THE RED/BLUE  WHEELBARROW WITH YELLOW SPOTS ON

Outside
the window

is

a William Carlos Williams poem
coming into being.

There, is
the red wheelbarrow

glazed
with rain

( minus
the chickens )

who
have wandered
off

as if not knowing
they are needed

to fulfill
the poem

upon which
so much

depends

(gone to lay an egg
as chickens do)    

& as I turn away
they march back into view

taking up
their poetical positions.

This living poem
even has its seasons

appearing to me

now covered in snow
now how dazzling

in bright bright sunshine.

Sometimes
(for my own surreal reasons)    

I paint the wheel barrow
a yellow or blue

or blue
with yellow spots or...

My wife laughs at me
& says: 'Oh...you! '

The wheelbarrow
long gone

to seed now
sleeps quietly

upside down
beside the hen house.

Flowers growing up
between its broken wheel

covered
in fallen leaves

it dreams of being
one day a real poem.

I smile.

'Now, where's
those chickens...gone? '

* * * * *

Although I loved you
more & more

you were rotten
to the core.

I don't love you
...anymore.

LEARNING FROM MY DAUGHTER

she poses
pauses
poses

"Wot ya doin'
Tilly
my eyes question her

"I'm inventing
my self
making my world"

I wordless
my daughter far more
wiser than her father

could ever be
but then
she's three

ANSEO A TÁ TÚ
(YOU ARE HERE )


Spring had come
dressed the farm

in its best green.

Even the sky
wore the latest blue

a sort of shy
eternity.

Birds had been
perfectly positioned

after a great deal of thought
by whoever had put them

there.

Furrows crawled lazily
across the face of a field

glistening with a newness
that the day couldn't

help but be
excited by.

The trees were beside
themselves

madly in love
with time

who had been kind
to them for ages now.

Ballea lay
smiling before him

Even its very name
made his heart dance.

Even the very saying of it
made his soul swoon.

"Anseo a tá tú!"
he says to himself.

The Irish sweetening
each loved syllable.

"You are here!"
he reminds himself

in case one of the birds only
spoke English.

And never was the boy
who had come back

in the shape
of a man

as delighted
as he.


"Anseo a tá tú. . .indeed!"
his ghost smiles to his self.

GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

Not stated
( though it’s understood )

she will not say a word

like dust
swept under a rug.

Good
Housekeeping.

His anger
ripens

into the bruise
she wears upon her skin

a jewellery
of fear

written upon pale flesh
his hieroglyph of hatred.

Love’s lustre
tarnished from the first

the tattoo
of boot and fist.

Holds her hand
under the grill

until her eyes bulge
gulls screaming overhead.

The bilge
of his vile

vomiting insults
upon her scared face.

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

matching each word
to each rising fist

a blow by blow
account.

He the liturgist
in the nightly rites

of violence
uglier than can be imagined.

Lilies cower
in a vase.

He the high priest
of her despair.

An ugly bruise
upon her soul.

Her eyes now
null and void

slit wrists
upon polished table tops

in a room
now sunlit...now unlit.

BECOMING THE MAN MY FATHER ALWAYS WAS
(for Brian D)

Each night
I would follow you

through the rituals
of what you had to do

being Daddy.

I wanted to be Daddy too.

Mimicking your gait
becoming an exact

copy
of you

trailing along
in your footsteps

like a lone seagull
following in the wake

of some great ship
of state

watching the water
burn

'til it was all bubbles

then letting it
calm down

before filling my mother's
hot water bottle

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

I was
your little shadow.  

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

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

These the ritualistic words
in the hot water bottle ceremony.

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

adjusting it with his hands
and wind up Time

so that it spit tick & tocks
all through the night

then go lock doors
turn keys
draw bolts.

"That's it, son!"

I used to imagine
being you

and now I am
my own man

winding up Time

bringing my missus
the gift of a hot water bottle

(the gift of me)  

both equally
heart warming.

'Thank you Donall! '
she always smiles.

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

Me the man
I am

because of you.

Nem élhetek, se nem pusztulnak tovább
(I CANNOT LIVE NOR DIE ANY LONGER)

For Miklós Radnóti

I build this
bridge of words
so that I can

walk back over time
and take
your hand

you to me
this man
made only of words

talking out of a book
and I only able
to touch you

with these
used words
of mine

I clasp your hand
in mine
call you friend

*

Miklós Radnóti, the Hungarian poet, was shot by guards after a forced march from a Serbian labour camp in 1944 and thrown into a mass grave. When his body was later exhumed, a notebook of poems was found sewn into his clothing so even from beyond this lonely grave his words insisted on living.

