THE MOON HIDES HER FACE

He...he's
wondering IF

he's coming on
too strong?

&...stops!

She's wondering IF
to kiss him now

would be so very very
wrong?

&...doesn't!

He's wondeingr IF
he should

...go easy?

She's wondering IF
he thinks she's too easy?

& both awkwardly
st?op!

And so
nothing happens.

"Good...night!" she stumbles
over the syllables.

"Good...good night!"
he echoes.

Once inside she
cries behind her bright red front door.

"****!" he curses himself ". . .& ****!"

Kicks an empty
crushed Coca Cola can.

The moon hides her face.

FELINE FRIENDS

Curled up on the couch
with a curled up kitten

cradled in your lap.

Both of you
(totally)
out of this world.

I smile at such
a lovely double take.

Tiptoe 'round
the flat
(afraid that you should wake) .

I kiss both
your noses

& you both
sniff & shift

adopt new
synchronised poses.

I can only
love 'n' sit 'n' watch

as one of you makes a move

that

the other will match.

I take a Polaroid
as I am leaving

place it between
your toes

where
(on awakening)

it will be seen

to show you

how

very beautiful

you've been.

MY MOTHER’S HANDS

My mother’s hands

washing potatoes
washing kids
washing pans.

My mother’s hands
on bitterly cold days

******* yet more washing
on a pregnant line

the line growing nothing but
nappies

her hands blind
with the cold.

My mother’s hands
ironing clothes
ironing clothes
ironing countless knickers
for my seven sisters.

My mother’s hands
taking my hands
in hers

such love...such laughter!

My mother’s hands
patting talcum powder

on another baby’s ***.

Mum being Mum.

Me, kissing

my mother’s hands
for all...they’ve done.

"...YES. . .YES. . .I AM!"

He was like the dark.
When the light went out.

Himself, but:
not himself.

Erased.

More the map
of himself.

And a crude map at that.

Here his mind
marked with an X.

Contour lines
impossibly close together.

Then the continental shelf
of self.

Different shades of blue.
Deepening...deepening.

This somehow
much more detailed.

Half the map
torn in two

as if something( or other )
owned the other half.

He couldn't say what
or who.

Only...it wasn't him.

Now the fever
nibbling his consciousness.

The world gone.
AWOL

as if it intended
never to come back again.

Somewhere in this thing
that wasn't him

his sister's voice
trying to coax him

back into being.

Her voice
cool water.

His mind sipping
the sound of each syllable.

Speech.
Precious.
Delicious.

Ridiculous words.
But words...nonetheless.

His voice answering
just for the sake of answering.

Thought once again
dressed in words.

"Yes..!" his voice said "...yes I am
alright!"

"I bagged this one
out in In-di-A!"

...the braggart's boast.

"It's a very rare
( these days)ALGERNON!"

And indeed, an Algernon
bares his teeth

above the roaring fire's
mantlepiece.

He looked startled as
he had been shot just that second.

"The head is splendidly mounted
complete with handlebar moustache

...& monocle.

One feels that one could
pop next door and there

would be ha ha...the rest of
Algernon

sticking out the other side.

The glint in the eye
the sneer just so

...right.

"And to the right of the Algernon
is a genuine Cuthbert.

Again from 1901 or there or
thereabouts."

"It is indeed a perfect specimen of
the good old chap..."

the white rhino brags yet again
of what he calls his baggings.

White Rhino's
collection of colonials

is the envy of
all the other animals.

"Some more hot *** old chum?"

But the White Tiger
puts a paw over his glass.

Declines.

The fire's flickering
leaping up the wall.

The shadow making
the humans almost

come alive

as if the Cuthbert
could turn to the Algernon

and say
"OH...I SAY!

LISTENING TO LIZ
( for Liz Berry )

We all felt
as if our collective mind

had fallen
and grazed a collective knee

so to speak

and that Miss Berry
with her lovely Dudley accent

would say" "Oh and did you fall
you poor little thing?"

