IT’S YOU? ISN’T IT?

Facebook messages me
to phone home as soon

as possible.

Our home phone is down.
Other phones just ring and ring.

Or lead me up a cul-de-sac
of leaving a message

to a ghostly  mechanical
voice.

Messages answering messages.
No actual real live people involved.

Finally I do
what I should have done

all along
((((((( call you.))))))

So, I do.

“Hiya Bud, can you call me?
Something bad seems to have happened!
Get back to me as soon as you can!”

You do not call back.

You lie there not
listening to me.

You never get back
to me.

Never will.

It’s you?
Isn’t it?

The bad thing that has
happened?

Death listening at the end of the line.

Saying not a word.

*

The sheer horror of it all as the impossible happens and the last person I could imagine dying...does so....the one person of calm strength that one would turn to: and. . .

BIG HAPPY

“You make me
so happy! ”
she says

“Oh, I
say! ”
I say

“It’s such a big happy
but it’s made up
of all small happies! ”

“The small happy
I can hold
in my hand

but the big happy
is like
the sky! ”

she clutches me
hugs my knee
kisses my kneecap

then goes
out again
shouting to the dolly

she left sitting
in the sand pit.
“It’s ok...I’m back! ”

IF ALL THE OCEANS WERE LEMONADE!

Climbs up on my lap
as if she were scaling an Alp

sits on my book like
she see the cat do

manoeuvres herself so
she is enthroned

on the lap
of the Dad.

Stabs a finger
at a bunch of words.

"What...say?!"
as if only I can hear

the words
voices.

"Well, it's interesting that
you ask...!"

I switch to another
bunch of words.

She's not to see
the sleight of mind,

"Charles Fourier
he say..."

I see the hope
leap into her eyes

as I translate the furry
man's thought.

"When all the world
and the people in the world

finally get to be
as nice as nice can be

all the oceans
with turn to lemonade.!"

She gasps.

Nods that that is how
things should be.

Leaves my knee
a devoted Fourierist.

The original bunch of words
she had chosen would be

that much harder
to explain.

That the moon was a dead mummy
that would eventually give way

to not one but five
living replacements.

An ocean of lemonade
lapping at the docks

splashing over rocks
chasing you up the beach

being the easier of
the thoughts to hold.

*

Then my little three year old treasure got down and danced to the Háry János Suite and became a mechanical little doll( "Wind me up..wind me up!" )to the strains of the Viennese Musical Clock before complaining that the trombones were pushing her about..life with a little girl is anything but dull!. She was enraged she couldn't read and ask "Why I can't hear what the words are saying!"

She would also listen to Joyce on record and not be a bit nonplussed at the Wake as she could make sense of the sound and wasn't put out by the stature of what she was hearing. I asked her what did she think the man with the funny voice was saying and she said "I think his granny just died like my granny died!" She was an epiphany!

Fourier's theoretical system, described by one scholar as "vast and eccentric, was only part of the output of what another called "a most riotous and unpruned imagination."
Fourier believed that in the new world people would live for 144 years, that new species of friendly and pacifistic animals such as "anti-lions" would emerge, and that over time human beings would develop long and useful tails.
Fourier also professed a belief in the ability of human souls to migrate between physical and "aromal" world. Such thinking was set aside during the last 15 years of Fourier's life, when he instead began to concentrate on testing his economic and social ideas.

Fourier's disciples, including Albert Brisbane and Victor Considerant, later pared down his writings into a comprehensible system for economic and social organization, with the Fourierist movement experiencing a brief boom in the United States during the mid-1840s, when some 30 Fourierist associations were established.

AN ACUTE ABSENCE OF WEATHER

( for my little brother Brian )

tomorrow arrived too late
to save you
you had become

the past tense
no longer present at your own life
time had abandoned you

the world turning its back
on the sun
staring into the night

a darkness
without stars
the far away barking of dogs

a somewhere
that's nowhere
where even the weathervane

doesn't know which way to turn
the acute absence
of weather

*

Because of his stature in the world and his skill at making his way through its faults and falls...he had become the BIG BROTHER simply because of who he was. Only now in death does he once more become my little brother. I became a mere meddler with words...a peddler of poems.

When he was truly my little brother he once asked me one of those childlike questions that adults or even slightly big brothers find impossible to answer.

Lost in himself he asked of me" "Is there weather when you die?" I didn't know how to answer it then or...now.

On the great barn that was his shed he had placed a weather vane and we still look at it to this day as it searches for the answer to this question.

I had told him then that: "Whatever...there would be weather."

I suppose he could now answer his 7-year-old-self's strange little question.

SO: SCHEHERAZADE ME!

it appeared as if
the very air were
asleep

even
the dark was
asleep

an harmonica stained
the night
with itself

an ache
that stole
into the soul

snowflakes fell
in slow slow-motion
as if they were

sleep walking
Time seemed to so-lid-if-y
congeal about the moment

frozen
like a rabbit
in the headlights of life

"Why me!"
the moment seemed to say
"Why me?"

"Awww shut up!"
I told it
it shut up

an obese moon
like a stray dog
tried to follow me

home but home
was the other side
of an ocean

still
it dogged
my every step

the blind man
kept on playing
as if

he were the soundtrack
to the film I
had become

NYC was nothing like
its movies
only the cold was real

I dropped change
into the blind man's tin cup
made a music all of its own

he looked at me
with both his ears
he smiled with all of his self

TALES OF THE KALENDER PRINCE
got lost
in the ensuing silence

he mumbled a thanks
in an unknown tongue
maybe Klingon

the moment
kept on
trying to find meaning

like an unsure actor
asking what's its motivation
there was none to be found

my footsteps
walked away
almost leaving me
behind

TALES OF THE KALENDER PRINCE
started up again
as if the night had pressed PLAY

"Well....I'll be
Rimsky Korsakov'd!"
I attempted a smile

it hurt
the harmonica's voice
eclipsed by the police siren.

*

One of my earliest memories is being bathed by my sister Junie in a tin bath with a roaring fire as this emanated from a radio. Homeless in NYC I didn't think I would encounter it again in the way I did! The blind man even on a battered old harmonica was still able to give it it's "Rimsky-ness."

GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

Not stated
( though it’s understood )

she will not say a word

like dust
swept under a rug.

Good
Housekeeping.

His anger
ripens

into the bruise
she wears upon her skin

a jewellery
of fear

written upon pale flesh
his hieroglyph of hatred.

Love’s lustre
tarnished from the first

the tattoo
of boot and fist.

Holds her hand
under the grill

until her eyes bulge
gulls screaming overhead.

The bilge
of his vile

vomiting insults
upon her scared face.

“****...****...****”
his screams in a rut

matching each word
to each rising fist

a blow by blow
account.

He the liturgist
in the nightly rites

of violence
uglier than can be imagined.

Lilies cower
in a vase.

He the high priest
of her despair.

An ugly bruise
upon her soul.

Her eyes now
null and void

slit wrists
upon polished table tops

in a room
now sunlit...now unlit.

TURN OF THE CENTURY
(for Debbie unable to sleep)

Bright yellow flower
dazed...standing in a vase

tries to remember

a blueness of sky...lost now
beyond the great window pane.

Tries to remember
a joy of sweet falling rain

lost now on the glass

& yet...the memory of it
persists...pursues it...& yet

tries to remember
the pleasure in being a seed

roots reaching into
a sheer richness of darkness

& its opening into sun

tries...remembers the
playfulness of butterflies

clouds chasing a cloud
winds scattering tiny stars

across the beauty of a night

tries &...remembers
the wonder of a bird’s song

the sun forever
almost just...just...out of reach

the sudden silence
after the storm is gone and...and

flower bows its head.

