THE SECRETION OF MEMORY

in an attic
( mottled with age)
mirror gazes upon mirror

a web attaches
( spun by a rather theatrical spider )
a primitive computer to a wall

a mouse scurries over
a dusty keyboard
the keys hungry for words

a tattered kite
stares at a sky
the clouds racing by

here is where
objects go to die
when the world abandons them

I HAVE NO GIFTS TO BRING

I bring him back
bits of the world

as a child would.

Broken green glass
amongst the grass

like grass on fire
with green.

A cat that yawns
and every time it yawns

it has the bark
of an invisible dog

sound and sight
synchronised for a laugh.

A swan sitting on
a park bench

as if it were a park bench
for SWANS ONLY.

All these useless
bits of broken world

that my father will never see
I carry them back in words

like a child trying to capture
the sea in a blue bucket

careful not to spill a single thing
that's seen

back to Nass General Hospital.

Offer them up like treasure
as only the child I was could.

And then and now
your smile

treating them
as wondrous to behold

"Is the world. . . so?"
you say

"It is. . . so!" I say
both as man and boy.

The glass grins
shining in the sun

like a little green
fire.

A cat caught
mid yawn

by some ventriloquist
dog in a lonely backyard.

A swan who thinks
it's human.

You smile
at these gifts I bring

such little things

to offer
to your dying.

THE ******* TOWERS OF ILLIUM

"Is this the face that launched...."
the poet asks not knowing how

it all turned out
in the end.

And yes, this is the face that
ate a thousand chips.

No, they don't
tell you that bit.

Anyway, had an affair
with Troy( my toy boy )

and somehow it
all went wrong.

Listen now to Odyssey  sing
"If you're looking for a way out."

Plead with the ghost of
each former lover:

"Make me immortal with
a kiss...heaven is in your lips!"

Then cry myself to sleep
with a furry hot water bottle.

ASK THE WIND...ASK EVERYTHING THAT FLEES

I drink about you
all night long

pouring my self yet
another think

until I am
empty as a bottle

smashed
upon the floor.

Seems someone
doesn't love someone

any more. . .

WALKING WITH GOD

God had gone
for a walk.

"Let the Universe..." He thought
"...take care of itself!"

He just wanted to walk.
Walk...like any human wood.

And here was a world
He could be proud of.

It did Him good
to see it as a human could.

Grass covered
his naked toes.

The morning
bleating with lambs.

Blue sky as if
He were in a living painting.

Sunshine - golden.
Tangible...touchable.

All it was missing was
a cuckoo.

So, He adde it
as an afterthought.

Because...
He - could.

And God saw
that it was good.

Met Him halfway
up a hill

walking my little dog
Ivor.

God and his creature
and his creature's creature.

"Howya!" I said.
"Howya!" said God.

"Woof!" said the dog.
"Woof!" mimicked God.

In another half an hour
I was due a heartattack.

The dog licking
my fallen face.

Wouldn't be discovered
for an hour or more.

The dog refusing to leave
the body.

God foresaw
all this of course.

"Ahhhh this is the kind of thing
that really ruins my day!

God moaned.

"And for which
I always get the blame!

God groaned.

"Go back now!"
the voice of God

echoed inside my head.

"Kiss your wife...
look into her eyes!"

And, so -
- I did.

Lived another 20 years
My wife died the following year.

I got knocked down by a car
in the end.

"So this is Heaven?"
I conjectured.

"Howya!" a voice I thought
I recognised.

"Howya!"
I said.

Her voice
caresses him in Japanese

the syllables
of his name

enacted out
by the brushstrokes

of her
voice

as if she drew him
in mid-air

and he
hung there

alive in the calligraphy
of her

Love.

AHHHH HORATIO I HARDLY KNEW YA!

me stuck up in the air
somewhere in oh I don't know
'63 or '64

Nelson on his pillars
chatting to a sea gull
all Dublin spread before us

like a living map
shops like tiny boxes
people like full stops

166 or was it 168
steps for 6 old pennies
panting for the view

here be the Wicklow Mts.,
there the Mournes
seeing how a bird sees

over there there's rain
though there's no rain here
everything crystal clear

all this of course
before the statue got itself
blown up

just in time for
the anniversary of
the Easter Rising

Nelson nothing now
but a pile of rubble
brought down to street level

his head stolen
by persons unknown
a ballad where Nelson once stood

"Up went Nelson
in auld Dublin!"
me forever stuck up in the air

NO EXPECTATIONS

tiers & tiers
tiers upon tiers
of tears

like a great wedding cake
of grief

a Miss Havisham for real

cobwebbed expectations
setting one's self on fire
in a blaze of loss

by Marylebone Station she
sat down & wept
a policeman enquiring if "...Miss is alright?"

she gathers her
self together in a compact mirror
"Yes, I'm...fine. . .fine?"

but inside her
self is a. Dickens
of a tale to tell

"SOLO TE...SOLO ME...SOLO  NOI"
( for Heather )

"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"

three chairs for Linda Rose Parkes​
for making the Opera House gig happen
three chairs....hip hip . .HORRAY!

