she blew in on
a gust of pheromones
"Ya wanna see my erogenous zones?"

LITTLE RED PLANET

Like a perfect little planet
the tiniest strawberry of ever & ever

sat in the universe
of your palm

us two
nothing but specks
(you in a blue dress)  

in the middle of the hugest field
in the world

green as
Forever is.

“Eat it..! ”
you laugh
“...in one bite! ”

Offering me the little red planet
in the universe of your open hand.

I lap at it
licking up the taste of it

intense as
the taste

of ever & ever is

the deliciousness
of your laughter

but the money
in the meter of memory

runs out

and the loveliness
of your laughter

delicious as
a little red planet

(the salty tang of your hand)  

hides
once again

in the mystery of Time.

ALL THE FIELDS OF THE FARM

Spring had blossomed
into being

infecting him
like a virus.

He could feel the season
run wild in his blood

making him
want to run

to all the fields of the farm
and all the fields of the farm

welcomed him knew him
as a growing thing

this the youngest
of his days.

He ran for only
the beauty of the running

the joy of being
alive

to be the boy he was
in this moment.

The freedom of not
needing to name or own

in order to understand
the existence of this now.

And when he returned
from all the directions

that the wind had to
offer

a boy of cuts and scratches
a smile stained with blackberries

burrs cling to him
for dear life

shirt torn
honeysuckle strewn

he was no longer
the boy who

had run off into
the beginning of spring

but had become
through his joy

all the fields
of the farm.

THE LATEST SCORE

I feel you
in my bones.

You walk when
I walk.

The shadow of you
in my voice.

You talk when
I talk.

"How you. .
.get in there?"

I laugh
with your laughter.

"Don't believe in graves!"
you answer

breathing with my breath
speaking the wordless words.

"Don't believe in death...
either!"

you add to your hypothesis
as if further proof were needed.

You jump around
in my blood

hijacking my pulse.

"Hiya bud!"
you say

thinking with my thoughts
in that same slow easy drawl.

"This is where
the dead go

. . .when they die."

I know the living
ghost of my brother

. . .would never lie.

"Hey...!" says
my never forgotten brother

"...go easy on the ghost stuff!"
he smiles.

"Don't believe in ghosts either!"

"The dead live
inside those they love..."

I complete the sentence
for him

thinking now
with his thoughts.

Now we both laugh
with the same laugh.

"So, what's the latest score?"

"Look likes...we're winning!"

HERE, HERE &: HERE.

Weather
kept following him around

like he was a map
with all that isobar & stuff he

could never
understand.

Emotional weather.

Pain:
Here, here &. . .here.

Windshield wipers
kept sloshing the world

back&forthback&forth

the town dissolving
in a bluered neon.

The moments felt like
boring ads

between the boring TV programmes
that had become his life.

His life
a stagnant sitcom.

A rather theatrical
lightning bolt

tore the dark in
two.

The ghost
in the answering machine

her voice still so
alive:

"I'm not here
right now. . ."

THE WIND WALKS AMONGST THE CHANDELIER

a chandelier
hung from a tree
the sunlight in love with it

"No room for it
in my little house
I thought I'd give it to the tree!"

"Well, have you ever
seen a chandelier hung from a tree?
No, well...there ya go!"

the tree looked happy
wearing its chandelier
as if it had grown it itself

a bird alights
on the tree's chandelier
a sunset caught up in it

*

It was strictly for the birds and the bees( and the tree)who seemed to love it...it was only a broken plastic thingy but the idea of hanging it on the tree was what made it work...it was very surreal like coming across a Dali painting but after a while you just accepted that...well...there it was...the wind liked playing with it too. All it takes is one man with one novel idea and there...ya go!