"Don't walk past me, friend. Yell, and I'll stand up again!"

I reach out my hand made of words and touch your words that still make you a man.

DOC. NO. 30060

to you
who

reads me a thousand
years from now

an impossible you...I
could not begin to imagine

survivor of
WW3

the world almost ceasing
to be

and I, a fragment
of history

a few burnt pages
a charred eye

an happenstance of
history rather than

merit where
all words...any words

were made precious
me now

an historic document
that you try to  breath

live into
a me imposible to know

me the so
long ago

eaten by time
devoured by history

the symbolic irony
of the charred eye

the rest of the photo
not making it

and so, my impossible to know
write your academic paper

on this me that has
long ceased to be

but how my thought survives
in my only known poem

words burnt
at the edges

so many unknowns
so many...ellipses

I, Donall Dempsey
artifact No. 30060

returned to the library
at 6.30

Thursday, 30018
the 15th of July

"MY LOVE IS AS A FEVER..."

All that long hot summer through
I shared a summer cold with you

that seemed to last forever.

Whether, sharing the same germs, dreams,
bacteria or whatever

it seemed to bind us so...very close together.

If this was love...it couldn't get no better.

And all my heart
could say

even to this day...is:

'Bless you...bless you...bless you.'

(はっけよい)
HAKKEYOI !


two stout armchairs squat
like Sumo wrestlers
the room holds its breath

  "PUT SOME SPIRIT IN IT!"

The phrase shouted by a sumo referee during a bout, specifically when the action has stalled and the wrestlers have reached a stand-off.

THE DUSK FOX

the fox acknowledges
with an imperceptible  nod
the arrival of dusk

dusk and the fox
becoming one
entering the world of humans

the fox is busy
being a fox
stops: paw raised

the fox goes
in and out of
time

appearing now
disappearing as if
it had stepped out of the world

the dusk no longer
exists
night falls with my footfall

as if on cue
synchronised to time
and light

the fox stares  at me
beyond me...I am
a walking shadow

the yellow street light
stains us for a moment
we vanish from each other

tomorrow sees
dusk and fox
keep the same appointment


only I
am absent
. . .

AS THIS MOMENT THOU ART

The wood shavings curl &
curl to my father's voice

as he sings to the wood
releasing its scent

wave upon wave
of pine

crashing upon
this shore of summer

its morning long ago
forgotten.

This wood will shape shift
into a chair leg

dovetailing into
the song he sings

as the wood listens
to every syllable

as if his singing
coaxed into being

chair leg...window frame
stool or saddle.

"Oh believe me if all those
endearing young charms..."

and the wood swoons
to his planing

'''...that I gaze at so
fondly today."

Moore's melodies and pine
reaches back in time

to grasp
the moment

lost to my mind
but now returning

to its rightful place
as wood becomes chair leg

to my father's
singing.

west field
on its outstretched finger
crow chats to scarecrow

ALL TAFFETA & TULLE

(For Angie Baby)

Frightened by the storm
he crawls under

his mother’s skirts
all taffeta & tulle

clinging to her
ankles

before falling
asleep

upon her feet.

She continues playing
her cards right

winning all before her

as the candles
gutter

and almost
go out.

She remembers her body
wrapped about him

her flesh
protecting his innocence

as now her dress
encloses his sleeping

unconsciously stroking
his hair

with her
left foot

his dreams now
pooled at her feet.

"THERE'S NO NO.19 BUS BACK FROM THE LAND OF THE DEAD!"

He walked through
the wall.

And then: stopped
half-way-through

so that he was both
in and out of it.

"Jaysus, bud..!" I wish
ya wouldn't do that!"

"Now, look..!" he says
"it's no great shakes being dead!"

I had to admit
the truth of that.

"I'm keeping our childhood promise
that the first one to kick the bucket

come back to
tell the other all about it!"

I shrug and say: "Hey
that was a long time ago

you know
a kid's promise!"

He shrugs or shrugs
as much as a ghost can shrug.

"Well, here I am!"

"Yeah, I can see that!"

