HIS PRAYER

Good Friday he'd always
take Christ down
from His cross

talk to him
as if Christ
was his little child

put Him near the fire
****** His crown of thorns
watch it burn amongst the coals

then he held
the Christ
near to him

croon lullabies
cuddle the tired body
watch over His sleep

Christ as dear to him
as his own child
dreaming upstairs

no Rosaries for him
loving Him for real
this the only prayer he knows

*

An old gent I used to look after from the auld sod. He lived his religion in his mind and loved Christ as if he had met him in the world of today...somebody to care for...to love. This is how he prayed...not one for rosaries on bended knee or church but prayer in his actions and how he treated people in his own life. "Be a Christ!" he would always say..."Do the things a Christ would!"

CREATING THE WORLD

the sky was walking
around the world
the land trying to keep up

the weather can not
make its up its mind
what to be

"Whatever!"
the weather
thinks to itself

the sky was keeping
its clouds in order
whilst managing a sunset

the land was out of breath
becoming only a shadow
of its former self

the sky and the land
now the same dark
until the moon is turned on


*

Waking with my little one she suddenly came out with the fact that 'the sky was walking around the world' and so the rest of the words made themselves up on the spot. A poet should always carry his three year old for inspiration....she always seeing the world in her own image. Tilly creating the world.

I WISH YOU WERE OLD AND WEATHERED

I wish that
you were old
and weathered

that wrinkles
irrigated
your face

that your hair
was a halo of white
that your bones ached

that you complained
with coughs and curses
about your great old age

rather than
Death held you
young & forever

locked
in the center
of his ageless eye

*

This is my sister Junie...the most gentle of souls...she'd stroll into your mind as if she was lifting a latch and walking right in. A fairytale in herself.

CARDINAL BALUE'S CAGE

I have fallen out of myself
like a naked soul embarrassed to be seen
without a body

I seem to no longer exist
just thoughts flying about
without a human to nest in

I don't know if I mean
anything anymore
the world is losing its grip on me

I am down
to the dregs of myself
half a human being if you know what I mean

the world has become so
2-D to me
& I a one-dimensional being

oh how I long for to be
3-D
when the world was in love with me

I feel like Cardinal Balue
imprisoned in a cage for 6 years
by Louis the something or other

*

Ahhh grief...that invisible unseen woe that no man may know unless he also in the depths of it. I am not talking about the suit and trappings of it but as to how it manifests itself behind the eyes of the person enduring it. Grief is the presence of absence or the absence of a presence. It is like living under a bell jar with the oxygen running out. Only when one throws one's thoughts against the glass and sees them slither down the glass in words or just hang there does grief achieve a brief visibility. Or throwing thought against some invisible force field that has entrapped one's being and see the such thoughts spark into words and fry against this unseen. This only holds for the once that one tries this and is at once different yet again when words are brought to bear...these pathetic words illuminate my father's death and yet fail to grasp the nature of the pain

Louis XI (3 July 1423 – 30 August 1483), called the Prudent (French: le Prudent) His taste for intrigue and his intense diplomatic activity earned him the nicknames the Cunning (Middle French: le rusé) and the Universal Spider (Middle French: l'universelle aragne ), as his enemies accused him of spinning webs of plots and conspiracies.

The great wooden cage in which Cardinal La Balue expiated his treason to Louis XI. The Bishop of Lerdun, who was the inventor of the horrible contrivance, suffered a like fate, and the people, who had but little sympathy with either of these worthies, used to sing:

" Monsieur La Balue A perdu la vile, De ses evesches;

Monsieur de Verdun N'en a plus pas un, Tous sont despesches."

For three years he remained caged, unable to stand, sit, or lie. Louis XI. used to visit him occasionally, and with his favourite, Olivier, would stand and jeer at the prisoner through a hole in the door.

Considered as a State prison of the period, the Castle of Loches was quite a model establishment. Just within the entrance was an even more terrible cage, where Philippe de Comines, the great historian of Louis XI., spent eight months, unable to turn round, but contriving, nevertheless, to write a great deal of the wonderful Memoirs which have rendered him so famous.

The baseless story of his detention in an iron cage originated in Italy in the sixteenth century apparently but I used the story of it as shorthand for "fallen out of the world."

He was supposed to not to be able to stand up or turn around and Louis would come and mock him. Gone into myth and legend now but apparently he was kept in luxury but the horrible story is too good/bad to resist.

"IF YOU TICKLE US. . ."

moon intently
listens
to the open air

production of
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
- in Venice

this delicious summer’s night
(hemmed in by houses)
where we discover that

“The quality of mercy
is not
strained...”

as a couple upstairs
come home and proceed to make
long loud passionate lust

“...it droppeth like.. “
another couple scream and fight
as windows smash and plates crash

“... the gentle rain from Heaven...”
“Agghhh! ”
“Cazzo in culo! ”

and throws his clothes out
the now broken window
“...upon the earth below...”

as a gondola ghosts by in mist
with an atrocious tourist version of
“O Sole Mio! ”

as another window
lights up
and a telly bellows

a dubbed in gangster shoot out.
“Aggggh!
"Fongool”

we are enthralled
(delighted and enraptured)
not only with

the splendour that is
Shakespeare
but also

the real life drama
of this gentle
Italian night

and of how
we got
our “pound of flesh."

STRAP HANGING

Yikes! Von Eycks's
The Arnolfini Marriage
gets on the tube.

Circle Line....either it or
someone very like Vladimir Putin
and Vladimir Putin in drag

at the next stop
Grant's American Gothic
jumps through the door

just as it closes
they strap hang
looking every inch of themselves

paint dripping from a graze
above an eyebrow
it's very unnerving

sharing a carriage
with great works of art
come alive

I really want to see
who gets on next
Van Gogh without an ear

but this is my stop
and work beckons
I get off but

nobody gets on
not even
a quick sketch

I mind
"...the Gap!"
almost trip over myself

the Arnolfini Marriage
and American Gothic
are discussing do they need

a ticket and what is money
they stare at me as if
"We know where you live sunny Jim!"

"Don't you dare tell!"
they yell
silently

the Putin look-alike
draws a finger
across a throat

the American Gothic
draws a zipper across a mouth
I give a frightened nod

the doors close
and somewhere
in a gallery

their empty frames
stare at
the dumbfounded tourists

NOW, WE IS: 60!

a Year 8 child
enquires
how old I be?

"I be
just...60!"
he gasps

"My God...you're very
active
for 60!"

60 for him is
a distant planet
in a galaxy far far

from here
yea...another
dimension

I smile
my 60 year old smile
perfected by now

I am starlight
that will only reach him
when he is 60 himself

if he ever
remembers what he has
long ago forgotten

*

Now We Are Six is a book of thirty-five children's verses by A. A. Milne, with illustrations by E. H. Shepard. It was first published in 1927. My title is of course a corruption of that as I begin the slow decay into the nothing at all.