A friend has sent me a picture of a chandelier in a tree! Ha ha I thought this only existed in my memory of Ted in Cornwall! I hadn't a camera then and didn't write poetry so it just sort of languished there in my mind until it got jogged into recollection! We used to drink Mint Juleps under it and talk into the sunset. He used to have bottle trees as well so I thought the chandelier tree was just an extension of this. At night he would run an extension to it and it would just exist in the sky like a rather large firefly. I liked its daylight incarnation best as then it was strictly the tree's. Once electricity was added it became more ours...albeit a rather strange "ours' but still ours to drink mint juleps under until dawn lit a fire under it and it was time to go to bed.

BULLETS AND BUTTONS

Nature reclaims
the battlefield.

Spring dresses it
in green.

The dead refuse
to remain dead.

Ploughshares turn up
bullets and buttons.

The ghosts come out
of the woods.

Stare at the tourists
accusingly.

FLYING INTO FOREVER

the geese flew on and out
of my childhood

leaving me returning
each new year

to find that same moment
when I was 9

seeing the geese now
with different eyes

but somehow still
that little boy

seeing them
for the first time

the geese flying on and out
into forever. . .

. . .snow has fallen
in love with the world

dressing everything in
the same crisp white quiet

icicles hang from
the blue tricycle

a lost green glove creeps across the front yard

soon my daughter
all 9 years of her

will awake to find
the dream made real

a forgotten doll
gazes up at me

from the bottom of
the frozen pond

I write you a Christmas card
as I do each year

sign it love
as I always do

forgetting that

you are dead.

THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
      RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON

It was...
Oct 5th - 1970.

A Monday.

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

87 days remaining
until the end of the year.

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

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

Huge clouds
menaced the horizon

impersonating an Armada
of Spanish Galleons.

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

The smiling President drawing
nearer and nearer.

In Nass
the drenched crowed cheered.

In Newbridge now
flocks of children chase the car

like he was some
kinda Piper from Hamelin.

I kept a close eye on
the secret service

all dressed in the same suit
looking like clones

of one another
talking into their sleeves.

My gaze searches and settles
upon him

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

Sure he had called his setter
King Timahoe

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

bolstering the Irish-American vote.

And now here he was
the man himself

in person
the 37th President.

Irish colleens dancing
upon a make-shift stage

in the square
of Kildare.

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

a bead of sweat trickles into
that infamous Nixon grin.

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

My mind flashes back to
1729

when his Quaker ancestors
fled the Emerald Isle.

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

in the middle of
The Vietnam War

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

Yeah yeah...sure sure!

Carpet bombing Cambodia
the famous Nixon duplicity

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

Oh there are protests
he has 5 eggs hurlers.

"Splatsplatsplatsplat and splat!"
Only one near hit.

And one man protesting
the price of a pint

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

What's the world
coming to?

School kids waving
their plastic( in slow mo )

American flags
on little plastic sticks.

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

shooting my mouth off
with a great shout:

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

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

Character assassination.

Mr. McCann
aka "The Bicycle Man!"

curses me
in Irish.

After all he is
my Irish teacher.

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

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

I yell as
I get a clip around the ear.

McCann holds his hand
over my mouth.

Then suddenly Nixon
is no longer

there.

The hurled words
disappear into the air.

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

The De La Salle
Academy looming up before us.

Mr. McCann
hoovers near.

I cover both
my ears.

But he only tousles
my hair.

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

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

He grins.
Slips me a sixpence.

I sing the new Led Zep
only released that day.

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

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

My political life
had only just begun.
*

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

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

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

President Nixon in the Timahoe graveyard.

Don't know what happened to him then!

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

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

Led Zeppelin 111 - Immigrant Song.

"...IS A PUZZLEMENT?"

I give her that six across look.
She gives me the 2 down come on.
"Mmmmm....the beast with two backs...17 letters?"

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).

THE BIGGEST COWARD OF THEM ALL

Was I not scared?
I was not!

I was ****** terrified!

I ran towards
the German's defence.

Bullets stuttering
all around me

trying to pronounce
the word: "Death."