And we all wailed: "Yes...
yes...we falled!"

And Miss Berry soothed so
our mind that

we felt better
just because of her

mind gently so gently
touching our mind

tears drying on our collective face
as she read

and that she was the best teacher
we would always forever remember.

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! '

WORLDS AT ONCE





in the mirror
I watch you sleeping
& touch your image







unable to touch
the dream
behind your eyes






only your laughter
inhabiting both
worlds at once






on the other side of nowhere
...a dream away
the mirror laughs in its sleep

I DENY THE EXISTENCE OF DEATH
( for Timothy Ades​ )

Timothy opens
his mouth

and butterflies
fly out.

The room abounds
with butterflies

all claiming to be
Robert Desnos.

Words released
into a voice

" a soul
without a body"

moves amongst us
and moves us.

The ghost of Robert's voice...

"Bien qu'elle semble sortir d'un tombeau
Elle ne parle que d'été et de printemps,"

whispers in my ear...

"Elle emplit le corps de joie,
Elle allume aux lèvres sourire."

Carried high on the shoulders
of the voice of Timothy Ades

Robert Desnos
is passing.

I stand up
and bow

OUTSIDE THE OUTSIDE

There was no outside.

There was only
this room.

Only this moment
as if

the world had tiptoed away
into the dusk

leaving this room
floating in space

in the nothing
Time too it seemed

had gone.

She reached for
the razor blade.

I FEEL PRETTY...OH SO...PRETTY!

I a...
...wake

covered in glorious glitter
smelling strongly of PVA glue

sticking to my cheek
very

hung
over

& covered in blueorange
yellowred feathers

a bubble
recently blown

perched upon
my nose

I...still....half coma...tose

tiny bubbles travel
amongst my curls

as through
a bigger bubble brightly

nestling neatly
over my right eye

I observe
my tiny daughter

purse her lips
& kiss

more bubbles
into being.

“Till...y! ”

I force my lips
(still frozen in sleep)

to some
how speak:

“What...you...do? ”

(even my syntax and sentence structuring is shot)

She smiles sweetly: “I’m
...pretty-ing you! ”

FAILING GEOGRAPHY

A drop of blood.

On the Indian Ocean.

Blue turning slow
l y red

as the Indian Ocean
is engulfed by this

singular drop of
blood

coast to coast
a crimson sea.

At first there is
no pain.

The thumb remains
unaware it has been

cut.

Paper cut.

First, the heart skips a beat
then the pain ~ rushes in.

The continent of India
invaded by my blood.

i close the school atlas
in fear teacher will see.

Scream silently
put my thumb in an inkwell.

Disaster co-
-auglates.

The ****** pages
stick to ****** together.

The Indian continent
ripped apart

allowing one to see
to the next sea

on the other page.

I fail
Geography.

South of the buzzing
of a hairy bumble bee

North of the big dog’s bark

West of the breeze
tickling  cherry blossom trees

East of the sunlight
stealing over the fields

that’s where

you will
find me.

*

!ESSERE QUI!


Sud del ronzio
di un peloso Bumble Bee

A nord del grande cane abbaia

A ovest della brezza
il solletico alberi di ciliegio in fiore

Est della luce del sole
rubare i campi

ecco dove

troverete me.

A leaf fell
on a leaf

that had fallen
on a leaf

-they stand there-

like a circus act
of acrobats

balanced one
upon the other

& blocking my
way with their: “Hey...
look at us! ”

And: “Look at us! ”
is just
what I did!

(instead of going to school)  

ignoring the bell’s
incessant clamouring.

Telling it in my mind:
“Go to hell! ”

and striking up a conversation
in the foreign language of leaf.

SYNIAT NA HITAR PETAR *
( THE DREAM OF CLEVER PETER )

the pitter patter of Bulgarian
raindrops...waiting for a taxi
'"Hitar Petar... Hitar Petar...!"