The new young maid is scolded
for not changing the vase.


*

I woke up in the middle of the night and unable to sleep again saw that my friend Debbie had said she was unable to sleep and would someone write her a poem. So I wrote this for her and then...went back to sleep.
Years ago in the long long ago my little girl said she would adore to know how a flower felt( "adore was her new word )so 30 years later late into the night the phrase "how a flower felt" hijacked my mind and this poem was my answer.

NOWHERE TO RUN TO....

I'm 9
going on
all of ten, when:

reading
TO ****
A MOCKING BIRD.

I wanted to be Scout
when I grew up
didn't matter I was a boy

just wanted to be
her
that great explorer

of how to be in the world
that great frontier of
becoming

then, in '67
the bus crash
happened

& there was always
that empty chair
a nowhere of me

always calling
my sister's name
I became Boo Radley

living inside my head
like it was a haunted house
with a me who wasn't

me no more
looking out of eyes
that belonged

to someone
else
like Boo...

I didn't
".. have anywhere
to run off to..."

"ELECTED SILENCE,  SING TO ME..."

"Skin"
as they used to call him
is( like me )

up a tree
the very topmost
tip of it

wondering at this
great height
"What must it be

to be
someone
else?"

I too a boy
at one with the sky
sharing

a branch with a bird
who accepts me
as just

another( if odd )
bird
of a different feather

I wonder if
the bird wonders what
it must me to be - me

esse quam videri
( to be rather than
to seem to be)

words carved into the living
tree
the wounded bark

clouds too
are my friends
feel as if I could

step on one
have the wind
roll me about

fields...
a green
patchwork quilt

river...
a silver thread
house --a mere toy

Time
spreads out
endlessly

it is always
and only
forever

the created
and uncreated
map of Now

"Skin" or
Gerard Manley Hopkins
as I will get to know him

both up
our respective
trees

he in 1853
me in 1963

drinking in
the world
with our eyes

and one big
gulp
of the mind

*

REALITY'S UNRAVELLER

Charles Luxmoore on Gerard Manley Hopkins...

"...a fearless climber of trees, and would go up very high in the lofty elm tree, standing in our garden...to the the alarm of un-lookers like myself."


I on the other hand climbed trees to escape the world of my young sister's death...here at this great height I could be both in and out of the world...longing to be someone else...somewhere else....anywhere else...anyone else...even a bird if that could be...the map of the world spread below me...high above this bitter grief. I would "vanish" into bay windows and sit for hours whilst aunts and uncle stood a few feet from me and wondered where "the boy has gone" and call my name that didn't seem to be me anymore.

I remember sitting between two silver milk churns down in Cork and everyone unseeing of me as if my grief had made me invisible. I was "Of reality the rarest-veined unraveller..."

THE ARRIVAL OF ENIGMA

The square dressed itself
in moonlight

as if it were on its way
to a fancy dress ball

as one of de Chirico's
masterpieces.

The puppets
after an inspired performance

lay tangled together
in a box on the bridge.

They waited as their world
was dismantled and

their stage sets stacked
neatly against a wall.

A glass eye winked but
didn't think the human saw.

But the human saw.
Or was it just the moon?

The moon played hide
and seek behind a cloud.

The puppets chattered
amongst themselves

untangling each other
as they planned their escape.

But before anything could
come of this

they were tossed carelessly into a case
that snapped shut with sudden finality.

They were carried away
into the early hours of the morning.

The rebellion of wood
had been scotched.

We used the left over de Chirico
as a scene to stage a kiss

as if we had been painted
into place ourselves.

"The Arrival of Enigma"
or some such title

scrawled in litter
below our feet.

MUSEUM OF MISTAKES

here
in the Museum
of Mistakes

I wander among
the many exhibits
amazed

gasp
at how stupid
people can be

look through
protective glass
at the ghost of a love

my own face
reflected
back at me

such finely crafted
heartbreak
perfect little memories

glint cruelly against the lights
displayed against
the stark contrast of black velvet

I remember these
didn’t realise
how valuable

they were
then
priceless now

I turn away
& cry
having seen too much

here
in my Museum
of Mistakes

the Past
comes back
to haunt me

"SOLO TE...SOLO ME...SOLO  NOI"


"Ahhhh what happened to the world we knew..."

All the songs I sing
are celebrating

their 50th
Anniversary.

Man that can't be so
seems like only a moment

ago
a lifetime now away.

And that would make me
older than them.

And ******* I
guess I am.

And here's Stevie singing
just a month or more

after the moon landings
and hey

that's 50 years
one giant leap for...

And yeah I look like
the old man I am.

Don't know where
the boy I was went.

Time has gone
AWOL.

Left me here between
nowhere and some where

"...we could feel the wheel
of life turn our way

yester-me yester-you yesterday
yester-me yester-you yesterday

Sing with me

solo te...solo me..solo noi

One more time, yeah

solo te...solo me..solo noi"

**

50th Anniversary of the moon landing and when in Naples heard Stevie singing it in Italian on a passing car radio. Loved the song from the moment it came out(about 2 months after the historic one giant leap)and hearing it now again stuck in the middle of a Naples torrential downpour.
Then in Leicester Square on a surprisingly sunny day( the next day it would pour with rain)we encountered a little busking band in German get-up and a Sousaphone player delighting us with Stevie's Sir Duke and yes Yester-Me, Yester-You,
Yesterday.

Sometimes the past wraps you up in its warmth and puts an imaginary arm around your shoulder.

All the way from the boy Wonder himself from his MY CHERIE AMOUR album. "Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday" was written by Ron Miller and Bryan Wells. At that time, it was Stevie's biggest UK hit.
Stevie was going through some vocal problems and was required to wait before recording a song. Due to this, instead of making new ones, they decided to release songs that he had recorded years earlier, and this song was one of them (it was recorded two years earlier).

KICKING THE BUCKET

The moon has fallen
asleep in a bucket

can't get back out despite
trying to slide over the rim.

It trembles as a train
thunders past midnight.

A child tries to catch it
its tiny hand plunging

through another dimension
through to its nothingness.

The moon takes its chance and
escapes to the sky with a splash.

It's all gone now
( the barn of course )

but the house...the child...that moon
are no longer to be found.

Strange to think
a house can die.

A tree enters through
the kitchen window

lays
its head upon a table.

The bedroom
is without its roof.

A door still stands
without its walls.

It bangs in the breeze
a surreal Morse code.

The living room is home
to a family of nettles.

A sofa moulders
a new line in zombie furniture.

A hare stands upon a chair
barely able to hold itself together.

One of the chair's legs
genuflects to a sunset.

The hare hops upon
the rotting table top

enters the tree's head
and leaves upon its branches.

Somehow the bucket
survives.

Still standing outside
the outhouse.

It is full of storm
right to the brim.

It holds within itself
the moon of now.

Trains no longer
thunder by.

I, that child
now - this man

let the moon
splash through my hand

before throwing it
into the night's sky.

Always wanted to do that
before I kicked the bucket.

SHADOWS LEFT BEHIND

"Eh...excuse me..."
smiled the Neanderthal
on the Circle Line

he wanted to know
where
to get off

"How come I can
understand you?"
I asked without talking

"Oh I took a course
ages ago now
in Telepathy As A Foreign Language."

he wanted to see
his girl
a pretty Denisovan

who was staying
with a palaeontologist
at South Ken or something

he had bought her
a Divje Babe flute as
she dug the pentatonic scale

told me he had been
working in
the Mousterian stone-tool industry

he saw that I was
reading about muons
of all things

"How can you possibly
know about wobbling muons?"
I asked in wild surprise

"Oh when one is
you know...dead
one knows about everything!"

he smirked
"For the snark was
a muon you know!"

told me he was
a big Lewis Carroll fan
as it goes

"May the 5th Force
be with you!"
he deadpanned

"Holy incredulous questioning Quark!"
I exclaimed in
a Batman/Robin tone

but his stop
was coming up and
I told him where to get off

"MIND THE GAP!"
the tannoy warned him
"MIND THE GAP!"

