'TA DA!"

uncle
always
making things

appear
and disappear
and then

plucking them
from behind my ear
with a chuckle

doves and rabbits
materialising out of
a top hat he never wore

I never believed
in the magic
only in him

didn't like to tell him
that "ABRA...CADAVER!"
wasn't the word

or that "HEY PESTO!"
only made
my mouth water

enjoyed his enjoyment
in my pretend
amazement and surprise

and yes he was
a third-rate magician
not realising that

the magic
was always
always him

WHAT THE CAT DON'T WANT TO HEAR
              THE CAT DON'T HEAR

(TO.THE. ONLIE. BEGETTER. OF.THESE. INSVING. LINES.  Mr. A.S.J. ALL. HAPPINESS. AND. THAT. ETERNITIE. PROMISED.)

the chair
liked the room
it was living in

the day before
it was living
in a shop

only one
of many
such chairs

now
it had
its own room

indeed it was
the only chair there
it even had its own desk

yet the desk was full
of its own
self importance

and had only indulged
in the usual
polite conversation

about how far
or near
one should be to it

the chair was rather proud of
THE CLOUD OF UNKNOWING
that lay open upon it at page 144

the desk was profoundly
jealous of it
whereas the chair

actually took pleasure
in the mere fact of
its mistress's posterior

a mirror slightly
to the side
allowed the chair to look out

upon a garden
who talked continuously
about the weather

a lawn ran down
to a flint-faced wall and
beyond the wall's flint facedness

lived
( so the chair believed )
- the World

the chair
( even if it had to
say so itself )

and human voices
agreed with its opinion that
looked extremely elegant

the chair
enjoyed
being a chair

the only thing that irked
was the cat
whose habit it was

to doze upon it
when the humans
left the room

"Shoo...shoo!"
the chair cried out
in deep despair

but the cat
either did not
speak

or
pretended
not to

understand
what was said
to it

"NOW...LIVE!"

I place
a tree...
there

I place
a sky...
here

I add a bird...
I...subtract
a bird

I alter a mountain
place it to the left...
to the right

I let
the little stream
run

I add
a sun
( turn it up)

I walk between
the spaces
between seconds

check
each moment is
- perfect

only then
do I allow
time to

unfurl
flap
in the breeze

then I stop it all
I adjust a a molecule
or two.

place you at
the centre
of the big green field

you
in your dress of
bright blue

then I like a long ago
Sultan
or a third-rate magician

command
the memory:
"Now, live!"

HORSE OF A DIFFERENT COLOUR

Auden & Isherwood
strolling in China
trying to soak up

The War
by the process of
osmosis

staining it
with words
observe

(at first what seems)  
green horses
but turns out to be

only white horses
painted green
for camouflage purposes.

that evening in Canton
also offering them
the futility of two men

trying to
put a rat
into a bottle

a woman who lived
in a beehive
pouring water into a sieve

War knocks
over the inkwell
spills into men’s lives

covers
the white pages
of their wishes

makes the idea
of Hell
all too real

the spilt ink
eating
the words of men

who send letters home
and die in pain
never to return

only in others' memories
& useless dreams
marble memorials

while green horses
champ the grasses
the bridles & the bits

clanking & glinting
in the hot sun
of Now

as this last lost
evening
dies


*

Sonnets from China was originally published in a considerably different form as “In Time of War.” “In Time of War” was a sonnet sequence included in Journey to a War (December 1938), a book by Auden and Christopher Isherwood that included a travel diary, photos, and a long poetic commentary.

Here is one of Auden's magnificent sonnets from that journey...

HERE WAR IS SIMPLE

Here war is simple like a monument:
A telephone is speaking to a man;
Flags on a map assert that troops were sent;
A boy brings milk in bowls. There is a plan

For living men in terror of their lives,
Who thirst at nine who were to thirst at noon,
And can be lost and are, and miss their wives,
And, unlike an idea, can die too soon.

But ideas can be true although men die,
And we can watch a thousand faces
Made active by one lie:

And maps can really point to places
Where life is evil now:
Nanking. Dachau.

THIS BLOSSOMING INTO BEING

the rose puts
her red armour
on

goes to fight
the common enemy
time

her only weapon
an ephemeral
beauty

three stars rise
above her head
this her last night

on this earth
fallen petal
by petal

was it enough
that she could say
"I am!"



"0H REALLY STEPMOTHER NATURE..."

I was thinking of my first wild rose I ever remember when I can barely remember myself of that time and not realising they had to leave us.

"But why do they have to go?" I asked in "does-everything-go-voice".  And my Da answered in an "Ô vraiment marâtre Nature" voice.

It was the most beautiful of summers and I couldn't believe that time wasn't endless and life but a gift given to us...

I was thinking of my first wild rose I ever remember when I can barely remember myself of that time and not realising they had to leave us. "But why do they have to go?" I asked in does-everything-go-voice. And my Da answered in an "Ô vraiment marâtre Nature" voice. It was the most beautiful of summers and I couldn't believe that time wasn't endless and life but a gift given to us...



Mignonne, allons voir si la rose
(original French text)

Mignonne, allons voir si la rose Qui ce matin avait éclose
Sa robe de pourpre au Soleil, N'a point perdu cette vêprée* Les plis de sa robe pourprée, Et son teint au votre pareil.
Las ! voyez comme en peu d'espace, Mignonne, elle a dessus la place
Las ! las ses beautés laissé choir !
Ô vraiment marâtre Nature, Puisqu'une telle fleur ne dure
Que du matin jusques au soir !
Donc, si vous me croyez, mignonne, Tandis que votre âge fleuronne
En sa plus verte nouveauté, Cueillez, cueillez votre jeunesse : Comme à cette fleur la vieillesse Fera ternir votre beauté.

Pierre de Ronsard (À Cassandre)

RACING INTO OUR FUTURE

we walk
backward
out of the sea

our laughter
gulped
back in our mouths

our words
drifting back
down the past

until
they are only
the original thoughts

our clothes
falling
back on our bodies

as water
falls from us
un-wets us

here I
pause
then press play

the memory
obeying
my mind’s command

as we happen
again &
again

racing into our future
as if it has
never happened yet

THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
      RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON

It was...
Oct 5th - 1970.

A Monday.

It was the 278th day
of the year...only

87 days remaining
until the end of the year.

I knew I had to act now.
It was now...or never.

Time? I forget the time.
Time was standing still.

Huge clouds
menaced the horizon

impersonating an Armada
of Spanish Galleons.

Full sail ahead then.
I took a step into my future.

The smiling President drawing
nearer and nearer.

In Nass
the drenched crowed cheered.

In Newbridge now
flocks of children chase the car

like he was some
kinda Piper from Hamelin.

I kept a close eye on
the secret service

all dressed in the same suit
looking like clones

of one another
talking into their sleeves.

My gaze searches and settles
upon him

like the cross-hairs
of a ******'s rifle.

Sure he had called his setter
King Timahoe

after where his folks came from
another American looking for his roots

bolstering the Irish-American vote.

And now here he was
the man himself

in person
the 37th President.

Irish colleens dancing
upon a make-shift stage

in the square
of Kildare.

He's here oh so near
I can see the pores of his skin

a bead of sweat trickles into
that infamous Nixon grin.

Dare I do it now?
My hair falling into my eyes.