Bulgarian rain that
clever trickster here then
gone again...here again

up on the roof
one last gaze at Sofia
we dance to gǎdulka and tambura

LOVELY MORNING...ISN'T IT

It was the first day
of the end of

his life.

Although he was not
to know that.

The door opened
into the morning

a portal made of sunlight.

He stepped into it
as if he were about to be
transported into another planet.

He stepped into it
with a lipstick kiss
on his left cheek and

the next step
was his last
it all happened so fast.

One minute
a ***** laugh
then a last goodbye.

An hello to her
next door
"Lovely morning....isn't it!"

She dances naked
dressed only in the sound of
wind chimes & bracelets.

PRESERVE

Tongues stained
with blackberries

we collect                kisses

falling into               ditches

being stung by         nettles.

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

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

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

as if you were being
stepping out of your self.

Your dress hangs
like a chrysalis.

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

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

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

return
to the big old *****

town
&
turn

our blackberry picking days
into luscious winter jam.

OFF THE COAST OF WRANGEL ISLAND

The room was a frozen
block of silence

the out-of-love lovers
like two hairy mammoths

trapped in the ice
of their shared hatred.

Thousand of years had passed
since they had last talked.

Preserved like two rare
artifacts in a museum.

This the "invisible land"
an island of mists and fogs.

They looked like bad
caricatures of who

they used to be
and who

they could never ever
be again.

*

Wrangel Island is an island in the Arctic Ocean, between the Chukchi Sea and East Siberian Sea.It lies astride the 180° meridian. The International Date Line is displaced eastwards at this latitude to avoid the island. Wrangel Island may have been the last place on earth where mammoths survived.

The island is subjected to "cyclonic" episodes characterised by rapid circular winds. It is also an island of mists and fogs and is known as the "invisible land."  In literature Jules Verne has his characters trapped on a floating iceberg near here and Cassandra Clare makes it  the seat of all the world's wards, the spells that protected the globe from demons and demon invasion.

She was as it happened was reading Jules Verne's novel 'César Cascabel" whilst he as it happened was reading Cassandra Clare's "Mortal Instruments: City of Heavenly Fir", both entirely different books but both featuring Wrangel Island. I delight in such happenstance and synchronicity. I only knew of it because of the mammoth found there with hair and muscle tissue and blood intact. I was fascinated with photos of it and there was one where a scientist was bending down looking at it on a bench and they were nose to trunk as if having a chat about the years in between that separated them. When I originally wrote the poem I was looking at them in the mirror of their big fat room with the thinest of windows when they thought they weren't being observed and it looked as if the mirror had painted their emotional state and that time hung suspended forever in that one moment. They both could dispute angrily or peevishly about their state whether it be in the voice or even in silent thought. I called them THE WRANGLERS after the mirror's painting of them. Or indeed THE WANGLERS because of their persistent arguing or manoeuvering the other into the worse position so that the other could take the lowish of moral high ground. It was a bit like observing trench warfare back in WW1.

And so it was through all this happenstance that I placed them off the emotional coast of a stormy isolated island...in some limbo "invisible land."

And as to the right or wrong of my two too human artifacts where right or wrong are not all that easy to place? As Michael Pollan puts it "… morality is an artifact of human culture, devised to help us negotiate social relations."

All I knew is that I sure as hell wouldn't want to be in their peculiar shoes or that particular hell.

The room was a frozen
block of silence

the out-of-love lovers
like two hairy mammoths

trapped in the ice
of their shared hatred.

Thousand of years had passed
since they had last talked.

Preserved like two rare
artifacts in a museum.

This the "invisible land"
an island of mists and fogs.

They looked like bad
caricatures of who

they used to be
and who

they could never ever
be again.

