CARELESS LOVE SEQUENCE

* * *

HE CAN DO HIS OWN ****** IRONING

She sits feet up
(at last)

with a strong cup of tea
(the way she likes it)

he and his weak tea
( pisswater she’d call it )

she’s ignoring him
because he’s ignoring her

(he can’t say she didn’t
call him)

she’ll be annoyed if
he’s forgotten to bring

her washing in
now it’s raining

(he can do his own ****** ironing)

always tinkering with something
in that old shed of his

(just like his father)

probably never even saw
the sunset she wanted him to see

how many times
did she have to call him

always a puncture to be repaired
or a neighbour’s radio

that needed to be
mended

“Give it to Jim...”
people’d say
“...he’ll fix it! ”

as if he were an old adage
or proverb or whatchmacallit

too vain to wear
his glasses

his eyes almost closed
her laughing at him…watching him struggle

half way
through the ads

she falls asleep
mouth open snoring.

Jim only looks like
he’s sleeping

a neighbour’s dog
finding him

in the early hours of
the morning

his hackles
rising.

* * 2

YOUR NAME UPON MY LIPS…YOUR NAME UPON MY LIPS.

The heart attack
a moon

pierced
by the silhouette of the hill

pain a wolf
howling your name

as each heartbeat
a naked fleeting footstep

running through wet grass
frantic to reach

the lovely lady who laughs

at the stupidness of
your question:

“My name is Death
...why do you ask? ”

Your own name
in a slightly foreign accent
lingers about her lips

vanishes
in a kiss.

* * 3

HE GOT THE OLD GRAMOPHONE TO WORK AFTER ALL

The heart attack
carelessly yawns

unimpressed with
the beautiful sunset

an automatic sprinkler
watering the lawn

the grass wet against his face
as he clutches the earth

trying to hang on

as if the Laws of Gravity
have been reversed

the tic-tic-tic
of the automatic system

lost every now & then
in a dog’s bark

water droplets
staining his skin

like washing on a line
that somebody’s forgotten

to bring in
out of the rain

blue and yellow pegs
lie scattered on the ground

a favourite blouse
that horrid lurid Mexican shirt

run around
together

before deciding to elope
with the breeze

an old fashioned
gramophone

playing: “Careless love
...oh careless love! ”

the glisten of the shellac

the music stuck
in a groove

repeats itself
repeats itself

until it
winds down

his wife’s voice
searching for him

room by room

“Oh, where’s that man
when you want him? ”

“Jim...Jim! ”

her voice echoing
at the end of Summer

a skein of birds
moving as one

wheel across the sky
first one way and then the other

taking her breath away

Jim’s favourite programme
is about to come on

the night listens
to her calling him.

BECOMING THE MAN MY FATHER ALWAYS WAS
(for Brian )

Each night
I would follow you

through the rituals
of what you had to do

being Daddy.

I wanted to be Daddy too.

Mimicking your gait
becoming an exact

copy
of you

trailing along
in your footsteps

like a lone seagull
following in the wake

of some great ship
of state

watching the water
burn

'til it was all bubbles

then letting it
calm down

before filling my mother's
hot water bottle

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

I was
your little shadow.

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

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

These the ritualistic words
in the hot water bottle ceremony.

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

adjusting it with his hands
and wind up Time

so that it spit tick & tocks
all through the night

then go lock doors
turn keys
draw bolts.

'That's it, son! '

I used to imagine
being you

and now I am
my own man

winding up Time

bringing my missus
the gift of a hot water bottle

(the gift of me)

both equally
heart warming.

'Thank you Donall! '
she always smiles.

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

Me the man
I am

because of you.

OH PHOTOGRAPHIC YOU!

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

living your life
in Kodachrome
leaving your B&W world

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

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

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

even all these
badly taken snaps
a treasure trove of you

all these awkward moments
tears that bring
laughter

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

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

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

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

living your life
in Kodachrome
leaving your B&W world

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

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

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

even all these
badly taken snaps
a treasure trove of you

all these awkward moments
tears that bring
laughter

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

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

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

...AND I WAVE BACK

Outside the hatch
he turns slowly

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

they fall from his lips
dangle and float in space

outside the backyard fence
a hill grabs the moon

and then slowly
lets it go again

the moon floating just
out of reach

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

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

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

and then finds flight
take hold of it as if

it had only discovered it that minute
and absconds with it

the darkness
barks

and falls
into silence

and then another part
of the darkness

barks back

held in a gentleness
a leaf tiptoes down the breeze

as if descending
a spiral staircase.

Time holds its breath

outside the hatch
flat on his back

the earth a little blue ball he has let go of

the astronaut
slowly turns and waves

& I
wave back.

IN THE YEAR 2100

I hadn't known
I was dead
until 76 years

after my death
when the last person
who had known me

finally met
her own death
in a train crash

I had been kept
alive in her memory
but now


there was
no one who
could recall me

the colour of my eyes
the sound of my laughter
how I saw myself

so finally
my death
had caught up with me

and I was deader
than when
I had died

it was odd
to die in a future
I had never known

I watched
the atoms of me
fall away

as if
I was
nothing

as if
I had
never been

there were
only dust motes
dancing in a sunbeam

that made
the child
watching them

thinking they were
the atoms
in the school book

he had been
studying until
his mother called him

and he raced down
taking the stairs
two at a time

calling out
"Here I am Mam
here I am!"