TO BOLDLY GO

Hour by hour
the snow

grew heavier and heav...i...ER
grew more and more

daring
deciding to boldly go

where no snow
had ever gone before!

It had listened to an entire
box set of early Star Trek

leaking from
the house's windows.

It knew it
off by heart

admired Kirk
adored Spock.

The snow pushed the door
ten-ta-tivel-y ope:N

at first, but. . .now that
push had come to shove

( the latch had not been
latched properly)

opted to" "Wot de. . !"
go for it.

"That's one small step
for a snowflake...one big step

...for snowkind!"
it chuckled hee hee to it self.

"Yavaş. . .yavaş"
it repeated slowly slowly.

It was Turkish snow.

The snow advanced
flake by flake

just putting one flurry
in front of the other

into the( gasp )
"Oh mother!"

living room!

"So, this...
is how humans

- live?"

The bookshelves
feeling a little chilly

woke and whimpered
"Oh my pages...oh...my pages!"

as the unrelenting whiteness
crept nearer and:

- nearer.

"Where is a reader when
you really need one!"

asked a newly acquired
Saito Masaya.

"Isn't anyone gonna do
anything about this!"

screamed the Poems of Oktay
Rifat.

The Poems of Nazim
Hikmet

were...were...were
speechless!

But the humans were busy
snoring.

A string of cartoon Z's
like Christmas decorations

emanated from
the room of the bed.

Even the guilty one
( who would catch hell

in the huh huh morning )
slept the sleep of the innocent

since the Star Trek
had been watched all

the way through and
love had been drunkenly made.

The snow a little
nervous now

in case the book's readers
would come to their rescue

wet
the carpet.

"Oh my giddy flakes...no
but when ya gotta

go ya gotta gooooo!"
smirked the snow.

A mobile phone
asleep on the sofa

heard voices ringing
in its head

suddenly woke
spoke

in a disembodied voice
that went - straight to message.

"Wow...you guys...wow
you should see outside

...it's...like
crazy awesome!"

The snow( held
its breath): "Oh oh...

...an informer!"

It felt like the fallen
book by the carpet's edge

A Spy In The House
Of Love.

It didn't know what
an Anaïs Nin

could be.

It had a lot
to learn.

But the phone
slipped into sleep again

voiceless now.

In the morning they
found it.

"Holy cow...how...?"

Each of the humans
blaming the other

more especially
the guilty human .

"Your mother....
...don't bring my mother into this."

Neither of them spoke to the other
for the rest of the day.

The snow lay
curled up

in the fireplace
dead to the world

fast fast
asleep

drunk on the success
of its excess

dreaming that it had become
human.

A balloon clung
to the ceiling

didn't know how
to get down somehow.

The snow played
possum.

It took an hour
to evict it

with shovels and
curses.

Later, the snow
told the snow

that had been too
afraid to come in

all it had seen
all it had been.

"No...?" said the bottom-
of-the garden snow.

". . .no?"

BABBY DADDY

in your tiny hand
I become a crayoned man
much better than I am

Bluetack'd to the fridge
I an icon
made holy by my child

"I love my b a bb y!"
you name me in rainbow
all my "d's" look the other way

THE SCENT OF LAUGHTER

Their laughter gathers them
together

forehead to forehead
as if one being

the world seen
from the one mind.

Their laughter entangled
in the scent of roses

that rises now
from a past long since

gone
like a half forgotten fairy tale

the scent still present
to his remembrance

as if that then
was still now.

What are they laughing at...?

He fails to remember

only their nearness
the scent of roses.

SKIN & BLISTER

We grin & grimace
drop candle wax onto our fingertips

as the storm
rattles our window pane

angry that we won’t let it in.

All night
it rages

toppling chimney
pots with a crash

smashing slates
it strips from rooftops

as we safe
giggle & peel off

our waxen
fingerprints

hold them
(tiny whirlpools)  
in our palms

those whorls
of self

unique to each.