Slán...slán go deo!"
he waved to me
switching to the Irish

"Is  fearr an tsláinte
ná táinte!"
he offered as a parting

"DOORS CLOSING
DOORS...CLOSING!"
the tannoy butted in

and he was gone
from my sight as if
I had only imagined him

back into the depths
of a time I
could not conceive of

chewing a mammoth
sandwich and looking
for an exit

BROKEN ABRACADABRA

My uncle shimmers
as he walks

as if the sun has got him
and shakes him

until he walks
like waves.

His gait all
heat haze.

He's a walking
reflection

as if the air
were water.

He looks like
he's a dream

made of summer

but he is the real thing
a solid Uncle Michael.

I expect his voice
to waver with the heat

but his words
stay steady

whittled out of love
like wood.

I am up a tree.

He can't see me.

The branch below me has sn-
-apped

and I am wondering like a cat
how in hell I am

going to get down.

Up here in the air
the farm is the map

of itself.

I share a branch with a bird
and a small cloud.

Uncle goes on looking for me
his voice searching the everywhere

but I am a nowhere.

His voice trying to pull me
out of thin air

like a magician would
but it's not good.

I am half sky half tree half child
...do the maths.

I feel like a white rabbit
lost inside a top hat.

He died one sunny Sunday
******* a sweet in the blue van.

I still see him
walking out of the sun

his body shivering
with the heat

as if he is a dream
calling my name

like an abracadabra.

I sit in the silence
in the middle of my sky

lost in that forever
summer

wondering how to get back
down on solid ground

calling his name
like a broken magic spell

always trying to find him
even though I can't

INVOCATION  
( for Mary Forde )

See the dead
bring in the hay.

Hear them call
all the cows by name

as the evening
ambles in.

Take the horse
out of her harness

whisper their thanks
to her.

Hands...rough hands
that mend a fence

fix a hedge
collect eggs...feed pigs.

The thousand tasks
of a farm dressed

in the glorious summer
of long lost ago.

Call them by their names
as you call them then

the child you were
reeling them in.

See them come
eagerly alive again.

Loving that you
have not forgotten them.

"Mikey...Seanie...Sonny...Granny...Nellie!"

Ghost voices
on the wind.

Fields fallow.
Home a ruin.

How time
crumbles away.

I gather you in.
Name you one by one.

Do not allow
time or death

to touch you.

MIST CREEPING SLOWLY

The morning found
only blood & feathers.

The fox leaving
only Death

& its presence

& the gossip of the frightened chickens.

My uncle swearing
‘til the sky was blue

(early morning clouds that the sun shone through) .

An embarrassed ****
like a mad alarm clock

crying like a cartoon “****-a-doodle-do! ”

My uncle dispatching him
with a quick kick.

“Oh yeah, and where the hell were you? ”

I take in the scene of the massacre
& whisper:

“I sure wouldn’t like to be    a chicken! ”

*    *      *

All that next week
my uncle stalked the chicken coup
waiting for the fox

who was clever enough
not to turn up

until the eight day
driven by his hunger & his nature

she stared into my uncle’s cold metallic sight
& the evil acrid smell of a cartridge caught in flight

as both it & the fox(shot through the head)  
fell dead

at my uncle’s muddied boot.

My gentle uncle delirious with Death
the frosted air
stained with his breath.

His voice almost transformed
into an animalistic hoot:

“Hey boy, betcha didn’t know I
could shoot! ”

The good side of the fox’s face
seemed to still laugh
at the very idea of Death.

I whimpered:

“I sure wouldn’t like to be    a fox! ”

The countryside
brutal & Biblical

demanding

a life for a life

Yet all I could see
was Death...Death.

Priest-like...

I knelt & whispered
a quick act of contrition
to the fox’s carcasse

My uncle probably thought
I was barmy.

That night in celebration
my uncle wrung a chicken’s neck

(the chicken’s name was Patricia)  

& I declined the clean
white breast

still haunted

by the chicken & the fox’s

death.

A DISH FIT FOR THE GODS

We had the best table
at the very edge of creation.

Our waiter
( the Devil you know )

looking so
debonaire  and almost human

rattling off
an expensive menu.

Embarrassingly I had to have it translated into Mortal.

The Devil's faux
supernatural accent

really grated
and I could detect

a slight Aberystwyth
tone.

"Now, this night
of nights

we are serving
a very rare Kraken

fried in a rich
imagination.

Or a superb Leviathan
basted in  delicious mythological sauce.

I'm afraid the slightly sautéed  souls are off.

And to drink
we have the finest minds

( from all time )

our cellars are the envy
of the Imaginary.

Or may I be so bold as to suggest
the latest universe?

Or a sparkling non-alcoholic
sub-conscious.

And for starters?
Some screams perhaps?"

God burps:
"I pray thee, pardon!"

I apologised
said I had already eaten

in a previous life
and that I was

anyway
a dreamatarian.

But if I could
have a glass of H2O?

I listened to the table talk
understanding very little

I didn't speak
fluent Creationese.

I politely made my excuses
and left

...before the after dinner
speeches.

ALL TAFFETA & TULLE

frightened by the storm
he crawls under
his mother’s skirts

all taffeta & tulle
clinging to her
ankles

before falling
asleep
upon her feet

she continues playing
her cards right
winning all before her

as the candles
gutter
and almost go out

she remembers her body
wrapped about him
her flesh

protecting his innocence
as now her dress
encloses his sleeping

unconsciously stroking
his hair
with her left foot

his dreams
now
pooled at her feet

SINGING THE RIVER

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

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

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

tame it
soothe it with sound.

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

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

The grass listening with its thousand ears.

And the field would swoon
and fall down

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

was the real life river
of the song

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

As if we had sung it
into existence.

And we would roll ourselves down
over and over until

we arrived at its dizzy waters
dangling our toes

in pure song.

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

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

The yes of it!

Confusing cows
and a few scattered clouds.

Trees and hedges tiptoeing
away from us.

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

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

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

to sing its song
to the river

the river chuckling
over stones to itself.

And the next next day would be
backwards with eyes closed

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

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

leaving it dreaming
in a sunset.

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

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

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

"....shhhhhhhhhhhh!"

TO THE LIFE

Every morning at so & so
( oh I don't know )

time goes so
slow...ly

quickly now
the rugby scrum begins.

"Smile!" I tell myself "Smile!"
"Oh shut up..!" I tell myself "...just, shut up!"

Eaten by a 1000&1 eyes
greedy for my Gioconda smile.

I could **** that Da Vinci chap
trapping me in time...thus!

I am merely one
of their "Touristy Things to Do!"

They jostle and elbow
as if my smile were in a sale.

Take 'selfies"( is that a word? )
looking over their shoulder

more them
than me.

But, oh
there...there

at the very back of
the back

she stands
gazes at me.

She, my very self
in flesh & blood

a lovely lady
wearing my smile.

She, could be me.
I, her.

Ok, ok so...she's a natural blonde &
I'm - not!

Everything else is the exact
same.

Alright, except for the clothes.

All is ha ha
yellow!

Yellow top
top thee buttons undone

a shy hint of cleavage.

How cute...how cute!

Yellow plastic mini skirt
lol...how...droll!