WAS THAT THE TIME?

the town was exhausted.
now all the humans
were dreaming dreams

the town
could relax
into the darkness

tomorrow had come
without their knowing it
yet here it was

as if it had
crept up on them
the future ready to pounce

the early risers
yawned into the dawn
switching on their minds

with a click
the birds woke up
the day.

and the town
the town got on
with the business of being

the town
doing what
it had to do

the humans leaving
their dreams
scattered across pillows

spat into the sink
yelling: "Ohh....
is that the time!"

and
it was
it was

BIG SISTER

you were older than me
now I am older
than you

can ever be
(forever 18 &
forever dead) .

I felt so guilty
when I passed
that age

wishing
I could exchange
some of the life I had

so that you could
experience
the life you never knew

I used to talk to
your grave
as if it were you...

always
beginning:
“Hiya, kid...”

now I find you
everywhere
instead

the sunlight
on the garden
smiles like you did

the ladybird
stumbling
over the furrows of my fingerprint

has the same graceful
awkwardness
your body lent to every movement

you are younger
than me
& will always be

and I am older
than you
...will ever know


* * * * * *


The sound of my sister's voice.  We lived in a house not made of books.  The only  texts existed in the texture of the telling...my sister finecombing my hair and soothing the pain with...shussh...stories.

'The little toy soldier is covered with dust...'

...exists only in my mind and the vague trellised traces of Junie's voice.  It is here breath against my skin as I fall asleep. It has never entered my mind through print yet it is printed irredeemably...indelibly in my mind.

'What is it again? '

I am following my father...gogging my Dad doggedly for the words of a song.  I scrawl the words across the page of my mind as exasperated his patience explodes:

'As down the ****** glen one ****** Easter morn...how many times do I have to tell you! '

My sister Moira is slightly tipsy.  I glow with pleasure as the pattern unfolds.  When she is more that slightly tipsy she will softly and sadly sing.

'I know my love by his way of walking and I know my love by his way of talking and I know my love by his eyes so blue and if my love left me what would I do...? '

I am drunk with her words.  There is a slight smell of loneliness off her breath.  I hang   on   her   every    breath.

I have had four teeth pulled and my world fevers and frets. The smell of sausages sidles up the stairs and seduces me to the top of the stairs.  When I am safely ion danger the smelly magic no longer supports me.  I fall and float down the stairs.  Junie comforts  and croons.  I am lying in her arms in her bed.  Again she sings.  'Again! ' I plead.  She sings again.

'Black is the colour of my true love's hair...her lips are like...'

Her body vibrates with sound and the words echo through me and echo through the memory of me.  For a long long time
the only way these words were written down ws in the breath entering and leaving her body.

When I remember to write...

I write to remember I write to forget.

I write to recover what has never left me but exists in a someplace of my mind.  I write to find out who I am and if I ever was. I write to discover where I went when the wordl went away.

As the bus crashes the book is torn and burning.  The world dies.  A child cries.  I WRITE TO REMEMBER I WRITE TO FORGET.  The book leies strewn across the motorway.  It's spine is broken and its leaves flutter away in dismay.  The book is burning.  It is unreadable as it reads itself to the night's wind. It is an image torn from a dream that is really real.  Its spine is broken and pages turn themselves over and over in the night.

I write...to remember...I write...to forget.

Sunlight streams through the bedroom window...sculpts a sister.  Creates Junie.  She is telling me the story of Orpheus and Eurydice.  Every time I cry.  She says she will not tell me again because it always me makes me cry.  I promise not to cry if she promises to tell me again.  She tells me again.  I cry  every time.  She is not dead.  She is telling me the story of Orpheus and Eurydice.  She is created of sunlight.  Dust motes dance in attendance.  It can not be...more real than this. I write to remember...I write...to forget.  I write to recover the times of her not dying...when she is sunlight and breath.  When she was my book.  When the sound of her was all...around me.  Writing to remember...I forget so much.  I write because I am - lost.  I write to find an exit door in my mind.  The book is broken.  The book is burning.  Pages...fiery pages flutter like lost souls escaping into the darkness.  I write to reach the light.  I write to enter the darkness.  I write to escape the sound of the book burning. I write to forget...I...write to...not forget.                             Remember.

* * * * *

FALLING ASLEEP WITH MY BIG SISTER - TANKA
  
  5 half-moons rising
on the hand that strokes my hair
bracelets like music
whispering softly in my ear
“Shhhshhh...therethere...shush... shush...there! ”

THE SAXOPHONE GOING CRAZY

the smoke appears
to fall up
to the ceiling and then

languidly
down blue
it dances to

the shiny saxophone
as if it drunk in
jazz

the cigarette smoke
music made visible
here it is

a spiral staircase
the going up and going down
the one and the same

now here
a dissolving double
helix

now again
a sudden sketch
of how naked

we will come
to be
entwined with the music

with bodies of smoke
the making and un-making
of us

our laughter and words
floating up to the ceiling
frozen in the air

clinging there
for all to see
our love written

in music and smoke
the saxophone going
crazy

FELINE FRIENDS

curled up on the couch
with a curled up kitten
cradled in your lap

both of you
(totally)
out of this world

I smile
at such
a lovely double take

tiptoe 'round
the flat
(afraid that you should wake)

I kiss both your noses
& you both sniff & shift
adopt new synchronised poses

I can only
love 'n' sit 'n' watch
as one of you makes a move

that
the the other
will match

I take a Polaroid
as I am leaving
place it between

your toes
where
(on awakening)

it will be seen
to show you
how

very
beautiful
you've been

"SPRING IS HERE, I HEAR. . ."

I carry the sky
across the street

stumble under
its weight.

Now I carry the buildings
and finally some trees and a dog.

The dog barks
at itself.

I look like a mirror
with legs.

A mirror walking
down the street.

We, dance partners
it & I.

I all huff & puff
the mirror calm as anything.

The edges of the mirror
bite deep into my palms.

I am tired of carrying the sky
place it against a red-bricked wall.

Finally the mirror
half cracked at the top

has time to
reflect upon its new home.

I have saved it from a fate worse than
a skip.

It gives my little room
an extra dimension.

A room that isn't
there that I am

always walking in( ouch! )to.

Sometimes I talk to
the me in the other room.

I paint my room bright
bright yellow

fill it with jonquils
and daffodils.

A red skirting board
runs around the room.

The flowers rejoice.
Spring, it appears, is:

here.

There is no you nor
ever will be

again.

I sit with my reflection.

Both of us say nothing.

We have
nothing

to say.

& AGAIN: "YES!"