TO CARTHAGE THEN YOU CAME

To Carthage
then you came

and other fabled places

seen now only
through the lens of War.

Here you are
in simple black & white

playing football
with scrunched up rags

camouflage tanks
your only spectators

the horizon
a thin cruel line of infinity.

Desert rats
the thing of history books to come

now only
a bunch of laughing lads.

The desert
everywhere about you.

Young boys
pretending to be young men
pretending to be soldiers

and not
succeeding.

This a game
played for real.

War has made you
so.

I show you
you

again & again
wearing the many faces

that you were.

Death lurks
in every face

looks out of
your eyes

with the knowledge
that it could be

you now

you
this time.

Photos
taken then.

Time
stopped still.

I see so many
bright eyed young men.

Their youth
their most notable feature.

“Dead...dead...dead! ”
you intone

in place of names
as if it hurt to name them.

But I know
from other times

that this dead man
is John.

This one Fred
your best best friend.

Even now you talk of him
as if he could walk in the door

at any time.

The door
forever closed

The last photo shows
an insect crawling

in a dead
animal’s skull.

OH FRABJOUS DAY!

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

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

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

he took an enormous
fob watch out of
his waistcoat pocket

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

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

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

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

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

another reader
had opened the book
and he had to jump

into his Tenniel
illustration
and play his part

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

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

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

DRESS WITHOUT A WOMAN

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

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

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

a palimpsest of selves
I try to make you
exist

my fingertip
writes your name upon
a frosted window pane

THE MYSTERY

Did you ever wake up
(oh when you were very small)  
in the dark black pitch of night
and find yourself

in your very own room
(in your very own bed)  
although you had falled asleep
(in another room)  

or the long journey home from the sea
side.
Did you ever wake up
(oh when you were very small)  
and scared of shadows

and rubbed the broke sleep from your eyes
and wonder how (it came about)  
you were ok and everything was
...alright?

And peering from your patchwork quilt
you heard your Dad asleep ('Hee Haw! ')  
and heard your Mummy's gentle breathing.
And thought how Daddy was like the sea at her side
and she was the shore dreaming of seaweed and shells.

And still you didn't know how you had falled asleep in Aunt Mary's
and found yourself washed up on your own little island.
And the Mystery made you suspiciously sleepy
and you drifted back to how you wer

Superman and all
your other favourite comic book heroes!
Did you ever wake up(and find out)  
how.. when...
the day's play had drugged you asleep
Daddy came and lifted you with his strong hands
(Yes...Superman dreams and all!)  

and brought you home to your own room
sailing ship shape bed
and Mammy said:
'Shhhhh....don't wake him! '
And Auntie Mary said:
'Ahhhhh...the poor little cratur'! '

Did you ever wake up
(Oh when you were very small)  
and catch
the Mystery
...out!

*

One of only 3 poems that survived my early days of writing. Grateful none of the others survived and grateful that this one did. Shows me how important my Da was to me in my life and how tender and loving he was. He shaped me into the man I am now leading by the example of himself. I soaked him up by emotional osmosis. I could only attain an iota of how good he was...he was the original...the real McCoy. There was never anyone like him. A most beautiful wonderful man

OH THE SPLASH OF IT ALL

when the lake
finally turned up
it was dressed in fog

as if it was
all fog
with the barest hint of lake

I rested
my  aching feet
in the very edge of it

sat there  for hours
so it seemed
until the sun turned up

and indeed
the lake
naked as water

finally
made an appearance
as cool as you liked

"Well..." yelled morning
"...here I am
ya ready for me yet?"

"You bet!" I shouted
"You bet..!"
diving into it

A COUPS DE POURQUOI

Time waiting
like a lowly servant
coughing politely every

now and then
to remind them that
ahem...the world is...waiting

their *******
laughing
"So, let it...wait!"

the world tapping a toe
impatiently
eyes turned up to Heaven

Time
shrugging its shoulders
in a "what-can-I do" way

she laughs
at her and him
( it was always her and him )

puppets now
of the imagination
memory's home movie

Time's revenge
remembering how it had been
now how

the train hurtles
through a darkness
her reflection made of night

and cold glass
hung there
suspended

staring into her own
crying eyes
knowing it could

never last what
a fool she'd been
she scorned herself

she this
living
painting of the past

Reality
once again
getting the upper hand

Time and the World
put in their place
the expensive meal

uneaten on the plate
the ship leaving
the town behind

slowly so
reluctant
to do so

before distance
and the dark
take control

'til the town too
is nothing but a memory
hostage to the past

Jacques Brel's voice
lost inside her head
"...a coups de pourquoi..."

now, here,
somewhere
in mid-Atlantic

she finds herself
in the middle of nowhere
the middle of nowhere

exactly
where she
wanted to be

"oublier le temps
oublier le temps
oublier le temps."