My mind flashes back to
1729

when his Quaker ancestors
fled the Emerald Isle.

Three centuries pass by in a second and
we're here

in the middle of
The Vietnam War

and he speaks of
"a passion for peace...preventing war...building peace."

Yeah yeah...sure sure!

Carpet bombing Cambodia
the famous Nixon duplicity

the "credibility gap" opening
between what he says and what he does.

Oh there are protests
he has 5 eggs hurlers.

"Splatsplatsplatsplat and splat!"
Only one near hit.

And one man protesting
the price of a pint

up'd( for the occasion )to
one shilling and jaysus seven pence.

What's the world
coming to?

School kids waving
their plastic( in slow mo )

American flags
on little plastic sticks.

I raise my flag.
I raise my...voice

shooting my mouth off
with a great shout:

'TRICKY DICKY! TRICKY DICKY!
WOULD YOU BUY A USED CAR FROM THIS MAN!"

Several secret service scowl.
My words hit him...Nixon frowns.

Character assassination.

Mr. McCann
aka "The Bicycle Man!"

curses me
in Irish.

After all he is
my Irish teacher.

D'anam leis an diabhal...Ó Diomasaigh!"
("Your soul to the devil...Dempsey!")

"THE TIME HAS COME TO CALL
A ***** A ****** SHOVEL..."

I yell as
I get a clip around the ear.

McCann holds his hand
over my mouth.

Then suddenly Nixon
is no longer

there.

The hurled words
disappear into the air.

Us school boys
***** damply back to double Maths.

The De La Salle
Academy looming up before us.

Mr. McCann
hoovers near.

I cover both
my ears.

But he only tousles
my hair.

"Ahhh mo amadán beag cróga!"
( "Ahhh my brave little fool!")

"Maith an bhuachaill...maith an bhuachaill!"
( "Good boy...good boy!")

He grins.
Slips me a sixpence.

I sing the new Led Zep
only released that day.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Being only 12
I had done what had to be done.

My political life
had only just begun.

*

The long forgotten "never-to-be-forgotten" visit made to Hodgestown near Timahoe in the county of Kildare back in the day as we leave the Sixties sadly behind us for the austerity of the '70's and the "Yes we can" of the Sixties begins to loose its lustre.

The Timahoeans are not exactly proud of giving the world Mr. Nixon and stay quite quiet about it. The Kennedy visit was the golden one and Clinton and Reagan had theirs but Tricky Dicky's one has faded into the fog of history.

"Jessamyn West, who has written so eloquently about the background of our family, has said, the Quakers have a passion for peace. My mother was a pacifist. My grandmother was a pacifist. Jessamyn's mother was, her grandmother, her grandfather, going back as far as we know."

President Nixon in the Timahoe graveyard.

Don't know what happened to him then!

"The time has come to call a ***** a ****** shovel. This country is in an undeclared and unexplained war in Vietnam. Our masters have a lot of long and fancy names for it, like escalation and retaliation, but it is a war just the same." - James Reston.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Led Zeppelin 111 - Immigrant Song.

TASTING THE WORLD

first snow
falling slow
so slowly

I rush out
my belly
full with you

to taste
a snowflake
upon my tongue

so that you
should know
even before your birth

the delight of a night
taken by
the surprise of night

I still shaping
the form of you
nameless as yet

I ask you
"Come soon...soon!"
eager to show you

this world
you will be
born into

you my falling star
that I wish upon
my wish to see you

hold you in my arms
whisper to you
do you

remember that first
snowflake that time
that fell so slowly

USES OF GREAT LITERATURE

Bluebottle & I
share the same moment

. . .the same hour.

It keeps dive bombing me
like some crazy kamikaze.

It is a beautiful flying jewel
but I can't appreciate that

just now and enraged I
throw Proust at it.

The full weight of A LA RECHERCHE
DE TEMPS PERDU

thrown halfway across the room
brings it down with a bang and

it is no more.

"Heavy!" I praise the Proust.

Ten minutes later its brother
or its ghost

has returned with a vengeance.

"Don't look at me!" says the Proust
"I done my bit!"

I raise the book and
the bluebottle bolts.

Just the threat of the Proust
works just fine...this time.

"...MORT SANS PLEURS..."
(Death without Tears)



"Life is the farce which everyone has to perform."
            Arthur Rimbaud - Bad Blood



Once again she
sensing her time

had come
she prepared

her last words
rehearsed her last breath

disappointed to see
a new day dawn

and Death had
stood her up.

"She has been dying now these
last 20 years!"

her long suffering husband
moans.

A fatal dose of
hypochondria.

She lives to fight yet
another.

Her mind rambling through
half remembered Rimbaud.

"Assez vu. . .
Assez eu. . .
Assez connu. . ."

(Enough seen. . .
Enough had. . .
Enough known. . .).

she intones as if she
were her own priest.

La music savante manque pas à notre désir
( Great music falls short of our desire. )

she chants as if she
were her own sacred ceremony.

Always the same snatches
from ILLUMINATIONS.

"I never read him myself
but know him off by heart

from hearing them from herself!"
sighs her little husband .

Years later she
gets it right at last.

"Il y a une horloge qui ne sonne pas!"
(There is a clock that never strikes!)

She gasps.

"Que les oiseaux et les sources sont ****!"
(How far away the birds and Spring are).

"...THE POSSIBILITY THAT HAS BEEN
OVERLOOKED IS THE FUTURE..."
( for Michael Hartnett )

found
penny in a puddle
year of my birth

I pocket it
as the poet passes
cap in hand

this brilliant man
sculpted from sadness
loneliness falling like rain

he goes to greet me
knowing he knows me
but my face escapes him

I only ever meet him
when the drink has
taken him prisoner

inside his head
haiku breed
"..like maggots!" he says..."...like maggots!"

"I don't want your company
or your pity!" he snarls
"Just the price of a pint!"

I have only
the old puddle penny I've found
I give him my coat

he puts his hat on
his head
at a rakish angle

the tree flies away
the bird hangs still in the air
neon scribbles on the puddles

*

The title is taken from one of Michael's poems as is the idea of a tree flying away leaving the bird in mid-air! It always greatly amused me.

The only other time I had gone to hear him read and he was too drunk to perform. I had to get a last bus back to the Curragh and by then I think he finally got around to reading.

It was absolutely lashing rain and he carried his hat scrunched up in his hand and had only a thin tee shirt on.  

He put my coat on and tramped off into a future that was falling before him.

I never saw the coat or Michael again. He had asked me if I wrote poetry too and when I said I did he said:  "Ahhh then....I pity you!"

I had two coats at home and he had none so it was a no brainer. The giving away of your coat in the rain to someone who needs it more than you must be in the Dempsey DNA.