Yellow plastic mac & hat
how chic...how...cheeky!

Only a poet
( an Irish poet )

ses as I
see.

Turns his gaze
upon her.

His eyes seizes her.

His eyes stealing her
for his poem.

"Write me...write me!"
I shout

across the centuries
the silences - thereof.

But both he & she
have turned away

vanished into the crush
of faceless humanity.

This real life flesh & blood
Mona Lisa

( her name is
Samantha )

even her laughter
is much as mine

...was.

Let me live a second
another and another

through you!

Gone...gone!

I scowl.

I frown.

I...I...smile.

A GHAOTH ANEAS!
( O SOUTH WIND! )

my six year old father
stares from
a photograph

splendid
in his sailor suit
standing outside time

he will
not survive
Ypres

there is no photograph
to show
him as a soldier

mother couldn't
bear them
burned them

she forever talking to
him in her head loving
loving his Devonshire accent

a thrush is singing
from behind
enemy lines

Spring can't understand
humans and their ways
dresses the trees

in their freshest green.
"Jack...Jack Jack!" she cries
to the wind from the south.

A Ghaoth Aneas!
( O South Wind )
"Sin chugaibh mo phóg

ar rith ins an ród
Leigim
le seol gaoithe í" *

"here goes my kiss to you
to you rushing along the road
I send it on the wings of the wind"

THE LANGUAGE OF WATER

you wait
by the lake
alone

except for your self
&
your reflected self

as if
the landscape
dreamt you up

your thoughts
a flock of birds
scattered across the failing light

clouds laugh
run along the ground
on tiny unseen feet

trees stand on their heads
wriggling their toes
in the air

& you
become as two
both real & unreal

as if a living
dream
you hum

Pachabel's Canon
as sun & horizon
listen

not bad
for a human
they both agree.

it's as if
I need a key
to enter this magical

dimension
as if I have to
invent one

...a magical one.
I take a little stone
whisper to it

the secrets
of flight
and teach it

how to say:
"Splash! "
in the language of water

the little stone
transformed with i
ts new knowledge

does as it is told
shatters
this mirror world

opens
the dream
and I enter

bewitched
as any fairytale
Prince

my voice
calling your sweet name
with longing

you turn
& we embrace
kiss

& look upon ourselves
as the dream
remakes itself

stitching itself
together
with silence

an old artist
(unknown to us then)
places us the lovers

at the centre
of his composition
adds this final brushstroke

and pleased
with his efforts
folds up his chair

packs up
his paints & easel
smiles at ourkisses

wishes
us a goodnight
and is gone
eaten by the twilight

our laughter
frail & fragile
lingering on the night air

playing
peek-a-boo
with the moonlight

TIME PASSES

the tick tick of the bike
a dog barks
letter on a Welcome mat

the midnight tick of time
the house sighs
Dad's whistle

ambushed by the smell
of honeysuckle
I fall into the Past

red barn
blue sky
a summer to last forever

Caruso 78
I listen to the scratches
like Time trying to sing along

I kiss the whorl
of a fingertip then
the all of you

your body
drifting away from me
on a tide of hurt

"I don't like the way
your eyes
touch me!"

starlings fly up
I walk upon close bitten grass
a sheep laughs

a car rusts on the beach
the roofless house
looks out to sea

the sea is sleeping
I watch it breathing
wonder what it's dreaming

the house hunkers down
its window eyes
gaze upon the coming storm

crouching under a cloud
a mountain
frightened by the storm

walking upon
the meniscus of sleep
unable to dive in

& here you are
years later looking like
an out of focus photo of your self

THE COAL OF IRON UPON THE ICE( for Ann B)

Nuns  shepherd
their flock

of prepubescents
(high on hormones)

that deadly cocktail
of adolescence

into  a school
production of the Shakespearean

play
they are

studying.

Now, Coriolanus
ain’t

ROMEO AND JULIET  or
HAMLET even

but somehow
it holds

their riveted
attention.

The nuns look pleased
with themselves &

their girls

not realising
their young ladies

are struck
dumb

not by the blankness
of the verse but

that they are seeing
so

many
men

in such short
skirts

strong iron-cast legs
that run

all the way up to their
bums.

“Yum! ”
gloat the girls

"Yum yum
...YUM!"

*

Where he should find you lions, finds you hares;
Where foxes, geese: you are no surer, no,
Than is the coal of fire upon the ice,
Or hailstone in the sun.

CORIOLANUS  ACT 1 SCENE I  LINE 167 - 170

WHAT THE BARBER THINKS...
(for that lovely little devil of a barber Anthony Kelly in the town of Fermoy)

Snip...snip. . .snip
goes his mind

cutting through thought
with the voice of the scissors

his hands
two sparrows

dancing with Time

each head
a changing field

now flowing wheat
now bare stubble

his mind
taking flight

taking off
the too much there

dealing with
the not enough here

the making beautiful
the altering appearances

the human touch
the kindest cut

but where
( you want to know )

where does the barber's mind go
& what are his thinkings?

Ahhhh my friends
sure that would be

telling you. .

UNCLE MICHAEL - ALIAS GOD!

His hands(tobacco stained)
twisted & gnarled
knotted like an alive

piece of wood
scrawled gestures
across my mind

as the sick calf
bucked in his arms
& his quiet strength

- calmed:
'Shhhhhh...
shhhhhhh...****...****! '

he crooned
& the sound
soothed

and the veins
(line vines)
ran up & down

his arms
pumping crude life
like a sudden sketch

to suggest the gist of
rather than
the meaning of things.

and he walked
(& I ran)
towards Granny's garden

(like God tending Eden)
& the gate(a little hoarse)
sighed at his hand and

the leaves murmured
(like worshippers
in a church congregation)

& the sunlight
genuflected through the trees
and the trees wore socks & apples

a tablecloth
was laid
on a logan berry bush

and the young tree
gave herself to him
broke tenderly in his hand

and, the knife whistled &
out of the branch
came a man

and he told me
(& I believed him
'cos he was good as God & strong)

that the little wooden man
(the silent statue)
had been waiting

(all the time all ready made)
waiting to be released
from his prison of wood.

'All things...'he whispered
'all things are waiting
for youto call them.'

'Call them to come out...'
'Awake them...'
'Create them...! '

the rhododendrons
were blue with amazement
- at this revelation

a dragonfly
walked
upon the water

a butterfly became
infatuated
with a flower

me...?
I watched as
his hands talked...

...explaining things
that
could not be...said

and he took
my hand in his
and I understood

flowed
like a little stream
into his big river

felt God(close)
near at hand
and...smiling

THE PLOUGH AND THE STARS

I stumble and fall

trying to keep up with Michael and Dolly
as they plough on

ahead
and I follow

in their wake
falling over furrows

that they make.

Dolly's coat glistens
with the immense effort

breathing in the intense strange strong smell of horse.

Uncle Michael
at one with the harrow

muscles taut and tight
controlling everything with his voice.

I copy him & shout:
'Woa...! ' & 'Hey up...! '

but Dolly doesn't listen
...only to him.

He ploughs into the sunset
as if he and Dolly

had turned over these fabulous colours

creating an evening
becoming night.

The moon bright
I try to count

the stars
like seeds

but fall
.. asleep.

*

UNCLE MICHAEL -ALIAS GOD!

His hands
(tobacco stained)    

twisted & gnarled

knotted like an alive
piece of wood

scrawled gestures
across my mind

as the sick calf
bucked in his arms
& his quiet strength

- calmed:

'Shhhhhh... shhhhhhh...****...****! '
he crooned

& the sound
soothed.