"Now if I had just appeared
I was afraid that I would scare

the living daylights outta ya so
I thought I'd throw in a little humour

that half out of/half in stuff
and it kinda was a metaphor

for my way of life
now I'm dead."

"Yeah, yeah...sure sure!
So how do I know you're real?"

"Well, yer looking at me aren't you?"

"How do I know I am
not just me talking to me

a fragment of...
a figment of..."

"Use your imagination
there's no N0. 19 bus back

from the land of the dead
so it has to be this way!"

I had to admiit
the truth of that.

"I enter into the intertisest
between your dreams.

It's not exactly a piece of cale
trying to pull it off.

I keep bumping into
all your thoughts.

Us dead have only
memories of the future

the stuff we didn't have a chance to do
but would have done if we hadn't..."

He looked wistful and
began to fade.

"Drop in any time!"
I say.

"Will do!"
he says.

The photograph of him
on the wall

showing through his
ghostly body.

And then he was gone.

I wrote him down
so I could keep looking at him

trapped inside this
bunch of words.

"MY. . . MY!"...MOUTHS THE MIME

street mime farts
the illusion
gone with the wind

*

The street mime looked like she had been shot but she recovered well and proceeded to mime a nasty smell wafting from her nether regions. My daughter was shocked as she "...didn't know womans ****....only Mummies!"

I was intrigued that she made a distinction between her mummy and other women...."Mummy isn't a womans...she's a mummy!" But then she thought about it and thought that other womans are mummies therefore....

And I said "Yes?" thinking she was going to close the circle and allow her mummy to be a womans as well...but:

"That means....that....other womans ****!" A child's logic can tie a father in knots....of laughter. . . that is.

CIRCA 1922

Touching.

Almost but not
quite.

They lie together
exactly 6 centimetres apart

if one were to measure
such a distance

but a universe apart
in terms of the heart.

They have just made love
or rather - had ***.

Now he snores.
She is unable to sleep.

She stays awake to see
the dawn enter the tiny room

gild ordinary objects
with a sunlight so golden

even a comb, a brush
a chair

become as wondrous
as objects in a Pharaoh's tomb.

And only does sleep
finally takes her prisoner

standing on the threshold
of a dream

she sees some
future archaeologist

unearth the golden comb
brush...chair...

the thoughts in her
head

her feelings
behind glass

in some museum
of the mind

"Despair"
circa 1922.

Ahhh the scent of her
voice

as if sound could be
a perfume

her limbs scattered
all over the unmade bed

like a puppet
whose strings have been cut

or now a starfish
stranded in the rock pool

of these crumpled
sheets

licking her naked
clavicle

with the tip of his
pointed tongue

reciting Éluard to her
proud left ******

"...for you are made...no
fashioned for...

nothing but
love and sleep."

or something such
( it doesn't matter much )

only the poetry
of such kisses.

THE BRAVE
( “Love sets the heart a-dreaming.”)

God hasn’t(as yet)
finished

making the world
just…the…gist of it.

He makes “the place
where the mountains live”

and had still to sketch in
the actual landscape.

So that the mountains
Just float in mid-air

as if upheld
by mist only.

He is listening intently
on his headphones

to music yet to be
created.

He digs Gabor Szabo’s
“Half The Day Is Night.”

I don’t know where He
gets His slang from!

He also had not got around to
making people.

So that the earth
was empty

The mountains
looked like gigantic beasts

that had somehow fallen
asleep…frozen into place.

One day the mountains
will come alive.

I tiptoe past
their sleeping…just in case.

“Well..?” asked God
unsure of Himself.

“Whatdoya think
is it a goer?”

I emmm and hawww
“Yeah…it’s…something else!”

He beamed from ear to ear
“But might need a tweak?”

“So what is it going to be called?”
I obsequiously enquired

knowing he had invented me
Just to agree with Him.

The Big Guy smirked:
“I’m thinking of calling it

THE BRAVE
or perhaps

SCOTLAND!”

ARRIVALS & DEPARTURES

( for Bud on his birthday that was never to be )

Never to be
met by you again

at the airport
with a hastily scribbled sign:

"WAITING FOR GOD...
KNOWS WHO!"

Or telling me you were
expecting the Cat in the Hat.

One year a tip-top topper...
...the next a battered bowler.

Always. . .
your smile

my gold coin

your laughter
my treasure.

"Ahhhh Jaysus, Bud...tears?"
cries the ghost of you.