Jesus Christ Is Alive And Well (In Memory Of My Mother Ita)

she is thoroughly wet
through & through
as if a someone

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

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

we her children
stare at her
hair plastered to 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

”NON SO COME..SI PUÒ VIVERE IN QUESTO FUOCO?

after
the war
we returned

ourselves
(but not)
our selves

to Our Country
right
or wrong

that was
like a life sized
replica of what

we had left
only alien
to us now

we were guilty
(guilty as hell)
of surviving

this hell
that made ghosts
of so many

& we these
ghosts
of flesh and blood

haunting
the living
envious of them

and their ability
to forget
by remembering

we hoarded
our tears
we couldn't cry

went on living
because...because
we didn't know how

to die
each moment a battle
we could never win

*

"I do not know how it is possible. . .to live in such fire."
Dante

IN THE MYTHOLOGY OF FOXES

the foxes blood
on the stone
still there

two days
after
staring at me

only
the day before
a daring raider of

my uncle's henhouse
the talk
of our household

but my uncle
was patient
& stalked the lonely hours

until the fox
came to meet her death
thinking only of her cubs

& how big & bright
the moon loomed
tonight

and how
the fearful thunder
of the gun

had ended
everything
and how now

shot through the head
her carcass thrown
behind a hedge

she finds herself
still staring back
into the mind

of the little boy
even more aware
of her presence

now that nothing
exists
and how for

ever after
the boy
carries her death

cradling it
in his mind
trying to

comfort her
with his human
tears

TEA & GHOST

usually I
never leave home
without it

but(I don’t know why)
today
(it just slipped my mind)

and I left home
without my body I
didn’t even take my shadow

I just floated
free
free of me

enjoyed being
whatever
I encountered

...a stone...sea...cloud...
...a me
that wasn’t me...

rain...or just
the falling of rain
but then came full circle

& ran into
my  “me”
again

I had being enjoying
being rain
just falling...falling

but then my ghost
grabbed hold of me
and put me back

in my dream
and I awoke
to find myself

only me again
it was
very disappointing

I got up & made
some tea & toast
chatted with my ghost

who quoted
William Blake
to me:

“Body, is a portion
of the soul
discern’d by the 5 senses.”

I sat there
& chewed it over
“Yeah, I guess...?"

then I grabbed
my hat and coat
and went to work

SKIN & BLISTER

we grin & grimace
drop candle wax
onto our fingertips

as the storm
rattles our window pane
angry that we won’t let it in

All night
it rages
toppling chimney

pots with a crash
smashing slates
it strips from rooftops

as we safe
giggle & peel off
our waxen fingerprints

hold them
(tiny whirlpools)
in our palms

those whorls
of self
unique to each

I wearing my sister’s
fingerprints
she... wearing mine

*

SKIN & BLISTER is Cockney rhyming slang for sister. We were so close we could have worn each other fingerprints and as a little boy I was delighted to do so. I was her and me was she. This I guess is something we did to amuse ourselves before...telly arrived.

TINY CLINGING CURLS

I remember you
looking almost
Audrey Hepburn-ish

my big sister
& oh...
that smile

touching my world
with the wonder
of your love

we are Christmas-ing
the place
living in the candle's glow

love
nothing but love
in almost slow motion

the holly bites
your little finger
I **** the drop of blood

that grows
& grows
until it is kissed better

you laugh
'Ah...my little
saviour! '

and sigh
with an almost
mock Victorian swoon

tiny curls cling
to the nape of your neck
like the tiniest of tiny seahorses     

we swim
in the sea
of our laughter

the next Christmas
you were dead
lost to this

world
leaving me alone
to mourn you

I...
unable to
save you

now...all these years
later
(years you never knew)      

the holly
bites my little finger
& I **** it quickly

tasting through
my tears
the sweet tang

of your blood
still so alive
in my mouth

"DO YOU HAVE A QUESTION?"

her heart was a red
fire alarm
going off with nobody

paying it
no mind
at all

her heart was
an evening hillside
as the sun went down

the light
stealing
into the ground

her heart was a favourite
pair of cufflinks
with one link missing

or an earring found far
too late many many
years later

her heart was a lute
that was mute
un-played for

many
many
moons

her heart
was a house
burningburningburning

down
razed
to the ground

the sneer of her
pyromaniac lover
lost in the shadows

her heart was
the junk mail
that came in one door &

out the other
instant
*******

she felt as if
someone had
pressed DELETE

her heart was
a crystal ball
that could foretell

nothing....
nothing
at all

her heart was
a knocked over
cheap cocktail

that left a nasty stain
on the carpet...
on the wall

her heart was
a tiny torn pink knapsack
that held all she had known

her heart was
the forgotten
iron

branding itself into
her nice new
blouse

her heart was
a field of poppies
seen

from a passing train
there&gone
again

her heart
full of the perfume
of memories

that refused
to ever
...go away

her heart was
the same train journeying
in and out of...love

*

Memory is seen( and felt )as a perfume...in its there and not-there-ness whereas the poppies are a splash of red glimpsed from a passing train.as she is overwhelmed by her senses falling falling...in and out of love. It's a bit of an emotional rollercoaster ride with what her heart was experiencing as she tried to put into words feelings that could not be...put into words

The poem issues forth from Rimbaud's commands to the energy of the time...." Le Poète vous dit: 'O lâches. soyez fous!' " to " Le Poète te dit: 'Splendide ta Beauté' "

The Poet says to you: "O cowards, be mad!" to The Poet says to you; "Your beauty is marvellous!"

END OF SUMMER

once
with astonishment
I stole

a butterfly
from the end
of summer

I only meant
to borrow her
admire her

the miracle of her
smeared clumsily
across my child's hand

so that I could not
return her
to what little was left

of summer
leaving a jagged hole
in the time of the sky

where she
should have
been

a box
empty of its matches
served as a makeshift

coffin
matches stuck in
fresh earth

like little red-headed
flowers
blazing all at once

her funeral pyre
often I steal
back to that moment

cut out of summer
the empty place she left
in me

seeing clearly
the butterfly shape
cut awkwardly

out of time
jagged
at the edges

my mind seeing beyond
into the infinity
of death

hoping
her ghost
can forgive me


*
I then tried to give her the kiss of life and ended up swallowing her...which is another story...another poem!


BETWEEN THE SPACE

When I was small
I wanted - a pet.

My mother didn't
- like pets.

'It followed me home! '
'Can I...keep it...can I...can..! '

didn't work
& I invariably had to
return the kidnapped cat
to the house I had
'borrowed' him from.

Between the space

where my mother wrung screaming wet clothesthrough the rollers
and out the other side to quite flatness

and the coal bunker
where a briquette wire spat at me
almost nearly blinding my left eye

I captured a Cabbage White
hiding amongst the coal.

Emptying the strawberry jam with the gollywog on

I gave her a world of glass
where she danced to the sunlight's mad music.

Neither she nor I
understanding the nature of glass

her dancing grew frantic
my love stifling.

I not knowing
all things
must breathe

the dancing died to a sudden stop.

Being an impressionable child
and after only seeing a life safety film

I dived through the panic
and swam madly against the guilt

took her gently
into my trembling

fingers...her dusty colour
taking my fingerprints

I tried to give her
the kiss of life

choked with grief
and swallowed her

terror in my mind
butterfly in my tummy

and fear running
blind and crazy

that I could not
give her

her dancing
back again.

I said nothing
for years

(about the incident)  

until I could explain
myself to myself

and my self

...understood.

"NOT ALL PEOPLE EXIST IN THE SAME NOW. . ."
( for brother Brian )

your smile
like music for a movie
that will never be made

you travel through
your life, now:
unable to arrive at the present

you no longer
live in the now
that I inhabit

this my great grief
life, but:
life without you

Death has taken you
slammed the door
in my face

me left here
you in an other
place

you have left the planet
somehow escaped Time's prison
a new day dawns without you in it

remembering how you
relished Block's words that
"NOT ALL PEOPLE EXIST

IN THE SAME NOW. . ."

applying the statement to
whatever happening
happened to be happening

your smile
like music for a movie
that can never be made



His world was a world of electricity and circuits and whatnot....mine was of books and study. Work being scarce in Ireland he came to London to be with me....work was just as scarce in London and so he went back...not realising he was about to step into the job that was to last over 20 years.