And the veins
(line vines)    

ran up & down
his arms
pumping crude life

like a sudden sketch
to suggest the gist of
rather than the meaning of things.

And he walked
(& I ran)    

towards Granny's garden
(like God tending Eden)    

& the gate(a little hoarse)    
sighed at his hand and

the leaves murmured
(like worshippers in a church congregation)    

& the sunlight
genuflected through the trees

and the trees wore socks & apples.

A tablecloth was laid
on a logan berry bush.

And the young tree
gave herself to him

broke tenderly in his hand
and, the knife whistled &
out of the branch came a man.

And he told me
(& I believed him
'cos he was good as God & strong)    

that the little wooden man
(the silent statue)    

had been waiting
(all the time all ready made)    

waiting to be released
from his prison of wood.

'All things...'
he whispered
'all things are
waiting for you
to call them.'

'Call them to come out...'

'Awake them...'

'Create them...! '

The rhododendrons
were blue with amazement

- at this revelation -

a dragonfly walked
upon the water.

A butterfly became
infatuated with a flower.

Me...?

I watched
as his hands
talked...

...explaining things that
could not be...said.

And he took
my hand in his

and I understood

flowed

like a little stream

into his big river

felt God
(close)    
near at hand

and...smiling.

* * * * * * *

YOU WERE LAUGHING

It was so much so
your world, that

(when it died)    

you decided to
accompany it.

Loss, hung festooned(joined hands like decorations) .
Grief, winked like a baublel(on a Christmas tree's ring finger) .

Sadness, drifted dazedly(like the ceiling balloons)    
bobbing up and down on an invisible sea.

Ship
wrecked
cast
away

I...sland.

Later, we learned(Time taught us)    
to fold the tears carefully, careful
not to crease them

like decorations
stash them

away in an attic

until the next time we would need them.

They said(they all said)    
you were dead
but the child(the child)    
would not...believe them.

In his head
(it was you)    

and you
were

laughing
(smiling)    

and the child

touched

your face.

THE VLTAVA PAYS NO MIND TO TIME

the giant
metal head
of Kafka

turned and
turned again
staring at city

that even he couldn't have
conceived of this
strange future

high above
this night scape
an orange window glows

presenting a parent
teaching her child
basic ballet steps

it is this
tiny instant
of a humanity

that my mind
will hold as
a souvenir

they are both
only silhouettes
a shadow theatre

puppets in
demi-plié
grand plié

I watch entranced
at now jetés
now sautés

a man with an owl
perched upon his wrist
passes nonchalantly by

a young girl
singing softly
to her self

Tom Petty's  Wildflowers
"You belong with your love
on your arm."

the Old Town
Astronomical Clock
tells us it is 11

and the twelve apostles
go for a walk as
the tourists gawk

BODY AND SOUL

our cigarette smoke
built up
a spiral staircase

upon which
our conversation climbed
word by word

becoming now
a hieroglyph
blown away by the saxophone

our calligraphy  
of thought
written upon the air

the jazz making it
illegible
as a doctor's signature

words our words
collecting
upon the ceiling

like out of reach
cobwebs
or escaped Christmas balloons

our words looking down
upon us at all that was still left
unsaid

"DELIRIUM FLAPPING ITS THIGH-BONES!"
SHOUTS AUNTIE GRIZELDA

It was said
( though never to her face )

that Aunt had given
her maidenhead too eagerly easily

- away.

But being underwhelmed
by the whole process

gave it up as
a bad lot and

became instead a faux
maiden aunt.

Her world intact.

Unlike other ladies she
smoked a pipe.

Her beloved Maigret
so permeated with pipe smoke that

one could never read them
a minute or more before

succumbing to the smell.

Her books death to the non-smoker.

It also served to preserve her
for far more than her natural

span &
it came as a great surprise

that she could ever die but
...die she did.

The hyacinths in bowl after bowl
wondering where she had gone

and why the dusting had not been
done.

A great silence
filling up the room.

*

Aunt Grizelda would often recite Amy Lowell's poem and would use this phrase when she wanted to curse without cursing. If you heard this Lowell  line then you knew she was mad! An old old man with the silverest of hair told me about his aunt 'cos he saw I was reading about the Imagists on a train heading into the long long ago.

I would have loved to have encountered her.

This is the end of the first movement of her STRAVINSKY'S THREE PIECES

"Bang! Bump! Tong!
Petticoats,
Stockings,
Sabots,
Delirium flapping its thigh-bones;
Red, blue, yellow,
Drunkenness steaming in colours;
Red, yellow, blue,
Colours and flesh weaving together,
In and out, with the dance,
Coarse stuffs and hot flesh weaving together.
Pigs' cries white and tenuous,
White and painful,
White and --
Bump!
Tong!"

THE SHADOW BORROWERS


don't know when
I had copped on
to the fact that

my shadow
had begun
to ressemble Shakespeare

as if the Bard
had reassembled
himself again

by means of
the molecules of
my shadow

"To be me or
not to be me?"
I soliloquised

said that he had "eh
...borrowed my shadow
rather than stolen it!"

admitted that this
'borrowing'
as it were

of the shadows
of the living
enabled him

to keep on
living
outside his words

and so pass through
the world
instead of being dead

which he said
was no fun
at all

confessed he
had only
a week to go

inhabiting
the shadow
of my reality

"What do I get
out of all this?"
I asked politely

"Oh you get to
have a go
at being me

you know
my wisdom
my witticisms!"

and indeed I
had noticed a certain
way with words  so

that in the end I was
sad to see him
go

but that Debussy chap
had now taken
his place

and suddenly I was
able to play his
'Jardins sous la pluie'

as good as
that Nikolai
Lugansky fella

‘nous n’irons
plus au bois’
I sang to myself

who next
what next
I wondered

WHAT THIS ENTIRE WORLDSPIDERWEB IS ABOUT...

The day of the funeral
an intense cold.

The lions roaring
in the zoo beyond

Fluntern Cemetery.

The confluence of
the rivers he loved

obscured from view
as if forever.

The sun too
a milky misty light.

The silence of the necropolis
broken only by an old deaf man

asking all the time:
"Who...is to be...buried here?"

And when he hears, repeats:
"But who is James Joyce?"

Grave No. 1449 is
meant to be temporary

but even in death
he is Ireland's outcast.

His daughter's madness flickers:
"Cet imbécile...what is he.."

Again a roar of lions.

""...doing under the ground
when will he decide to leave!"

Again the deaf man's question.

"He's watching us
all the time."

As indeed he is.
Life but a Work in Progress.

The author leaves
his death

walks abroad
in all his words.

"bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnth­­unntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk"



The last word is the first "thunder-word" of Finnegans Wake as the babble of launguage falls like the Tower of Babel to...begin again.

From page 3…paragraph 3….third word…of Joyce's WAKE.  The first of the ten. . . one-hundred-word “THUNDER-WORDS.”

It is merely a composite word of different languages proclaiming THUNDER!



The last word is the first "thunder-word" of Finnegans Wake as the babble of language falls like the Tower of Babel to...begin again.

*

When he told me about wanting to read The Wake we were passing as it happens the church mentioned at the beginning of the  Wake...or rather...not passing as we were caught in a traffic jam and so were standing still and the church laughing at us in the Dublin sunshine and delighted to be recognised for its prime position in the book.
So I chanted it like a magic spell( the only bit of the book I knew)and joked that the traffic hated Joyce and would do anything it could to escape both church and words.

“riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.”

And like a charm it worked and the traffic flowed fluently onward to my homecoming. It was like cutting the Gordian knot with a sword of words.

The next time he picked me up from the airport we were once again stuck in a knot of traffic at the exact same spot and nothing moving...not even the air.