ALL THE WAY DOWN THE LINE

yes, I have forgotten
you are dead
and I turn to you:

"Did you see that?"
but Death has stolen
your eyes.

so you
see
nothing

bits and pieces of you
vanishing day by day
as if you are being erased

I still cling onto your smile
Death
isn't having that

and I am still
in possession
of your voice

it's tone...the slant of it
the heft of a syllable
a last few remaining phrases

I still talk to you.
ask your opinion
"The red or the blue?"

your ghost smiles
plays along
with the charade

I hear you say
( in my voice )
as if sound could be

forged
this counterfeit
you

"Oh the red...the red
all the time
all the way down the line!"

FROM EPOCH TO EON

the fossils live
in a cardboard box
under her bed

dust on the fossils
the soft patina of time
a wet fingertip makes them shine

ammonites and echinoids
are her friends
she hasn't any human friends

500 million years just
a
snip

she scrapes the humans
off the landscape
imagines glaciers out for a stroll

a fossil perched upon
a piano
absorbing the music

the grandfather clock
( each second long as an age )
at odds with the cuckoo clock

its half past
a millenium
or two

the little yellow road
threading itself through the countryside
the patchwork quilt of fields

at the end of the road
the moon waiting patiently
for her to catch up


*


I tried to contain time in all its many facets whether it be told by fossil or in human terms or by clock or by clocks that have lost time or clocks that have time on their hands or however we humans tried to gauge it...and so...it goes.....the tick of the tock.

THE WHY OF IT ALL

a bit of sky
got caught up
in a tree's branches

it was very very
blue but
didn't seem

to mind
one little bit
being part of the tree

but at night
it made its escape
did a runner

into the wide black
night and all
it had to offer

I was only three
looking at the tree
and its leaves

made me promise
that I didn't see nothing
"Nothing...ok...nothing!"

it wasn't until I
was 67 or so
that I felt I had to

tell someone
and that someone was
you

but don't tell
anyone
will you

THROUGH VERY SHORT TIMES OF SPACE

red door of No.16
North Frederick Street
slams behind him as he

enters into this newly minted
morning
sunshine so thick

one feels like a fish
swimming through it
sunlight spangles

a tiny puddle
turning it into a jewel
that only the eye can cherish

Ahhhh "...the ineluctable
modality of
the visible."

he turns right
into Upper
Dorset Street

pulling an "Ahhh...howya!"
out of the man who makes
the false teeth

then turning left into Eccles Street
giving the nod to No. 7
Bloom's house in ULYSSES

here in its run down state
though still shining
in its fictionality

soon they will knock it down
and what will the tourists
do then poor things

sure some bright spark
will rescue it from its rubble
and the door

will live again
some streets
away again

ahhh...." the ineluctable
modality of
the visible."

I go to Quinn's gym
to get my Molly
(Philomena her name is)

a cottage cheese
with pineapple
on a Weetabix base

it is a 16th of June
somewhere
in the 80's

as I retrace
my own earlier
Joycean footsteps

rat-a-tat-tat
on Bloom's door
"Are ya there Leopold?"

but the bold Leopold
doesn't answer
the 16th of

forever I am
"...walking through it
howsomever."

the sun smirks
at such
Joyceisms

"I am, a stride of a time
very short space of time
through very short times of space."

a horse and cart as if
from the past
saunters by timelessly

ahhh "...the ineluctable
modality of
the audible."

my Molly
who is really
a Philomena

spoons the deliciousness
of the creamy dessert
into her

and yes she says
mmmm...yes....mmmm
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*

Fo­r Jemmy de Joist whose day the 16th always us and the words give him their gifts. This is my little bit of living in his moment and walking the streets he walked.

WHEN TICK BECOMES TOCK

I began
in 1956.

On the 7th day
of the week as

...it happens.

At 7 o'clock
in the 7th month.

The 15th to be
precise.

Although I was present
at my own birth.

I can't( for the life of me)
remember a bit of it.

However my mother
was keen

to fill me in on
the intimate details.

Weight: a mere 2lbs.
Hair: black sideburns
a la Presley.

Manner of delivery:  breech
Song born to: Ce Sera Sera

My Da was a Daniel
and so was his Da

and so
was I.

But to give it a twist
named me in Irish

Dónall
thinking that Dónall
was the Irish for Daniel.

But Dónall of course
means 'World Mighty...
Spear power!'

What a mighty translation
of me that was.

A name I admit
was hard to live up to.

So my coming
into being

was seen as
a most exciting thing.

However
my life did not live

up to that promise
and now

here I am
as my self

and all the variations
of selves I've been

too many mes I
have been.

Coming to my end
of days.

I can see
the Exit Door

in sight
but not the how of it.

I hadn't even got used
to this me I've been.

Birth was such
a mystery to me.

Suddenly there
...I was.

And now dying
will be as much a mystery

when that time
knocks upon my door.  

Suddenly there
...I isn't!


*

When asked what age she was...my little one would always say..."I began in...!" And so years years later she gifted me my first line!

HALF SICK WITH SHADOWS

The Lady of Shallot
sat on my sofa and sobbed

begging me for
poetical asylum

despite Patel's crackdown
on poetry refugees.

I made her a nice
cup of Earl Grey tea

slice of lemon
no sugar.

I enquired of her
"But why me?"