He could soak up my world of Eliot and Hamlet and Block but his world was beyond my ken.  He would pick up little nuggets of knowledge such as the Block quote and then laugh and apply it to all and every situation.

Little did I think that I would be applying it to his death as a means to understand how my brother can be dead and alive to me at the same time. He and I both living in different NOWS.

Grief is a process and I am lost in a maze of pain desperately trying to find a way out.


"Not all people exist in the same Now."

Ernest  Bloch  in  his 1935  Heritage of our Times(Erbschaft dieser Zeit ).

"Not all people exist in the same Now. They do so only externally, by virtue of the fact that they may all be seen today. But that does not mean that they are living at the same time with others. Rather, they carry earlier things with them, things which are intricately involved. One has one's times according to where one stands corporeally. . . times older than the present continue to effect older strata; here it is easy to return or dream one's way back to older times. . .in general, different years resound in the one that has just been recorded and prevails. Moreover, they do not emerge in a hidden way as previously but rather, they contradict the Now in a very peculiar way, awry, from the rear.  . .many earlier forces, from quite a different Below, are beginning to slip between."

*

"But soon we will die, and all memories of those five will have left earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love. The only survival, the only meaning."

The Bridge of San Luis Rey

Thornton Wilder in 1927.

IT TAKES ALLSORTS

it was an old
fashioned sweet shop
as if it had stepped

out of another
century
lost to time

something
that could only
exist in memory

I asked for gobstoppers
but the assistant was insistent
that they had not got 'em

despite the fact that
he had one in his gob
and that there was a jar

full of nothing
but
gobstoppers

the same when
I asked for Allsorts
again another "NO!"

all the Allsorts
in the big glass jar
looked longingly at my mouth

"Oh please!" they pleaded
"Choose us...chew us!"
but all to no avail

they were there
but
not for sale

it was like being
in some ring
of Dante's Hell

"Go on...*** out of it!"
the shopkeeper yelled
"You can't fool me!"

"****** aliens!" she shouted
"Coming over here and
nicking our sweets!"

I grabbed whatever
I could lay my several
tentacles on

and made a dash
back to the spaceship
almost out of breath

"Did ya get the sweets
did ya...did ya!"
the crew chanted

"Yes...yes..yes!" I sweated
"Now...get out of here
QUICK!"

A HERD OF LEGENDS


always in the background
of my mind I am
hearing

listening to
the
of Arun's voice

speaking to me
in best Kolatkarese
as I ride

his KALA GHODA
to the outskirts of
JEJURI

and there dismount
walking barefoot
into the town

of his mind
bowing before
his words

this here
this now
drinking his voice

thirstily down
to the very last sound
marking each syllable with turmeric

offering the ashes
of anything I can say
I the humble havildar

to the temple
of your thought
until you take a final drag

from a half bent charminar
flick it from fingers
laugh...tell me to. .
.
"****** off! Go on...
and make
a poem of your own!"



Going to India for the Delhi Poetry Festival....and delving around in all things Indian and the poetry therefof who should I encounter first but the unique voice of Mr. Kolatkar...at once I was in love with his thoughts and decided to elope with his mind. He was by far and away my favourite Indian poet but now he has become my favourite poet. One of the unexpected gifts of going to Delhi to read poetry was to discover this genius hiding in full view! Hopefully the Bloodaxe COLLECTED will propagate him even more in the West and he will become acknowledged as the master he undoubtedly is. He reigns in my mind...long may he reign. Read JEJURI and was completely blown away by his honesty and wit and the lovely wry turn of his mind. How had I lived before without him!




I'LL STILL BRING YOU FLOWERS
( a zendu for Arun Kolatkar )

I listen to you
. . .just be. . .
you escape

the well known photo
the droopy lids
the droopy moustache

caught in a cafe
by the clock
and come alive

in this dimly shot video
the language
flows around me

( Hindi...Marathi?)
like a rock in a river
I listen to

the water's language
as it breaks
and moves around me

the cancer
eats you
I listen

to the language of your smile
the language
of your laughter

listen
to you
. . .just be

"LOVE IS JUST A TEMPORARY TRUTH..."


“Both of them remained floating in an empty universe where the only everyday and eternal reality was love.”

― Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude



many years later
as he faced old age
Mr. Michael Murphy

was to remember
that distant afternoon
when his father

shouted that
he didn't know
who he was

and kept calling
for ice for his drink
even though he had none

he kept on reading
his favourite Márquez
even though he had lost the plot

and wandered into
a world of words
without meaning

in his own
private Macando
mirror looking at mirror

reflecting
only
silence and solitude

one could almost
see him attaching
yellow Post-it notes

upon everything
and anything
before they could fade

one upon his son
another on his wife
but they all blew away

or he couldn't remember
what the note
said

soon he would be
erased
knowing nothing

of the world
or
of himself

we of course
loved him
all the more

but
not even our love
could reach him

DRINKING YOUR BLOOD

so still. . .
entranced by the vision
of your own dying

your body
offers itself
up to me

I taste the flavour
of your life
drink your dreams

savour each memory
the delicious tang
of longing

smell the sweet
desire to live
swallow your soul(whole)  

your body now
no use to me
or you

a broken doll
left out in the rain
at best

I kept my promise
there will be
no more pain.

**

My friend who was slowly dying described her cancer as being bitten by a vampire and watching something so unreal drink your life without being able to do anything about it.

ESSE QUAM VIDERI
(to be rather than  to seem to be)  

"What must it be to be someone else?"
- Gerard Manley Hopkins

( In honour of Honora O' Sullivan becoming a great grandmother yet again)




there I am
all 2lbs of me
and nameless as yet

and so for all
these 67 years
it's a Dónall I've been

haven't been
anything else
all my life

but now
with Storm Ciarán
roaring in

I remember me Mam
telling me that I was
due to be a Ciarán

because of my hair
black as anything
and sideburns to boot

I was obviously
doing my best
Elvis impersonation

and this was
after all
1956

she said I was
her own
'little dark-haired one'

and would I have been
a different man
I sometimes wonder

would the name
change the who
I would have become

I often think
of this
alternative self

wonder how
he got on
in a parallel universe

but a Dónall
I was
and have remained

so I guess  I will
just have to learn
to live with my self

and  Dónall of course
transforms into the Irish
"World Mighty...Spear Power!"

a hard name to be sure
to have to live up to
but I'll give it a good go



Ciarán (is a traditionally male given name of Irish origin. It means "little dark one" or "little dark-haired one", produced by appending a diminutive suffix to ciar ("black", "dark"). It is the masculine version of the name Ciara.

But sure as Oscar once told me: “Be yourself, everyone else is taken. In order to be oneself, one has to take risks, to accept that one is not perfect and to be courageous enough to say what one really thinks”
And says I to the Wilde man: "Sure, I will surely...so I will!"

And so it is I have become the man you see before you...as  Dónall as anything!

A Dónall by any other name would still be as sweet!