"...AS TREES WALKING . . ."

the goldfish ponders
the world the other side of the glass
retires to its castle

it watches the coming
& goings of us
unable to explain our existence

"...I see men as trees walking. . ."
the vicar reads
his thought visible to the fishes

"...but what does it mean?"
one fish asks the other
"...and what are - trees?"

the vicar dies
in his sleep
words still floating about in his head

the fish unable to explain
his stillness....loudly
the clock talks in tick tocks

the God hand
that feeds them...does not
come

hungry for answers
they cease
to believe

Time
darkens
whitens

& again
darkens
whitens

it all goes belly up
the dead vicar & his dead fish
frightening the home help

only the plastic Christ
nailed to the wall
hears her scream

GRANDDAD TENDS HIS DAHLIAS

the fog
walks among the tombs
"I encounter my first ***

he was a man
he looked just like me
as if I were...killing myself!"

stretching back
through space & time
the instant of that moment

the German falls
beside a tomb
like a badly written play

Granddad bayonettes
the German...looks surprised
to be dying

Granddad plunges the bayonette in
twists it about
the German almost grins

then the dance
of the living & the dying
in strict time

the German goes down
on one knee
as if proposing to Death

Granddad stabs the German
through the lifeline
of his left hand

the dying German's
left outstretched hand
like a man about to sing a song

"As he fell
his hand touched my hand
'This...' I thought '...is hell!'"

all his life
the touch...that touch
impossible to shake off

Granddad tends his dahlias
the dying German
still clouding his eyes

TEETHING TROUBLE

Armed to the teeth
with

teeth
(all newly acquired)

you delight
in biting me

leaving little
indented marks

like moons
that glow on my arms.

“Don’t let her bite you like that! ”

Her mother scolds
both her & me.

I laugh.

“Let her practice! ”

My flesh willing to be
bitten

to ease her
teething troubles.

she looks up
at me

(all chortles and drool)

takes another
nip of me

“Naw...naw...naw! ”
gnawing at my flesh

smiling up at me
with all her little teeth.

I kiss her
on the top of her

adorable
head

adorned with
a classic kiss curl.

“Da...da...da! ”
she thanks me.

"Look, Kirk..!" I stab at the map
"Yes, the Barzan Wormhole is unstable but~
it's our only hope!"

Kirk's face blanches
Spock tries to show no emotion
"Highly illogical, yet. . ?"

Now, 70,000 light years away
"My God, Capn. Dempsey.."" Kirk smirks
"...it worked...it...worked. . !"

"Worked...of course it worked!"
I bluff and bluster
Spock's tight lipped smile

"Ahhh...Mr. Dempsey..."
Sir's voice gruffly Klingon
beaming me back up to Reality

"...seems to be in
another universe entirely..."
snickers as he reaches for the cane

"So..." Kirk smiles
"The square on the hypotenuse is equal to...
"Shut it Kirk..!" I snap  "...just shut it!"

I watch the parabola of the cane
"Warp Factor 9...now...quick!"
I order Mr. Sulu

A NAME BY ANY OTHER. . .

She smiles in Russian.
"What's your name?" I ask her.
"Is Tina!" she laughs.
"Ah...Tina!" "No not..Tina!"
"Istina!" "It means...the Truth."


she winks
slinks as if she's
in inverted commas

hidden inside
her smile
(the kiss )

she disappears 'round the
corner leaving in the air
a perfect perfume replica of her

the grand piano
sits in its silence
dreaming of music

JOLLY GOOD SHOW

All day
stuck up this ****** tree

in the middle of ****** nowhere.

All the landscape
shrunk to this crossroads

like the cross-hairs
on a gun sight

brings the distance
into focus.

“****** Nora! ”
He swears to himself and laughs.

His mother’s name was Nora.

Always thought it was hilarious
to swear by her.

Remembers one time as a boy
swearing at her:

“And eh by gum
she didn’t half hit me hard! ”

“Blood seeping through the gum
still taste the taste of it on my tongue
****** ‘orrible it was!

Hated her ever since.”

“Now, look whatcha made me done! ”
she hollered at him.