I wearing my sister’s
fingerprints

she... wearing mine.

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
13 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

panda-like
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.

My reflection
looks back at me

from the winter
darkened window

every now &
then - borrowing a bus

or a passing truck
to use for a brain

& then: the emptiness
of night flooding

in again or
a clutch of pedestrians

huddle against
the driving rain

drifting through my face
like long lost ghosts.

Rain
turning to sleet.

"So..?" my reflections
enquires of me

"...what are we
going to do then?"

A BMW
its accusing eyes

I watch the traffic
of its thoughts

having to admit
that it hurt more

than a
bit

that, I "...just
don't know..?"

Some crazy zombie leaves
throw themselves at the window

as if trying to
devour my face.

I hope the glass
will hold.

My reflection saying
nothing, but:

I could see it
thought I was

a disgrace
as to the who

the hell
I thought

I was

a police siren
screaming through the smile

I had nailed on

I could feel
I was not

going to
like me

for a long, long
time.

"O THE MIND, MIND HAS MOUNTAINS."

I am angry
at this world

that dares to
throw a scrap of sunlight

shredded through lace
precious as it is

dust motes dancing
about your face

you a smiling
photograph

that the sun attempts
to bring alive

& fails.

The fact of your death
still remains.

I smuggle you

despite your death

across Life's borders

here I hide you
between the in-

breath &
the out-

breath

hidden in
the silence

between note &
note

the space between
word and word

death will never find you
again.

THE ONLY EDEN

Granny unable to
see

would build me
touch by touch

with her blind fingertips
search for the face

she would create.

Here my cheekbone
coming into being

there an eyebrow
newly born

here an eye
there a philtrum

sculpted from sunlight
hewn from nothing

here blind seeing
fashioning me anew

her fingertips
butterflies

forming this
living portrait

of the face
I own.

Her fingers feeling
for each nuance...each tone

the music of me
plucked from thin air

one moment I am not
then I am

all there.

I made all the more
real.

More realer
that I could ever be

emerging from
her fingertips

as if I were
God's Adam

and this her tiny garden
the only Eden.

STANDING NAKED BESIDE ITS SKIN
(A SERIES OF SEQUENCES )

(1)
A CHAIR SITS IN AN EMPTY ROOM

The woman unhooks
her shadow

drapes it over
a chair.

She plucks her reflection
out from the mirror

stashes it away
under the chair.

She looks into
the mirror's nothingness.

She strips off
her skin

leaves it on top of
the chair.

She switches off
the light.

The chair just
sits there

absorbing the darkness.

The woman becomes
her footsteps.

The light from the bathroom
throws itself into the room

falls just short of
the chair's legs.

The razor blade
slashes through flesh.

She bites the tip of
her tongue.

She watches her blood
whirlpool down the sink

( she does not stop to think )

washing away the pain
washing away this self.

A chair sits
in an empty room.

(2)
THE MOON REFUSES TO SHOW ITS FACE

An owl is the darkness.

Only its voice is
visible

to the naked ear.

It gives voice
to the darkness.

The darkness says
nothing.

It lets the owl
speak for it.

The darkness transforms itself into the owl.

The owl becomes the darkness.

The moon refuses
to show her face.

Silence seeps back.
The owl says nothing.
The darkness says nothing.

A human cries.

(3)
MANY MOONS

she remembers an apple
standing naked
beside its skin

apple cut and cut and cut
like little slices of moon
fallen on the ground

the apple no longer a thing
to be eaten
now only a thing of fascination

the many scattered slices of moon
the earth a black sky
ants walking on the moons

she picks up one of the moons
licks it clean of ants and dirt
places it upon her tongue like a wafer

soon she remembers nothing
nothing
nothing at all

her life the empty space
where she had cut herself
out of her photographs

SCHRöDINGER'S SOCKS & THE REVENGE OF THE CAT

Schrödinger's cat
failed to see just what

all the fuss was
about?

It was all such
a reductive absurdum.

The cat couldn't understand
collapsing wave functions

decoherence
entanglement or whether

reality was really
quantum

to save its life.

It was aware of
one thing & one thing

only
. . .the diabolic device. . .

Cat in a metal box
with a Geiger counter

with a radioactive substance
blah blah de ****** blah

an atom decaying or something or
other &

releasing a hammer to smash
a phial of hydrocyanic acid.

Wot!

"I do not like thee Dr. Fell!"
thought the cat.

It was a very literary cat.

So all this palaver
about a cat( me? how! )

being both dead or alive or
neither dead or alive or

. . .wot!