HISTORY ABOUT TO HAPPEN

the language of time
nails the sky and sea
together

making the horizon
smile with
the new light

and so day is
spoken
into existence

sky and sea
the same
bound inseparably

the morning fragments
into the many men
going about their lives

each man
tied to his own thought
imprisoned in self

the battle is but
moments away
history about to happen

it is a Sunday
yet War
doesn't stop for God

both sides fervently
believing that He is
on their side

the opening salvo
tears
a man's head off

his thoughts
lost
forever

the battle
commences
Time tells its tale

AN EXPLOSION OF SILENCE

out of the eye socket
of a sheep’s skeleton
an invisible cricket

sang & sang
as if its life
depended on it

and when I took
a step
towards it

a twig snapped
and the silence
was as loud

as an explosion
only without
the noise

CLOTHES HAVE NO MEMORIES

Your most prized dress
must confess

that it
cannot

remember

the swell of your breast

the rise & fall of your breathing.

Clothes have no memory.

It is Winter now and your summer
frock has totally forgot

the sheer sunny shockingness of being
(underneath it all)    

absolutely knickerless.

Kisses like butterflies
alight high (high)    
on your inner thigh (thigh) !

Clothes have no memory.

Your bra
unhooked & unhinged

cannot really recall

the thrill of it all

as my hands caress

create your *******.

Clothes have no memory.

Clothes have no memory
...but I do.

A POET'S WORK

"Oh my God is...that the time!
12 o'clock and not
a poem in the house written!

quick! wash those adjectives!
quick! bathe those verbs!
feed those nouns!

have you adverbs gone back to bed?
come on 'Smile!'
like a simile!

noooo! don't
wear the same metaphors
you wore yesterday

aghhhhhhhhhhhhh!
and so with a little playful
smack on its btm

the poem is sent
out into the world.
'See ya...be good'

a poet's work
is never  ever
done!"


*


As a child I was sick and poorly and often missed school so that I found myself at home with me Ma and doing all the Ma things that she had to do....I followed her about the house helping out and seeing what an amazing myriad of things she had to do in order to make our life run like effortless clockwork only I found out it wasn't so effortless.

"Dónall son....!" she'd yell from the bedroom amidst sweeping and bed changing and making....will you cut the potatoes for the chips love!" And from bedroom to kitchen we would sing all the Ray Charles we knew.

She would always say the same thing like a little work mantra...
"Jaysus...oh Holy Jaysus....12 o'clock and not a child in the house washed!" And a whole litany of things yet to do. These were like well worn beautiful pebbles being rounded and smoothed in a stream of language....I loved hearing them even for the thousand time! So I cross pollinated all her mad cap hell for leather sayings into this making of poems poem to get the same urgency for tidying up my brain and getting the words washed and up and out making signs upon a page so that other brains could decipher my thoughts.

On one of these being my mother days I was watching "Telefís Scoile" RTE's educational prog. when up popped poet Brendan Kennelly. Now despite only starting my secondary education I was reading all around me so I was reading the Leaving Cert. poems as well. I was having a hard time with Hopkins but then Brendan started to recite The Windhover in his lovely Kerry accent and I at once understood it as the music of his mouth brought the words to life in glorious sound that I at once fell in love with and it splashed against my mind like a wave breaking over the headland that was my tiny mind. It was an epiphany.
Years years later I met Brendan in a pub having a quiet pint by himself at the bar and I went up to him to tell him of this moment made glorious for me by him and Hopkins. So he started to recite it for me again after all this time.

"I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
dom of daylight's dauphin,"
And I said the next bit.....
"dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding;
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! "
And then he...
"then off, off forth on swing,"
And we traded lines until we had completed the Hopkins.
And then he said: "Well wil ya...have a pint?"
And I said: "I will...so I will!"

And then he said he loved my CRAZY LONELINESS HIJACKS MEMORY OF A BEAUTIFUL GIRL. And I said: "What! Ya still remember that!" And he said:" 'deed I do!" And so I recited it for him. It was so I felt I had come into my poethood!

THE LIGHT VANISHES

Summer had suddenly
gotten old.

Shadows nibbled at the light
limping along by an orchard wall

biting it
to the bone.

The light seemed to wince.

An apple fell to the ground
as if on cue.

Forever seemed somehow
shrunken.

Time withdrew into itself.

The house was talking
to the wind

in its creaky old voice about
the this of that and the that of this.

The wind saying nothing now.
Keeping sthum.

Inside... a book
lay asleep upon a table

waiting to be awoken
by a child's hand.

The words now
allruntogetherbit

ready to jump back
into their proper places

take up their position.
when called upon.

Even the pterodactyl
had its eyes shut tight

in the drawing of it
on page 42

flying in pre-historic
black and white.

I was amazed to find
I owned

all these aunts and uncles
that were all mine!

I even had a cute cousin
called Mary Frances who

always made me
smile.

A mottled mirror
had flung itself upon a floor

scattering itself here & then
there in a loud "oNo!"

Still showing the world
its face

in many tiny
little seeings

that could
draw blood.

I breathed the summer in.
I breathed the summer out.

I would never again be
as old as I was now.

It was the last time
I was 9.

THE DEVIL'S ****

He straps her to the table
before him

(a sacrifice on an altar)

of the Arrogance
of his Ignorance.

Turns to the tools of his trade
neatly & almost piously arranged

on the table
behind him

still stained
with the chicken’s blood

from this morning’s preparation
bubbling in the ***... forgotten now.

He is a masterPricker
as they call his sort about here

half in awe & fear

of the Witchfinder General
and all his kind.

He is angry at her resistance

tears off the ragged burlap shift
that covers her

shaves her
from head to pudenda

examines
her

from top
to toe

with the aid of
a giant magnifying glass

for any blemish or birth mark
(an oddly shaped wart)

that will betray her
in all its innocence

pricking her both
with the long needle and the short

and ahhh...

the birthmark
refuses to bleed.

He smiles at such
an obvious sign.

Her denials
screaming uselessly

against the locked
door of his mind.

but now his fingers
probe

sensitively searching
for the Devil’s ******

concealed within her
to nourish to suckle

her
toad familiar.

And yes how proud he feels

to discover hidden within her
privy shaft

obscured by her
female *****

but not to the
empirical mechanics

of his fingers
probing...probing

as plain as the sun that goes around
this Godly Earth

...the Devil’s ****.

And so, by this fleshly
mark of being

Woman

she is
condemned to be
witch.

And so it is so
in these “the burning years.”

I cry for her
as I reclaim her

from History

(so many thousands of her)

hold them
all

(in their holy terror)

all such suffering
beings

in my arms
in the dawn

of this new
morning

keening
for them

stroking their hair
(closing their eyes)

as tenderly
as if

they were my child.

NOLI ME TANGERE

fallen at my feet
amongst gravestones
your dying haunts the moment

*

Walking past the grave of the Rev. Charles Dodgson's Aunt Lucy I was just about to take my next step when there was an almighty loud thud! At first I thought someone had thrown a heavy object at me but when I looked down there was this pigeon about an inch from my foot. She was lying absolutely still with both wings outspread as if she were a beautiful painting of herself. At my approach she brought one of her wings to her side. If she had fallen a second before she would have landed on my head. I was dumbfounded. Her plumage was gorgeous with various shade of blue and grey and browns. it was such a strange moment.