He stepped out of
the photo

stretched and
gave a great yawn.

He had been standing by that
wall it seemed forever.

The sun shone
in black&white.;

Outside it was
night.

He had never seen  his grandson
who lived in colour

on the mantlepiece just
newly born.

He strode out boldly
in 3-D

with the strange gait of a 2-D'er
trying to put his best foot forward.

It was a long long way to
the photo of Tipperary

and the smiling newborn boy
but by God he made it.

His grandson lay smiling
in a shaft of sunlight

that rocked him gently
and gently.

He stepped into the colour
and turned into a nice sepia.

He held his grandson
against his chest

smiling
in Kodachrome.

Then put him back
in the frame.

He managed to return
to his own black& white

as headlights travelled
across the ceiling

before the telephone rang
and the morning awoke

and sleepy feet from above
went to answer it with a yawn:

"Yes...yes. . ."

& again:
"YES!"

THE CUPBOARD OF THE YESTERDAYS

The War marches
across the map

on little coloured pins

blood red for us &
bright green for them.

The colours faltering
in the candlelight

after the lights
had gone out.

One can still see holes
from the previous War

that pinned men down
so that they

would never move again
they the never returning.

THE CUPBOARD OF THE YESTERDAYS
falling from mother's sleepy hand.

"War is a cruelly destructive thing..."
it both begins & ends.

Men wriggle under
coloured pins & die.

Saki smiles sardonically
from THE TOYS OF PEACE.

I move a pin to where
father maybe is.

I am glad
mother sleeps at last.

In the somewhere of now
a bullet splinters bone

my father falls

the agony of the moment
revealed in the telegram

that will come
a month later.

Father has become
History.

Mother will read her Saki
and cry and try

not to let me see
her cry.

I, a small boy
can't cry.

Death appears
like a fairy story.

What War
awaits me?

*

The Cupboard of the Yesterdays," a short story written by Saki aka H. H. Munro a few years before he was killed on the Western Front in 1916,.

"War is a cruelly destructive thing," said the Wanderer, dropping his newspaper to the floor and staring reflectively into space.

But the old atmosphere will have changed, the glamour will have gone; the dust of formality and bureaucratic neatness will slowly settle down over the time-honoured landmarks; the Sanjak of Novi Bazar, the Muersteg Agreement, the Komitadje bands, the Vilayet of Adrianople, all those familiar outlandish names and things and places, that we have known so long as part and parcel of the Balkan Question, will have passed away into the cupboard of yesterdays, as completely as the Hansa League and the wars of the Guises.

At the start of the First World War Munro was 43 and officially over-age to enlist, but he refused a commission and joined the 2nd King Edward's Horse as an ordinary trooper. He later transferred to the 22nd Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers, in which he rose to the rank of lance sergeant.

More than once he returned to the battlefield when officially still too sick or injured. In November 1916 he was sheltering in a shell crater near Beaumont-Hamel, France, during the Battle of the Ancre, when he was killed by a German ******. According to several sources, his last words were "Put that ****** cigarette out!"

Munro has no known grave.

TALKING TO MY BROTHER

"Pssst....pssst...it's me!"
whispered the tree.

The aspen quivered.
Shivered in the sudden breeze.

"You..eh...talking
to me?"

I dared to
question the tree.

Tree talking!
Hope nobody hears me!

Nobody told me this is
how grief would be.

"It's me...yer brother
for ****'s sake!"

The tree getting
slightly annoyed.

"But...yer dead!"
I said.

"Ok..." snapped the tree.
"Let's not go there!"

Ok ok I thought.
Keep yer leaves on.

"Yer a bit more poplar
than you used to be!"

I quipped
with a smirk.

The tree
was not amused.

"Why an aspen then?"
I enquired.

"Don't you remember
any of the mythology you taught me!"

I wasn't having the best
of this conversation.

"Yer aspen dear brother
communicates with the next world!"

The tree could see
the fear flit across my face.

"Remember when we was little
we promised that whoever

died first would come back
tell the other...what was what?"

"But that was a kid's promise!"
I quibbled.

"Promise is a promise!"
the tree waved its branches.

"I was afraid that if I appeared
as you knew me...you would be scared."

It paused as a kid
threw a stone and ran away.

"It would give you a heart attack
And then where would be be!"

"Dead right!" I mused.
I had to admit the tree was talking sense.

Sure enough the old ticker
isn't what it used to be.

"So what's it like being a tree then!"
Trying to make light conversation like.

"Much better than being
dead...that's what!"

A jay came and perched
on the tree's thoughts.

"****...the light is dying!"
rustled its leaves.

"Meet me tomorrow
at noon."

The tree commanded
beginning to lose its voice.

"Ok!" I said choking up.
Kissing the tree,

"Alright Bud" I said.
"See ya Bud!" said the tree.

"Tomorrow it is
then!"

THE MERE MAID'S TALE

I feel like a mermaid
dripping on his kitchen floor
I want to drown in his love

I feel mythical
he just thinks I'd be nice
saucy

I sleep in the bath
he only wants to part my legs
I flick my tail at him

I balance on my tail
run( so to speak )
through the roaring rain

alas I climb out of
the fairytale
he yet another bland Prince in 2-D

I run away to sea
can taste the salt on the wind
its waves welcome me

I need
a Hans Christian Anderson man
a he who...understands me

GRANDAD TENDS HIS DAHLIAS

the fog
walks among the tombs
"I encounter my first ***

he was a man
he looked just like me
as if I were...killing myself!"

stretching back
through space & time
the instant of that moment

the German falls
beside a tomb
like a badly written play

Grandad bayonettes
the German...looks surprised
to be dying

Grandad plunges the bayonette in
twists it about
the German almost grins

then the dance
of the living & the dying
in strict time

the German goes down
on one knee
as if proposing to Death

Granddad stabs the German
through the lifeline
of his left hand

the dying German's
left outstretched hand
like a man about to sing a song

"As he fell
his hand touched my hand
'This...' I thought '...is hell!'"

all his life
the touch...that touch
impossible to shake off

Grandad tends his dahlias
the dying German
still clouding his eyes

THE SNAKES AND LADDERS OF TIME

she gasps
at the faded photograph.
a crease hides my smile

"What...you. . .
you
were four?"

she's never considered
this before
I smile at her disbelief

that this fat old man
could ever have been
surely not her age

she acts as if she is
the first four
ever to be

ahhhhh
the snakes
and ladders of time

"Oh it's a long time since
I was four...but four
...I was for sure!"

I laugh at her incredulity
"So where did your four go!"
she asks like a defence lawyer

turning to
the judge and jury
of her lined up dolls

"And how did you get so old?"
she clinches the conversation
convincingly

yes...where did I go
I question myself
four year olds never die

they play hide and seek
in the minds
of fat old men

popping mischievously up
with a now and then yell
"Here I be!"