"It's all I get these days!
Dying is so...annoying!"

"Oh, before I go. . !"
the ghost of you smirks

before fading away
into an EXIT sign.

"I love the purple
fedora!"

CALLING YOUR NAME

How, strange...you were
and now...you're not.

How, unbelievable I had
a brother...and now I've not.

The world turned and somehow
you got off.

Death, that
great Exit door.

I have seen you dead
and still - believe it not.

I follow in the footsteps
of your dying

speak your name
making you

come alive again
if only in sound

living upon my lips.

You forever my brother
despite what...Death says.

Come...live in my mind.
It's yours!

See with my eyes!
I'll share with you

what you can never
see.

Be me!
Every now and then.

I've go life
enough for two.


Carry you through
all the world.

Carry you through
all the days that remain.

The price of this
great love.

This ...
great pain.

She hugged her books
to her *******.

Her ******* hardening into
her Othello and Algebra.

She watched his mouth
move

alive with words
she heard nothing of

only
her name

"...yadayadaMARY...
...yada yada MARY!"

A bead of sweat
trickled between her breast.

She tried to catch
her breath and

what he was saying but
it only gave her hiccups.

She squirmed
under his gaze

a butterfly
held by a pin

pleasure
that was
pain.

"And that was how
I met your Dad!"

She tells this story
only when she's very very

tipsy
crying now

for the girl she was
- then:

the Shakespeare & Maths
pressed to her chest

the world
awaiting her.

LISTENING TO YOUR FAVOURITE PIECE OF MUSIC

Oh you were so
quiet

I hardly heard you
tiptoe silently in

settle yourself
amongst the strings

talking to me
now in cello
now in violin

the heartbeat of a drum

the exchange of laughter
between  glockenspiel & xylophone

making a point
with either

the tiny ******
of a triangle

or the crash of a symbol.

I listen to you talk
to me in music

the candlelight
grows dim & then

as softly as you came

you leave

leaves

(fluttering against
the windowpane) .

I feel you leave
leave before the movement ends

footsteps
in the silence of my memory

me nearly

forgetting

that you've died

listening on
until the end

as the music

cries.

IF ONLY THE WAR WOULD DIE

If only the War would
die

but it lives on
crawls across the mind

the everyday things
infected

people in trams and buses
wearing my dead friend's face

until everyone
becomes him.

A car backfires
and I hit the ground

to the amazement and amusement
of passersby who pass by.

It's what kept me
alive.

This the curse
of survival.

Even birds wear
my dead friend's face.

Even his face
in a flower's petals.

He falls in the rain
again and again and again

stranded on the wire
like a ****** broken puppet

the wind
pulling his strings

dying for days
on end.

"Die you ****** ******...die!"
I beg him.

But he refuses
to listen.

Three men dead
by ****** fire

trying to get him
me I got it in the leg.

I see him rot
stage by stage

the secrets of the grave
open for all to see.

I see the rats
gnawing at his dear face

until only his skeleton
grins at me.  

His voice forever
calling to me.

JULY IV MDCCLXXVI

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

THAT  ADLESTROP  MOMENT

Train stops.
Stranding us in real life countryside.

Townies gobsmacked.
Silence attacks.

The world melting
in a heat haze.

Where has our real
reality gone?

Tracks lead away from us
be we are going

nowhere
fast.

As if the future
had ceased to exist.

We are like the male member
caught in the teeth

of a too hastily
done-up zip.

Yep,,,,,,,doesn't go up!
Oooops,,,,doesn't go down!

A kestrel free
of our dilemma.

Laughs at us
"Humans, eh....who'd 'ave 'em!"

Smaller birds gossip
discussing this all too human

situation.

I recite Adlestrop
in my mind

to my reflection
staring dumbly back at me.

"There is a countryside
in my face..."

I Marvell.

As if Nature
had invaded my physiognomy .

"Unwontedly...something
something something or other."

Oh bother!

"No one left and no one came."
The birds stop to listen.

"Yes, we remember Adlestrop!"
they twitter.

"Hear it one day
in what you humans

call
the Past.

Wot a laugh!

They unaware that there is only
one great big forever."

I fell silent.
Deserted by all thought.

"Give us some more
of that good old Adlestrop stuff!

The birds chirrup.

"No what less still and lonely fair
through cloudlets in the sky."

I ventured.

"Naw...naw...naw mate!"
a crow caws.

