BEAUTY O'ERSNOW'D AND BARENESS EVERY WHERE

A Christmas
with the Thames

almost freezing, then
thawing & then again

the London of 1598
asleep

under a quietness
of snow

that hides the world
from itself

as some Elizabetheans
go to steal

a theatre
silent now for a brace of years

frozen by bitter
dispute.

The playhouse dismantled
bit by bit

so that when it rises
it will become in time

The Globe
this wooden O.

Will turns his face
up to the stars

laughs
at this theatre theft

snowflakes settling
upon his eyelids

remembering when
he was all of 7

and the Christian tales
told in stained glass

are shattered
for their sins

now only white light
is to be

let in

picking up a shard
of the ****** Mary

here a fragment of
St. George.

He sticks out his tongue
tastes the snow

knows that
all things change to

begin again.

He laughs.

The ****** Mary's smile
still clasped in his hand.

UN PEU DE SOLEIL DANS L'EAU FROIDE

Memory
a Polaroid.

Sunlight fading back
into the nothing.

Time stealing its image back
from the photographic process.

Loss
a splinter

still visible
beneath the skin

trapped in a whorl
of a fingerprint

identity's
whirlpool of uniqueness.

This splinter of loss

it's small agony

out of all

proportion to its size.

Invisible tears
imprisoned in

old eyes.

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 leavng
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."

FOOTSTEPS SET IN TIME

The lightness of
your footstep

as you hurried to me

caught in the slowly setting
concrete

( you didn’t see )

holds your fleeting love
permanently  

your footsteps
greedy for me

paying no attention
to the world whatever

only knowing that
in a few footsteps more

you would be precious
and adored for who you are

your footsteps
still exist

echoing inside my tears

as I put my next step
inside yours

and the snow fills
the other   footsteps        up.

SOMEWHERE IN YOUR MIND
( for Ruth )

I have wandered
around your mind

(I hope you don't mind)

invited in
by a poem

it smiled:
'Come in...come in! '

And so
here I am

having bread & butter & tea
with your Past

having a laugh
with your Present

listening intensely
to your Future sing

'WHAT EVER WILL BE... WILL BE! '

Picking up each
unique memory

reflecting how it
catches & holds

the light
(the delight in life)

having a good old natter
with your own good self

playing Snap!
with our synapses

tickling the old grey matter
until

a passing thought
& on a tangent I leave

your smile
as you tuck your hair behind your ear

and I find
myself upon

the whiteness
of this page

like Breughel's
HUNTERS RETURNING IN THE SNOW

trekking across
its vastness

leaving a trail
of clumsy footprints

made of words

leaving footsteps
echoing

somewhere in your mind.

ONE LAST TIME

We bring the cup back home
for those

who will never
come home.

"We played for the people who had died!"
Pogba avows.

An absence in the heart.

The memory of her laugh.

Her smile
in a photograph.

She, so much
there but not there.

The unbearable presence
of loss.

From a pop concert
to a football final

Death walks
amongst our ordinary lives.

"MANCHESTERMANCHESTERMANCHESTER!"
the crowd chants
"WE'ILL NEVER DIE!"

Here even in the kick of a ball
the defiant gesture.

We bring the cup back home
for those

who will never
come home.

AS SURE AS SHOES IS SHOES

out of the interlocking needles
a sock
grows

hanging from its needles
the sock
a chrysalis

Auntie Marge's socks
as if a rainbow
had grown two feet

Auntie Marge's
infamous rainbow socks
flying off for Christmas

Paris..New York...Termonfeckin
nieces nephews children grandchildren
all wearing rainbow socks

the half grown sock
tick of a grandfather clock
wait for the mourners to return

her needles in a cigar tin
standing to
attention

sticking their heads
out of the bin
some large crochet needles

"As sure as shoes is shoes
I kept warm the feet
of this here family!"

clock cuts up Time
into little bits
so that the humans can understand


Her grandfather was a cobbler and would always say this whatever the situation. People would always need shoes...although the family of the cobbler often did without as shoes is what put food on the table.

But who is wurs shod, than the shoemakers wyfe, With shops full of newe shapen shoes all hir lyfe?

[1546 J. Heywood Dialogue of Proverbs i. xi. E1V]

All languages have same sounding adages...whatever the profession.

Les cordonniers sont les plus mal chaussés.

with a first quote by Montaigne : Quand nous veoyons un homme mal chaussé, nous disons que ce n'est pas merveille s'il est chaussetier in

In German:

Die Kinder des Schusters haben die schlechtesten Schuhe.