STARRY STARRY NIGHT

She switched off                the moon.

Plucked out                        the stars.

A little dog barked
as her scream scrawled:

“This time life has gone...too far.”

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

The day withers
that was once in bloom.

Petals fall
in an empty room.

The moon wept.
The stars cried.

Life was for living... Life lied.

INTRO TO STARRY STARRY NIGHT

You would have loved Frieda...everyone loved Frieda.  Frieda was the most alive.. most charismatic entity that I have ever known. Flaming red hair …crimson lipstick... scarlet dress...red Jag.  You couldn’t miss her.  She was the life and soul of everything and she desired only one thing: to be dead or as she put it “...not to be alive! ”  The only one it seemed who didn’t love Frieda was...Frieda.  

She was(as she admitted herself)      an expert suicidist  but a failure at pulling it off.  We used to joke that we would publish a book of her suicide notes.  Her last note simply said: “This time Life has gone too f*ing far! ”  She never spoke of Death only of  Life as if he was this bloke that one could run into on the corner of some little sidewalk café.  There would be Life(looking larger than Life)        sitting sipping coffee and he’d say to her: “Ah, ma jolie petite fille!  Comment ca va?  Asseyez vous, sil vous plait...baisez moi! ”  And she’d walk up to Life and kick him in the *****!

She often said that if I wrote a poem about her suicide she would come back and haunt me...I hoped I  would never have to.

When she was a little girl she was ***** again and again by her Dad and his two mates.  This started when she was 7 and stopped suddenly at 13.  As a little girl she looked up the word ****** got as far as insect...this horrible thing crawling all over your consciousness that you can’t get away from.  She decided to ask next door’s little girls if what was happening to her was...just what happens.  In their case it was the same so they decided to go to the girl next door to next door and see if this was so... and sadly it was. It seemed to be just a thing that Daddies do! One more house would have proven this untrue but...

When her Dad entered her and tore her and she screamed...he told her she was a bad girl and that she was disturbing the neighbours.  He got her to bite down on the yellow pencil she had been doing her Maths with. All she could remember were splinters of wood and graphite...flakes of yellow paint...blood and spittle.  At that moment she switched and created a Frieda to bear this hell and hid her self away inside her head.  She had put herself so far away inside her head that...not even she could reach herself.

It was this created persona who went on to be the Frieda that everyone adored and envied. The more successful this persona was the more the real Frieda hated her.  The only way to **** this Frieda was to **** the real Frieda.

All her life she claimed she was “me” & “not me! ”
It was the “not me” she would try to ****.

She used to play over and over again the beginning(just the beginning)       of  VINCENT and with an avid interest in astrology she would consult the stars to see if it was an opportune time to die.

I was going on stage when a stranger came up to me and said: ” You know that red-headed ***** you fancy...well, she’s topped herself...didn’t make it! ” All the time I was performing the poems I was writing STARRY STARRY NIGHT in my head so that at the end I decided to read it in her memory.  I was half way through it when a very alive Frieda floated in at the back of the room with a drink in her hand and a *** in the other! I looked as if I had seen a ghost!  She toasted me and said in a loud voice: “I told you I’d come back and haunt you! ”  Reports of her demise had been a little hasty and she had “made it! ” I was never so glad to see someone!

Originally the last lines of the poem were:

“The moon wept...the stars cried...that she was alone when she died! ”

This was the most terrible aspect of her death for me that someone so alive and had a life full of... people...people...people...should have no one when it came to the end.

She was a dichotomy...full of life yet full of hatred  for life.  She believed at once that life was for living but also that Life had lied to her. Both beliefs struggled inside her for dominance...sometimes one won... sometimes the other!

Years later she would phone me up at ungodly hours and no matter who I would be with and repeat them with laughter so that I was obliged to change them to the present lines!

This poem is for my friend Frieda wherever she may be.

IN PRAISE OF FOLLY

a gaggle of giggling
nuns on the town
remembering when they were girls

they wear Halloween masks
scaring little kids &
big men

I wonder if it is a sin
for them to remember
themselves then

all under a vow of silence
never to remember this
when they are back at the convent

they dump their false faces
in a trash can
their freedom come and gone

I sit behind them on the bus
listen as they discuss Erasmus
whether in the womb Christ knew he was Christ

they laugh as
little girl ghouls board the bus
give them smiles and sweeties

OVER YOU

A bust
of Beethoven

has fallen

in love with
a tiny statuette

of the Venus
De Milo

who has also
lost her head.

Beethoven with his
shattered hair

admires what is there
of her body

Christ!
with his left arm

snapped off
comes between them

keeping them apart.

Christianity
is harsh.

I pass & leave them
to their broken hearts.

Buy an egg
timer

made of brass

from a man
who looks like

a monkey
even more

than a monkey
do.

I turn the sands
of time

upside down
& then again

upside down
again

and with much fuss
catch the packed bus

in the non-stop
rain.

Home again
I boil an egg

that is neither
hard nor soft

hum Tchaikovsky
as I chew burnt toast

and cry

over you.

AND THERE WAS ME WITHOUT AN I

Time dawdles
stretches out the crash
to an infinity of now

casually I watch the car
crash into my side
as if it were someone else's story

car runs red light
the crash about to happen
taking...its...(time)  

I watch my door buckle
as if an invisible monster
wanted to eat its way to me

time...finally(stops) :
I fade to black
karate chopped from luggage from the back

I drink up unconsciousness
thirsty for
the oblivion it brings

the world leaves me now
even my thoughts
don't even know me

I am no more
a me
without an I

'You knocked..? '
Death asks politely
'No..just...passing through! '

Life swims back to me
from a distant
horizon

'Hey! ' shouts Life
'It's me! '
'Do I know you? ' I ask

*

Kinda weird to see your own death coming at ya and to dive into the blackness of the nothing only to resurface back into the light and a human voice asking you "Are you alright?" And being polite you say "I'm fine...fine!" Such polite lying but there we are pushed back into the good old world with time back again ticking on the clock. And to think...there was me...without an I...about to become nothing! That's...like...really something!

MOVING HOUSE

"Shhhhhhh!"
Uncle shushed me
"See that there now!"

I looked at
the house and the house
looked back at me

"That wee house wasn't
there yesterday!"
Uncle whispered

"Really?" said I
"Really!" he said
I stared at it

"No! Don't look
at it or
it might...!"

"Uncle never
finished what
"...it might. .  !"

the house it seemed
terrified of being caught
crept back into its shadows

it crouched
by the side of the road
as if at any moment

it would up sticks
and do a runner
at great speed

we walked on
warily by
careful not to scare it

"Let sleeping houses
lie!"
Uncle warned me

I not being
used to countryside
I was blinded with green

so that when
Uncle brought me
a different way

I was
none
the wiser

"See what did
I tell ya!"
the house had gone

"That wee house
likes to
roam about!"

and then the next day
and "Jaysus!"
wasn't the house back

Uncle kept this up
for a week or more
bamboozling my mind

and for all
the summers of me
being 3 and 4

I heartily believed
in the moving house
and its comings and goings

Uncle smiling
at my innocent
belief in him

*

Auntie Nellie used to always give out to Mikey and with always the same words"For God's sake Mikey will ya stop filling the child's head with nonsense....can't ya see that he believes everything you say!" Mikey would always smile and say his catchphrase: "Be the Hokey!" It was his stories such as this made up on the spot that seeped into my imagination and I soaked up my Uncle's storytelling through emotional osmosis. He made me the poet I am today.