So this is to be my great
to-be-or-not-to-be!

Welllll excuse me!
Say...doesn't the cat have his say?

So, I( clever cat that I am)
merely claw my way to the top &

disengage the device
by taking out the hammer.

So no cat was harmed
in the making of this

thought experiment.

It almost drove Schrödinger
out of his tiny little mind!

And he( hee hee )
never did discover

what ever
happened to his socks.

I forever stealing
one sock from a pair

from the open
washing machine.

Leaving him to ponder
just where socks go?

The other side of the Universe?
Oh come on Erwin...it's not

rocket science!

Now, to get back to
describing the behaviour of

a quantum entity.

"Mmmmm......mmmmmm?"

"Naw....I still don't get it!"

"Say ya couldn't see yer way
to giving me a scratch...could ya?"

"Up a bit....upabit....yeah...yeah
. . .there...just...there!"

We declare
- this our bedroom -

an independent
dominion

secede from
the United Kingdom

& the Commonwealth
of Nations

(although still enjoying
our European unions) .

Us a Republic of Love
we a nation of two

out on our own

our New Found Land
as Donne had done

a currency
of caresses

our national tongue
...kisses

needing nothing
but the other

to complete
our independence

flying the flag
of happiness

in this our brave
new world

of
Love.

JULIAN IS WRITING A POEM      

"The thud, thud of a horse's hoof
does not alarm fish."  

MIND UNDER WATER - 1883
Richard Jefferies

Fishes flee him.

They can feel his thoughts
touch them.

Here, Creux Harbour
on the Island of Sark.

Mummy fish tries not to laugh
as her little darlings dart...

It's only a poet!"
she tells her younglings

"thinking thoughts
they won't hurt you.

Julian's vibrations
pass through them.

"It's what poets do
before they turn the world  into words"

The little fish listen
with open mouths.

"As far as I can tell...it's a Julian
one of the cleverest kind one can find

a man composed of equal parts
wit and charm

an all shall be well and
all shall be well type of guy."

Julian is thinking
of nothing

but horses.
Horses.

The fish don't
even get a look in.

He sees the great Shires
being swum in the harbour.

Such a magnificence
of being

decanted from land
to sea

the great hooves
treading water

free to be themselves
enjoying their day at the sea's side.

Julian is alive
with this image

the sheer
awe of it all.

The fishes think
nothing of it.

They are used to horses
galloping among them.

It's the vibrations
of the poet's thoughts

that tickles them.

"But our Mam..?""
a small fry ventures

"...there are no horses
here....and now?"

"Ahhh that doesn't bother poets
ya see...they see

both what is there and not there
or what may be!"

She quotes the great 16th century fish
"Nothing is so but thinking make it so!"

Later, at the Candie Gardens
on another island altogether

Julian sits, sips...
a double espresso.

And again.
A double espresso..

We see the words flow
onto the page

charged with the grandeur
of the great Shires

as the little fishes look on
amused at the poet's

coffee coloured thoughts.

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
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.

& . . .

She felt like
a lady

she had cut out of
a magazine

when she was 13
stuck in a scrapbook

because she wanted to be
'her."

But, she had stuck her
in wrongly

had to tear her
/out/again/stick her/in again

only her feet
had to be torn off.

She felt like that
now

watching her feet in lurid green shoes

move her about
the streets of her home town

50 years later
& trying to become

the young girl
of then

who had wanted to be...
. . .come

a cut-out-woman
in a make-believe world.

A cyclist crashed
into a tree

too busy looking at her
just as a feather

floated in front of
her.

Noise & feather
choreographed together.

Synchronised serendipity.

She felt as if Icarus
had fallen into the sea

in a Breughel painting
in an Auden poem

& only she was there
to see

the mythical man which
her father had told her of

so long ago.

In the so long ago.

There was a tiny stone
in her shoe.

It was hurting her
quite badly

but she kept on
walking out of

her life
forever.

The river roared
like an angry God

( flowing under
the steel bridge )

a serpent of
coiled evil

who demanded
sacrifice of her.

She climbed over
the guard rail

&. . .

INVISIBLE BLUE PLAQUES

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
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

the ice cream van
murdering "O...
sole mio!"

the blackbird
traps the sky
in a net of notes

a phone rings
phoneringsaphonerings
un...answered

a fb message
ping upon ping
again unanswered

a dog bark
a siren scream
entangled in trees

you have just
left the world
you may be some time

WALKING FROM THE RISING SUN TO KILDARE TOWN.