So he smiles at me and says in a great declaiming voice( he of the so soft voice)and the words hung in the air for a moment,,,

“riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.”

And sure enough the traffic snarled and flowed under the magic words and let us continue on to home and our hugs and kisses.

THE ESSENTIAL INGREDIENT

"Oh love is teasing
and love is pleasing. . ."

my sister sings to the cake
she is about to bake.

"And love is a pleasure
when first it's new. . ."

The rich Christmas mix
listens with all of its ingredients.

"Ahhhh but as love gets older
sure love gets colder. . ."

the brandy & fruit
weep into the bowl

"...and fades away like
the morning dew."

There is a lot of brandy in the mix.
There is a lot of brandy in sis.

Sad Irish folk songs
appear to be

the essential ingredient.

A pink and green balloon
clings to the ceiling

refusing to come down
by poker or by broom.

Takes refuge in the corner
just above the Christmas star.

My heart is breaking
with baking.

"I know my love
by his way of talking..."

flour in her hair
making her so ghostly

as if the original protagonist
came back from the grave

and sang her heart out

". ..and I know my love
by his eyes so blue..."

until the creambuttersugar
is all fluffy.

He voice adding a zing
of lemon peel.

At this stage
the eegs are beaten

". . .and if my love leaves me
what will I do?"

Slowly slowly whipped
to form peaks.

Now the cake is tipsy.
So - is sis.

I am drunk
on her singing.

My mind is in mourning
for all the love loved

and lost.

She daubs my nose and laughs.
I lick it off.

The tip of my tongue
a windscreen wiper!

And so the brandy fruit mixture
is folded in.

I can still taste
her singing.

Her cake the only cake
I could ever ate and oh

her almond icing!

These songs forever
her.

And still she sings
down all the years

and I love her versions
the best!

"...and a troubled mind sure
can know no rest

and still she cries bonny boys are few

and if my love leaves me
what will I do!"

*

Ahhh it's such an elemental memory for me...I can at a second's notice step back into it in an instant. I'd bawl my eyes out....the words....the melody....everything was real to me.

Couldn't possibly forget these songs and the singer...they stained my soul. She used to sing them very quietly and so soft and tender....even today they haven't been surpassed...they used to **** me. And when she got to the bit where "...he takes a strange ******* his knee and he tells her things that he once told me..." it was all much too much! I thought they were exquisite!

Her voice and that moment tied to her apron strings lives forever in my mind. It is a little jewel of time that has never diminished ever. I was too young to understand the brandy factor and could never understand how other people's cake and almond icing just couldn't get next or near to my sister's!

My big sister hated my poetry and said "You can't be writing poetry 'cos you are my brother!" i pointed out that a certain Mr. Cohen had a sister and that didn't stop him( not that I was comparing myself to Lenny). Whenever anybody else liked it she was furious and couldn't understand why for heaven's sake. Nevertheless when I wrote about this little moment she changed her tune and was thrilled to be remembered in such a touching moment.

NAKED BUS

She catches the London bus
in her fist.

Gnaws it...then throws it
through the window.

Lucky the window wasn't
closed.

She chews it  when
teething.

Chews its redness
- off.

She is amazed to see
the real thing for the first time.

For her
her toy has grown into a giant.

Then she discovers double-deckers.
Counts: "One double-decker bus...two double-decker buses

...24 double decker buses!"
It is unbelievably so!

Doesn't know she is counting
the same bus twice!

And now to add to her
amazement she

encounters a green bus!
Will the excitement never end.

"The bus has changed its clothes?"
she says unsure that this can be so.

But now confounded by a bus
all in white!

Even we have never seen
a bus in white.

It looks like it has taken
all its clothes off.

A **** bus!

But to her it's worse
far worse than that!

"The bus has taken
it's skin off!"

She refuses to go on
this skinless bus.

We wait for a "normal"
bus to somehow appear.

And appear it does
busy being a red bus.

The world of buses
restored to its proper order.

*

it was just a left over toy of a London red bus that a tourist would buy...it would fit in your fist. It was just around and when she was teething she would gnaw at it...it became a security toy! She thought, I guess, that this was the normal size of a London bus so you can imagine her amazement when the real thing blossomed into being for the first time....the tiny toy had become a monster. She would gasp in wonder that things could be so. So just when she had got used to this then she saw a green bus for the first time and she equally couldn't believe that they could be any other colour than red! Then there was the time when the world went crazy and they're were double decker buses. She just kept coming out with the remarks and then the white bus threw everything she knew outta the window! Over 30 years later a white bus crossed my path and indeed it did look naked as a jaybird or as Tilly then put it- skinless!

I never thought of it again until now....there is no memory store I can go to in order to write a poem...it has to organically grow back into place and just the happenstance of a bus being driven to put on its paint clothes or to get dressed with logos kickstarted it all over again.
It the kind of thing a poet/father will take out of his wallet and show you an emotional picture of his daughter.

SNOWSTORMS
( for Junie )

It was the most magical thing
I’d ever seen

a winter scene
with a stumpy little snowman

leaning on a broom
and snow coloured trees.

The snowman was always smiling.

Then the world shuck
and turned upside down

and the blizzard began again.

Snowflakes falling in
slow motion.

I wanted them to fall forever.

My sister smiling at
my: “Again...again! ”

turned the little glass world
upside down

and once again the snowflakes fell
so slowly suspended in time.

I smiled at the snowman smiling.
My sister smiled at me.

I would spend time after time
forever after

playing with
suspended Time

stopping the world
to begin it again.

One day it fell
(shattered)    
and spilled out

all across the lace table cloth
lapping at the evil smelling geraniums.

The snowman was plastic
(and the snow was plastic too) .

Time poured itself out to
the edge of the table

& drip by drop
pooled itself on the living room floor.

Time was only an illusion
its mystery

nothing more
than my tears

crying for what could never be
again.

Somewhere in Time
a bus is crashing.

I can still see my sister smiling...

...a world falling out of her hand

SIFTING SOUND INTO SHAPE

“S”

he scrawled silently
(tongue in cheek) .

“ILE”

the pencil pondered ponderously
(an awesome feat) .

“NT”

his head empty
(...empty...)

“LY”

“You’ve got to try! ”
(He could only cry)

a prism
of tears
enclosing the word
(a microbe microscopically magnified)
by his despair.

The black markings that he made
would not talk back to him.

He saw only the silent white
that glowed around the lonely letter

felt only the emptiness
that writing cut out
of the page’s snowdrift.

He could not claim
to know how

letters chiselled

meaning into words

until once
(suddenly it seemed)
upon a time

sifting shape
into sense

there fell
through the mesh of letters

nuggets of words
golden with meaning.

“Gold! ”

stuttered his stunted pencil.

“Gold! ”

his startled hand mimed.

“Gold! ”
screamed his mind.

“Gold! ”
“Gold! ”
“Gold! ”

A BOY MADE OF LEAVES
( for Paul Kearney )

The Curragh!
5,000 acres of fun

where a boy
could roam

through all the realms
of a 1960's childhood.

Our house is gone now
only two pillars still stand

leading into an empty
nothingness.

I shoo a sheep
out of the bedroom

once ours
our voices carved in the air.

Here a sheep pees furiously
in what had been the bathroom.

The house has become
a ghost

haunting itself..

I still the little boy
hiding in the Marian Shrine

invisible to one
and all

under an ocean
of leaves

startling the passerbys
with a quick "Booo!"

Or a "Poo to you!"

The ****** Mary blushes
upon her pedestal

frowning upon
our antics.

Our shame
telling it in confession.

The wind scatters
my childhood.