PASSING STRANGE

Rose arose
& having risen
...was angry

'You never call me
by my name
only love & darling.'

'A rose by any other name
would smell as sweet! '
I quoted

'That's neat! '
she sweetly
smiled

'That's Shakespeare! '
I whispered in her ear
and kissed her

sweet sweet smile.
(each reflected
in the other's eye)

'Oh, quote me
that kiss again! '
she sighed

'How I do
love thee...! '
I cried

'...let me
count the kisses! '
she replied

my lovely
darling
Rose

THE EMPEROR OF NOW

robin in church
hopping from pew
to pew

a miracle
made real
its sheer joy of being

I hum Haydn
to its every step
Menuetto: Allegro

my little emperor
dances on the altar
it has become the music

it gazes at itself
reflected in the gold
of the tabernacle

a host of sunbeams
chase each other
little fishes of light

now robin
balances on the head
of the Christ

this the secret
prayer
of the moment

leaving me
bereft when
it finds the open door

*

Haydn's Quartet No. 62 in C Major, Hob. 111:77( Op.76 No.3) - the 'Emperor.'  It's Menuetto: Allegro was the musical equivalent of its happy hopping through the sunny church....as if it was the manifestation of Haydn's notes. It was a little epiphany...a kindness given to me...this robin was my only religion.

When they were in Rome, Severn used to rent a piano and play Haydn for the dying Keats in the next room and Keats was delighted with it and said:  "This Haydn is like a child for you never know what he will do next."

It was also accidentally the soundtrack to my daughter's first tentative tottering steps...as if the music was holding up her tiny frame and propelled her along.

I love robins and I used to have an extremely friendly little chap who would follow me as I turned over soil. I paused to wipe my brow with one foot still on the lug of the ***** and he came and perched on the other side of the lug so I stayed the way for a good five minutes and so did he. Both of us alive in the world in that self same moment and sharing this little scrap of time...both just mortal creatures enjoying being alive.

WRITING BAREFOOT

Being frisked
at Dublin airport.

"What's dat in yer
back pocket?"

"An unfinished poem!"
I admit ruefully.

"Is it metal?"
he asks.

"No, it's mental!"
I tell him.

"You know, a bunch of words
hanging about on a piece of paper."

"Go on with ya!"
he smirks.

"And next time...
remove yer shoes."

On the plane I
kick off my shoes and

finish off the unfinished
poem.

Now I
always write barefoot.

*

On my way to Jersey to perform at the Opera House I was asked at the airport after a thorough search refused to yield why I had bleeped...."Excuse me sir but could I look inside your hair?" I was only hiding curly thoughts inside my curly hair.

THE GENTLEMAN OF SHALLOT

Come Spring...

I paint my little room
all yellow

fill it with
daffodils & jonquils

drag in a giant
mirror

(left in the back yard)      

so large

it takes up
all the wall

giving the illusion
of another room

as if my room
were now not so

small.

Sometime the trompe l'œil,
fools even me

& I walk into
the imaginary room.

'Ouch! '
my reflection shouts!

Come Spring...
...came you!

(totally unexpected)      

& my playing with
perspective

hath you enthralled.

I'd catch you
catching your
reflection observing you

observing
the mirror couple

as they
mimicked us

watching our every
move

you thought it so
sensual

or could pretend to be
at a small ****

when it was only
us

again

&

again.

Bodies of flesh & blood
bodies of glass.

You breathe
upon the mirror

tracing our names
with a fingertip

fragile words
made of breath

'...this love...will last...! '

*

When we break
up

the mirror
stayed intact

except for a jagged
lightning crack

& now it was I
who watched

like a gentleman of Shallot

the couple
in the mirror

(the ghosts of
memory)      

making love

bodies of flesh
& blood

bodies

of

glass.

BEYOND THE CLOUDS

He runs
for the sheer joy

of being
a little boy.

"Brian...Brian!"
I try to rein him in

with my voice but
he escapes even that.

"Watch out...watch out!"
I throw the words at him

"Or you'll hit
that cloud!"

Two clouds glower at him
and he stops in his tracks

suddenly uncertain if
that is possible.

And so perspective
cowers my little brother

and he runs back
holds my hand.

We tiptoe past
the threatening clouds

leaving them behind
he laughing nervously.

Now far far from that time
beyond even death

I call his name
and he turns

runs and
takes my hand.

The clouds can only
look on.

WALKING FROM THE RISING SUN TO KILDARE TOWN.

I take up
my stick &

walk:
back into my past.

Planting the countryside
of my youth

with each step
the years falling away.

The young me unfolds
into being.

The flag of self unfurls
snaps into the lost moment.

My shadow strides
ahead of me

impatient with this
flesh and blood man.

My shadow stops
waits for me to

catch up
catch my breath.

He stares at me
with broken dandelion eyes

a green milk bottle top
mimics a nose

a leaf acted
as a smile.

I laugh at this me
created by chance

and happenstance
step once more

into my shadow's footsteps
let it lead the way.

A tree which had been
there since I had been three

sarcastically remarks" "Oh, is it
yer self that's...in it?"

"It is!" says I
addressing the sky

spread before me
a vast blue field.

Furze blazes
with yellow.

Horses turn to
the gallops.

The sudden thunder of hooves
jockeying with laughter.

I left here to
make something of myself.

I, then...a nervous nobody
returning now

a mere nothing
a success only at failure.

I recite Hopkins
to a straying sheep.

The sheep suspiciously
regards this poet

hitting his stride now
"Nothing is so..."

The sheep coughs.

"... beautiful as
Spring!"

I tell a passing cloud
who is in too much of a hurry.

The poet's proud words
falling by the wayside

as me-then and
the me of now

stroll down
(cane nonchalantly in hand)
memory lane.

The Future hiding just

up around the

corner.

*

Set off with my chipped ankle and on a stick forgetting how far it would be....so it was my past revisited me and came to view this hobbly old man who claimed he was once this young boy!
All it proved was that I was an auld codger who didn't know his left foot from his right! But by God I can limp a good 4 miles as well as any other auld fella.

COLOURING THE WORLD.

Auntie Peggy...
gave us
the world

we held it
tentatively
between finger and thumb

hardly able to
believe
what we could see

there we were(& she)
trapped  in the first ever
colour photo we

had ever seen
and so we saw
that grass was green

as were
Uncle Michael's
corduroys

we looked and looked
again to confirm the photo
had got it exactly right

somehow that world
was lost by us
and we can only see it

through the eyes of
Auntie Peggy's photos
where everything remains

just so
and redder bluer greener
than anyone could ever know

LET DEATH BE IRISH

"I see Death..." she whispers
" like a retirement plan
living was such hard work."

she talks as if
Death itself
was standing by her bed

"The grapes and fruit?
no I never eat 'em
I just sketch 'em!"

sunlight slithers
across the hospital floor
sneaks under her bed

"My reflection
escapes the mirror.
Nothing  but...nothing there."

"As for my shadow
it comes...it goes
a slave of the sun."

"Only my ghost
sits on my bed
chats to me

about how
things
are to be."