“Yes…sorry our Mum! ”

He didn’t dare cry
‘cos she’d hit for crying!

“She was a hard one…our Mum!
Had to be with us ****** lot!

She were fun though when she were happy! ”

He hoped to God
that his man would come

so he could **** him
and be done.

Didn’t know him
from Adam

(leader of the insurgents
capable of getting men around him) .

“Dangerously charismatic! ”

Better dead
to keep the British peace alive

as the Empire lay dying.

The sun setting
dying him a golden brown.

“If he don’t come soon
I won’t have the light to **** him.”

“Remembering shooting game with our Dad
rabbit…pheasant...up ‘eath in sunlight

. . .such as this.”

The dangly ****** rabbit
turning into next night’s stew

eating a celebration
of what you can do

- do well...****.

How he came to be
here

up a ****** gum tree
gun in hand…staring

waiting for a man to ****.

Same ****** thing.
Simple ****** plan!

Waiting 3 days now
and no man.

“Keep your position ...over.”
“Maintain radio silence.”

“Report in when job done.”
“Roger ok that...over & out.”

“Eager to get job done so I can go ****** ‘ome!”

“Didn’t believe it myself
until I seed it! ”

Dot in the distance
translating itself into a man.

Just enough light left
for killing.

“And now, put out the light
...put out the light! ”

He muttered to himself.

****** Othello!
The only Shakespeare he knew.

“A lass I once knew
A real brain & chatter box! ”

“I only ever wanted to get into her knickers
& the only way to do so was to listen…so I listened.”

“Trying to teach ****** me Proper English
and she ****** well Scottish!

****** cheek!
...och aye...but nooo! ”

The crossroads funnel him into
the killing spot

“Trot trot trot trot!
like Noyes’s THE HIGHWAYMAN!

Noyes! No...yes!

Why think of
Majorie Wallace and her ****** poetry now!

No poetry in killing
just plain ****** prose.

Dead is dead is dead.

A blown rose
fading on the periphery of his vision.

The cross-hairs
come to rest

like a deadly spider
on the rider’s face.

He’s ****** grinning.

The man doesn’t even know
he’s already dead!

Won’t even know what’***** him!

(Probably thinking of a sweetheart
and getting her into ****** bed)

Just like I am.

Just the gentlest of squeezes

like stroking a lassie’s ****
(Oh Marjorie ****** Wallace!)

Then - that’s it!
The rifle spits and speaks

in the language of the dead

and only one man understands
what’s said.

And where there was a head
there is now no head.

You see it only
for the briefest of seconds

and can’t really believe it!

How the head blossoms!

Like a sudden flower
and then fades

in that
instant.

Mindless now...

he plucks the faded rose
(or whatever it is it’s called around here)

reminds him of
England.

Pops it into
an amo pocket.

Good clean ****.

Head shot – one shot.

Tries to pretend...
but it always hits him hard

taking a closer look
at his handiwork.

Kicks the body:
“You poor stupid ****** ******! ”

“A man no less a man
than I am...”

Faceless.

Lying there
in the dirt
as he were only having a kip.

Becoming dirt.

Breaks radio silence:
“Come and ****** well pick me up! ”

“Jolly well done! ”

The radio cackles back.

“Jolly good show! ”

GRANNY SHOCKS THE GRANDCHILDREN

me I always
wore a yellow pinafore dress
displaying my what-should-not-be-seen

or a Sgt. Pepper's jacket
serving as a dress...showing off
buttocks & knickers to great effect

moved from squat to squat
lived on hash and Mateus Rosé
***?was just...eh...there

I had loads of lads
loads of lads had me
music and *** - the twin gods

forget "I wanna hold your hand"
we were Stones fans mannnnn
sang "Lets spend the night together"

I wanted to be Juliette Gréco
read/re-read THE STORY OF O
De Sade's 120 DAYS OF *****

?morals/
yeah!yeah!yeah!
whatever

we were all of us always
trying to find ourselves
or escape from ourselves

Granda was mad
bad and gorgeous to know
like straying off the path into

the forest of a fairy story
a **** scary beast
my very own big bad wolf

an Mmmmmmmm
kind of man
"Eat me...eat me!" I'd yell at him

*** was that...what
cheered up those forever
endless rainy British afternoon

SWIMMING THROUGH EARTH

There was a loud
silence.