"You have loved me
all your life

letting me live
inside your head

free to roam
around your mind

any old time
no questions asked.

I thought of you as
you thought of me.

We are of one mind now
...are we not?"

She explained her name was Elaine
and had been a time traveller and that

when her 'mirror' cracked
(as she called her machine)

Tennyson trapped her
in that poem of his

words to the left of her
words to the right of her

into the volume
of his verse

she found herself
all of a sudden.

God how she hated
dead Victorian poets.

And it was all a pack of lies
and Lance a Lot was a ****.

She had constantly turned down
his incessant facebook friend requests.

And as for facebook
that was just a big yuk.

Oh and she hated shallots
( and green onions )

although she thought
Booker T. and the MG's

groovy and such fun
to dance to.

"Tennyson was so morose
and such a class 1 bore."

But now she had broken free
and had come to me.

No more teens mad at me
for having to learn me off by heart.

I fixed her 'mirror.
It was only cracked.

She could have escaped
at any time but I hadn't

the heart
to tell her that.

Fixed her up with a new
facebook page LoS777.

And in a twinkling she
had vanished into where ever?

"I'll leave a door open
always in my mind!"

I shouted to the shadows
and the nothingness.

The willows whitened.
The aspens quivered.

"IF YOU AIN'T A CHICKEN BABY...COME HERE!"

Comes home in tears
fortune teller in the flats

has assured her
that she is a lovely woman

and I am a very bad man
altogether

and she must
must leave me

to save her own
sanity.

I go to see the gypsy
get it straight from the horse's mouth.

She an old cartoon crone
straight out of Arthur Rackham.

She's got someone else's
future in her hand.

I wait in the living room
the usual nick-nacks

faded China dolls
from all over the world

and stuck in a corner
the latest Prince vinyl  

***** Mind...it's black shellac
peeping out of it stiff white sleeve.

Controversy still spanking
brand new.

Can't imagine her
giving Head a listen

or grooving to
Do It All Night.

Jack You Off....Do Me Baby
just not her - style somehow.

She smiles
"the grand childer's!"

Checks my hand
for what can be

wrung out of
the future.

She informs me
I am the nicest man  ever

but that I live with
a terrible woman altogether

and that I must
must leave her

to save
my sanity.

I leave
to save my sanity.

"Sure won't I be
seeing ya to the door!"

She sings sotto
voce to herself.

"Alright say, we'll put some funk on here
I'll jack you off
If you ain't a chicken baby, come here!"

NOLI TIMERE

to how small
he was
back then

the big barking dog
appears
a monster

a Grendel and
a Grendel's mother
put together

just as in
the telling
of the tale

his sister's voice
weaving a Beowulf
along the journey

every atom
of him
totally frightened

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

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

and the creature shrinks
back into
someone's favourite pet

we walk on
into our future
without looking back

now here
at your death
I can still feel

your hand
in my hand
even

in a world
without you
I tremble

with
the loss
of you

and Death shrinks
before this great love
the tiniest of touches

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

"HELLO MR. DEATH AND HOW ARE YOU?"

I felt like a fog
in the shape of a man
a dream walking

a shadow
come alive
never more

alive now
I was
dying

this moment
the most precious thing
I had ever owned

unable
to believe
I was leaving

the sunlight of this
morning behind
me forever

time lay scattered
on the ground
my reflection trapped

in broken bits of mirror
strange that I
would never be

me
ever
again

a cuckoo
( the clock )
not( the bird )

had the last word
I had to
smile...

*

Felt good to cheat my own heart attack..you kinda attack it back with nothing but words and the need to capture it and make it talk.But it's impossible to grasp and poem after poem tries to hold it only for to flow like water between your fingers....like trying to grab hold of a piece of sky and wrestle it to the ground.

Alas my little brother didn't manage to cheat his and the words keep trying to explain this unexplainable fact to my self. I look at the typewriter and it looks back at me...both of us at a loss for words.

"Бог правду видит, да не скоро скажет", as they say in Russian.

Spring had arrived in that Dublin morning...just snuk in when we weren't looking. We were having breakfast and after we would cycle to Eccles Street to see a real house that was lived in by a fictional character. The house was a mere ruin and would soon be knocked down to make way for a new hospital wing.
Time, as it happens, stops when one is dying or rather that particular moment lengthens forever and a second is a century. Mr. L. Bloom's house was in my mind and my hat would later blow off into its basement and I would be as one with the man himself as I lowered myself down to retrieve it...thus entering a chapter in Ulysses. And the fiction was made real.

I had just read Huxley's TIME MUST HAVE A STOP and afterwards thought how ha ha...apt!

I had also come across a 1664 phrase about  buds that "explain into leaves"  which I thought delightful.

I had also came upon a battered copy of Bacon's SYLVA SYLVARUM (  A natural history, in ten centuries. Whereunto is newly added the History natural and experimental of life and death, or of the prolongation of life) which alas would go inexplicably missing and which I would never read to this day.

These are the things that were running through my head when I was going to be dead but...just as suddenly wasn't.

Oh and Tolstoy's GOD SEES THE TRUTH BUT WAITS was ratting about in my mind somewhere so it was going to be a very literary( literally )death!