I take up
my stick &

walk:
back into my past.

Planting the countryside
of my youth

with each step
the years falling away.

The young me unfolds
into being.

The flag of self unfurls
snaps into the lost moment.

My shadow strides
ahead of me

impatient with this
flesh and blood man.

My shadow stops
waits for me to

catch up
catch my breath.

He stares at me
with broken dandelion eyes

a green milk bottle top
mimics a nose

a leaf acted
as a smile.

I laugh at this me
created by chance

and happenstance
step once more

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

A tree which had been
there since I had been three

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

"It is!" says I
addressing the sky

spread before me
a vast blue field.

Furze blazes
with yellow.

Horses turn to
the gallops.

The sudden thunder of hooves
jockeying with laughter.

I left here to
make something of myself.

I, then...a nervous nobody
returning now

a mere nothing
a success only at failure.

I recite Hopkins
to a straying sheep.

The sheep suspiciously
regards this poet

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

The sheep coughs.

"... beautiful as
Spring!"

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

The poet's proud words
falling by the wayside

as me-then and
the me of now

stroll down
(cane nonchalantly in hand)
memory lane.

The Future hiding just

up around the

corner.

HIS WOODEN LEG STARES AT ME...

Grandfather Gordon
scratches his wooden leg
insists: "It...itches!"

always a different explanation
how he lost the leg
enough to fill a book

Grandfather Gordon
scratches the air
where his leg should be

Grandfather Gordon's
wooden leg now
a tommy gun...a sword...a unicorn's horn

"Give me back me leg
ya daft wee buggers!"
pleading for his leg back

Grandfather Gordon's gone
his wooden leg lives on
dusty in a corner

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.

It 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.

January & June
were having fun

hanging out together
not just for

sweet alliteration's sake
but because

- they could.

And they had always
secretly fancied each other.

Time had taken
a holiday.

Not an every day
occurence.

So they took
advantage of

this once
in a blue moon

- happening.

Monday & Sunday
were in bed together

( don't ask me what
they were doing ).

A century & a second
were gazing into

each other's eyes
amazed to see themselves

reflected there.

The hands of the clock
were spooning.

An hour was courting
( such an old fashioned word )

a beautiful young ahhhhh
moment.

Time itself
was sulking

because the lovers
weren't paying him

any mind
what so

ever.

They seemed to live
in the "...now, now, very now"

( as Mr. Shakespeare puts it )

scattering their smiles
here and everywhere

see them blossoming
into squeals and laughter.

A new millennium
had just turned up &

was at once
( "Wot de...!")

press ganged
into one of their forever

kisses.

"**** that Janice Windle & Donall Dempsey!"

Time throwing a hissy fit!

"**** that Janice Windle & Donall Dempsey!"

"**** 'em!"

Hidden high
in my tree

I watch as morning
creates itself.

The simple miracle of light
erasing night.

From my topmost branches
I live the tree's life.

Look down upon the humans

wondering where & how
I have gone.

Through my window of leaves
sunlight stains my face.

The wind whispers
itself to me.

In a big blue ocean
of summer sky

I call to the kestrel
in Father Hopkins' tongue.

It shrugs off the words
remains untouched

by language

living in an other
dimension to me

hewn from
silence & stillness.

My heart longing to be
this wild...this free.

My uncle's voice
calling me...calling me

back to this all
too human world.

I leave my life as a tree
the wanting to be this bird

return to being
9 year old me.

My uncle's laughter
tossing my mop of curls.

"Thought we'd lost you there
...for a moment!"

HITHERING AND TITHERING WATERS OF..

Ahhh sure she's my own
little Finnegans Wake.

For my little skeowsha
language is lava

the mind is molten
forever flowing.

She catches tones and hones
in on the last word.

"pleaseyawannanicecupof...TEA?"

She knows how to
stick question marks on

the end of things
like: "...sweets?"

The thunder scares her
on Thursday

& becomes
Thundersday.

The flies bother her on Friday...
becomes Flieday.

Not realiasing  she is
quoting Mr, Joyce

following in his WAKE.

Or she makes up her own

"ONESDAY...TWOSDAY
WEDDINGSDAY...FATTERDAY
SOMEDAY!"

She my little trinketoes
my dear ***** Dumpling.

I read her to sleep.
Not a peep

when Anna Livia Plurabelle...
tells her tale.

Beside the tickling waters of.
Beside the chuckling waters of.
Beside the laughing waters of.

She loves
the music of it all.

"Again!"
she agains it!

" Can't hear with the waters of.
The chittering waters of.