Fred was dead.

Busy swimming through
earth.

He was doing the front crawl.

Which was surprising as he
couldn't swim.

Our Jim could swim.
But me and Fred - never.

But here he was
swimming through earth.

With only half a face.
The other half was just blood.

His one eye
wide open.

As if eternity
had appeared in front of him.

When the bomb blew
the world to smithereens

I believed I was dead
too.

But I wasn't.
More's the pity.

What was death like
you ask.

it was like...
It was like. . .

nothing.
Being nothing.

Then it was like
my mother's perfume.

And there she was
recreated by lilacs..

A perfume version of her
carved out of the air.

I swear.
Everything went white.

It was as if the world
had been erased.

Then the earthandtreesandfields
rushed back into my eyes.

As if there were in a hurry
and could only exist in

my seeing
them.

That's when I seen our Fred
already half buried

swimming through the earth
as if he thought he could have

made it
the poor wee ******.

A nicer lad there
wasn't.

I would have cried
if there were tears.

But there were
no tears.

No tears.

I was furious I had
survived.

Then I thought
just casual like.

"This should get me back
to Blighty like!"

When they found me
("Hey this one's still alive!")

I was trying to swim
through the earth.

"Hang on Fred!" I said.
"I'm coming.

FOR YOUR DELECTATION AND DELIGHT...

Like trapeze artists
we fall towards each other

our love
so far above

the disbelieving faces
a sea of masks

All saying: “Oh! ”
with awe.

Your fingertips
reaching out

at the last possible second
grasping my wrists

and we fly through the air
with the... (like a fish
in water)... greatest of ease.

So real...surreal.

Alone
in the big top of our longing

high above all others

unaware of all the gasps
(the melodramatic drum roll)  

only our love
reaching for the next second

knowing that the other is always
there

only a heartbeat

...away.

The ship moans
in the fog

like a Kraken
that has lost its way

leaving its myth
in the mist

stumbling into
fact

only to find
it doesn't exist

Time calls it
by its childhood names:

"Hafgufa...Lyngbakr!"
"Sea Mist...Heather-Back!"

The Kraken moans
in the fog

like words
that have lost

their way.

I remember drinking
pink champagne

from your pink
high heel shoes

I remember making love
with you wearing only your pink
high heel shoes

I remember
how your pink high heel shoes

became candleholders
ashtrays
(where you stashed your hash)        

deadly weapons
in a row

& you ask me
do I remember

your pink high heel shoes?

Do I?
I do!

"Ohhhhhh....!" he noticed
she was

wearing
the shortest skirt he had

ever seen

( a belt masquerading as
a skirt )

&

that she was reading the poetry
of Victor Hugo.

"...the forest has rusted
in the light and the rain..."

he quoted to the air

jealous of the sunlight
touching her hair.

"...le soleil et la pluie ont rouillé la forêt..."
her voice mirrored his

"Ahhhhhh...you know Hugo
and his poetry?"

"Oh if you knew Hugo
like I knew Hugo!"

he sang shamelessly.

She laughed
in French.

He laughed
in Irish.

"There's nothing
like the original!"

she crossed & re-
crossed

her legs
cutting through his thoughts

<<<<<scissors through paper.

"Only in translation!"
he shamefully admitted.

"Ohhhh...he has to be
experienced in the French!"

He tried not to stare at her
elegant-pale-pink-ivory-with-cream-applique-lace-trimmed

Janet Reger.

"...ta bouche sur ma bouche et
tes yeux sur mes yeux..."

she stared
into him.