Each Spring I go back and revisit my death( that wasn't )feeling glad to be just....alive and...in the moment.

HE DO THAT TED HUGHES IN DIFFERENT VOICES

Nothing but
- a waste land.

Crow is bored

perched upon a branch
like a haiku

waiting to happen
but where

is a haiku
poet when

one really needs one.

Crows agree to play
Charades.

One falls to the forest floor
clutching its chest shouting

"Aghhhhh ya...got me
I'm  a gonner!"

Then another and another
with a more cornier

one-liner than
the one before

looking more like spilled ink
than the last.

Crows having a blast
laughing their feathers off.

All big Film
Noir fans.

"Yeah, yeah...I got it
a ****** of crows!"

Across a hillside
a human stands

as if he had just sprouted
out of the land.

An Easter Island
of a man.

The sneer of cold command
upon those chiseled lips.

An Ozymandias!
"Look upon my mighty words and despair!"

Or more like
a granite gryphon

glaring at the crows' play
turning them over in his mind

until they
become words.

"Oh not that ******
Ted Hughes again!"

Crow mutters
to itself.

The poet unaware
that human thought

hangs frozen on the air
on such days as these.

The giant Hughes man
a poet made of iron

by some process of
emotional osmosis

absorbs their world and words
making it up as he goes along

for he great poet though he be
never learned to speak Crow.

The great man glares
at the sun

willing it into submission
the sun falters on a hillside.

He disappears into the snow
his fragile footprints

vanishing in a trice
lost to time

as if he has
never been born.

Crow does his best
impression

mocks and mimics
the human's thought.

"Nailing Heaven and earth together -

So man cried, but with God's voice.
And God bled, but with man's blood. "

A bell breaks
the sky's silence

crows scatter to
the heavens.

"Oh that Charlie
Crow...he is a one!"

One crow smirks to another.

"He do that Ted Hughes
to a tee!"

*

T.S. Eliot’s 1922 masterpiece “The Waste Land” was originally titled “He Do the Police in Different Voices,” a quote from Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend.


I went to see Ted Hughes at the Royal Festival Hall after an extensive day and night shift work in mental health for about four days as staff went sick or simply didn't turn up.. Couldn't remember if I was to meet my ******* Thursday in Friday street or not or wot. I was right under his lectern and he looked immense  and a lot like Sam the Eagle in the Muppet Show in looks and manner. I kept falling asleep between syllables and would **** myself awake and every time I did so I would get that fierce Hughesian glare!

A TALE OF TWO EXPECTATIONS

Miss Havisham
clearing the cobwebs
escapes the book

"Wot de. . " says Dickens
"I don't like the way I am written!"
Miss H has left the page

"You can stuff yer great expectations
up yer. . .! she screams at him
... "Now...now . . .language...language!"

Miss Havisham is having a spring clean
of her mind
turning over a new leaf

"I'm flesh and blood!" she claims
"Not just this thing
made of words!"

Dickens pins her
to the page
with words

"You'll read as you
are written!" he demands
"By God madam...who's the author here!"

Miss H peering out
from behind the bars
of her print

Miss H
walking up and down
the cage of her page

Miss H
haunts the words
she appears in

Miss H
demanding a different
ending

Miss H
setting herself alight
the smell of burning words

Dickens falls asleep
she elopes with Heathcliff
from that other book

Heathcliff and Miss H
break up it was
never gonna work

Heathcliff still
carrying a torch
for "Cathy. . !"

whilst Dickens snores
she has it off with
Pip

Dickens awakes
writes the final word
she's trapped within THE END

SHARING WING BIRDS

A moon
the colour of sorrow.

Rain falling
like regret.

The memory
of your beauty

awakened by
the music

tiptoes on moonlit feet

slowly silently

across the lawn.

A cat
(immune to human emotion)
yawns

silhouetted against
an Autumn moon.

He listens
to our human words

more out of boredom
than anything else

as if we were characters
in a play

enacting words that will be
forever spoken:

“Let us be sharing wing birds

...the thing of legend...

with only one eye
only one wing

only by sharing wings
can we fly! ”

Chiseled into
a night gone by

the words remain
engraved upon the air.

The cat wonders
how do humans do that

...& why?

He pads quietly
through the words

the memory of us
bristling his fur.

ORIGAMI TIGER -  PAPER AIRPLANE

the lost poem
free to be itself
without human interference

the finished poem
remembers when
it was only a sudden inspiration

the new poem
young as a feverish
scribble

the old poem
bored
in the forgotten book

in the wastepaper bin
the unfinished poem
finishes itself

the failed poem
its life in shreds
scattered upon the floor

the poem on p.34
falls in love with
the poem on p.35

the book closes
alone at last
p.34 kisses p.35

in the wastepaper bin
the unfinished poem
finishes itself

the failed poem
its life in shreds
scattered upon the floor

the failed poem
takes wing
transformed into a paper airplane

the failed poem
becomes
an origami tiger

READING MY COMIC



"Do you know the plural
of S Y Z Y G Y ?"



"Noooo...but...I guess
S Y Z Y G I E S?"


"Yes...that fits..3 across!"


"Is it...even a word?"



"Oh yes it was recognised
as English in 1847


( astronomically that is ).