I walk into the mist
erasing me bit by

...bit.

*

Chatting to Paul Kearney on facebook and tripping down memory lane...he remembering me from a time I couldn't even remember myself! The Marian Shrine beside the church somehow came up and we both had memories of playing amongst a myriad of leaves.

I used to hide under them...so many...so many and call out things to make a statue of the ****** say: "Oh sweet Jaysus!"It was great fun to see people startled out of themselves trying to figure out where on earth( not even thinking of an invisible boy drowning under lots of leaves)the voice was coming from.

My Godmother Breda Ryan passed by and was given the treatment only to say: "Those leaves have the voice of a boy I know...how strange! I hope those leaves go to confession!"

So it was I was given 10 Holy Marys and three How's yer Fathers and advised not to startle the good folk of the Curragh with my leafy voice. Oh I was a bad leaf when I was small. But I have since turned over a new leaf.  I never did it again or since...though now I am sorely tempted!

THE EVERYBODY OF YOU

people walk about
wearing
your face

I chase after them
thinking it is you
you alive

but then they morph
back into themselves
gaze at me amazed

or someone
has borrowed
your voice...your walk...your stance

but I have lost you
your doppelgänger
lost in the crowd

★ ° . .　　　　.　☾ °☆ 　. * ● ¸ .　　　★　° :.　 . • ○ ° ★　 .　 *　.　. 　 ° 　. ● .　　　　° ☾ °☆ 　¸. ● .　　★　　★ ° ☾ ☆ ¸. ¸ 　★　 :.　 . • ○ ° ★　 .　 *　.　.　　¸ .　　 ° 　¸. * ● ¸ .　　　　° ☾ ° 　¸. ● ¸ .　　★　° . • ° 　 .　 *　:.　.　¸ . ● ¸　　.　 °☆ these last 189,388,800 seconds. with you¸. ● .　　★　　★ ° ☾ ☆ ¸. ¸ 　
have been such fun★　　★☾ °★ . ° ☾ °☆ 　¸. ● .
can't wait for the next second to come*　.　 ☾ ° 　¸. * ● ¸　° ☾ °☆
　. ● ¸ .　　　★　° .　 • ○ ° ★　 .　*　.　 ☾ ° 　¸. * ● ¸　° ☾ °☆ 　. * ¸.　　　★ !★ ° . .　　　　.　☾ °☆ 　. * ● ¸ .　　　★　° :.　 . • ○ ° ★　 .　 *　.　　　　　　. 　 ° 　. ● .　　　　° ☾ °☆ 　¸. ● .　　★　　★ ° ☾ ☆ ¸. ¸ 　★　 :.　 . • ○ ° ★　 .　
INVISIBLE BLUE PLAQUES
(for Janice)

Someone or other
lived & died here.

Some other someone
wrote their most

famous work
there.

Every so often
a blue plaque informs us

as we journey
through town

(rain falling down)    

of Blah Blah
who blah’d & blah’d here

or was
blah’d there

... who cares?

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

to commemorate
us.

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

Here: we turned
& laughed

on the corner of this everyday
road.

Here: we laughed
& hugged

on a pedestrian crossing

(a pedestrian
crossing)    

whistling at our
ardour

a taxi honking
at our armour.

All over London
our invisible
blue plaques

commemorate
us

&
that

we once
passed this way

so deeply
in love.

WHEN DEATH COMES, IT WILL HAVE YOUR EYES
(Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi )

I once knew a man
who knew a man
who had seen

F. Scott Fitzgerald
drinking a milkshake
in a drug store

(vanilla or chocolate
he couldn't be sure)
flicking idly

through a magazine
( no he didn't know
which magazine )

in the company of
some blonde
"I'll never forget what he said!"

"Let's go
to the supermarket
Shelia!" he said

and that's it?
"That's it!"
his voice caressed

each syllable
as if
he were on stage

but he was
like a man
becoming a manakin

like in that episode of
The Twilight Zone
you know the one?"

in a future
that had as yet
to happen

"I don't know
what I had
expected..."

the man who knew the man
who knew the man
who had seen and heard

F. Scott Fitzgerald.
"Maybe a Gatsby or a Gatsby
who had survived

the novel's
tragic ending
and wished he hadn't!"



Here now at home
Mr. Fitzgerald
sits in his armchair

eating a chocolate bar
checking out next year's
Princeton football team

suddenly like a puppet
yanked on a string
he stands up

hand on mantlepiece
like some bad acting
in a silent movie

before falling
to the floor
he will never get up



Nick and Gatsby
come
stand by his dying

so do Monroe Stahr
and Kathleen Moore
even though

words fail them
yet they now
more real than he

Monroe reads
some last
scribbled lines

"There was a flutter
from the wings of God
and you lay dead

your  books
were in your desk I guess
and some unfinished chaos

in your head
was dumped to nothing
by the great janitress of

destinies."
Gatsby
closes his eyes.

*

WHEN DEATH COMES, IT WILL HAVE YOUR EYES(Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi )is of course the wonderful poem by Cesare Pavese.

Monroe and Kathleen are from Scott's last and unfinished novel THE LAST TYCOON.

I also knew a guy who knew a guy who peed beside Richard Brautigan. He was so in awe as to who was at the next ****** that he peed all over the top of his shoes.

"FOR HE WILL NOT DO DESTRUCTION IF..."

everything in the room
flowed like a river
towards the open window

that held Spring in its grasp
the billowing net curtains
holding the season prisoner

a blue so blue
one has to gasp
a green that made

one feel so alive
even the walls
rushed towards it

trying to escape
their own room
a chair

lying on its back
like an insect
trying to right itself

but furious
at failing
a picture had been

knocked sideways
and a trail
of broken mirror

led to the ledge
showing the room itself
in small and smaller fragments

the clock alarmed
to find itself
on the carpet

its battery flung just
out of reach
time gone quiet

the cat careless
of this trail of destruction
now poised

upon the shiny table
knocking over
the geranium ***

gazing in green
eyes towards
the portal

of the open window
that led to
the great beyond

the feline
leaping
into the what's

to come
leaving this human
room behind

*

The title is taken from one of the most delightful and best-known poems in praise of a house cat, Christopher Smart’s “My Cat, Jeoffry” which is actually one section of a much more complex and difficult work entitled Jubilate Agno (Latin for “Rejoice in the Lamb”), composed while the poet was locked in a private madhouse because of religious mania in 1759 or 1760.  

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God, duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For is this done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.
For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.
For this he performs in ten degrees.
For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean.
For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.
For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended.
For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.
For fifthly he washes himself.
For sixthly he rolls upon wash.
For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.
For eighthly he rubs himself against a post.
For ninthly he looks up for his instructions.
For tenthly he goes in quest of food.

'OH...I SAY!"
( for Harry  Owen )

"I bagged this one
out in In-dee-A!"

...the braggart's boast.

"It's a very rare
( these days)ALGERNON!"

And indeed, an Algernon
bares his teeth

above the roaring fire's
mantlepiece.

He looks startled as
he has been shot just -  that second.

"The head is splendidly mounted
complete with handlebar moustache

...& monocle!"

One feels that one could
pop next door and there

would be ha ha...the rest of
Algernon

sticking out the other side.

The glint in the eye
the sneer just so

...right.

"And to the right of the Algernon
is a genuine Cuthbert.

Again from 1901 or there or
thereabouts."

"It is indeed a perfect specimen of
the good old chap..."

The white rhino brags yet again
of what he calls his baggings.

White Rhino's
collection of colonials

is the envy of
all the other animals.

"Some more hot *** old chum?"

But the White Tiger
puts a paw over his glass.