"But if you were four
once upon
a time ago..."

I feel her
argument
close about me

"Then you should know
why
I don't want to go to bed!"

I check with my former
four year old self
sure enough he says: "Yup!"

I have to admit
she
has got me...there

trapped by my child's
impeccable logic
...******

and so we have 4
extra Snakes and Ladders
played with all her

extreme hysteria
stops only
when I fall asleep

she covers me
with a towel
from the bathroom

puts her self
to bed thank
you very much

tells Mummy
"Shhhhhhhh...
Daddy's sleeping!

MY WAR

the bomb fell on the graveyard
the dead laughed
they were used to being dead

the moss had eaten their names
the dead could not remember
who they were

a batch of kids
clutching gas masks
afraid of the sky

blackberries and air raid sirens
his name on cardboard around his neck
they were living the war

the war
had invaded their lives
bombs had become normal

the gas mask
left out in the storm
filling up with rain

he didn't like the gas masks
they turned people
into insects

"A carrot on a stick!"
instead of an ice cream
"but then I'd never had ice cream!"

"Carrots can't
stand them to this day!"
clouds reflected in his eyes

Daddy was up in the air
fighting in the sky
I never cried when he died

he went up in the air
and stayed there
"Next door to Heaven!" Mum says

strange creatures in a field
cows I think they're called
I'm afraid they'll eat me

PEELING APPLES SOMEWHERE IN 1914

the War not yet
a week old
already tears that will last years

she can still see
his pale hands
peeling apple after apple

the apples
looking startled
**** beside their skins

the naked apples
the flamenco swirl of their skins
his hands pale as death

now where the apples lay
that day
the telegram of his death

she can still see him
turning into the shadows
throwing her an apple with a smile

she is angry with him
for dying
her love not enough to protect him

under her apron
the baby kicks
it will have his smile

XIǍO HÚDIÉ...XIǍO GŪ AIGŪ AI
(Little Butterfly...Little Sweetie)



stars
finding it hard
to keep their eyes open


moon
tucked up
in a comfortable cloud



already fast
asleep
turns & smiles



even the dark
is nodding off
dreaming of ight



even the cricket
has gone
asleep



even the fire
sleeps
in a nightdress of ashes



all this
dreamy
night



only the baby
(our little sweetie)
lies awake



playing with
the bright butterfly
dancing in her

dress of brilliant colour
bobbing on the string
before her.



she tells the butterfly
delightedly
over & over

that
she is
beauty



but the butterfly
doesn’t understand
the language of gurgle



somewhere
in the dark
Da da snores



Ma ma
sleeps quietly
only baby awake

BY ANY OTHER NAME
( for the miracle that a Brian Ings is)

the kestrel
hovers high
over the Devil's Mother

it knows nothing
of the names
that humans give to things

such as mountains
or indeed
its good self

it only knows
the heights
that it can fly to

and how
glorious a thing
the wind beneath a wing

if it's gaze could
penetrate
the gift of language

it would perceive
how time changes
mountains and name-ings

it watches words
mutate back into
the original Irish

so that the Devil's Mother
that it flies over today
was once the Demon's Testicles

"Magairlí an Deamhain!"
it screeches
the name

through the dense fog
of  Anglicisation
or Bastardisation.

or God forgive us
the virus of
Religion

and it would croak
with laughter
at its own

nomenclature
"*** Dearg" or
Red *****

it is thankful for this moment
of human sentience
so that it can laugh at itself

as a Red *****
flying over
the Demon's Testicles

but in an instant
the instant
is gone

and it is only this
miracle
of being

the beauty
of its flight
in the midst of a gale

"*** dearg
ag eitilt thall
magairlí an deamhan!"

it chuckles in Kestrel
before translating itself
back into the English

"A kestrel
flying over
the Demon's Testicles!"

*

Ballypitmave in County Antrim would be known in Irish as Phite Méabha ‘townland of Maeve’s *****’. Or as the good old Revn Cupples would have it ‘town land of the pit of shame’
We are talking of a Goddess here or a figure of mighty myth so the Irish would not be afraid to call a ***** a ***** and all hail the Goddess.

WE AS HUMAN

dawn breaks
the War breaks
her waters break

this child
at war with this world
this world at war

she gives birth
to death
glad the War will never find him

here a house
as if drawn by a child
crumbling with time

their names now
only alive in our voices
the characters eaten by lichen

here Time
has come & gone
lives written on water

fragments of them survive
in a yellowed letter...an old photo
ripples upon water

tourists we pass by
touched by time
we as human as them

will Time too
leave us thus:
ashes to ashes dust to. . .

TILL HUMAN VOICES WAKE US AND. . .

old house
the snow
climbs the stairs

asleep
on a rusted bed
snow

the snow
looks out the window
at itself falling

the snow
has the house
to itself

the snow
startled out of its sleep
by a human intent on remembering

the snow
more at ease inside
than the human

the human
tears in its eyes
the snow smiles

snow now
both
inside/outside

human footsteps
the snow
covers them up


*


Going back to the auld sod to find my childhood home nothing but a ruin and the window from where I saw my first snow fall in the bitter winter of '63 now I saw snow falling inside the house. I climbed the stairs along with the snow and there was snow lying on the bed just as the seven year old me did back in the long long ago. A home that now existed only in my mind. The next year it was just a muddy space and I could walk through where we watched telly and laughed. An old sheep passing between the ghost of the kitchen and the hall.

AND LO! THE POET AWAKENS

come
my machine
of bones

let us perambulate
around this
God-given morning

yes...you too
my flesh
and blood

do you
not desire
to accompany me

and spirit
If you are
willing

why not bring
your friend
mind

oh soul
surely you
will come for a stroll

and together
we shall be
this tired old

Donall Dempsey
this odd contraption
of a human being

see
Sunlight
welcomes us

how the roses
delight
in seeing us

and birds race to tell the sky
that the poet
has come amongst us

"Ok ok..
enough already
cut the crap!"

I admonish
the words
"I'm up...I'm up!"