You know...a sort of
yoking together such as


occurs in an eclipse!"


"Rightttttttt!!!!!!!!!"



"Or it symbolises the
( in psychology )



the communication of
the conscious & unconscious mind!"


"Ohhhhhhhhhhhh!"



"Or...you know ....the pairing of chromosomes
in meiosis?"


"Uh uh?"



She kissed me. . .
finished her Cryptic Crossword


in the time it took to land.



I went back to reading
my comic.

!YOU AGAIN!

Your summer dress
comes to rest

upon the balcony

hung up on a thin
wire hanger

(an exotic bird)        

it cries for your body
weeps at being

parted from you
& your curves

a pool of tears
collects at its hem

as longingly it dreams of
the touch of your skin

asleep now
in the sun.

Later that evening
frightened by the approaching storm

it tries to escape
the clamour of its hanger

almost flies off
beyond the reach of my hands

run away to sea
seeking for further horizons.

I calm it
tame its panic

fold it tenderly

carry it like a dreaming
child

lay it to rest
at the foot of the bed

where all night long it sleeps
at your feet

awaiting your footstep

the sunshine
of being

you
again.

SHADOWS OF OUR FORMER SELVES

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

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

his baby is born
dead
his wife lives

words...words
these creatures
made of ink

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

Ben Johnson scorns
such
extreme lamentation

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

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

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

an Emperor is
about to be
elected

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

HIDE AND GO SEEK

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

"Yes. . ?"

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

"Well. . ?"

I think she
senses I

don't know
the answers.

She walks away
holding her dolly by the hand.

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

She throws the words
casually over her shoulder

then steps away into
a doorway

filled with the morning's
sunlight.

Granny smiles
from her photograph

trapped behind
the glass.

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

My daughter's voice
sing-songing

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

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

I HAVE BROUGHT YOU A WAVE

she brings me
the sea to see
in her tiny hands

tamed in blue buckets
the captured sea
sleeps beside her bed

*

It was the first time she saw the sea and she patted it like a pet and said; "See...sea my friend!" The sea fell in love with her and she fell in it.

Her mother was sick and couldn't make it down to the shore so Tilly kept trying to bring back the sea for her to see. But alas the sea would trickle through her little hands so nothing survived the journey. She kept trying and repeating " See the sea Mammy...see the sea!" or "I have brought you a wave!"

She managed to smuggle some sea home in her bright blue bucket with the red stripe and she kept it by her bedside because it was her friend. She would also sleep with twigs and stones and shells she had also befriended that day. She regarded everything as a sentient being and loved them all equally. To her a stick or a stone had as much right to a life as a human being or a bee. I think she believed that we are all here in this moment and so all living beings sharing the same place in the universe. Loving and kindness was her religion and she practiced it daily and embraced everyone and anything she saw.

PUTTING THE STARS IN THEIR PLACE

at the end
of the stairs
stars

the house now
with only
three walls

and no roof
only stairs
leading to the stars

memory builds
the house
brick by brick

puts back
all the years
until the house is

as good as new
as it ever was
with a child

looking out
at the first stars
she has been

able to make
into a recognisable
constellation

"Look for the W!"
mother would tell her
Cassiopeia smiles

the moon
standing
at the top of the stairs

A BRIEF HISTORY OF A LITTLE GIRL

she's a mere three
demands to know
"...the history of me..."

well, now I say
that was a long time ago
"...try to remember..." she pleads.

I remember when you
first came out of your shell
hatched into a lovely little girl

you were my duckling
everywhere I went
there you were

I could hear you cry
even before you cried
you made me a good daddy/mummy

your dreams
staining the blue
pillow with golden curls

every night the moon
would come to our window
just to take a peep at you

one day your name
perched upon you
and never flew off again

you were a fairy story
I had never heard before
and wanted to hear more

once when you fell
you hit the road
"Naughty road for falling me!"

"No I never!"
she squeals
"Oh yes you did!" I tickle

"Is there any more of me?"
"Oh loads...loads more
but I too old and tired!"

"Well..!" she tells her dolls
"He tells a good story but
shhh...it's not all true!"

the dolls gasp in disbelief
having drunk  down
the dregs of every detail

DIRECTIONS

I’m heading West
(where ever that is) .

I march off into the distance
of field & sky.

West is where
my uncle is.

I cut through
the heat haze.

My uncle’s dinner
wrapped up in a scarf on the end of a stick

as if I am
running away into forever.

Tea slops in an old milk bottle
with a piece of cloth as a stopper.

I stare into the empty air
as if suddenly I will discover there

a sign saying:
“West – this way! ”

My Auntie Nellie’s instructions
still stamped on the inside of my stupid skull.

“Go west into the field
with your Uncle Michael’s dinner.

“Tell him. . .”

Me too terrified to tell her
I don’t know
where West is?

Typical townie!

I search the farm field by field
‘till I finally find him

sprouting out of a field
with a cloud attached to his head

beside the broken rickety gate
where the tiniest ever wild strawberries grow.

So this is where West is!

Why didn’t she say so in the first place!
This I know!

Why send me like a fool on a child’s errand!

My uncle devours everything ‘cept
the scarf & the stick.