Took it in the shoulder.
Took it in the thigh.

Ha ha...flesh wounds.

Couldn't imagine being dead.
I was enraged

that they were
attempting to **** me.

Pain wasn't allowed
to touch me.

Me...yeah me the biggest
coward of them all.

What was I like!

They saw me
as I saw them.

The grenade looming large
in their startled eyes.

Their lips saying
a silent prayer.

They were only boys.
Much more terrified

than I!

Their screams even now
shattering my sleep.

Each night
for the rest of my life

I see them die.
I forever cry.

War
the biggest coward

of them all.

O KINDLY QUEEN OF THE SILENCE

He was ten
and I was sixty.

He an all black
cat with one white spot

living all his nine lives
at once.

I( ha ha )
supposedly his master.

In truth, he
the master of me.

He, asleep now
upon my left knee..

Always the left
never the right.

Always a knee
never a lap.

His purrs
turning into snores.

Rather than disturb
such sweet slumber.

I stay still
even when the leg: cramps!

He wakes, yawns(
as) only cats can.

Nails clitter clatter
across black&white kitchen tiles.

His night just
beginning.

Mine just ending.

The cat flap
*****.

DR. SAM'S HAPPY DAYS

That Sam-I-am!
( waiting for God-knows-who-or-wot )
nothing always happens...twice

I do not like thee Clov and Hamm
( I can read with my eyes closed )
The Godot in the Hat comes( or not )back

guess I'm just Lucky
quaquaquaqua outside time without extension
skulls and stones...skulls and stones...unfinished:

oh the thinks you could think up if
only you were( feckitt )
a Seuss or a Beckett

WAVA


clouds gather
as we gather

cloudberries

the hidden
secret

precious patches
of fruit

my wife
smiles

ripens
to my touch

TEARS OF MARBLE

( for Ita, Danny, Junie and Brian )

the angel rests her head
against mine

uses my tears
to cry

for marble is unable
to bear such human pain

the sorrow within..welling
overwhelming the eyes

here lies buried all
I hold most dear

I weep for myself
that I

am left behind
this sadness

this greif
bereft of mind

and only now
can the angel cry

great big fat tears
of rain

sploshing upon my eyes
shut tight

yet still seeing
her soft shy carved smile

marble and human both
cry in vain

the heavens open
I drenched to the skin

Heaven refusing
to let me in

SMALL GOD

Time was
cheap.

It lay scattered
all around

like shattered
Spring sunlight

tangled in hedges
or hung from trees.

There was almost
too much of it.

As if one small boy
could ever use it all up.

There was no end of it
as if there was only now.

Now, this
forever.

And so appeared the world
when I was 7.

A heaven
here on earth

that didn't need to be
prayed for.

Sunlight genuflected
to me

as if I were
the small God

of this
very moment.

CHANGE OF ADDRESS

You didn’t die
you just changed shape

became invisible
to the naked eye

became
this grief

it’s sharpness
more real

then your presence was

before you were separate to me
entire to yourself

now you are
a part of me

you are inside my self

I call you
by your new name

‘Grief…Grief! ‘

although I still call you
‘Love.’

Dónall Dempsey

https://www.recover-from-grief.com/poems-for-bereavement.html

THE BACKWARD LOOK
( for D.B. )

The blackbird
leaves me a note

pinned
to the sky

that blue
beyond blue

the tide
of the moment

turning turning.

Time like apple blossom
falling through my mind

the little boy
unable to believe

that this day
is not

made of forever
but only this " now."

I walk back
through my self

to unpin the note
the blackbird wrote

with his voice
still pinned

to that
self same sky.

The blue so still
beyond even its self.

I, at last, able
to read the bird's words

its language a secret
no longer to me

"I sing..." it says "...I sing!"

"Because all this
must die!"

"I sing the moment's tide
its turning always turning!"

It's throat
full of song

glorying in being

alive
for this

one eternal
moment.