"The bit 'bout us birds
if you please!"

I cough and continue.

"Farther and farther, all the birds
of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire."

The birds all cheep and cheer.
"Hip hip hooray for Edward Thomas!"

The train remembers itself.
Rouses itself from its slumbers.

As if all this
had been but a dream.

"Yes, I remember Adlestrop"

But not all of it.

It was June.

AHHH....AMI!

"Je cherche le mot..."

Her left foot
had gone

. . .asleep.

The rest of her
still

. . . wide awake.

The net curtains
she noticed idly

needed washing

blew back
in an almost

theatrical( how
dramatic)fashion

& there
stood Death

large as life
( so to speak ).

Death itself
like an old fashioned butler

"Almost a Jeeves!"
she chuckled softly

to her self.

"Madame, if I may
...have a word?"

"Oh, Mr. Death
surely not yet...not yet?"

Death smiled
obsequiously.

"Le Roi, s'amuse. . ."

The unfinished Maupassant
falling from her hand.

THE MAN FROM GOD KNOWS WHERE

I come from
nowhere

that you'd know

the name lost
in its pronunciation.

All the houses
that were homes

I walk through empty air

a living ghost

recreating an architecture
of remembering

from this nothing that is
left.

My home is
my sister's laughter

as night is falling
in 1963.

My home is
my father's singing

softly through snowflakes
MY LAGAN LOVE.

My home now
my mind

drifting through time

as memory flowers
into being

& I am
once again

this me
made new.

I'm the man
from God knows where

a dandelion seed
taking to the air.

FORGIVE ME...YOUR KISSES ARE DELICIOUS!

(Apologies to W.C.W)

So much depends
upon

your bright red mouth
& white white teeth

as our lips meet
& our eyes glaze over

with love as bright
as rainwater.

"She...she. . .
loves me!

He says it just
- like that!

As if he had practiced it
and had got it

- down pat!

Or as if he were saying:
"Pass the coffee ***."

Or as if...
...I didn't!

I watch him
distorted in the coffee pat

a short stout man
a little man with a long face.

I want to laugh but
I have lost my laughter.

"My...sister! My...twin!...The *****!"

"Go!" I tell him "...just: go!"

He: went.

She felt like an android
or replicant rather..

She thought of her
self now

in the( "Absurd!" )3rd
person singular

as if she had fallen
out of her self.

He: gone.

All those moments
lost in time

making love to Wagner's
Tannhäuser

( screaming the house down )

always his laughter
her music

stars dancing over
the Bridge of Sighs.

A Santa incredulously
in a gondola

singing Santa Lucia.

"So...
me d'oh!"
she hummed.

This the little song
of her self.

"So mi doh!"

trying to keep its head
above the floodwaters

of belief.

Bladerunner rewound 99 times
to that END.

All those moments
...lost in time

like( cough)tears

in a glass of
red wine.

INTO THE INELUCTABLE MODALITY OF THE INELUCTABLE VISUALITY

Leopold Bloom
tousles my hair.

Tells me I'm a
"...grand little fella altogether!"

His large black eyebrows
look as if they will leap

off his face and land on mine
chew my mind.

Of course he is
only Milo O'Shea.

Actor extraordinaire
from Strick's ULYSSES.

Some concert in the girl's gym
has mad him appear here

before me
quaking in fear.

He is the first man I see
in a tux.

Our class is to recite
THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS.

Was I not nervous?
Jaysus I was so I was!

The spotlight a Medusa
turning us to stone.

An audience a many
headed monster.

I...I...I
petrified.

I throw my voice
out into the dark

like throwing a mad dog
a bone.

"As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle mount to the sky."

Guy beside me starts to cry
wee running down his left knee.

Now it's over and I
am returned to myself again.

Meeting Mr. Milo
is just a happenstance.

Later he will will become
Durand Durand

trying to **** Barbarella
with sheer pleasure.

Now,  Zeffirelli's kind friar
in ROMEO AND JULIET.

But for me
he always blossoms

into Bloom
tousling my many many curls.

"A wink of his eye and
a toss his head.

soon gave me to know
I had nothing to dread."

MONKEY NUTS

He’d chosen
the mask himself  

cried for it for
Halloween

but now
coming the witching hour

(& the eagerly awaited trick or treating)  

he refuses
to wear it

explains
(in all seriousness)  


“When I puts it on
I scares myself! ”

All night
Death on the door knocks

but we don’t answer
it

we hide inside
& eat loads & loads of

monkey nuts.