Tells me
(“Oh no! ”)

to go South to where Uncle Seanie is

and. . .

CENTAUR

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

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

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

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

Her shouts like bloodhounds
hunting us down

her words angry & cruel.

Her angry voice slurring us into:
“DonallSeanie! ”

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

The hay cooks us
and we swelter in our hidey hole

A chicken sits on top
of my uncle’s cap

as if his mind had
materialised into this shape.

He rocks himself
and rocks me.

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

“Don’t leave me! ”
he clucks

the words scattered around him
like newly laid eggs.

I settle into his silence.

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

His chest hair
tickles my nose.

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

My uncle cries in fear.

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

We escape to
the West field

me riding his shoulders

transformed into
a legendary creature

that only exists in myths
fleeing from the realness

...of reality.

MEETING W.B. YEATS FOR THE FIRST TIME

curled up in a cuddle
fused into
the one telling the one listening

my big sister
recites Yeats
she whispers:

“Come away o human child...”
as the thunderstorm breaks outside
“...to the waters and the wild...”

as the night breaks open
over the poem
“...to a world more full of weeping...”

the lightning illuminates each line
“...than you will ever understand...”
I cry into her body great heaving sobs

and she says: “Shhh...shhh.. it’s alright! ”
and I only half believe her
her death etched

into my mind
in the coming soon-to-be
future

SO YOU

baby
like a shipwrecked sailor
washed up on the shore of me

I was only a girl
my self now
turned into a mother

slowly baby
opens one eye then...shuts it
'So this is life...think I'll sleep on it!

she squirms into me
as if she would burrow back inside me
then she ***** and ***** and *****

oh how she *****
my ****** hurts
I shift her to the other

so new so old
all at the one time
so...you

OH NO YOU DON'T!

my death
rose up
within me

eager to be
alive
in this world

walk about
in my place
"Well..well!" I smirked

"Whose getting
a bit ahead of it self?"
Death laughed sheepishly

"Looked like you...
...were on your last legs!"
it looked about nervously

"Oh yeah?" I said
"Yeah!" it said  unable
to look me in the eye

"I hope in future
you will know your place?"
I scolded it

"Ok...ok!" Death sulked
not knowing
where to look

"Don't get
your soul
in a twist!"

Death went
to chat with
my ghost

I could hear 'em
grumbling but couldn't
make out what was said

wondering what
they were up to
and what they were planing

I laughed
they scowled
I went for a pint

OPENINGS
(for Onelia)

The openings of famous novels
follow me around

for days on end

or just lounge around
waiting for me to say them.

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

The opening of A TALE OF
TWO CITIES

has fallen asleep
by the radiator.

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

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

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

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

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

I just stare
at them in silence

wondering how
I got into this.

MUMONKAN(GATELESS PASS)
( for Junie )

Here, now
sister mine

lost
in time

dead to this world

I offer you

my eyes
my ears

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

always interrupting you.

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

*

MYOJU(THE END OF LIFE)

After the bus crash her soul walked home
limping awkwardly now

leaving a trail of footprints
leaking time like blood.

*

KAEI(THE SHADOWS OF FLOWERS)

Often, I visit this moment
long gone

(that has never ceased to exist) .

I go to find my sister
calling her name

lost as she is in the middle
of this vast field

her blue dress a flower

at the very center of it.

Here, Death
does not know her

name
only I call her.

She carries me home
in a piggyback.

I fascinated with the freckle
under the shadow of a curl

where shoulder
meets neck.

I lost in her laughter.

Both of us escaping
Her Death.

*

AME NO UTA(SONGS OF RAIN)

Here, Death
itemises her.

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

Death, leaving
his mark

on this
human being.

Familiar with her.
Owning her.

Memory tiptoes
into Death's great palace

& steals back
a freckle

lost behind
a curl

between
shoulder
& neck.

Death
has no need

for it.

RING THE BELLS

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

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

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

even your voice fades
flees before me
sunset scattered leaves

I un-make your dying
cry you
into being

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

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

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

*

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

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

The dog said
he saw it.

The cat said
she saw it too.

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

wishing she had
she pretended she had.

That cat was
a notorious liar.

One couldn't believe
a meow

she had to say.

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

but, having just escaped
a cage

had paid no attention
whatsoever to it.

Parrot was greedy for
that blue stuff

folks called
the sky.

Fly away into its forever.

Truth to tell
there wasn't

a human to be seen.

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

shadow
panting in the sun.

An old umbrella
lay abandoned &

had nothing
whatsoever to do

with it.

A baby's shoe
lay shipwrecked

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

It was a golden yellow
with a bright scarlet stripe.

The dog was thinking
about food.

That dog was always thinking
'bout food.

The dog snapped
at a flea that was

bitting it's
right buttock.



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

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

Well, now - I guess
you'd have to

ask the dog that. . .



