the birds.

DEARLY BELOVED WE ARE GATHERED HERE TODAY

The death has been announced
of Dónall Dempsey

after he had fallen
into an anagram machine.

Our hearts go out
to all the poems he left behind

and to those poems
he had yet to write.

It is claimed that his last words
were "Wow...the surreal is so real!"

Now that he has shock off
his mortal coil

he has become a nice man
and beloved by all

despite this not being
the situation when

he was amongst
the living.

Strange what
a little death can do.

He has said from
beyond the grave

that he intends to
continue to write

using an anagram
as his nom de plume

And so the poet
Desmond Palely

was born to
the world of words.

Critics have complained
that his more recent work

smacks of Dadaism
and has a strong Surrealist streak

not obvious in
his previous work.

Dempsey's debt to
Addy Nell poems -obvious.

This is his first
dead poem.

DAMPENED LYSOL

by Desmond Paley
( the artist formerly known
as Dónall Dempsey)

Deny molds leap!
Deny mold pleas!
Deny.... old sample.

Dolmens played
"Do!" Emlyn pleads.

Addy Nell poems
MODELLED *****

Del madly opens
"Almonds deeply...almonds... yelped!

"EMPLOYED LANDS
- dense Lloyd map

LEMONY PADDLES
Demons LP -Delay!

Doll Mandy...pees.
Many dolls... peed.

Doll's ependyma
dopa end smelly.

Monday spelled -
medleys Poland

"**** Polly seed!"
DNA mopeds yell.

Doped man yells
"Many doped ells!"

Famous poet and critic Ray Pool
observes candidly

"This new nonsense makes
utter nonsense of his old nonsense!"

Heather Moulson is quick
to point out

"Now that he is dead, Dempsey's
interest in a doll's neuroregeneration

may result in many dolls
coming to life and enjoying

normal humans pastimes
like peeing and buying

the Demons long awaited
long playing 45."

But wait...breaking news!
Dempsey has been spat out

of the fatal
anagram machine.

And is now as alive
as he ever was!

We now take back
all the nice things we said

about him
in his obit.

SWEET

The day she went
out of our lives

I offered her a sweet.

'Thanks love, I'll eat it
later on the bus.'

She snaps it shut in her little red purse.

I still feel my hand  letting go of her hand
see for the last time her never-again-seen face.

Only the little red purse returns
out of its mouth…Death laughs

in blood besprinkled glass
some small change…the never eaten sweet.

For years it lives behind the wind-up clock
in my mother's bedroom

scaring me each time I have to pass
and it sees me     and laughs.

My little brother not even born then when...
jumps up & down playing alone

all by himself
in a world of his own.

He is both good guy & bad guy
falling down dead on the bed

as a quick spat out shot
ricochets & agggh...gits him!

Even by 7
killing yourself is a tiring business.

He stops. Rests.

...rummages around among
my mother's artifacts.

His little inquiring mind
snaps open the little red purse.

Death laughs(but he not knowing)  
is immune to it.

He sees the white wrapped death sweet
almost glowing against the red.

He sees it...eats it.

The Past has been
eaten by the Present.

Unaware of what he has done
(Death defeated)  

he flings himself on the bed once again
pretending he is dead

sunlight streams through the glass
holds him gently in its hand

this the living child
Death dead at last.



This is where all my writing starts from...at the same time that Death gave me a voice...it tore my tongue out. The poetry finally let me speak.

I keep coming back to this one moment and writing different poems from different angles and even a short story!  It haunts me.


GLASS

only
her red purse
returns

Inside it a sweet
some small change &
blood besprinkled glass.

it alone
survives
the crash

Death is only
a newspaper headline.
still...this grief

I weep tears
that don't show up
on my face

I push my fingers
deep in the purse
cut my fingertips to bits

the held glass
(all I have of you)
scarring my face

blind
to the pain
blind to the pain

the old blood
and the new mingles
and once more

if only for a second
we are together
for as long as the pain lasts.