"....your mouth on my mouth and
your eyes upon my eyes..."

the kiss only an instant away from
happening.

MEETING W.B. YEATS FOR THE FIRST TIME

Curled up in a cuddle

fused into
the one telling the one listening

my big sister
recites Yeats

She whispers:

“Come away o human child...”

as the thunderstorm breaks outside
“...to the waters and the wild...”

as the night breaks open
over the poem

“...to a world more full of weeping...”

the lightning illuminates each line
“...than you will ever understand...”

I cry into her body great heaving sobs
And she says: “Shhh...shhh.. it’s alright! ”

and I only half believe her
her death etched into my mind

in the coming soon-to-be
future.

THE SMELL OF PURPLE


she says
she can
smell yellow


she says
she can
smell blue


despite
not being able to
spell either colour


“Yellow smells the same as blue.”
“...like a wet kitty
drying by the fire


red smells like
Mummy
when she kisses


her kisses
smell different
when she kisses you


then she smells
like flames
with little orange tips


purple is my favourite smell
it smells just like
a magic spell!”


I kiss her
goodnight
like lilac(only lighter)


with little flecks
of purple
scattered here & there

WHILST SLOWLY TURNING INTO WORDS

He felt Death
had somehow

hollowed him out

building the statue of him
from the inside out.

Out...out...the echo of
who he had been.

He had become his own
legend

which he had to admit
he had helped to create

to hide his real self
a mask he could wear.

Now, it was stuck
and the real man had been

replaced with
a man made from words.

A man made from rumours
idle talk...lies.

He felt he could cry
that he was losing himself

the man he was
the man he could have been.

But: "Shush..."
snapped Death.

He watched himself
sitting in an armchair

the King of
Nothing.

Slowly turning
into words.

An obituary
written ten years ago

taken out of file and
brought up to date.

He would never never
be himself

no more.

ScáthánDrychZrkadloIsibukoLustroTükör
(MirrorMirrorMirrorMirrorMi­rrorMirror)

Just for a second
the mirror forgets itself

and reflects on
nothing.

I am not
all there.

Then recovering
its memory

the mirror starts to show
all the faces that it has known

and now I am
a young girl from

the turn of a century
a boy of three in 1923

an old woman staring
at the girl she used to know

the young girl staring
at the old woman she will become

a teenager from God knows when
putting up her hair and then

letting it down again
shaking it from side to side

now politely calm
now wild wild

before the mirror
comes to its senses

and shows me
me

and only
me alone

this the present
now

as all the faces
the mirror's ever been

fade into the background
becoming mere shadows

as I blow the candle out
and the mirror holds only

the darkness
and its night.

THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
      RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON

( for John Smith )

It was...
Oct 5th - 1970.

A Monday.


The day had gone
from dry to drizzle to

wet.


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.

NO. 31 O'HIGGINS ROAD, CURRAGH CAMP, CO. KILDARE.

I climb a stair
that isn't there

stand on a landing
in mid-air

each step I take
creates the next part

of the vanished house
lost to time

as see through
as a cartoon ghost.

This was
(still is) for me

No. 31
O'Higgins Road

my world
the universe of me.

What was once
my bedroom...is now a cloud

a window
become a moon

night and its storm
sit in our living room

a bird tiptoes
down the stair

flying through
nine year old me

reaching for the light switch
to turn on

what isn't there.

VISITATION

Brian walked
through the wall.

Paused, smiled:
halfways in - halfways out.

"Jaysus..!" he said.
"That always feckin' happens!"

He pulled the rest of him
through to this room

leaving a glowing
trail of ectoplasm.

"It makes me feel
like a ****** snail!"

"Sorry about the ghostly slime
it's hard to get used to

being dead
if ya see what I mean!"

I couldn't have of course
so  I just nodded.

"And this ghost stuff
is really the pits.

Here I am and yet
here I am not."

He gave me a playful
punch on the shoulder

and went right through me
misjudging his new existence.