A Blazon sonnet?

That’s the one an
Elizabethan lover

would turn his
Elizabethan Miss

into a
list

itemise her attributes
(hidden or otherwise)      

& tick ‘em off
bit by bit

like a ledger clerk
closing an account.

From the colour
of her eyes
(always had to be blue)      

to the colour of her
hair(always a blonde)      

from toes to ***
in one hit.

Sincere...not
the least little bit!

Yawn...stop me if you have heard this one!

A fashion accessory
for the gay young blade about town

already fallen out of fashion
before it had barely begun.

“Oi...darling! ”

“Yeah...you love! ”

“Get your ruff on
...you’ve pulled! ”

“I got 14 lines
Petrarchan or Shakespearean

...know wot I mean? ! ”

And a clever
clearheaded Elizabethan lady

would more than likely
(but politely)      

tell ‘em

“Oh...f*est thou
off! ”

SON OF A BI...BIT...BITC...GUN!

Porky Pig
hits his thumb

with a hammer.

It swells up
and throbs

only like a cartoon can.

Now, back then...
*****!  is not a word

you use in cartoon land
or in front of your Dad or Mum.

But Porky stu...stu...stamm...stutters:
”Oh! SON OF A BI..BIT...GUN!"

Then winks at us and says:
”Ha you thought I was goin’ to say: '*****!' ...didn't ya!"

It catches on...
becomes a catch phrase.

We use it every time
we can.

Everything is BI...BI...BI...GUN!

Mum can’t understand
where we got the word from.

When we explain
- she frets:

“Don’t tell Porkie Pies!
Porky Pig would never say that! ”

UNCLE MICHAEL- ALIAS GOD

His hands(tobacco stained)    
twisted & gnarled

knotted like an alive piece of wood
scrawled gestures across my mind

as the sick calf bucked in his arms
& his quiet strength - calmed:

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

& the sound
soothed.

And the veins(line vines)    
ran up & down his arms

pumping crude life like a sudden sketch
to suggest the gist of rather than

the meaning of things.

And he walked(& I ran)    
towards Granny's garden(like God tending Eden)    

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

the leaves murmured
(like worshippers in a church congregation)    

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

A tablecloth was laid
on a loganberry bush.

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

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

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

that the little wooden man(the silent statue)    
had been waiting(all the time all ready made)    

waiting to be released
from his prison of wood.

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

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

The rhododendrons were blue with amazement

-at this revelation
a dragonfly walked upon the water.

A butterfly became infatuated with a flower.

Me...?

I watched as his hands talked...
...explaining things that could not be...said.

And he took my hand in his and I understood

flowed like a little stream
into his big river

felt God(close)    
near at hand

and...smiling.

A WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS MOMENT

She awakes to
a DayGlo yellow post-it-note

stuck to
her bottom lip.

'Forgive me...'
it reads

'...stealing
the kisses

sleepily left
on your luscious

lips

they

were

delicious.'

You call me
at the office

& cry.

CRAWLING OUT AND FALLING UP
( for Linda )

Her first puddle
"There's rain lying dead
in a hole!"

She's only ever
seen rain fall
not trapped in a *** hole.

"Why doesn't it
crawl out
and fall up?"

Indeed?
I see it happen
in thought if not in deed.

I have to admit
I'd never thought of it
like...that?

Now she's all
grown up and
doesn't even remember it.

We meet a modern
day puddle and
she's puzzled...when I say:

"Why doesn't it
crawl out
and fall up?"

"Oh Da...!" she sighs
"How do you ever
think of such...things?"

IF PARADISE IS HALF AS NICE

Yawns
into my morning

wearing only my
Edvard Munch’s THE SCREAM

Tee-shirt
(so that’s where it’s gone)

which is a mere
miniskirt on her

scratching a well tanned
behind.

All smeared mascara
all Cleopatra eyes

all mad crazy hair
mad as a bag of spiders

dancing
(sleepily to)

Amen Corner
on the summer radio.

Takes my toast
from my poised hand

takes a bite
crunchily...noisily

then puts it back
in exactly the same position.

Pats me
on my head

“Mmmmmm.... thanks Dad! ”

“Stolen toast is always
twice as nice! ”

Sings softly
swaying to herself

“If Paradise is half
as nice

“As the Heaven that you take me
to...”