SWEET

See the purse. Little red purse. Little red purse with golden clasp. Snap it shut. See June open the purse. Open the purse June. Snaps shut. Sweet. How sweet? Surrounded by toffee the soft chocolate waits to be bitten into.

'Not now love, I'll have it later.'

The bus is late. We all wait. In school we chanted 'Here comes the bus...here comes the bus...will there be room for all of us? ' We all wait. The bus is late. She laughs with her friend. See June laugh. Laugh June laugh. Her hair eclipses her eyes. Her eyes vanish in her laughter. She had given me money to buy sweets as we wait for the late bus. She is totally absorbed in the words her friend is mouthing.

I can only see her talk. I can't seem to hear her anymore. Memory erases itself. The only sound is silence. I am offering her a sweet. She takes it absentmindedly and smiles: 'Not now love, I'll have it later.' She clicks open her little red purse. The white sweet curls up and sleeps.

The bus puffs and pants. It creeps and crawls up the hill. Junie's laughter freezes into slow motion. Laughter spills like water. Splashes me. I am totally absorbed in her being totally absorbed with the laughter. The world is only 'now.' Now is all there is. The bus takes a millennium to arrive at where we are. It has to crawl from the world of time into our world of no time. Yet in no time at all the bus is no longer there. It is a dot in the distance - a curtain of trees eclipsing it as it turns a bend. Gone.

I am letting go of her hand. My hand is waving goodbye. Her hand is waving goodbye. There is only the dance of hands. The language of gesture. Her face floats and bobs away from me forever. I never see her again. Memory starts to erode reality. I only remember that I forget.

The water splashes all over me. I am washing myself is the sink. The knock on the door freezes the water... the moment... and who I am. When the strange man leaves my world...my world no longer exists. The bus crashes. See the bus crash. Crash bus crash. Look Donall look!

'Here comes the bus...here comes the bus! '

Bric-a-brac floats back. The little red purse returns. It is snapped shut. Its innocence survives death. Its casual simplicity is intact. All facts are kept from the purse. All is contained in its redness. For years it lays unnoticed...unopened. It lives in the space behind the clock that tolls the time. The hours resonate as they pass. The purse has transformed itself into clutter. It is only another item that fills up space. It has no function other that to have no function. It is opened casually and by sheer chance.

Death spills out. Splashes me all over. Little bits of glass flecked with blood glint in the new light of an other 'now.' A different 'now.' I cut myself shutting it. Fresh blood. The white sweet still lies asleep curled up into it self. It's whiteness shocking against the sheer redness.

Death is a seven year old uneaten sweet. Death glints ready to cut again. For years it inhabits yet another existence...the existence of never opening again. It has a power all of its own. I cut across a room rather than confront it. Frantically looking for something or other I suddenly confront it. It confounds me and wounds me with its presence.

My little brother enacts a film he has recently seen. He plays all the parts. Suddenly, he the good guy, is shot by the bad guy who is also himself. He clutches his heart in disbelief...stammers in a bad Bogie voice: 'Ya got me...kid! ' He grabs the purse in order to signify his deathly wound. He holds it to his heart where it apparently bleeds through his fingertips. This purse means Death. I leave him dying over my mother's bed.

Although he is now dead his curiosity gets the better of him. He is hungry and teatime is a far away place. The purse opens with a slight gasp from its golden clasp. The white sweet reveals itself - a deadly pearl held in red. Somewhere in time a bus is crashing. Hands are waving goodbye. June is laughing. She clicks her purse shut. The bus has not appeared as yet- the bus has just come into view. There is only now...this moment. Timeless.

'Not now love...'

My little brother sees it.

It is a Cadbury's Chocolate Éclair.

There is only one sweet.

There is only one of him.

There is only one thing to do.

He eats it.

BRUSHSTROKES

her voice
caresses him in Japanese
the syllables of his name

enacted out
by the brushstrokes
of her voice

as if she drew him
in mid-air
and he hung there

alive
in the calligraphy of her
love

FLYING INTO FOREVER

the geese flew on and out
of my childhood

leaving me returning
each new year

to find that same moment
when I was 9

seeing the geese now
with different eyes

but somehow still
that little boy

seeing them
for the first time

the geese flying on and out
into forever. . .