ADAGIO

the music
tiptoes

through
the room

careful not to
wake the sleeping

photographs
of the dead

their lives
trapped behind glass

amongst vast fields
of wallpaper violets

stopping to
caress

the singular
beauty

of the rose
dreaming

in its chipped
vase

of the garden
where it was born

curtains led
by a breeze

into their dance
gazing upon the green

that unfurls
about the house

the music
wounded now

by a tear
that grown upon

her cheek
note by note

a woman staring into space

the cat asleep
upon her toes

the music retreating
back into the mahogany cabinet

curling itself
into its circle

a whirlpool of black
shellac

the music
lost in the silence

only its breathing
audible now

in the runoff
groove

the needle returning
to its proper place

with a click
the last light

stealing across
the lawn

WILD WAVES CRASHING
ABOUT THE OLD HEAD OF KINSALE

I scramble
into your bed

like I'd do when I was 2
or four or more.

Rub your back for you
(you my 95 year old child )
until sleep gathers you in.

Just like you did for me
when I was your little boy.

I listen to you as slowly slowly
your dreams capture you.

I love your each and every breath.

And when you awake
two hours later

there I am
still rubbing your back.

You smile and tell me
your mother would do the same

when you were a tiny boy
waves crashing about the Old Head of Kinsale.

So here we all are
the backrubbers of the ages

all in the one place
sharing different times

comforting,,,soothing
easing all the pain

waves crashing about the Old Head of Kinsale.

FAST AWAKE

"Nite. . ?" Reach for the switch
"Nooooo...don't turn the dark on!"
"My dolly's scared!"

"It's no good...I got no sleeps in me!"
"I better get up 'cos
I'm fast awake!"

IS TUSA...MO THEACH RÚNDA BEAG
(You Are...My Little Secret House)



my house
a hedge
on my uncle's farm




that only existed
in summer
holiday land




In terms of time
it is the year
called 1963




but that is neither
here nor there
for this is the timeless time




of a small boy who
wishes to be
invisible




found when falling
from a tree
into a fairy tale




hedge of many
years standing
thick and tangled with time




door
?
there is no door




one has
to beat
one's way in




the only door is
pain
and determination




endure the sting
of nettle
the scratch of briar




crying is
the only thing
not allowed




burrs clinging
to curls
and geansaí




transforming you
into a wild
creature




dock leaves stand near by
to take the sting
out of things




the hedge
closing
behind you




but once inside
it blossoms out into
a makeshift  palace




that only
a child could
cherish




a hedgehog
keeps
house




the other
occupants
various creepy crawlies




sunlight now
and then
comes to visit




sometimes
the rain
drops in




gossiping in
drips
and drabs




a roof of bird song
and green
sunlight




a wall of pig squeals
and chicken clucks
moos and barkings




I a creature
amongst
other creatures




sharing this
the same
moment





grateful
I am
for their acceptance




oh I must go. . .
a butterfly
needs to talk to me

THE LOVERS ATTEMPT TO DISCOVER EACH OTHER

"Azure...are you sure?"

Surely blue's...just...blue!

We just let the sky...be...sky.

Refuse to pin an adjective
on it.

"An onion?"
" I hate 'em an' all its minions!

We float on a sea
of green green grass.

Roses chat with the trees
shooting the breeze

nodding in agreement
with everything the wind says.

The words are all
used up.

Useless for what
we feel.

We communicate in
kisses...caresses.

Bodies speak
for themselves.

LE PRINCE DE DEMPSEY Á LA TOUR ABOLIE

Even my shadow
refuses to walk with me.

Even my reflection
refuses to see me.

Even my imaginary friend
refuses to speak to me.

"Why then Ile fit you.
Dónall’s mad againe."

Here in my own
personal Waste Land

tangled up in Nerval
and Eliot. I Kyd ye not.

And with no explanatory
footnotes.