PICKING FLOWERS

so young
that I can barely tell
it’s me ..myself


( balanced upon her knee )
trying to pluck
flowers from her dress


amongst the great
earthquake
of her laughter

HOW TO MAKE THE RIGHT DECISION AT THE RIGHT TIME

the clock shaves off
another bit of time
tick by tick by tick

it doesn't give a tock
a patina of time
covers the dusty ornaments

the eaves drip
Nature's clock
I measure time

by how long it takes
the cuckoo's voice
to travel

from the background
to the foreground of this
storm tossed morning

I feel myself as if I am
the personal measurement
of boredom

a fly lands
on a bishop's mitre
washes its hands

assiduously
then buzzes off
in case it catches religion

the chess pieces
resume
their silences

I feel like a female mammoth
frozen
in a block of ice

Time refuses
to move on
sti...sti...ICKS

my husband
plays chess
with himself

can never tell whether
he's winning or losing
"I'm a Gemini..!"

he explains.
like duh
"I'm just a poor little Cancer!"

he is beating
himself up
about beating himself

I watch him move from
one side of the table to
the other

like a Buster Keaton movie
an eyelid twitches but
is instantly repressed

the eyebrow
about to be
raised...instantly isn't

he is a bad loser
even
to himself

a hand raises a King
and a Queen
is taken

his lips
a taut straight line
displays no emotion

I am only wearing
a thong
getting goosebumps

I chew a Swano 4906
bitten to shreds
"Five...I said...five letters!"

loudly just to annoy him
beginning with an O and
ending with OP

"Stowed cables
below water line!"
what kind of clue is that!

I haven't got a clue
"Harold honey!"
I yell

"Orlop!"
he grunts
"Orlop deck!"

never taking his eye off
of his other self
watching his every move

"Who would have
thought..."
I think to myself

"That *** and money
could become so
boring!"

a pillowcase on the line
***** for help
it has lost a peg

holding on by a peg
the wind makes it pregnant
its belly billows

it swells
and takes off
like a ship setting sail

jumps over the wall
chasing its own
horizon

"Me an' all!"
I thank it
for the tip

decide to leave
Harold honey
by Tuesday...at the latest

calculus battle clue 6 down
“tanquam ex ungue leonem”
N E W T O N I fill it in - done it

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

THE REST OF THE STORY


The dried up lake contrived to look both
surprised & embarrassed

like a lady in a bad dream wearing no clothes
whilst singing in church or doing the supermarket shop.

When I say 'lake' I mean the body of water
that lived up in the old quarry.

It always gave us kids nightmares.

Our parents always warned us not to
go there ...but go there

we always did 'cos it was dangerous.

And that was its attraction.
Danger barely tamed and still feral.

It would give us the creeps just looking at it in sunlight.

The police tape looked real pretty
fluttering in the slight breeze like an art installation

that everyone who was someone
deemed important without knowing its meaning

or if it had one.

But hey what do I know?

The lake wore its dead body
like a cheap glass ring pretending it was diamond.

When I say dead body I mean skeleton.

The skeleton wore concrete shoes
as if it had stepped straight from a corny gangster movie

riddled with cliché.

It just grinned at the police
flash photography as if it were a celebrity

famous for being a celebrity.

He still wore a heavy gold crucifix
on a thick chain around its neck

that shone in the sun.

The sun smiled down as if it were smiling down
on a picnic or an ordinary walk in the park

as if it were innocent of the things it seen.

'Hey, I'm Summer being Summer...! ' it seemed to say
'Dead guy eh...what a ******! '

The dead guy was alive in his death
as if he were soaking up being the centre of attention.

And yeah sure it was just another ordinary Summer
when I was 9 or ten or something like that

but this was just the beginning of the story...
...the rest of the story was somewhere else.


*


Guy told me this in Harry's Bar in Venice and all this just added up to how he came to finally live in Bethlehem in Pennsylvania. I was fascinated by the pre-story and his way of telling the story by interrupting his telling by a quirky "...when I say....I mean...." It was worth buying him a drink just to get drunk on that story.

The story was fuel'd by many a Bellini. The guy was a blend between Orson and Ernest as if they had both reincarnated at the same time and simultaneously tried to claim the one body. His name was Sinclair...I had never met anyone with the first name Sinclair before...he was better than a book. È tutto pepe indeed! Wot a guy! Che figata! Che figata!

He was highly energetic in both body and mind and telling stories about their times of being 4 or 7 and 11. This story came forth from man who at 90 was full of zip and zest. I only picked up bits here and there and never found out where his there was.

I was enjoying his speech movements and characteristic tics with that defining "When I say....I mean..." The story went by at a hundred miles ah hour but totally enthralled me and 50 years later still lives on in my mind.

I wish I could have captured his essence and this is only a pale imitation of how wonderful  he was. All the imagery is his too and I merely a Boswell to his Johnson.

Once saw THE MERCHANT OF VENICE...in Venice. It bobbed along with several different languages taking up the tale and done in a Commedia dell'Arte style. If that wasn't enough...gondolas glided by with their sixpence worth of kitsch touristy songs whilst a gangster movie blared out of a window and two floors up from that a couple made mad passionate ***....everything blended with everything else....real life and Shakespeare all sharing the same outdoor stage.

The best bit was when she( of the mad passionate *** bit )threw all his clothes outta de window and told him to 'cazzo nel culo!' The real life bit I'm afraid by then was beginning to eclipse the Shakespeare bit( sorry Will ). It was almost as unforgettable as Sinclair's rambling tale of "how we came to live in Bet-LE-ham!"

Venice was almost too luscious for words but Sinclair and his tale of how we got from here to there and then "that" production of TMOV was all just too much for this tiny little mind.

Went back again but nothing as spectacular as "that" ever happened again....guess I was in the right place at just the right on time. The mind going "Heeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

This be an experimental prose poem letting the prose ramble on in the voice and characteristic stops and starts of the speaker. The whole point of the poem is that you are going to get the whole prelude to the story and then not be told the story!

The danger is indeed very real....the adults know that...the kids know that....even the dead guy knows that! There was a broken worn down sign that you had to get near enough to read and possibly fall in! So the danger could be feral and turn on you with one little mistake or missed step. Hence the barely tamed! The narrator is very fallible!

". . .here
Buckle! AND. . ."



I have( somehow )
escaped( don't ask me how )

the ritual of the head
plunged down the toilet bowl

this the welcome to
secondary school

and flushed
their laughter and their power.

They have bidden their time
well

and although I believe
I have outfoxed them

....they have outfoxed me.

I tremble on my spindly
12 year old legs

surrounded by the sneering
pack.

They hang me from
a coat peg

laughing with great glee
as I try to free

myself
but can't.

I like a living coat
refusing to be clothes.

Then they tear
page by page

my poetry book
to pieces.

Pages like paper bees
crushedcrumpled at my feet.

They make me eat
Hopkins.

I spit him out
gasp for breath.

My tongue rebels AND
I fling Father Hopkins at them.

They recoil in astonished
amazement.

" I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding. . ."

The words sting them
into stunned silence.

This is not
how it should be.

My jacket tears
I fall at their feet

my voice soaring
now above them.

They run from the beauty of the words.

I pick, one by one, up
the fallen pages.

". . . and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and **** gold-vermillion. . ."

The bell rings
for Maths.