. . .snow has fallen
in love with the world

dressing everything in
the same crisp white quiet

icicles hang from
the blue tricycle

a lost green glove creeps across the front yard

soon my daughter
all 9 years of her

will awake to find
the dream made real

a forgotten doll
gazes up at me

from the bottom of
the frozen pond

I write you a Christmas card
as I do each year

sign it love
as I always do

forgetting that

you are dead.

"WE TAKE NO NOTE OF TIME BUT FROM ITS LOSS"

I ****** you from
your dying

place you here
outside time

words and memory
conspire

make you forever
the boy you were

tell you to go play
on a day

you could
never forget.

Go on father
be this child

who never can
believe he can die.

*

“The bell strikes one. We take no note of time
But from its loss.”

"By Nature's law, what may be, may be now;
There's no prerogative in human hours:

Where is tomorrow? In another world. . ."

Fragments of Young's poem fled through my mind as my Da lay dying. In my mind I talked to him all the time and sang songs to him. I tried to place him beyond this hour...bring him back to a past where he was but a boy and happy.

Night Thoughts

Edward Young (1742-1745)

OUTRUNNING THE WORLD

You ran and
the world couldn't keep up with you.

Here, in your third year
you discovered falling.

As if the world had
tripped up.

You look at your grazed knee
amazed at your self.

Blood oozes
from your chubby little skin.

I cry.
You do not.

You are just amazed that
there is an inside to you

that can somehow
leak out.

You dip a finger in
taste the redness.

Your laughter
is a spring

that bubbles out.

You can not understand
my tears.

My feeling your pain
on your behalf.

Or in this case
your "not-pain."

"Daddy - not cry!"
you comfort me.

You dry my eyes
with golden curls.

"Tilly run again...see?"

And you do so
to prove a point.

And once again
you are immortal

outrun the world.

Leaving your father
further and further

behind you.

You run into your future.
Become your self.

A tiny thin scar
the only reminder

of a pain only I
can remember.

THE LATEST SCORE

I feel you
in my bones.

You walk when
I walk.

The shadow of you
in my voice.

You talk when
I talk.

"How you. .
.get in there?"

I laugh
with your laughter.

"Don't believe in graves!"
you answer

breathing with my breath
speaking the wordless words.

"Don't believe in death...
either!"

you add to your hypothesis
as if further proof were needed.

You jump around
in my blood

hijacking my pulse.

"Hiya bud!"
you say

thinking with my thoughts
in that same slow easy drawl.

"This is where
the dead go

. . .when they die."

I know the living
ghost of my brother

. . .would never lie.

"Hey...!" says
my never forgotten brother

"...go easy on the ghost stuff!"
he smiles.

"Don't believe in ghosts either!"

"The dead live
inside those they love..."

I complete the sentence
for him

thinking now
with his thoughts.

Now we both laugh
with the same laugh.

"So, what's the latest score?"

"Look likes...we're winning!"

EMOTIONAL ARCHAEOLOGY

Here, I dig up
what remains

the myths
of us

fossils found
of thought

thought long ago

traces of us
lost to time

lost time
glinting now

behind glass
with labels to tell us

who we
were

who we thought
we were.

There, the lost
contact lens

brings a tear
to the eye

made more rare by
time passing by

prized now not
for function

becoming precious
an ordinary treasure

in an alchemy
of memory

full fathomed five
we be

believing in the truth
that was always a lie.

Here, the snake
entering the eye

socket of
a skull

( the stillness of
silence )

one plastic
the other for real.

The myth of us
sacrificed

upon the altar
of now

so allowing us to be

( altering as it see fits )

to be
just you & me

our selves again
( owning who we are )

escaping into
a future.

WHAT THE THUNDER SAID

Removing his spectacles
the doctor pinched

the bridge
of his nose

rubbed his eyes roughly

closed them
open them again.

Rain trickled down
the window pane.

Outside
a red tricycle

stood its ground
as if

it were an art
installation.

It's red made more red
by the rain's fury.