(Ooops...slops
spills her orange juice)

“...who needs Paradise? ”

“I’d rather...have you! ”

Then suddenly excitedly
talking to boyfriend No.22

on her little pink
glitzy mobile.

Guess my little girl
has(gulp) grown up!

"THE TROUBLE WITH GERANIUMS IS THAT...."

She did not know
how it had come to be

but she was having toast
and tea with Titus Groan!

Mervyn Peake appeared
to have drawn himself

with pen and ink
the very essence of his creation

as if he had stepped forth
from his book.

The man himself
in flesh and blood.

A living caricature.

Mervyn said nothing.
Just stared into  the depths

of who he was
lost  in himself.

Her boyfriend said nothing
depressed beyond belief.

She said nothing.
Too young and too naive.

Sitting with Steerpike
as it were or

in a candle flicker
now with Mr Pye.

She picked up a slice of toast.
Bit into his words.

"The trouble with my toast is that
it’s far too full of bread."

The echo of his voice
lost inside her head.

Inside him, she
could hear him say

"The trouble with my looking-glass
is that it shows me, me."

"Must you..?" he seemed to say
"Keep up an intimate conversation...

by quoting
myself to me."

The silence stretched and
stretched until it snapped

back into a tiny sound
the ****** of a spoon on china

bringing time
to an end.

The moment going on
forever despite what

time had to say.
We all silent now

the 77th Earl of Groan
...fallen asleep.

the wind is reading
Aldous Huxley's ISLAND
dropped among the hollyhocks

the wind speed reads
skips entire sections
a fat fly walks over the title

an obese raindrop falls
upon the author's name then
another & another &. . .

ISLAND
turns to mulch
raindrops batter the book

it comes apart
at his touch
islands of words remain

"...two thirds of all sorrow
is homemade and so far
as the universe is concerned..."

the rest is lost
but he can fulfil the words
". . . unnecessary. . ."

now here at your grave
my fingertips trace
the curves of your name

as a lover might
trace the taut
muscles of a back

a ladybird pauses on
the H of Huxley
as if learning its letters

their metal inlay
glinting in the sun
"...it isn't a matter of forgetting..."

your words scattered
across the years
"...what one has to remember is..."

"...how to remember and yet
be free of

the past..."

I still grieve my lost book
eaten by the weather but
glowing in my mind

I laugh and tell your grave
"Give us this day our
Daily Faith but...

...deliver us
Dear God
from Belief."

BROKEN ABRACADABRA

My uncle shimmers
as he walks

as if the sun has got him
and shakes him

until he walks
like waves.

His gait all
heat haze.

He's a walking
reflection

as if the air
were water.

He looks like
he's a dream

made of summer

but he is the real thing
a solid Uncle Michael.

I expect his voice
to waver with the heat

but his words
stay steady

whittled out of love
like wood.

I am up a tree.

He can't see me.

The branch below me has sn-
-apped

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

going to get down.

Up here in the air
the farm is the map

of itself.

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

Uncle goes on looking for me
his voice searching the everywhere

but I am a nowhere.

His voice trying to pull me
out of thin air

like a magician would
but it's not good.

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

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

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

I still see him
walking out of the sun

his body shivering
with the heat

as if he is a dream
calling my name

like an abracadabra.

I sit in the silence
in the middle of my sky

lost in that forever
summer

wondering how to get back
down on solid ground

calling his name
like a broken magic spell

always trying to find him
even though I can't

...find my self.

THE USELESSNESS OF MAPS

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:

"Now, that Missy...
...is a Trout Possum kiss"
"Welll...I admit...I'd been Alabama'd!"

"You're kissing me
like you're my husband!"
"Well, I'm gonna be...ain't I!"

"Well, I guess!
Give us a taste of that
kiss again!"

"That's the trouble with Troy
one kiss always leads to another!"
"Couldn't wait to say: "I DO!"

"It's been nothing but
50 years of kisses!
Hot **** those Trout Possums!"

"The best kiss?
Is the one that hasn't happened yet
but is just...about to!"

SHADOW PLAY

The shadow
(it seems)      

creates this stone

that I
(motionless & still)      

sit upon
as if it were the centre

of this world.

It is the summer
of my childhood

& the world
is making itself

known
to me.

My mind
hungry to learn!