*


I was a sickly kid and pretty lousy at school. Told I was not good enough to do the English Higher paper but that didn't stop me reading the stuff. There was a great TV schools programme on that I would tune into and out of this the great Brendan Keneally would walk forth from its tubes and proclaim THE WINDHOVER.
  
With his voice and passion for the poem I was entranced and made a fan of all things Hopkins. Years later I meet him casually at a bar where we happened to be having a pint together. I told him this story and all those years later I had the pleasure of him recite it to me once again in the flesh! It was a magical moment. We batted the lines back and forth to each other and plunged into the beauty of the lines.

The last time before that I had met him and his wife at the Grapevine Arts Centre in Dublin. I was a mere sapling then and just beginning to read poetry aloud. I was a country bumpkin and had to run for a bus and as I ran and as they waved goodbye to me I turned the corner of North Great Georges Street AND....fell on my ****! Oh the shame of it!

I used to belong to a poetry collective that hawked a broadsheet around pubs. My poem CRAZY LONELINESS HIJACKS MEMORY OF A BEAUTIFUL GIRL was the hit of the day and Brendan liked this very much. But my one moment of glory was reciting Hopkins with him in a crowed noisy Dublin poem...I had come full circle.

"...CHANGE THE WORLD, ONE SEQUIN AT A TIME..."

her wardrobe is mirrored
sliding doors
reveal her many selves

hung on hangers
she peels off her present
self

it falls
at her feet
in a froth of frills

she kicks it aside
she hates
herself in it

she takes a self
from a hanger
unfolds its role

'dutiful wife'
no...ha ha...tonight she
feels more 'vamp'

does she dare
disturb t
he universe

the many selves she is
hang limp
waiting to be the chosen one

she stares at her
naked self
that the mirror holds

longs to escape
the roles
she plays.

she gives
that little
Mona Lisa smile

descends the staircase
emotionally naked
willing to be

the person she used to be
before she became
his

a mere prop in his play
a must have
accessory

she smirks
at his shock
takes the dry martini

from his grasp
drinks it down in
one big gulp

CHINGACHGOOK SPEAKS

still see the saw
cutting through time
the small boy's mind

Da's spirit level
disappearing all the time
becomes my Star Ship Enterprise

the saw hums to itself
time eclipsed
with the smell of pine

the song of the saw
sunbeams & sawdust
dancing in time

and lo
wood becomes window
the small carpentry of miracles

a heart-shaped block of wood
becomes my saddle
on his crossbar

we fly through time
tame hills
the tick of bicycle wheels

lost in speed
down down Dobbin's Hill
we the bubble in the spirit level

we haunt the dumps
hunt for a wheel here...a frame there
Da creates a bike

new bikes from old
our "Frankenstein bicycles"
we the new masters of speed

"Look at me...lookame...no hands!"
the hill smiles to itself
"wheeeEEEEEEOOOOOOOOPS!!!!!"

trees breaking gently in our hands
become our bows and arrows
stolen from young plantations

I a nine year old Chingachgook
limp horribly home
an arrow in my left calf

my Da shaving wood
it curls
to his whistle

sawdust amongst his curls
my Da smiles
as the wood comes good

I still see the saw
pine
opens memory

*

We had to look upon a loved object( as a poetry prompt )and not mentioning it...free associate 15 words and write the poem from this list. THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS is and still is a fav. book of my childhood( I have still not finished growing up )and it bleeds into the memory of helping( little help that I was )my Da making a window...making a bike...making a fretwork Arkle...whatever he turned his hand to...whether it be a crop of potatoes or a cuddle...his hands were the hands of a God creating my childhood for me.

I never got around to reading THE WEPT OF WISH-TON-WISH but loved the sound of it....Dobbin's Hill( which I cycled down as a child and ran up as a soldier )became the Great Snake( what Chingachgook means )and I indeed made myself a Chingachgook. The rest is just memories held in haiku and bursting in time like bubbles.
From 30/30 prompt. . . I was reading THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS and helping my da with his work...whether it be wood or bikes from different bits.It was that eternal summer of childhood and I desired to be Chingachgook. Out of this tale of time lost...time found is woven the present poem. Here be the words that helped in some way went to the making of the poem. My da worked in wood...I work in words.

THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS

MAGUA

UNCAS

WAH-TA-WAH

THE WEPT OF WISH-TON-WISH

HATCHET

NATIVE AMERICAN

LEATHER BOUND BOOK

PROUST

TIMBER

WOODEN JIGSAW

FRETWORK

TOOLS OF TRADE

SUMMER

HAIR

A SILENCE TOO LOUD

the wheeze
of the sea
breathing in and out

a wall
crumbling back
to its beginning

as the wisteria
with all its gentle strength
has crushed it to the ground

a town
bleached
by the sun

as if it were a faded
photograph of
its long ago self

a silence
too loud
for the human ear to hear

A DOOR AJAR ON REALITY

the blackbird led
his wife
up the garden path

as if the crazy paving
had been laid especially
for them & their kind

I thought it odd that
they walked instead
of flew

as if they
were acting
the human

they both
deep in conversation
about bird current affairs

or gossip
about those
noisy robins

when they hit the deck
they both stood
in a deck chair each

continuing what
they had been
conversing  about

maybe blackbirds
had taken over
the world

& I
the last human
to know

or all other humans
had been changed
into blackbirds

they suddenly
made loud caw
I took to the air and flew

LIKE MUSIC MADE VISIBLE

you forever always
like music
made visible

running through my thoughts
memory's shaky
home movie

here a grinning granny
with half a head
most of the time

or an uncle
with a cloud
upon his head

there the camera elects
to look at
only the grass

or an aunt
always on the edge
of a frame

quiet but not quite
one of the
almost theres

an uncle
merely represented by
his shiny new shoes

and a sudden falling
shot of skies
and a passing bird


these black and white people
in their black and white world
moving through silence

as if they were swimming
through time
flirting now

or shying from
the camera's
gaze

as the footage comes
to an abrupt:
stop

but you forever always
like music
made visible

WHAT THE CLOUDS ARE THINKING

"Huggin!"

"Muninn!"

We call our dogs
and they come running

black black
as ravens

faster than thought
and memory.

Excited they tell me
of all the many

smells
they have encountered.

What it is like
to just run

for no other purpose
than the running.

They see the world
through smell and speed.

Delight in
just being.

Outrunning the wind.

The sudden scratch
of a bramble across an eye

is a happenstance
that sees me

wearing a black eye patch
with a diamante twinkling.

I see the world better
with my one eye.

The other was too lazy.

"Yeah yeah...it's the world!
So what!"

Lazy eye easily
bored with perceiving.

Looking, but:
not seeing.

The dogs see me
as the reincarnation

of Odin.

The land is lost
in mist and myth.

The mist devouring
a man

with every footstep
the world erased.