Beside it a white teddy bear
soaked to the skin

a sodden thing.

It couldn't be more sorrier

"Well....doctor...well...?"
the mother pleaded.

He turned to her
his words lost

in the thunder.

*

Once upon a time ago when I was in my youth I met a delightful old man on a train who looked like he could have been the country doctor in countless b&w movies. He called me "young fella me lad!" We traded all of THE WASTE LAND between us...line for line...."i grow old I grow old...I shall wear the bottom of my trousers rolled!" After we had dispensed with THE WASTE LAND we started on every poem we knew. He was surprised that I knew what I knew. I started to recite ~William Carlos Williams RED WHEELBARROW for him and he started crying. It turned out that in his youth he had indeed been a young doctor. He was called to a bedside where a little girl was dying and he had to tell the mother. She wouldn't accept this from him and clinging to the hope that he was young and looked even younger that he didn't know what was what. He looked out the window before he had to tell her and saw what he saw. Williams was also a doctor and I had read somewhere that he too looked out a window and saw.....the rest is poetry. So much depends upon....

GOING ON WITH ME

never did like
my own
birthday

all that cakes
and candles
stuff

you could keep it
strictly
for the birds

every day was
my birthday
far as I could see

Birthdays...
who'd
have 'em....eh

but to have one
is the only way to go
on to be someone

miss one and
you're gone
out like a candle

every birthday
always called
my Mam

after all she did
all the hard work
when push came to shove

all I did was arrive
thank her for
having me

"Ahhh  go on with ya!"
she'd forever
laugh

this always the best
bit of my birthday
celebrating my mother

AT LEAST WE'LL  ALWAYS  HAVE GUILDFORD

Ahhhh Love...
I never needed to go
to fantastic destinations
exquisite places
such sights to see

You:
were always my only
place to be
the where I wanted to be
no need for me to travel
seeing I was already there
you all my exotic wonders
a cup of Earl Grey and thee

all I ever wanted  was
your smile blossoming into laughter

THE MAKER OF MAPS

throw the sheet over her
start tracing her contours
"I'm making a life size map of you!"

it has to be a scale of 1:1
the map
creases with laughter

after we hang this
map of you upon the wall
"Mapmaking tickles!" she tells me

"Well...time for the real thing!"
I consult the map
set out to explore you

my fingers
those brave mountaineers
scale your left breast

ahhh this view of you
worth the climb
my fingers rest

and so I begin the descent
the map telling me
where to go

wєℓ¢Θмє

There was a knock
on the door.

I opened it.

The river stood there
dripping all over

the welcome mat.

It had dragged along
birds...trees...bits of sky

an old worn summer.

"Hi...!" it rippled
". . .remember me?"

"Sure..." I said

"You said you would never forget me!"

"How could I?" I said

It grinned
like that summer all over again.

"Come in...come in!" I said

It hung up the trees and sky
on the hat rack.

It sat in the bath
talking of this 'n' that.

"Wow..!" I thought
still listening to the river

talk of all the times
we'd spent together.

Memory sure does play
some funny tricks

on the mind.

"Well..." it said
"I guess I better be going!"

It put back on the trees and birds
wore the sky at a jaunty angle.

"You haven't changed a bit!" I said
kissing it goodbye.

"You've got old..." it smiled
"...so very very old!"

I laughed.
"I'm not that little boy I was!"

It wished me well.

The door closed.

Its footsteps
lost in time.

I was missing it
already.

*

This is the river and song of my childhood. The Own na Buidhe ran at the bottom of my uncle's field so it was a real thing to me as well as part of this beautiful song that I cherished. And the song had my name in it!

"When Donal swore, aye o'er and o'er..."

My sister Junie used to sing it to me as we lay in the field and the river looked up at us shy with the mention of its name.
This is the river that comes to visit me! Not just any old river but. . .
my river...my song...my name!

"When Donal swore, aye o'er and o'er. . ."