I'll get even...I'll get even
with the lot of them.

*

A piece of whimsy to deal with great grief. My brother had died and then my Dad...I was totally lost and falling out of myself. I just happened to be reading Eliot at the time hence all the references to the end of The Waste Land and his reference to Nerval's “El Desdichado,”   and Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy which served as my references to the great sorrow I was experiencing .

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

I CRY TOO.

My reflection
steps into the mirror

looks at me with disgust
at having to be me.

It doesn't say nothing.
But I can see what it is thinking.

I stare for hours
at this glass me.

The light leaves us.

We can only see us
when a car's headlights

travels across the room.

The mirror cries.
I  cry too.

GOING ON WITH ME

never did like
my own
birthday

all that cakes
and candles
stuff

you could keep it
strictly
for the birds

every day was
my birthday
far as I could see

Birthdays...
who'd
have 'em....eh

but to have one
is the only way to go
on to be someone

miss one and
you're gone
out like a candle

every birthday
always called
my Mam

after all she did
all the hard work
when push came to shove

all I did was arrive
thank her for
having me

"Ahhh  go on with ya!"
she'd forever
laugh

this always the best
bit of my birthday
celebrating my mother

Stilettos biting
into the hall Lino.

A tiny crescent moon
left at every step.

Black & white squares
repeating themselves

endlessly to
the opening door

letting in the night's
traffic

then, shut:
closing the outside - out.

I glimpse you
through a spider's web

that throws itself
across the ***** glass

crying now
real rain.

You stop at the center
of the cobweb as if...but:

you continue on
& you are gone.

Your footsteps step
into the silence.

Cue the theatrical
thunder & lightning

as if I am
living in a film.

A spider
dashes out....

FASHION STATEMENT


the tree
gathered her leaves
around her



stuck
a passing cloud
in her hair



wore
a little  sunlight
& a slight rain



changed clothes
every now & then
as the fancy took her



now a brilliantly blue
sky
made of summer



now a warm evening
with just
the slightest breeze



then
a striking sunset
before falling asleep



wearing only
a night sky
with scattered diamante stars

she a palimpsest of all she ever was
the little girl smiling
through her seventy year old self

THAT WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAM MOMENT

Apoplectic God
furiously reads note

Attached to branch
in place of apple

“This is just to say
we have eaten of the fruit

that was in
the middle of the garden

and which you told us
not to.

Forgive us
it was so sweet

and deliciously
Knowledgeable.”

So much depended upon
that rain glazed red apple.

They stand wailing
and gnashing their teeth

beside the bitten
red apple

with the white teeth marks.

The wall is
a ***** blue

like a sky turned solid
and trapped in a room.

It is greasy
with time

and human beings
who have shed their skin

voices turned to dust.

There is a paler blue
circle of wall

that was once where
a clock had sat

doling out time
begrudgingly.

I stare at it.

It's circle of blue
wants to tell the time

but finds
it can not.

A cockroach crawls across it
moving from what would have been

10 to 9 to
half past.

The house has lost
its head.

A bird flies through it.

Bede's bird.

Time it seems
has rotted here.

The pale blue circle
no longer the clock

it was.

I know it is
time to go.

I turn on my
heel.

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.

RACING WITH CLOUDS

clouds racing
across a sky
across a lake

we dive into the clouds
leaving behind us the sun
wondering where we've gone

two shouty splashes
with legs sticking out of them
the lake covering us with stillness

we swim under the clouds
our lungs greedy for air
the silence roaring

we break back into the world
we had left centuries ago
our bodies shedding silver

the sky shy
embarrassed by what
Spring has suggested

we flop on the grass
like freshly caught fish
as if we have created ourselves

we the new
constantly coming
into view

we of an age
to be
immortal

a cuckoo's cry
stretching all the way
from there to where we were

joining the distances
together
the countryside dozing in the sun

it seemed that Time
would be always
this one moment forever

and so
it was
and is

& . . .