Yet, I outpaced it
gazed once again

upon a moon madly
in love with its reflection.

Look up into the sky
the inside of a skull

that once belonged
to the great giant Ymir

whose death
made all life possible.

Odin and Vili and Ve
make soil from his flesh

bones become
mountains

blood becoming seas.

"See the clouds..?"
I tell my little girl

( already far more
ancient than I )

"They were once
Ymir's brains!"

She accepts all this
with great aplomb.

"I wonder..."
she ponders
"I wonder.. . .

what the clouds
are thinking?"

WATER'S LAUGHTER

She laughs like water
pours herself
into my embrace

takes
whatever shape
within these arm

I kiss her
with a love that
cannot harm her

me
the container
of who I am

holding her
love
like water's laughter

THE SOUL GOES FOR A STROLL

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 mountainside
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 mantlepiece

HOW GRAMPS AND  GRANMA GOT TOGETHER

she had an ego
that could be seen
from space

a mind that could strip
an apple of its skin
in one perfect coil

but today she was feeling
like a faded
carbon copy of herself

and it was this
vulnerability
that so unnerved the others

not knowing whether
it was a ruse or a trick
on her part

could she really
have a heart when
she was not biting heads off

I not being afraid of her
I dared to take
care of her

she too surprised
that I simply
walked around her defences

as if they weren't
there and won her
with a simple "You ok?"

BECOMING LADY MACBETH.
( "Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?" - Act 5, scene 1 MACBETH )


dawn chorus
switch on kettle
for first cup of coffee

but what's this
white kettle
streaked with blood

I have stepped into
a gory horror
real life movie

an hallucination
but how can
a kettle bleed

and now I see
my hands
bathed in blood

glistening...shining
more readily red
than can be imagined

I have become
Lady Macbeth
the play come alive

I can still smell
my own blood
"Oh, oh, oh!"

****** my ****** hands
under the running tap
discover the deep cut

my right hand thumb
it would appear
the culprit

"All the perfumes
of Arabia will not
sweeten this little..."

how come
I cannot yet tell
and yell

now that
the pain
decides to turn up

I act the part
to the hilt
discover that

pushing plastic
into an overflowing bin
cuts to the bone

who would have thought
indeed that this old poet
had so much blood in him


*
A plastic container that once contained olives and feta until devoured  squashed down into the bin not realising that its rim was super sharp and I didn't even feel the cut. Then turning back to the coffee making and lo and behold the horror unrolled the 'how can this be so' moments. And *******...so much...so much blood. As if the whole 12 pints in the human body had chosen to take up residence( squatters rights)in the thumb and to to a runner when the fisrst cut was the deepest.

...MO MHÁTHAIR...
( ...my mother... )

See? I walk... I exist. . .
in this new sunlight
despite your death

this morning
you will never know
somehow I persist

the world has turned
on its axis
leaving you behind

Death sits in your chair
I long to
**** it

everywhere I see you
cut out of the pages
of today's world

I enter this
moment - in a second it had
closed behind me: NO EXIT

**

First ever known  picture of Dónall the Dempsey. Yep...that's me all right...in her tummy! She said I was a gentleman and didn't show...but then I was a tiny little baby weighing in at only 2 lbs. Now my belly button weighs that!

THE USELESSNESS OF MAPS

you were
always
the bit

where the map
creased & tore
leaving us unsure

looking through
a hole
at our own big toe

you were
always
the bit

where the map
was folded in four
and had to be

awkwardly unfolded
just to see
where you were

you were
always
the bit

that was just off
this map
ending in mid air...

...see next map:
...the issing
...map

you were
always
the lost map

you were
often
the wrong map

the map that
there was...
...no map of

*

A charming friend who could be a terrible person...who when she died got transformed into "our wonderful kind understanding etc., etc.," Or all the things she wasn't in flesh and blood. In real life she would stand you up...let you down...lie...etc., etc. I had a dream that I went into a shop and asked for "...a Map of Death please!" and the shopkeeper said he had just sold the last one to my friend. Hence the poem that came about that told what she had been really like but through the medium of maps.

Obviously when you write a poem you chose the balance of mood and words and what to leave in and what to leave out so that you focus on whatever emotional trajectory you come in on and that gives you the mental landscape of what you have elected to view.

Come in on a different emotional trajectory and you get a completely different landscape of the mind...a whole new planet Poem. So the backstory may be left out until you have to tell it or fill it out or write a different poem. Going to a reading in Paris  and learning that the theme has to be of death and its whatfors and wherefors... meant that this poem which I happened to have in my possession suddenly forced the background story to the forefront...so the explanation comes about 2 years after the writing of the poem. In time this backstory or the view of the story as seen from this point of perspective may in itself become the poem that eclipses this one in a total eclipse of the art.

METAMORPHOSES

My smile
floating

in my compact
mirror

as I get carried along
in a river of people

flowing down
High Holborn

stiletto-ing back to work
with the other temps

laughing gaily
amongst ourselves

looking forward to
a weekend’s Paintballing.

I add a little more
scarlet to my smile.

My smile
gazes back at me

almost in love
with itself.

I trap it
in its little prison

snap
it

shut.

Burdened by
my beauty

almost sick
to death of it.

What others would die for
I’d die to be without.

I shiver
in the sunlight

feeling un-really
real.

It’s not easy
being a myth

especially in these times
of disbelief.

I still recoil
in horror when people recall

that hoary old story
of how I was loved

...by a river.

Oh really Arethusa!

I gather up
my green hair

into a ponytail.

Oh those ****** Greeks
and the stories they tell!

Now I am a millennium
or two

...older

I remain still
as beautiful as ever.

Suddenly a voice
comes after me

his shadow
casting itself over me.

Oh ye Gods!

Surely not here…not now…not…again!

“Hey darlin’…why leave
why such a hurry? ”

Alpheus
that old river God

disguised as a cartoon
bowler-hatted-pinstriped-brolly-carrying English gent.

But the wrong vernacular
gave him away.

The river Yob
as he was known even back then.

I tried to pretend
I was mist on a mountain.

But he
wasn’t having any of it.

His voice
pursued me

his shadow
the shape of my terror.

Panic’d…perspiring
I turned into a stream

made a run
for it.

The English gent
dissolved as he

poured himself
into his true form.

I could feel his
strong undercurrent

how his waters
wanted to mingle with mine.

I started crying
which only made matters worse.

And yes…yes
he caught me of course

chased not longer chaste
filled with his lust

& it all happens
all over again.

Who’d be a nymph…eh?
Lusted after…turned into a tree or river.

It’s enough
to drive you nuts.

Ye ******* Gods
I hate being a myth!

It’s a curse
having to go through it

every time someone reads it.

It’s so…frustrating!