TOUCHING SUMMER

the world is caught
in net curtains
summer struggles to free itself

she wants to touch
summer for the last time
the net curtains go quiet

she sees her self
as a child
with a big big grin

a hairy gooseberry
like a translucent marble
that the sun hides in

she asks her self
what they used to call them
"Goosegogs!" her self tells her

the goosegog bursts
upon her tiny tongue
she both likes it and doesn't

she winces as
the cancer bites
the day falls from her hands

she leaves summer behind
for the last time
the window full of night

SHARING WING BIRDS

A moon
the colour of sorrow.

Rain falling
like regret.

The memory
of your beauty

awakened by
the music

tiptoes on moonlit feet
slowly silently

across the moon coloured
lawn.

A cat
(immune to human emotion)yawns

silhouetted against
an Autumn moon.

He listens
to our human words

more out of boredom
than anything else

as if we were characters
in a play

enacting words that will be
forever spoken:

“Let us be sharing-wing-birds
...that thing of legend...

with only one eye
only one wing

only by sharing wings
can we fly! ”

Chiselled into
a night gone by

the words remain
engraved upon the air.

The cat wonders
how do humans do that

...& why?
He pads quietly

through  and
through the words

the memory of us
bristling his fur.

Dearest. . . .


                I know you know the old adage that
you can’t take it with you when you go but

I have only two treasures

ephemeral  as they may be
the feel of your hand in mind
the touch of your mind

your breath upon my cheek
the kiss about to be

I’ll outwit death as yet  steal them with my dying breath.

See the machinery of death unfurl within me
the perfection of its final stop -  a thing of beauty.

Now: in a future. . .you

lie sleeping sunlight warm upon your face
(I, no heavy handed ghost)

leave only a feeling of intense comfort

that makes you smile without the knowing why. . .

NEVER SO ALONE AS HERE
(in memory of my mother Ita)

a night
scattered with stars
each star so clear

in its perfect
isolation
you feel as if you are

about to pluck it
from its position
examine it

put it
exactly
back

watch as time & the world
come apart
(watch as neither match)  

each minute
like a bead of prayer
fumbled through fingers

in its litany of despair
a rosary of
hopelessness

the back of her hand
resting in the palm of mine
stupidly the thought

crossing my mind
“She made
this hand...”

and now she searches
for her dying
sees it reflected

in our faces

our grief her mirror
each star
a tear

in the perfection
of its isolation
never so alone


as here as now
the Milky Way
spilt across the sky

AN ORDINARY DAY IN 1863

from out of the silence
a bell's voice
steps out on the air

shattering the frozen blue
of a sky cluttered with
the shriek of seagulls

a tiny church
packed to the brim
with humans singing hymns

the dead talking
to themselves
all the time

the living
never listening to
what they have to say

praising this
the newest
of days

a morning
opening to
the future

a leaf falling
on a broken grave
a lichen-eaten name

two aliens
observing all
as it happens

discovering
and quoting
Shakespeare to each other

"Lord
what fools
these mortals be!"

WILD WAVES CRASHING
ABOUT THE OLD HEAD OF KINSALE

I scramble
into your bed

like I'd do when I was 2
or four or more.

Rub your back for you
(you my 95 year old child )
until sleep gathers you in.

Just like you did for me
when I was your little boy.

I listen to you as slowly slowly
your dreams capture you.

I love your each and every breath.

And when you awake
two hours later

there I am
still rubbing your back.

You smile and tell me
your mother would do the same

when you were a tiny boy
waves crashing about the Old Head of Kinsale.

So here we all are
the back rubbers of the ages

all in the one place
sharing different times

comforting soothing
easing all the pain

waves crashing about the Old Head of Kinsale.  

*
I would rub his back for him and the warmth and friction and affection would calm him down and he would drift off to sleep but then if I stopped he would begin wake up again and start to cough...so I continued for two hours and he finally woke up rested. He was surprised to see me still there rubbing his back for him. Said his mother would do that for him when he was small and I said you used to do it for me when I was small. So there in that one magical moment were all the backrubbers paying no attention at all to the different times and all time became this one moment.