"I hope Death is Irish
and says:  'Ah howya pet
are ya comin' or wot?'"

*

When I used to visit her before she got so ill I would always call out to her: 'Ah howya pet are ya comin' or wot?'" and she would take my arm and we would trundle off around her garden or the park if she could mangae it that day.

When she was in hospital and could no longer even stand up I would put her arm through mine and we would go for a walk in words as I would tell her what was to be seen.

She loved this as much as the real thing and to her now it was even the more realer as I held her up with my voice perambulating through an imaginary park.

When she wanted one of these flignt of fancy walks she would always say to me:' Ah howya pet are ya comin' or wot?'" And off we would go walking in the footsteps of my voice.

IN THE AFTER-TIME

" Alice thought she
had never seen such

a curious croquet
ground in all her life; "

It was somewheres near
Roswell

18 something and something
there or there...abouts

& Billy the Kid &
the boys have just

...paused:

in their croquet
for a tintype photo.

Billy's the guy
in the cardigan sweater.

Him & his gang
( the Regulators )

are posing like
they were a prototype

for
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

or the band
THE BAND.

Pure Americana.

Billy the cardi-cowboy and
his gang of croquet playing outlaws...

Not exactly how
one would have  somehow

imagined them
. . .passing the time.

One of the outlaw...eh...gentlemen

points out that
Billy

" . . .the Kid has spooned
his shot!"

A ricochet of tobacco coloured
spittle hits a spittoon.

Silence congeals
about the accusation.

Now, whether Billy has
merely pushed the ball

silently through rather than
soundly hit it

is:
neither here nor there.

A cold revolver
clicks &

"I says I hit it...I hit it
get it?"

The other gentleman outlaw
begs to agree.

"Ok, Billy boy...keep yer
cardi on!"

And so, we leave them
there

in the croquet craze of
1878.

Time like a yellow ball
hit through hoop after

hoop until: it arrives
at this

present...NOW!

And a photo found in a store
for a dollar or a few dollars more

repays the expense
by morphing into

the 5 million dollar
photo.

But I hit the ball
back through hoop after

hoop after hoop

until it arrives back
at Billy's boot.

And a voice cries:
"Ok, kid...play!"

EVEN NOW, NOW, VERY NOW...

here your laughter
fastened to the air
with a little twistof memory

Time
spell stopped
as it were

your laughter
pinned to this
particular place

this
little scrap of sky
and field

that to an unobservant  eye
would mean nothing
...nothing at all

but see,your laughter
unfurls its flag of self
snapping in the stiff wind

of what's
lost is
lost

this
simple second
alive for ever

I pick it as
I would a flower
untouched

by either
time or
death

*

The title is from Othello...


“Our memory is a more perfect world than the universe: it gives back life to those who no longer exist.”

Guy de Maupassant

THE LAST PATCH OF DARK

the night had come & gone
pulling up its last patch of dark
gone like a carney in the morning

now there was
just a patch of dry grass
the sun sitting on it

the night had left
behind it a few scattered condoms
beer cans and a discombobulated *******

now that the day held sway
it was hard to imagine
the night had ever been

the ******* had blown away
children caught condoms on a stick
only the beer cans remained

soon the day
grew tired of itself
shadows gnawing at its sunlight

and so the night returned
whether it was a new night or the old one
was difficult to tell

*

The night before laughter spilling out into the dark as performers strutted their stuff...clowns fell over themselves and then just the gone-ness of it all leaving just the ******* and whatever was left behind. It seemed as if humanity had been wiped out...desolate was the word.

WE ARE LEGEND...WE ARE MYTH

"Donall
Seanie...
SeanieDonall!"

My uncle & me
we are legend
we are myth

escaping from my auntie's voice
tracking us down
I sitting in the saddle of his neck

his curls my reins
traveling the world
on his giant shoulders

my uncle hearing
voices in his head
afraid of other humans

who hunt the thoughts
he's thinking
wanting to keep himself for himself

our beings fused
into one joyfulness
uncle & boy morphing into centaur

we are legend we are myth
we hide in haystacks
from her hounding voice

roam fields where ever empty spaces
takes us until there is only us
he more little boy than even I

"Keep me company!"
he pleaded
his thoughts all curly like his hair

we now one another
the last lost centaur
galloping off into a time

that no longer exists
we are legend
we are myth

*

and the boy grew out of my head
where I had stuffed him on my shoulders
and I became his walker of worlds

galloping across fields
running away from the voices
inside my head

that eat my thoughts
this boy I uncle
has become my mind for me

minds me
soothes the voices lies to the voices
tells them  I have vanished

into the mystery of myself
and the voices fall for it
I watch them retreat

I move my feet n giant steps
the boy growing out of my head
sees the world for me

tames the world for me
so that I can laugh whinny & neigh
like the human horse I have become

no longer confused
fused into one being
him & me

drinking in a sunset
sniffing rain on the wind
galloping across time time.

. . time
time. . .
out of mind

I FOREVER HIS GRAVE

he stares at the German
the German stares at him
one of them is dead...he hopes...it's not him

the German's blonde hair
streaked through
with mud and blood

he could be looking
almost at himself
they share the same face

the same moustache
the same mole
on the left cheek

Death's little joke
it looks like he has
killed himself

he's surprised
to find himself
still alive

"I had to **** him
in order to be in
the next moment!"

"Odd to think
that your death was necessary
for me to be alive!"

the wallet shows
a typical family...a typical wife
her name is Hildegard

they long for him
to come home
to them

"I've no one
waiting for me
not even myself!"

here he remains
buried in my mind
I forever his grave


*

This comes from a nice old fellow I used to look after and he told me all his WW2 stories and of his Da's in the First World War. He told me of his Da having to **** a German in hand to hand combat...the first man he had ever killed and how much physically they had both looked like each other so much so that he thought he was killing himself. He had to **** many more men in his war but this first man was the one he always remembered. Not only because they could have been twins but because this was the taboo of killing broken and the next time and the next time didn't matter. They came through a misty graveyard and both soldiers were surprised and startled to see each other. Later the graveyard was bombed and the long dead and the recently dead were thrown up into the air. After experiencing such horror....real life back at home...could never be the same. He said he was forever killing that one German.

SONG OF THE SCYTHE

my uncle
sits cross-legged
the shiny sickle

of the scythe
held in
his hands

as if he had pulled down a moon
wrestled it to the ground
tamed it

he looks like a friendly
Death
having a tea break

nothing dies
in these seconds
the world holds its breath

the scythe winces
with light
so sharp it can cut thought

it cuts through
what I am
thinking now

the whetstone sings
to the curve
of the metal

it cuts through Time
sharper sharper each time
my mind bleeds

it cuts through each successive
second so that each second is
separate from the rest

the song the whetstone
sings to the scythe
scares me

my Uncle
takes a horsehair
from Dolly’s tail so

softly she thinks it’s still there
the scythe eagerly
divides it into two

Dolly whinnies
nuzzles him
affectionately

he runs his thumb
along the blade
blood sings in the open air

he ***** it
“Perfect! ”
he smiles

“Perfect! ”
the world
catches its breath

*

Waiting for my turn to go on at Brighton...my poems placed carefully upon the table didn't realise how near a nite light was and up go the poems in flames. A barman had to come down and put me out with a tea towel. Just then I'm called upon to read and there is just enough of the poem left alive for me to read!