Tired now.
Ooops this is…my stop!

I shoved Hughes’s
OVID

back in
my rucksack

leapt off just
as the door closes.

There seemed to be some
commotion on the street

and **** and double ****
Holborn Underground

was closed
due to flooding

CARNIVAL OF TEARS


I am
that wonky carousel music
that makes you feel

you have opened a door
in your mind
and stepped into

THE TWILIGHT ZONE
only for real
I am a Hall of Mirrors

throwing the many mes I am
into my face
each one a mask

within a mask
within a mask
( don't laugh )

I am
the Haunted House
( scream if you like )

I am the Tunnel of Love
being kissed
by a skeleton

running
running
helter skelter

"Welcome, my dear
to all
the fun of the fear!"

USELESS BEAUTY

I  gaze
into air

this empty space
inside where you

no longer are.

Stars twinkle simple
as a nursery rhyme

planets revolve

maintain their perfectly
elliptical courses.

I am eclipsed.
An ellipses...

without your words
your kiss.

The night sky
plucks a star

pins it
on my chest

a medal
for making it this far

beyond grief

beyond hope

for remembering not to
forget to...

remember.

The Heavens
in all their glory

bless me
curse me

with words

to spell out
your absence

your presence

the only thing
that would

make sense of
all this

useless beauty.

A BIRD WAS EXPLORING TIME AND SPACE

March was doing that thing
where it was just becoming
April and

the thunder
muttered to itself
'bout something or other

"Mumblemumblemumble!"
it rumbled
Very un-Eliotish

Rain fell, but
its heart
wasn't in it

a bird
was exploring
time and space

sticking a little bit
of song
on to a quarter to two

where the Downs come up
and say howdy
do to the horizon

you: were
as dead
as ever

all memory could do
was draw a child's
stickman version of you

I still refused to believe it
but time was
wearing me down

that bird just kept on
trying to glue
that one piece of time

to that one piece of place
but it just wouldn't
do

I turned and walked away
"Where is tomorrow?
In another world..."

as the poet had said
can't say I could
answer that question

THURSDAY MARKET

Motorway sign says:
"THIS SIGN IS NOT
WORKING."

Sign coming
into town says
"THURSDAY MARKET."

Reality
appears to be
broken

and there they all are
long forgotten Thursdays
that nobody wants no more

So many
used Thursdays
to choose from

a much used
Thursday
from 1963

a forlorn
Thursday
from 1863

Thursdays
come and
gone

no one will want
a Thursday
their dog died

or the wife left them
or the Wifi
went off

rainy Thursdays
that nobody wanted even
as they were happening.

but there's a big rush on
the Thursday to come.
everyone wants to have one

We leave the Thursday market
with the next Thursday
in the bag so to speak

it's up to us
to make
a good go of it

it ticks away...Time tickles.
motorway sign says:
"THIS SIGN NOT WORKING."

A LUCKY SO & SO

As he lay
in the pool of his death

the motorcycle continuing on
a little further without him

before it too
lay down

as if to sleep

he thought the blood
was like a child

wetting the bed

and the fear of
someone discovering it

in the cold light
of morning

he began
to cry

just like the boy
of then

though this was now
and very far

from the place
of his childhood

even as the stink
of petrol

enveloped him

a bird sang

& he thought: “This is the most
beautiful thing...! ” he had ever heard

& his heart grew sad
& silent to hear it

concentrating on it

& on his shirt

emerged a badly-
-drawn map of the world
(but recognisable as such)

(America being a little
lopsided)

drawn in blood
seeping through his fingers

(continental drift slowly joining them together)

“I am half in love
with easeful Death...”

he quoted to himself

and wondered who had wrote it
and where he had ever heard it

“Yeats? Keats? ”

Death as if
anyone might have imagined him

turning up
at a fancy dress party

and only coming second
to a fat guy from Hastings

who obviously had a better costumiers
than Death

(Death thinking this fat bloke’s next)

looked on
dispassionately

as if he had seen it
all before.

There was nothing
new under the sun.

This job could be
so boring.

Humans make such a drama
out of the simple act of dying.

Always the same song & dance act!

Death held his hand
& then...let go.

When he awoke
Death
was nowhere to be seen

and the hospital
bloomed around him

gazing into the fluorescent
tube of light

life seemed almost
too bright

hurting his eyes

a nice pair
of legs

approaching him
& telling him

(he watched the words rise & fall
in the perfect mechanism

of her chest
of which he couldn’t take his eyes off of)

telling him
in no uncertain manner

as if scolding him
(had he wet the bed?)

“Well, you’re
a lucky
so & so!

FASHION STATEMENT

You made a chain-mail dress
out of cut-out Coca-Cola cans.

Perfectly...painstakingly crafted.

On a hanger your dress
rattled angrily in the breeze

as the wind blustered in the window
throwing your preliminary drawings around.

Every gesture
became musical.

A yawn tinkled.
A kiss clanked.

Stroking me or
stroking the cat

each had its own
musical motif.

Your chain-mail dress
sprung forth a ******

and then – hid it.

Flashed your ***
and then – forbid it.

As a male
I was quite intrigued by it.

I was a knight in distress.

You were a lady in shining armour.

As if I had been sleeping
to your beauty

...you kissed me awake.

You smirked:

“ Listen bud, Princess to Prince like,
I’ll show you where the ***** in my armour is! ”

You divested yourself of your dress.

It clattered to the floor
glittering...coiling

like a silver shining serpent.

You breathed
upon my lips

(kisses tasting of expensive wine and cheap cigarettes)    

“Kiss me...my love.
Discover me anew!

And I will show you
a thing or two.”

PINNING MOTHER DOWN


"I always..." she put forth
" ...remember Mother
as a delicious smell

like an apple
pie cooling down
or a heated up dinner."

"Though now..." she corrected
her put-forth-remark
"...as the nasty smell

of her elastic pale pink
roll-on corset.
Always gave me the shivers!"

her words stood forth
upon the air as if they
had been carved from there

pronouncements:
never
just mere speech

"Or that stink of mangy fox
stole she never wore
that always hid

at the back of her wardrobe
its beady little eyes
daring me to come nearer

so it could
( and I knew it would )
bite me in two

or her knitting
that the cat
always peed on

( she couldn't smell
a thing herself
poor dear )

her scarves
always smelling
of Tiddles

yes, Mother was as
perfect as Michaelmas daises
in a vase

although she always
pronounced it
vas/e not va/se

she was always such
a difficult woman
to pin down


*


Visiting a friend in a ward....got taken over by the lady in the poem who thought I was her husband and started going on about her Mum. I didn't know the lady but for that short time she made her Mum immensely real to me. Her name was Betty as was her Mum.

Also curiously enough she never said "she said..." but rather "she put forth...."