In Spanish (En casa de herrero, cuchillo de palo "In a blacksmith's home, knives are wooden").

In Chinese "the lady who sells fans fans herself with her hands",

In Arabic, "at the potter's house water is served in a broken jug".



Her grandfather was a cobbler and would always say this whatever the situation. People would always need shoes...although the family of the cobbler often did without as shoes is what put food on the table.

"Chomh cinnte is bróga atá bróga!" as she would say in her Irish.

Her grandfather would shorten it to" is bróga atá bróga!" or" shoes is shoes."

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

I always listened to
the dud notes

the mute notes that went
doh instead of do

as the music stumbled
but recovered just in

time to be
embarrassed with

the piano going all shy
at having let out

a no noise note.

I watched fascinated
as the key was depressed

and an awkward silence
tried to catch up with

the rest of its
brother notes.

Soon they were
the only notes

I listened to
as I

strung them
together in my mind

a musical necklace
of a silence

like snow
falling

as the dark caught up
with the light

and turned it
into the night

before Christmas
Eve's

eve.

"DONALL DEMPSEY INDEED!"

'LLANOD YESPMED?"
he squinted at my driver's licence.

"It's pronounced CLANOD!"
I said with extreme exasperation.

"Y'are not from these here parts
. . .are ya fella?"
he drawled dryly

squinting closer firstly at me then
back again to my !D.

"I'm of Welsh/Turkish extraction
but I was born on Venus!"

I explained as if to
a little kid.

"Ha ha...haha!" he snorted
a tiny trickle of snot

yo-yoing up and down
his hairy left nostril.

"Ha ha...if you were to
spell yer name backwards
it would spell:

Donall Dempsey!"

I was not amused.

"Ya know...that crazy hairy
Irish earthling poet dude!"

"I'm not him!"
I fumed.

"Alright...alright...keep yer
antenas on...geeeez!"

He handed me back
my Id ID.

Tipped his hat.
Wiped his nose across his sleeve.

"Welcome to Mars.
You drive carefully now!"

I stepped on the rocket boosters.

Left him eating my stardust.

"****** customs!"
I yelled to myself.

"Huh...Donall Dempsey
...indeed!"

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!"

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

REINCARNATION OF THE DEAD WORDS

The typewriter.
King of the ******* tip.

Having an alphabet
to command

an army of words
but someone pulled its teeth.

Extracted its speech.
Defeat.

At my feet metal letters
lay strewn

saying:
nothing.

K  IL trampled
into the *******.

A ?
drowning in muck.

An !
crying out for help.

An angry "e"
still raising a tiny fist

in rusted defiance
against the vastness

of an evening
sky.

I scoop up as many metal letters
as I can find

rooting in the refuse
for a precious "i".

An 'i' that is not to be
found.

Was this the revenge
of a failed writer

or an outdoor
art installation

in the private gallery
of a ******* tip.

WAITING FOR GOD...
knows who?

The snipped/snapped-
-off-letters

refugees now
in my pocket.

I am their home.

I bury them
under an apple tree.

They rise through the roots
bearing fruit

year after year

I eat the words
they give me.

Speech flowering
upon my tongue.

KISSING MR. CHELIDON GOODBYE

**...**.  . .oh!
I don't know

if I should be
telling you this.

I was just sweet
as in 16 &

never been kissed
and my *******

hadn't yet arrived
though I prayed and prayed

to a God who did not
heed my girlish plea.

All the girls in my year
had already budded.

******* to the right of me!
Breast to the left of me!

Into the valley of despair
I rode my Raleigh

alas alas
breast-less!

I practiced kissing
by kissing

the you know
inside of
( the whatchamacallit? )

my elbow the
chelidon so called

by an old falling-apart
medical dictionary.

I clipped some hair
from our Yorkshire terrier

stuck it on the crick of
my right elbow

so that it became
my first moustache'd kiss.

And so, was born
my Mr. Chelidon.

Pathetic...yes...I know
but the year after

my bosoms arrived
with a suddenness

that took my breath
away.

I breasting the waves
like a ship's figurehead

as I dived into the sea
a Venus for boys to see.

I was my *******
and my ******* were me.

Somehow I could then not
stopped being kissed.

And once kissed
grew addicted to it.

The bliss of the kiss.
I was my own drug.

I gave Mr. Chelidon
the elbow.

Discovered the joy of boys
inventing various uses

for them
as they

discovered
me.

I wanted to be
your Superhero

but all the be best ones
were already taken.