His mother used always be terrified of him lying on his belly and looking over the edge of the cliff at the furious waves eating the land. He would then run down to Mrs. Fitz who had a big gramophone and she would always play him and he never tired of it...the instrumental OVER THE WAVES which would become in time THE LOVLIEST NIGHT OF THE YEAR as sung my Maria Lanza.

He would often sing it to me or play it on his harmonica or accordion and I was enthralled by it and him and amazed that he could have been a small boy just as I was!

I simply adored him and he was the loveliest man and the most gentle of souls.


One day I sneaked back into life and was able to write a new poem and start the Vole News Letter on Michael Donaghy and post posts. The next two days I had become mist fading into a nothingness.

But here I am now with my Granny and me Da….guess it must be my turn now to be walking by the Old Head of Kinsale and the wild waves singing to me. I couldn’t be in a more wonderful place

YOUR LITTLEST SMILE

Death, rather diffident
(rather shy)

comes to me & says:

'It is time to die.'

'Ok...' I say '...when? '

'...like, this moment? '

'This second...? '

I struggle
with my heart attack

as Death
(feeling bad about it)

reposes my artefacts.

Outside, a van pulls up
with neat Gothic script

DEATH - REMOVALS.
it spells out in big bold letters.

I like it.

Death's got style
(& a nice smile)

& is a kind...
...of groovy guy.

Or is he a lady...
...boy...it's hard to tell

this here heart attack
sure hurts like hell.

'Ok, boys - take it all
away! '

Death's little helpers
all big bruisers all over 7' 2'
(former nightclub bouncers)

set to it with a will.

They take away
the blue sky
under which I had first kissed you.

They take away that night
sky under which I had kissed you more.

They took away
the little day to day
things

I always loved

the shape of your mouth

your continuously falling hair
brushed impatiently away

from your eyes

...your eyes...

the smell of your perfume
in an empty room

the littlest of your smiles
I had saved
for a rainy day

meanwhile
like a living Houdini

I had done it

somehow wrestled out
of the heart attack's strait jacket.

'****! ' Death
spat in a peevish manner.

'How, in God's name
did you do that? '

Death, sighed:
'Ok, kid...ya got me
- this time! '

'Right, boys... put it all back!
Put everything back! '

Les boys, scowl at me
as if to say: ' I'll remember you
...sunny Jim! '

'You...' Death
snarled from the side of his mouth

annoyed now
(no more Mr. Nice Guy)

'You...I'll see you
again! '

A tear...trickled down
my cheek

(unable to speak)
all I could do

was glance down

(your littlest smile)

clasped tightly
in my hand.

THE ***** WHISPERER

Little did Donall Dempsey realise that when he woke up that morning( his head full of Canaries)he would step from the ship to not his home but to The Twilight Zone of The Catheter Club. Here in intensive care his body not his own but in medical hands trying to deal with what the hell was wrong with this usually reliable body.

"Do you know
what a
catheter is Donall"

(oh you're not
gonna do that...
but do that so they did)

two brave NHS nurses
worked womanfully
but all to no avail

I tried to escape
into the Greek
etymology

"to ****** into"
or "to send down"
but it didn't help any

"Kathíemai!" I yelled
in badly pronounced
broken Greek

"Call Chloe!"
the cry went out
and Chloe came

she tucked a lock
of blonde hair
behind her left ear

"They call me
'The ***** Whisperer'
if anyone can I can

and so she sets
to work on me
explaining procedure

as only
a Chloe can
in simple laywoman terms

"You know when
you are trying to
get in fancy club

but a big fat bouncer
won't gain you
admittance

well your prostate
is that big fat
******* bouncer!"