Declines.

The fire's flickering
leaping up the wall.

The shadows making
the humans almost

come alive

as if the Cuthbert
could turn to the Algernon

and say
"OH...I SAY!

OH THERE'S DEATH FOR YOU!

I didn't like my death
I asked my friend to die it for me
". . . but I'm already dead!" she said

I ask for a less messy death
something that fitted me better
"This is the only death we have left. . ."

"Oh you lucky *******!"
grumbled a ghost
"Why wasn't I given your death?"

yes I admit
my death is spectacular but
"I don't like the losing the head bit!"

I asked God
for a change...an exchange
He only give me religion

I was now suffering from
too much religion
a fate worse than death

I swopped my death
with a little chap not born yet
I had a lot of time to ****

killing time
good god
it was ******

little chap
took his time being born
"Come on,,.come on!" I urged him

awakened by Death
"Shhhhhh!" she said
kissing me tenderly

A HUMAN IS CRYING

The dog is dreaming
under the piano

asleep across
its foot pedals.

The clock announces
the seconds

in a loud hear ye hear ye
town crier's voice.

A bumble bee is arguing
furiously with the glass

of a cracked
window pane.

Time is defeated.

A human is crying.

Time is different
for the clock, the bee and

the crying human.

Time ceases to exist
lost in his grief.

His brother is dead.

Somewhere in the journey
around the sun

he has left the planet.

Earth continues on
without him.

He sees his brother
everywhere.

Strangers
wear his face.

Walk with his gait.

He almost expects
to hear

his voice in the dark
at the turn of the stairs.

He sees him many times
in many mirrors.

Or in the back of a spoon.

His face trapped
in a cobweb.

It always appears
as if...as if

he has just left
the room and

will be back
any second now

but: he isn't. . .

The dog is still
asleep under the piano.

The clock has run
out of time.

The silence is terrifying.

The bee it seems is
dozing on the window ledge.

The human
is crying.

*

My brother's death stripped me of everything...the who I am...my name...my identity...I was reduced down to this human symbol...just like the dog...the this...the that...who as it happens is...crying. As if a computer was merely registering the things in the picture.

THE MUSEUM OF LOST THOUGHTS

here( under glass)
the Christ's last thoughts
His doubts...His fears

even some say
( though some doubt their provenance )
his lost tears

here Caesar
as the knifes plunge in
the tattered thought "Et tu..?"

thought spattered
with the red rich
blood of history

the thoughts of man
displayed against black velvet
thoughts one thought were gone forever

pity you got here
just in time
for the closing bell

come back tomorrow
maybe you will be included
in the various exhibits

you the ordinary man
as the heart attack strikes
the lost voice "I love my wife!

TUSCALOOSA

when I woke up
my name...was gone
as if it had jumped ship

took a train and
ended up incognito
in Tuscaloosa

as an unsuccessful
travelling
salesman

who the hell
I was
...I couldn't tell you

it was as if
I was being
slowly erased

things too
started to lose
their names

looking at me
startled like
people

shocked to see themselves
suddenly in the ****
walking down the High Street

only a telephone
remembered its name
and started talking to me

in a high shrill voice
"Ring ring ringringring!"
it said

"Ring ring ringringring!"
it said again
but although I

remembered its name
I didn't remember
what it was for

So it just rang and rang
itself into
silence

"Shut it!"
I shouted silently
"Honey..?"

somebody who
claimed to be
my wife

( what ever that
was )
handed me words

like hieroglyphics
written upon
the air

"Tusaloosa! I said.
"Wot...?"
she hieroglyphed

"Tuscaloosa...that's
my name!"
I told her

for want of
something
better to say

"Tuscaloosa!"
I kept saying
trying to make it

make sense.
but it didn't.
nothing..didn't

my wife started weeping
into the telephone thing
and that's how I

came to be here
wherever here
...is?

GOD GOES FOR A WALK

God goes
for a walk.

it is the depths of Winter
but, at a whim

he makes it
...Spring.

Because.
He can.

I also, as it happens
have gone for a walk

& am surprised by
the sudden change of

the weather. . ?
...whatever!

He is wearing a yellow
gangster style fedora.

He looks like Marlon Brando
being The Godfather.

He sports the brightest of yellow
waistcoats

which compliments
the purple shirt...purple trousers.

He strides along with His
Paisley patterned  Parisian walking stick

whistling the music of
The Spheres.

The World bows
before him.

He is well pleased
with Himself, un-

-til: He encounters me
coming towards him

dressed in a gangster style
yellow fedora

the brightest of yellow waistcoats
not to mention the purple shirt...purple trousers.

I, also, possess
a Paisley patterned  Parisian walking stick.

We nod politely
saying nothing but...

He is miffed at me
wearing His outfit and

I also miffed at Him
wearing mine!

We pass each other
God & creature.

And God...**** if He doesn't
make it Winter

on the very next step.

He was always
a Jealous God.

*

Two of my friends found themselves in that awful party situation where they turned up in the same frock and same hairstyle and same makeup. One would have thought it was done on purpose or that they had indeed been cloned. They had the good grace to laugh it off and pretended they were twins! This made me wonder what would happen if God decided to embody himself and take a walk about his world just so to see what it was like from our point of view. He choose the most outlandish style of dress( not knowing that it was exactly what I have been known to wear on many occasions )thus creating the ensuing fracas when our paths cross. Thus it is that a poem is created from the party/frock happening and an idle whim of mine as I find myself out for a perambulation. Ahhh...the mind of the walking poet...one would have thought that I would have seen a host of golden daffodils but instead into my ever walking mind came this thought. Mea Culpa!

EMPTY( Orchestra )

Love, is just
a karaoke.

You think you know
the words

(until you sing along)

and find you only know

half a chorus or maybe a  word or two

and you...try to bluff your way through.

Not too sure
how it goes

you sing high when
it sings lows

(and vice versa)

and at half ****** past
12 o’ clock

when they’re trying
to shut the ****** thing
down

you stand there
(defiantly alone)

with a gin and bitter lemon in the one hand
and a burnt out *** in the other

(running mascara
making you look

more like a panda
than a living doll)

and croak
harshly hoarsely

out of tune

&

out of time

I WILL SURVIVE

& crying.

Crying.

It’s alright, darlin’

We’ve

all been there

...sometime.

*

Dearest friend loves right *******…much ado about something! Love has blinded her to the all too obvious facts….when he starts hitting her…we beg and beg her to leave but….love alas is blind. And she is plunged into a love that is hateful. Took her two years to come to her senses….I watched her in the spotlight singing GG one night but all to no avail. All I could do is cry for her and try to make sure she got home that night. It was like being tortured having to watch this abuse in the name of love.
And karaoke (カラオケ?, bimoraic clipped compound of Japanese kara 空 "empty" and ōkesutora オーケストラ "orchestra") (/ˌkæriˈoʊki/ or /ˌkærəˈoʊki/; Japanese: [kaɽaoke]

BUILDING THE SPHINX

He builds her
the Sphinx

using only his voice &
a few scattered gestures.

Every now & then
he tweaks the tone

& lo the Sphinx
stands before her

ready to bite her head off
with a question.

Her belief
does the rest

and now he watches
the cat being terrified

out of one of its
9 lives all a bristle

as she tells the tabby
the story I told her.

The Sphinx now
living in her voice.

Her dolls too
too terrified

to even run
petrified with fright

as my little minx
becomes the Sphinx.

Or a mop as a prop
becomes a Medusa

and so the myth
becomes realer than real

as the storm
by Jove

throws down
a thunderbolt

and a little girl Medusa
and a little girl Sphinx

prowl about
the living room.