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

&. . .

IT WAS A FRABJOUS DAY

The Jabberwock was
having its usual

cup of coffee
its tenth of the day.

Black.
Always black.

One could see coffee grains
caught in its teeth

Always the same
big grin.

We joked
(behind its back of course)

that Jabberwock
meant coffee ******.

Not because we were fearful
but because he was such

a sensitive soul
and we didn't want to

cause offense
where no offense was meant.

It could get a bit
uffish.

An unlit cigarette clung
to its slobbery lips.

It didn't smoke but
wanted to appear to do so.

The mome raths were outgrabbing
they never seemed to stop.

The Cheshire Cat
(not all there)

smiled its smile
we called it Mona Lisa.

We were all just
hanging about

as you do when
your author ponders.

Nobody dared to
approach him.

He was a God
to us.

Me and the rest of the Toves
knew our place

and played cards
with the Borogoves.

The Borogoves
were cheaters.

The Jubjub birds were
bored out of their tiny skulls

perching in the branches of
the TumTum trees in Tulgey Wood.

The Bandersnatch was having
a frumious forty winks.

We were glad to be
just alive if only

in words -
words was our world.

No use getting all
mimsy about it.

We weren't as slithy
as we were made out to be.

We practiced our
gyre and gimble.

We were merely
the creatures of his brain.

We wouldn't dare disturb
the Author for fear

of being
scratched out.

Nobody 'cept the manxome
Jabberwock that is.  

"But what's my motivation  Mr. Carroll?"
He'd forever burble.

"Could I not take just a small bite perhaps
out of the little beamish chap ?" he'd whiffle.

Mr. Carroll( nobody dared
to call him Lewis)

just smiled and
Jack Jabberwock would galumphed back.

"Ok! Places everyone - 'tis brillig!
and the story limped on again.

It was a frabjous day
a really frabjous day.

All that could be heard was
the dripping of a tap

and the constant
scratching of the pen

creating forever
creating

the next sentence.

BEING TOLD

leaves are the tree's feathers
birds are the sky's fishes
so my three year old informs me

*

She my mentor teaching me her world.

" 'TIS!"

Sure, I shock
Eternity by the hand.

"Yer a grand man so y'are!|"
Eternity kept on saying.

I gave Eternity a peck
on each cheek.

"Ya....cheeky little thing!"
blushed Eternity.

"Ahhhh is it...yer self that's in it?"
gasped Infinity.

" 'tis!"  says I  "...so it is!"

"Welcome...welcome!" cries Death.
"Glad ya could make it!"

I said nothing.

Time was nowhere to be
seen.

"Is that it?"
I shyly asked.

"'tis, so it is!"
they all answered together.

" 'tis!"

So still. . .
entranced by the vision

of your own
dying

your body
offers itself

up to me

I taste the flavour
of your life

drink your dreams
savour each memory

the delicious tang
of longing

smell the sweet
desire to live

swallow your soul
(whole)  

your body
now

no use to me
or you

a broken doll
left out in the rain

at best
I kept my promise

there will be
no more pain.

**

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

AN EXPLOSION OF SILENCE

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

sang & sang
as if its life
depended on it

and when I took
a step
towards it

a twig snapped
and the silence
was as loud

as an explosion
only without
the noise

tHe tABle Is TiPsY
(to say the least) .

The chair
slouches in the corner

dRuNk As A sKuNk.

That picture
looks slightly

hUnG OvEr.

The glass cabinet
has had(** ** **)  
oNe ToO mAnY.

The toilet
has obviously(obviously)  
bEen On ThE ****.

The walls
have been
mAkInG mErRy!

Even the cat
has been at the sherry.

Am I...am I

the only one

sober

in this room?

A GREAT HURT

your death hath done me a great hurt
the sharp blade of absence hath
pierceth my heart

Death speaks in italics
and an odd old fashioned diction
that's catching

all this hath & hath not
you present only
by your absence

day after day I have to live
your death...
...hath done me a great hurt

*

THE ORDER OF THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD.