Night now.
Tell me, tell me, tell  me elm.

Night night!
Tellmetale of stem or stone.

Beside the rivering waters of.
Hithering tithering waters of.

Night."

IS THAT IT?

Time runs out
warps into itself

strata after strata
diminishing into

a dot before me
that I vanish into

Future-Past- the Now
all one and the same.

So this is what
Death is?

I'm not
impressed.

The silence
solidifies.

Memory contrives
to put the world back

together like a cut-out
Dada collage.

A postcard blue sky
hastily assembled

against some remembered
building famous for something

or other and
a photo of you

ripped out of an I don't know
stuck in place

glue seeping around edges
like a white blood.

Life is an Hannah Höch
photomontage.

Time congeals
like a fried egg

with a ciggie
stuck in its yoke.

I laugh at memory's vain attempts
"Don't bother!" I tell it

in a voice like the white space
between written words.

The world swirls anti-
clockwise down

the plug hole
of reality.

If this is Death
as I say

I'm not
impressed.

"...MALUM HUNC..."

O unknown insect
reading Catullus

along with me this
overheated day

basking in a threatened
Brexit and Boris.

You read with all your many legs
your blue striped body like a cursor

cursing that "...supercilious
superfluous  figure."

Yes old Catullus
has the measure of him

Read faster little one!
We need to turn a page

where we find ourselves indeed
in that "far island of the west."

And even after all these years
since Caesar's first invasion

we still breed
this "multifucking tool."

The insect lingers long
on  this phrase.

"Why patronise him,damit?
Except to gobble up

fat private
fortunes!"

My cursor
takes to the skies

tired of such
a human  and his lies.

"Malum hunc" it observes
with a whir of wings.


Both insect and Catullus
in agreement despite

the missing
centuries.

Meanwhile the rough beast
slouches towards

( God help us!)
No. 10 to be PM.

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.

WATCHING TV WITH DAD

He is cradling baby
in his arms.

We -  like iron filings
cling to his Dad-ness.

Rival siblings
cuddle into every side

of him
available.

Two more little ones
clutch a leg each

unwilling to
let go

their prize positions.

I am curled on the back
of the sofa

about his neck
like a human scarf or

a rather large cat!

We are laughing at
MR. ED - THE TALKING HORSE.

"... a horse is a horse is a horse of course. . ."
we all chant in unison.

Or sing the theme to
GREEN ACRES.

Doesn't matter what we
watch as long as  we

can be
part of him.

"...our dad is our dad is our dad
of course..!"

WALKING AWAY

I lock my door upon myself,
And bar them out; but who shall wall
Self from myself, most loathed of all?

Who Shall Deliver Me? - Christina Rossetti




I wander through
the landscape

of my so called self
my life left upon a shelf.

The world locked out
my self locked in.

How do I begin
to construct a human being

from this nothingness
I am.

Only my name remains
the same.

My baby throws
her rattle from the pram

talks to me in a language
I can not understand.

"ma...Ma. . .MA
MAM!"

I know how she feels
I too want my Mam.

I clutch my child
tightly 'til she squeals

laughs...then..wails
screams.

I tell myself my name
to convince me who I am.

Pirandello falls upon the ground
the wind speed reading its pages.

A dog wants me
to throw a stick.

I give it a kick.
Walk away.

The baby's crying
getting farther

and farther
away.

WHEN THE MERDE HITS THE FAN

Our Sat. Nav's French
is eh...how you say

TRÈS TRÈS
. . .MERDE!

She transforms
Châteauroux into Chatterbox/

She morphs Le Harve>>>
into Le Have Her!

We can only laugh en français!

Streets with longer wording
become simply a slur

of wild guesses. More merde!

Here we be
on the road to Rouen.

Miss Sat. Nav. tells us it's the road
to ruin.

Aghhh...Paris pops up
Who put Paris there!

Even more merde!


We begun to distrust
Miss Sat. Nav.

She sulks for miles.


Insane we are
in the Seine.

Now we drive up
the Loire river.

Straight5 up the middle
with our high-lighted route

jockey along side us
in purple

like a riderless horse
winning the Grand National.

We cast her into
the back seat

make the ferry
( no thanks to her)


....ju....ju...just!

Tongues stained
with blackberries

we collect kisses

falling into ditches

being stung by nettles.

Your dress snags on a briar
and you cry in mock horror.

I cut through the tangle of thorns
as if I were your Prince.

Charming me
you undo
your buttons
& you
(step out of your dress)

as if you were being
stepping out of your self.