Superman...Batman...Spiderman
(oh how they roll off the tongue)  

Dr. Strange or Daredevil or
Green Lantern even!

So I had to become
my own one.

Now I hear you cry
kiss-less & cuddle-less

but have no fear
for I am here

created by your own
longing

a Superhero to suit you!

'It's...it's
Mr. Kiss Kiss & Cuddles Man! '

'To the rescue! '

'Oh...my hero! '

THE PROMISE

I feel like the hare
hanging by its heels from a tree
his open guts accusing me

even in death
the hare continues
to stare

"That's one for the ***!"
my kind uncle laughs
my mind screams and screams

"Forgive me..!" I ask of the hare
"I am new to this life
& death thing!"

"Don't forget me..." says the hare
"Just keep me forever
in your mind!"

*

It was like a theatrical scene that the moment had set up..there was Uncle Mikey and me lying in the field that falls down to the river and this hare comes and sits beside us...another living being just soaking up the world through the process of mental osmosis. We all just sat together....no distinction being made between animal or human. I could see every hair on its coat as if it had been drawn by Durer.

Then suddenly my uncle my lovely kind uncle gave the hare a karate chop in one quick flash. And that was it. I was totally shocked at how fast my uncle moved and the result. I couldn't imagine it being done just as I couldn't imagine the hare coming to sit with us. It totally traumatised me.I promised the hare I would never forget her and she could lived in my mind forever. That night we had hare but I wasn't even there...I was out in the barn crying. This poem became that promise.

It was silence deepening into an even greater silence and I thought the miracle was that the hare dared to trust us. It was a privilege to sit with such a wild creature...all of us gazing into a sunset. Nobody was breathing except for the hare. I was afraid to breathe in case it scared him away. And the unbelievable act that my uncle had been contemplating all that time. I also thought that surely it wouldn't...couldn't be possible. Surely. But my uncle surprised both the hare and myself with an agility he had never shown a sign of...he was an easy going laid back type of guy. He sure had me and the hare fooled.

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."

AND THERE WAS ME WITHOUT AN I

Time dawdles
stretches out the crash
to an infinity of now

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

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

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

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

I drink up unconsciousness
thirsty for
the oblivion it brings

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

I am no more
a me
without an I

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

Life swims back to me
from a distant
horizon

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

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.

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?"

"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

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

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."

". . .THE WONDROUS ARCHITECTURE OF THE WORLDE. . . ."

I laugh
the road over the Hog's Back
closed because....it melted

was the sun ever so
back in your day
eh Kit?

and what do I read
Mr. Marlowe?
why words, Kit, words

that word magician
Dr. Burgess he presumes
to bring you back

to life again
and so it seems
I see your blood Kit

streaming in the firmament
nay only a Deptford sunset
dragged screaming from memory

your blood upon the page Kit...
mere cherry juice it
stains the words

and so to Deptford I
do go
thanks to Madame Remembrance

I a poor
purveyor of poetry
clutching at words

and here
a great reckoning
not  in a little room

but on a lost street
staining the scene
a sickly yellow

and so enough
of Prologue...
Act 1 begins

a smiling ruffian
see his knife smiles too
the blade eager for blood

alas I
in so much pain I
have no fear of death

indeed would welcome
the flicked knife
if it would release me

from my life
a man prepared
to die if it be so

"Come live with me and be
my love..." I doth quote
in my best Passionate Shepard

"Wot?" he wots
scared of my insouciance
the ghost of Marlowe by my side

ahhh he the very villian
a scar from eye to smile
he aims to do the same to me

"Where, rogue... did
they get thee?" I mock
"VILLIANS 'R' US?"

Marlowe's ghost laughs
"Aye lad...aye lad
to him!"

"Only one of us..."
I warn my hellhound
"....will come out of this alive!"

I pause for effect
"And I'm afraid
it won't be( hee hee ) thee!"

I take a determined step
towards my would-be
now trembling killer

who all this wordage
being too much for him
he flees

ahhh the glint of words
defeats the glint of steel
he my would-be-not-to-be-death

"What God or Feend, or spirit of the earth,
Or Monster turned to manly shape
Or of what mould or mettle he be made...?"

I declaim to an audience
of cats and cans and
other streetly filth

I...I. . .unable to
find the next line
and so I etc., etc., etc.

and once more
I am of Guildford yet again
30 years or more away

and there melts a road
upon the Hog's Back
and I laugh to be alive

"Doth teach vs all to have aspyring mindes:
Our soules, whose faculties can comprehend
The wondrous architecture of the worlde.."

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.