I was remembering fragments out of this as by the waters of the Liffey I sat down and wept.

"MAN, that is born of a woman, hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.

In the midst of life we are in death. . .

Thou knowest, LORD, the secrets of our hearts. . .

FORASMUCH as it hath pleased Almighty God. . .

I HEARD a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Write. . ."

THE ONLY WAY OF LOOKING AT A BIRD

( "...it is an astonishment to be alive, and it behoves you to be astonished..." John Donne )




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.

OF THE BEHOLDER

The eye
looked me in the eye.

I couldn't take my eyes
off of it.

It was a fine brown eye
sitting there in the pale sunshine

that grew paler by the second.

I knew I knew the eye
...somehow, but

- not how.

It seemed more
that the eye recognised me.

A fat raindrop
spattered on it.

Followed by another and
another.

Suddenly it seemed
that the eye that couldn't cry

was doing just that.

He picked the eye up
put it in his blazer's top pocket.

Only when he had walked
for an hour or more

did he know
who the eye belonged to.

It was a Vermeer.

That Vermeer with
the young girl turning

as if you had just
called her name.

Where the mouth is slightly open
as if she would answer you.

He wondered how
the eye had come to be

gazing up at him
begging to be

not abandoned.

He wondered where
the rest of the jigsaw

had gone and
why the eye

had seen him
as its only saviour.

He put the eye
in a clear glass frame

where it seemed
to float happily

a suspended being
staring back at me.

his mind climbing
the spiral staircase of cigar smoke
the aroma of his thoughts

LAST LONELY FLIGHT

Butterflies that flew in 1932
still held in that summer

by the exquisitely neat calligraphy
& cruel glinting pin.

I wipe the dust from the glass
& they gleam as if they still dream

of being alive.

i smash the glass
clutch them in my hand & climb

from attic to roof & slowly

drawing myself up to
my full height

release them back into time
smile as they flutter in the summer breeze

of then & now
their dead eyes taking it all in

clouds...trees...skies

their one last lonely flight
back into nothingness

AUNTIE MABEL COMES TO TOWN

she was long
in a wide way
3 seats across

when she laughed
all of her laughed
an earthquake of flesh

she had a chin
underneath her chin
and then another chin

when she hugged you
her ******* surrounded you
took you prisoner

once she stumbled
tumbled on to the cat
we had to get another cat

the cat
was like a horror movie
only realer

was always afraid
she would tumble onto me
I didn't want to be a real horror movie

the cat said nothing
all his lives
squashed flat

I liked Auntie Mabel but
she had whiskey kisses
spat when she spoke

always glad when she's gone
I feel I have somehow survived
an act of God

THE DREAM OF WATER

the water
sleeps


in a deep
well

the water
dreams


of rain writing itself
upon its face

the water
wears a moon

until human voices
wake it

and it drowns
in everyday reality.

THE VERY THING IT WAS REQUIRED TO BE SHOWN
( for Jeremy )

"I like birds
more than books."

a young Edward
Thomas thinks

scribbling it
in bad Latin

on the fly leaf of
an algebra book.

A chaffinch chuckles.

"Vink...vink...vink!" it urges
in a regional accent.

"Fringilla Coelebs!"
Edward addresses it.

"Sheld-appel...spink..blue cap!"
the bird disowns its names

content with being
itself and itself

only.

It looks as if it has
just stepped out of the 15th century

illuminated maunuscript
The Shelbourne Missal.

"A caterpillar skeletonising a leaf
mmm...breakfast mefinks!"

The year  1895
madly in love with its own

sunlight
never such sunlight

as this
the window holds the scene

as if it were
a living painting.

The bird behind the glass
poetry in just being.

The torture of
an algebra class

"Quod erat demonstrandum."