Your dress hangs
like a chrysalis.

You let down your golden hair
& we make love then &

there...a tractor & some cows go by
we laugh & try to hide.

The sun beats down on my ***
we giggle & come

return
to the big old *****

town
&
turn

our blackberry picking days
into luscious winter jam.

THIS BLOSSOMING INTO BEING

the rose puts
her red armour on

goes to fight
the common enemy

time

her only weapon
an ephemeral beauty

three stars rise
above her head

this her last night
on this earth

fallen petal
by petal

was it enough
that she could say

"I am!"

A BIRD WAS EXPLORING TIME AND SPACE

March was doing that thing
where it was just becoming

April and
the thunder

muttered to itself
'bout something or other.

"Mumblemumblemumble!"
it rumbled.

Very un-Eliotish.

Rain fell, but
its heart wasn't in it.

A bird was exploring
time and space

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

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

You: were as dead
as ever.

All memory could do
was draw a child's

stickman version
of you.

I still refused to
believe it.

But time was
wearing me down.

That bird just kept on
trying to glue

that one piece of time
to that one piece of place.

But it just wouldn't
do.

I turned and
walked away.

"Where is tomorrow? In another world..."
as the poet had said.

Can't say I could
answer that question.

HIS WOODEN LEG STARES AT ME

Grandfather Gordon
always scratching his wooden leg
insists 'It itches! '

always a different explanation
how he lost the leg
enough to fill a book

Grandfather Gordon
scratching the air
where his leg should be

Grandfather Gordon's
wooden leg now
a tommy gun...a sword...a unicorn's horn

'Give me me leg...
...ya daft wee buggers! '
begging for his leg back

Grandfather Gordon's gone
his wooden leg lives on
dusty in a corner

I stroke his leg
remembering him
it itches in my heart

PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG BOY

Tom is 9
going on 10

& pens
" a few little verses

about the sadness
of having to

start school
again

every Monday morning."

Already young
Master Eliot

can see
THE WASTELAND

spreading out
before him.

"Monday is the cruellest day
breeding Mathematics

out of the deadened brain!"

"****...**** it...**** ya!"

"Language Thomas...language!"

"Shhhhh ...Tom...shushhhh!"
I comfort him.

"Shanti...shanti...shanti."

A DOOR AJAR ON REALITY

The blackbird led
his wife

up the garden path

as if the crazy paving
had been laid especially

for them &
their kind.

I thought it odd
that

they walked instead
of flew

as if they were acting
the human.

They both
deep in conversation

about bird
current affairs

or gossip
about those noisy robins.

When they hit the deck
they both stood

in a deck chair
each

continuing what
they had been

conversing
about.

Maybe blackbirds
had taken over

the world
& I

the last human
to know.

Or, all humans
had been changed

into blackbirds.

They suddenly
made loud caw.

I took to the air
& flew.

"BEWARE THE DONALL DEMPSEY MY SON!"

The frog slid slowly down
my throat.

It's legs sticking out of
my mouth...still kicking.

The world was running away
into the final darkness.

My eyes were robbed
of trees and sun.

The day being stolen
from me.

"Death by frog!"
How unlikely a dying.

The bullies were all
short-trousered lads like me

sculpted from the sunlight
of 1963.

Then either the frog gave
a desperate last minute kick

or I silently yelled
and expelled

friend frog who
having escaped death by swallowing

hopped it
lost itself in the long grass.

Perhaps the horrible tale
of down-the-gullet

is told still to its descendants
far removed from that sunny day.

"Better watch out..." Mamma Frog
would make her voice shiver

making her tiddlers tremble
with trepidation

"...or the Donall Dempsey
will get you!"

*

I was having a bad day....nothing going my way....but still Kim Moore  managed to wring this out of me in her wonderful writing workshop. She applied a Chinese burn to my mind and out popped this in a seven and a half minute sprint of the mind. I was halfways through reliving the trauma of a frog being shoved down my throat to gales of laughter when I suddenly thought "What about the poor frog? How did he cope?"

What did he tell the other frogs and how in the world of frogs it became the tallest of tall tales and my name entered the lexicon of frog horror stories that have been passed down through generations of frog families despite being the innocent victim! All the frog heard in its terrification was my name
chanted over and over again in great grievous glee "Ha ha ha...Donall Dempsey!"  Me and friend frog were in this tormenting together. But despite all this my name has gone down in frog history as if I were a Grendel or a Grendel's mother or a Jabberwocky. Just say Donall Dempsey and see what the reaction is...faster than a Basho plop and splash

O FORTUNA!
("You Will Become Yourself")

She's three.
A distinct reek of Old Spice!