HOW NOT TO SWEAR WHEN ONE IS SWEARING

After I hit it
with a hammer

my old thumb takes on
a now cartoonish character

pulses and throbs
grows biggerandbiggerANDBIGGER.

My three year old
gasps in astonishment

that an adult would/could
do such a silly silly thing.

"Bold Daddy!" she scolds "Bold Daddy!"

My mind screams in silence but
my tongue longs

to utter in the demotic
a good old fashioned Anglo-Saxon

ffffffffffFFFFFFF...word!

I somehow( don't
ask me how )

gaze into my little one's
baby blues

delete the expletive
carefully in slow motion

substitute the first
thing that pops into the mind

the first( as it happens )
of Mr. Joyce's thunderwords.

None of Eliot's
"  Shantih     shantih     shantih "

I had the presence of mind to
"Finnegans Wake" it!

"BABABADALGHARAGHTAKAMMINARRONNKONNBRONN
TONNERRONNTUONNTHUN­NTROVARRHOUNAWNSKAN
TOOHOOHOORDENENTHURNUK!"



"Funny Daddy!" she chortles "Funny Daddy!"

Now whenever things
go wrong and

they will go wrong
( as sure as words is words )

she begs me
to "...do the thunder!"

Waits for her little
bit part so she can

chime in with her
". . .TOOHOOHOO..."

and I gather her up
in my arms and we

both declaim
as one

". . .THURNUK!"

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

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.

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.

THE ONLY WAY OF LOOKING AT A BIRD
( for Glyn Pope )

she looked at the bird
with all of her self

as if by some alchemy
of thought

she flew into
its shape

as it became the air
her mind opening

its wings
to the sky

the house now
a little blue egg

far far below her
her voice curving

into a beak
that flung its being

into the song
of self

scrawled across
a sky

becoming sunset
so that

becoming human
again

was a grief
that could only be

expressed
in birdsong.

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.

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.

"...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.

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

TRAVELING 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

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!"

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.

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

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

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.

BAKING INSTRUCTIONS

Main ingredient - one little girl.

Add a Dad.

Use as much of a Saturday morning
as it takes.

Oh such stickysticky dough
mixed with little girl delight.


"We need to knead it!"
I tell her.

She goes at it with fervour
and great gusto.

Flour settles like snow
upon golden curls.

She cuts a cross
in its flesh

gives it a kiss
as a final blessing.

We prove it
for an impatient 15 minutes.

It hides under
a Man Utd tea towel.

And now, while it bakes
she...shhhhhh...sleeps.

Her & her
cat.

She awakes as
the little loaf emerges

into the brightness
as noon

her laughter
melting butter.

"Mmmmmmyummmm!"
she Mmmmmmyummmms.

I tidy
the kitchen.

LOOK AT THE BUTTERFLY

He is looking at a butterfly
that isn't there.

He is looking at a butterfly
that isn't there because

I have told him to
look at the butterfly.

And because I am
his big brother

he trusts me
that there will be

a butterfly.

The camera goes click.
Captures my brother

and the famous butterfly
that was never there.

"Did you see it...did you see it!"
"Yes...yes I saw it!"

Now at your dying
I call to you

"Look at the butterfly Brian...
look at the butterfly!"

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.

You were always
the bit

where the map creased & tore
leaving us unsure

looking through a hole
at our own big toe.

You were always
the bit

where the map was folded in four
and had to be awkwardly unfolded

just to see
where you were.

You were always
the bit

that was just off this map

ending in mid air...

...see next map:

...the missing map!

You were always
the lost map.

You were often
the wrong map.

The map that there was...

. . .no map of!

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.

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.

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.

& . . .

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

&. . .

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.

WE ALL LAUGH IN THE SAME LANGUAGE

"We live between
two fires. . ."
he tells the cameras

"...the misery of going
the misery of staying..."

The camera cuts
to his daughter

seriously playing
locked inside her self.

They are refugees
from TV land

their harsh reality
living behind the glass

that separates them
from us.

Suddenly there is an invasion
of clowns.

The man in the navy blue suit
broken top hat & polka dot tie

is sowing laughter
in the barren lands of their minds

his buffooning reaping
a bumper crop in minutes.

The clownish figure of fun
gathering delighted applause

from those who never thought
they could laugh again.

They hula hoop crazily through the camps
juggle and pratfall with the reality of war.

"All shall be well, and all shall be well
and all manner of thing shall be well.”
their antics seem to tell. . .

Maybe there will be laughter
after all

after all
we all laugh in the same language.