"I see..." I say
not really
seeing

but not even a Chloe
can manage it
this time

but then
a nice unassuming
Chinese chap

does it
with ease
Chloe looks miffed

so here I am
tied to a bag
of my own *****

afraid to guess
what else is
in store for m4

"καθίεμα!" I swear
my Greek at least
seems to be improving

LES PAS PERDUS

"What did I do
in the war?"
I kept on trying not to be dead

all my friends were no good
at staying alive
( I keep them alive in my head )

the voices of the dead
shouting why are you
still alive & not I

good ole' Fred
lost his head
easy as a nursery rhyme

Tom holding
his guts in his hands
trying to stuff them back in

all we found of john
were his boots
with his feet still in them

"What did I do
in the war?"
I kept on trying not to be dead

I kept on trying
I kept on trying
to get back to you

*

LES PAS PERDUS (stepping stones or the lost steps )halfway buried stones forming a walkway. The stepping stones between one generation and the next....the war to end all wars merely produced the next war. He and his father were making such a path together as the old man told of his time and the horror that is contained in a survivor's head. Also the very act of surviving creates an agonising guilt that gnaws at the soul. He would often cry and say better men than he died...why not me...why not me. And he would see his dead friends everywhere.

THE MEMORY OF MARMALADE
(For Michael Donaghy 1954 – 2004)


ah howya Michael
strange to be meeting ya
off the coast of Casablanca

now don’t say it –
that would be too
corny altogether

‘At least we’ll
always have
Haringey!’

ah ye devil ya,
ya said it
didn’t ya

‘well I heard ya
reading my poems
to your wife

so I thought
I’d just drop in
like

for an auld chat
not let a little thing
like death come between us’

a moment
as it happens
where I was

only a second
from falling off
the edge of the world

into that great
wide nothingness
that awaits all of us

sometime or another
and all my mind
had to offer me

was this tiny fragment
my first memory of
marmalade of all things

as if it were
the most precious
moment ever

sun bursting
through marmalade
held forever

on the edge
of a shining
silver knife

so beautiful
like a tiny jewel
that the mind could taste

before
the body
could

and the lovely
slice of a smile
that was my father

and if this was
to be my dying
this would be the last

thing seen
and sure if it was
wouldn’t it be

a great memory
to go out
on

and you Michael  
I remember you
whipping out

a penny whistle
where it was hiding
in an inside pocket

playing something
unknown
to me

telling me
it didn’t have
a name as yet

maybe the dance
of the fingers but
that could change

the next time
you played always
a new beginning

now you smile
it’s become
the memory of marmalade

don’t forget
put my father’s smile
in it will ya

‘I will surely’
he smiled,
as the ship turned

towards an horizon
I couldn’t
recognise

and the deck quoits
went quiet
and I lost my shadow

and indeed
that was a good thought
to go out on

‘Dónall auld fella
you’re getting your quoits
and shuffleboard mixed up 

you’d better go on living
ya’ave still got a lot
to learn’

and the marmalade
dances as Michael
plays it into being

and my father
and I
oh we’re smiling

BECOMING THE MAN MY FATHER ALWAYS WAS
( For brother 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.

A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT

the river stood up
its head in the clouds
marched off to find the sea

it took the river time
to find its feet but when it did
it ran & ran & ran

tired now the river
took the bus
spilling some of itself goin' 'round a bend

the river
kicked off the bus
for not having a proper ticket

the river
trying to hitch a ride
no luck

mini skirted blonde
tells the trucker
"This here river's with me!"

river weary now
just wants to lay it self down
and meander

at last the sea dawned
the river plunged in
losing itself in its joy

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

*

Being in Paris and like Mr. Donne suffering from a cold....only hundreds of years apart...so that he( and his life )entered my thoughts as I flâneur'd about the Paris of now and then so that the now and then and the then and now came together in my slightly out-of-kiltered mind.

INVISIBLE BLUE PLAQUES
(for Janice)

Someone or other
lived & died here.

Some other someone
wrote their most

famous work
there.

Every so often
a blue plaque informs us

as we journey
through town

(rain falling down)    

of Blah Blah
who blah’d & blah’d here

or was
blah’d there

... who cares?

In my mind
I ***** invisible
blue plaques

to commemorate
us.

Here: we kissed
(did we not?)    
...a mere minute ago.

Here: we turned
& laughed

on the corner of this everyday
road.

Here: we laughed
& hugged

on a pedestrian crossing

(a pedestrian
crossing)    

whistling at our
ardour

a taxi honking
at our armour.

All over London
our invisible
blue plaques

commemorate
us

&
that

we once
passed this way

so deeply
in love.