My own shadow
chained to me

like a soul
to a body

longing to escape
my mortality.

It lies
like a fallen angel

thirsting for a Heaven

crestfallen at my feet.

Shadow plays
hide & seek

amongst the leaves

sunlight laughingly
chasing it.

Birds write
the notation of themselves

upon the telegraph lines.

Sounds morph
into each other

the moo of a cow
becoming the murmur of a bee.

I try
to understand

the existence
of a me.

The five-bar gate
prints its shadow

on the lane

smiling at its own
distortion.

Wild roses
ramble from hedge to hedge.

Honeysuckle
climbs upon its own scent.

I sit amongst the milk churns

gleaming with the silver
of their laughter

as if I were one
of their number.

Waiting for a tractor
to escort us to

a faraway dairy.

We three wise monkeys
(seeing)       (hearing)       (speaking)      

no evil

in this
the innocence

of my new
& only

world.

You were older than me
now I am older than you

can ever be

(forever 18 &
forever dead) .

I felt so guilty
when I passed that age

wishing I could exchange
some of the life I had

so that you could experience
the life you never knew.

I used to talk to
your grave

as if it were you...

Always beginning: “Hiya, kid...”

Now I find you
everywhere instead

the sunlight on the garden

smiles like you did

the ladybird stumbling
over the furrows of my fingerprint

has the same graceful
awkwardness

your body lent to every movement.

You are younger
than me

& will always be.

And I
am older

than you


...will ever know.

CHOCOLATE EXPLANATIONS

“Right. . .!”

I try to explain it
with chocolates

that she( girlishly )
keeps trying to eat.

I pick a luscious
dark chocolate seahorse

And I say “Now this is. . .”

( and she finishes my sentence for me )

“. . .your hippocampus!”

She squeals. . . delighted with herself.

“That’s correct!”
I praise her
“. . .it’s shaped like this seahorse!”

“And it controls
your memories of you
your “who you are”

your “how your self assembles
its sense of self

. . .with all its past and future mysteries!”

“Yes. . .yes. . .that’s it!

She claps her hands
thrilled to bits

by the familiar telling
the reassurance of sounds.

And this twisted twirl of almond
with a real almond in the centre of it

“. . . is your amygdala!”

She blurts out before me.

“You got it”
I smile.

“Everyone’s got one!
a seahorse & an almond
one on each side of our brain.”

“Now the almond tells you how
to respond to the things
that you’ve assembled
into a sense of self

. . .with the proper emotion

. . .the right feeling.

. . .whether you just like

or love it”

“Oh, I love it. . .I love it!”

She almost sings.

“Now, explain it to me again!”

I give her the finished explanations
and she eats them

with much exaggerated
mmmmming & ohhhhhing.

“I love your explanations
about what’s wrong with my thingy”

She knocks upon her head
like it was a door
to a self that she had
locked herself outside of.

Most times
she doesn’t even know

her name

or who

or what

she is.

But she loves this story of

HIPPOCAMPUS AND ITS FAITHFUL AMYGDALA

She loves

each sound

each word

each letter

each pause

of the chocolate

explanations.

SO MUCH

so much depends
upon

your bright red mouth
& white white teeth

as our lips meet

& our eyes glaze over

with love as bright
as rainwater

PLAYING ABOUT IN ITS DREAMS

The snow stormed

ran around
the night

like an ill-tempered
child

and as suddenly
fell asleep

in mid tantrum.

We woke in the morning
& found it still

sleeping softly
curled around the house.

We tried not too
wake it

as we tiptoed out

leaving footprints all over its mind

and played about
in its dreams.

"La vita è una scuola di probabilità."

I appear
to have fallen

out of myself
no longer the me I am

but as if I had become
the statue of my self.

A pigeon **** tear
runs down my granite cheek.

"La vita è una scuola di probabilità."
the pigeon perched upon my head announces.

"Probably..?" I answer.
More a maybe-perhaps.

I am now an actor
playing the part of myself

unsure of what is expected of me
"What's my motivation?" I ask the director.

But he has been taken off
this picture.

The Donall Dempsey I used to be
no longer exists.

Someone or something
has broken into my head

and stolen the me
I was.

I now have no dialogue
only a walk-on-part

in my own life
an unimportant footnote

somewhere on page
42.

"What will I do..?"
I whistle the Berlin tune

the pigeon flying off my head
taking my thoughts with it.