"And who's been splashing on
my aftershave!"

I growl in my best
Daddy Bear voice.

"Me...me!"
she answers in her best George Washington.

"Mummy's perfume
smells yucky sweet!"

She a good judge of smell
this little girl.

What is...what isn't nice
sides with the Old Spice.

"So. Are we right then?"
I ask.

We go for a walk.
The cat on the leash.

Because.
We haven't got a dog.

And so we head off.
Dad, cat and little girl.

The cat none too pleased
at "What's that meow smell!"

Old Spice
not for cats.

Only for
Dads and daughters.

*

Old Spice is the smell of my Dad...it is forever him.... deeply ingrained in the olfactory memory of many generations...the essence of childhood thus becoming an archetypal perfume that stands for all things that he meant...safety, warmth, and security.
It was what I always gave him as a birthday and Christmas present....saving up all my pennies to be able to do so and foregoing chocolate and sweeties all during the year. My mum on the other hand
was always the equally iconic 4711. I still have both in my bathroom even now...how Proust like!
So it was odd to pass it on to...my daughter.
Her mum said it always reminded her of a Mexican drink called Horchata de arroz which is flavoured with the Aztec Marigold. and made her feel drunk even if she hadn't imbibed.
Darling daughter said it smelt of mummy's potpourri on the coffee table.
Oh and of... Daddy.
Old Spice was founded in New York by William Lightfoot Schultz in 1934. He was a soap and toiletries maker, and his first fragrance was, ironically, a woman’s scent: Early American Old Spice.
It is said that Shultz was inspired by his mother’s rose jar when creating this early version of Old Spice. A rose jar usually held a moist potpourri of rose petals, spices and herbs in a base of salt to preserve them. Those notes can still be detected in Old Spice’s products to this day. This perfume was released in 1938 to great acclaim, and he followed it with some men’s products in time for Christmas sales at the end of the year.
Although the original scent of classic Old Spice has most likely changed with time and reformulation (as a number of fragrances do), it still retains its primary scent profile, and it could be argued that it represents its own classification. Unlike many other men’s scents that fall easily into labels like fougère, leather or musk, Old Spice brought carnation, pimento, nutmeg and cinnamon to the forefront, omitting some of the classic men’s notes of pine, vetiver and lavender. This iconic mixture summoned up images of seafaring explorers and adventure, but the image and reality were often the same: Old Spice found its way wherever American G.I.’s were stationed during and after the war, and this helped to influence its proliferation around the globe.

As James the first of Aragon was supposed to have said in his best Valencian: "Açò és or, xata!" ("That's gold, pretty girl!")

FOLLOW MY HEART

'Yes! ' I thought
' I will remember...'

how to get
back to
this place

your laughing face

a bird
writing on the sky

with the calligraphy
of its flight

this passing cloud
shaped like a heart now

breaking up into
Rodin's THE KISS

the laughter of kids
entangled in trees

a slight breeze
saucily lifting the hem

of your skirt
as if examining

the workmanship
of it.

Suddenly the wind's
a tailor?

The sea's voice
whispering far off

'Come & see... come & see! '

like a shy hawker
at a carnival.

One little brown knee
placed delicately
over another little brown knee

your skirt
like surf

crashing over it.

Yes I will
always remember

how to get
back here

follow these
directions

follow
my heart.

The scarecrow
balances a moon
upon a red mittened hand

a mouse
looks out
of his left eye

the scarecrow
shivers
with the change of weather

I see he still wears
my old coat
it suits him better

in the inside pocket
an old Metro ticket
an unfinished poem

the words indecipherable now
looking like a scarecrow
wrote them

in my dreams
the scarecrow takes the train
finishes the poem

his ending
better than
mind

I toss the moon
from one red mittened hand
to the other

a mouse looks out
my left eye
I wonder how the scarecrow's doing?

I shiver
with delight
it's gonna be a long night

"Did you hear the one about..."
Death's
already laughing

"...a fireman, a butcher & a janitor
walked into a War..."
Death loves to tell this joke

Sometimes Death changes the details
"...a guy from Omaha, Ohio & Nebraska
walked into a War..."

"...and the shell fell into
the hole they were cowering in..."
Death cracks up

"...an 18 year old & two guys of twenty
walked into a War. . ."
"Wot's yer poison?" Death snickers

"...some guys called Sam, Hank & Frank
walked into a bar in a War and
they don't walk out..."