This was an empty street in Malta so whatever was happening or had happened was...neither here or there

FRAMING THY FEARFUL SYMMETRY

it's the little things
remain
shadows on your skin

memory preserves it
makes it more precious
despite its insignificance

the ephemeral
made permanent
you all sunlight and shadow

marking you a tiger
a stripey 5 year old. . ."Rrrrr!"
you roar burning bright

I throw my little tiger
up in the air
catch her years later

the sunlight now
in teacher mode
displays

an equilateral triangle
made of
pure light

hear her voice
of then
still telling me now

"Look...an equatorial triangle!"
and so for ever
it is

the angle
I see her from
changes

the years come and go
and the equatorial triangle
still burns brightly

you my little girl tiger
twisting the sinews
of my heart

YOUR SHOES

your shoes
all stand together
lined up like a chorus line

in the bottom of your wardrobe
these your “dancing”
these your “kiss me kiss me shoes”

these your plod around the house
“doin’ nuthin’ shoes these your
“carefree  who gives a....shoes"

the shoes
chatter
amongst themselves

remembering all
the different YOUs
you could be

your dresses float above them
like dreams
your shoes dreamed.

tomorrow they will learn
of your death
packed away

in black refuse sacks
beginning their new life
in a charity shop


*


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

THE IDIOT

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

he and I
flâneuring
about Haymarket

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

and yeah
it really was
the great man himself

it was early July
1862-ish so
he was startled

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

and also that
he could understand me
and I he

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

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

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

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

‘cos you haven’t
written it
as yet!”

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

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

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

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

probably out
on one of his
endless midnight walks

he said he had to
go see his friend
Herzen

“Hear now
permit it
do not restrain me!”

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

“English girls
are something else!”
he smirked

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

“I have me
a keepsake
of their faces.”

then he vanished
into the fog
a real pea-souper

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

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

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

*

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

― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot

GHOSTS IN THE WARDROBE

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

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

your presence
now
only in this absence

this dress
remembers that
picnic

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

the so many yous
hung on hangers
float behind plastic

here your perfume
still clings
trying to outface Death

Death smirks
stares back
it doesn't blink

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

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

TRAVELLING ACROSS THE HOURS OF DAYLIGHT

the sea
herding its flock of islands
through a sunset

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

a cloud
balanced on the tightrope
of an horizon

clouds
form their own mountains
above the mountains

a crescent moon chats
to the sleepy hill
a bird eavesdrops

the sun
bleeding into
a river

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

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

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

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

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

THE 'NOT YOU' OF YOU

you have
abandoned me
to a world without you

escaping into your death
leaving only
a you in black and white

photos of you
that are
‘not you’

a blaze of perfume
from a Coco Chanel
jacket lapel

your voice
now
only a tape recorder’s ‘voice'

I listen to
the silences between
your words

the taking of a breath
the hesitation before
the next breath

your accent
so familiar
only guessed at now

outside
the night takes away
another day

the dark
dark beyond belief
my face reflected in a window

THE CAT'S COMMUNION  

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

all these
little Donalls
running here and there

curiously
mostly me
at age 7

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

when Charles
our champion mouser
pounces upon my little self

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

now our cat
who is normally
a nice chap

swallows me
down in one
big gulp

I wonder if this
constitutes a cat's
Holy Communion

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

after that
all the many memories
I am

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

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

the cat eyes me
nervously now
looking very very holy

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

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

THAT VOICE FROM THE WORLD OF MEN

she pressed the buzzer
like a pearl button
on a giant's waistcoat


the building
seemed to step back
astounded at her nerve


the sound passing
through all the rooms
answering with a silence


more silent
than
before she rang


it was like being
in a Walter de la Mare
poem and equally


getting no reply
as he taxi ticked over
getting more and more expensive



"Tell them I came
and no one answered
that I kept my word!" she said



as if stepping into
the well worn lines
of the well loved poem



the living had not
been at home
but the ghosts were



they hid behind
the tatty chaise longue
and the Japanese screen



only then
the grandfather clock spoke
in its centuries old voice



which almost
frightened the ghosts
back to life



but she hadn't stopped
to hear
told the taxi driver



"Just drive
drive anywhere
it doesn't matter any more!"

COMETH THE DANDY LIONS( for Lori K )

the dandy lions
roar... "We're here!"
and so they are

see how they
surprise the grass
fill the children's eyes

my daughter's feet
run into their colour
a yellow of delight

they bring the Spring
the first feast
for bees

she adores the French
"dents des lions!"
giggles at "pissenlit!"

her father knew them when
he was as little as herself
the "Irish daisy"

hear her sing "dents-de-lions
en printemps
champs de jaune champs de jaune!"

we knock up a sign
"This lawn is reserved
for dandelions only!"

see how they change
from suns into moons
fragile as a wish

that one day she
would become
her self

her breath blowing time
away she now
the woman of today

PLAYING IN THE MUD WITH CHRIST

Memory
shapes that summer
in its own image

the long days of sun
forgetting
the rainy ones

my little one asking
again and again
for "the puddle poem"

and so Christ
rising from the 7th Century
old Irish words

stands
like her
barely five

blesses
the puddles
He had made

she blesses
them the same
with great childish show

watches
amazed as He
creates birds out of mud

sees  them fly away
at the touch
of his voice

this her excuse
for the scattering
of mud

she sees herself
a Christ
and how words

can create birds
made of the mind
that fly beyond time

*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE BOYHOOD OF CHRIST

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

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

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

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

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

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

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