"Now, listen bud...all this crying
is getting on me nerves.

It's gotta stop.

You've got a life
to live...now...live it!"

And then like e clichéd
cockerel crowing at the dawn

he faded into the curtains.
"Jaysus...these curtains

are truly terrible
they'll have to go!"

"Well. . ?"
said the sunlight

"...will we get on
with it?"

The day waited impatiently
hopping from one minute to the next.

"Yes. . ." I said
"Yes."

REMEMBERING COLERIDGE

"Ok! Can we have..."
my mind shouts

from its directorial chair
megaphone in hand.

"A MIRACLE OF RARE DEVICE
over here!"

BUT OH! THAT DEEP ROMANTIC CHASM
is still in her caravan.

"Ok...cue camera No. 2 &
where...

where are the SUNNY PLEASURE DOMES WITH CAVES OF ICE
can someone please. . .

. . .get the ****** SUNNY PLEASURE DOMES WITH CAVES OF ICE
please!

"We've got a Coleridge
moment

coming up on his next
footstep!"

"Are all you brain cells
following me!"

Memory goes through wardrobe
dressing each thought

in perfect Kubla Khan
costumes.

"Ok...cue footstep 2000 &
waitforitwaitforit....2!"

"Ok people..!" shouts my mind
"...he's going to remember the

Coleridge any second
. .    .nOW!"

"Cut to...OH STILL UNRAVISHED BRIDE OF QUIETNESS!
wot...wot....cut CUT!"

"Ok...who pressed the Keats button!"

And so it is that a Keatsian personified urn
of Greek extraction

finds itself in Xanadu

as I cross the road
and almost get knocked down

by a ****** big No. 69

and a cursing cyclist
in spangled blue latex.

MAKER OF DAYS
( for Uncle Michael )


You will always be
oats

that smell spilling out of
a split sack

in an empty barn

a dance of dust motes
like a spell

trapping summer
within its crumbling walls.

You being you
whatever the weather

water sprung from ground
its gurgle of coldness

the chitter chatter of hens
gossiping among

obsolete
machinery

blue eaten with rust.

Dock leaves
next to nettles

calming the pain
far from the maddening stings

always your laughter
amongst the ordinary everyday

shipwreck of things
becoming &

un-becoming
themselves.

You the maker
of days

in the lost land
of summer.

THAT WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS MOMENT

An 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 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

Outside the hatch
he turns      slowly

and talks

but I can't make out
the words he says

they fall from his lips
dangle and float in space

outside the backyard fence
a hill grabs the moon

and then slowly
lets it go again

the moon floating just
out of reach

laughs; 'Go on...do that again! '
the hill smiles: 'Just you wait... just you wait! '

the moon beams
as a little bird

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

and then
finds flight

take hold of it
as if

it had only discovered it that minute
and absconds with it

the darkness
barks

and falls
into silence

and then another part
of the darkness

barks back

held
in  a gentleness

a leaf tiptoes
down the breeze

as if descending
a spiral staircase

Time holds
its breath

outside
the hatch

flat on his back
the earth a little blue ball he has let go of

the astronaut
slowly turns

and waves

& I
wave back.

MY LITTLE NUMERO UNO

She attacks the page
with all the fervour & ferocity

of learning to write:
! nUmBeRs!

Her pen
digs its way

through to
(the other page)        

as if it were trying to
escape its task

make a break
for it.

Finally, she draws
a 2

a gentle swan
gliding by on a single wave.

Then, an 8
(which she informs me)        

is an O
“...wearing a belt that’s too tight.”

“Right? ”
“Right! ”

6 & 9
she cuddles together.

“Shhh...they’re sleeping! ”

Then: a 3
“...which is an 8 with half the 8
...missing.”

Then: a 1
which is a man
“.. with a little nose.”

Then: a 7
Which is a man
“...with a big nose.”

10
is
“The man with the little nose
going out with an eight without its belt.”

5
is
“Like a S
frozen stiff.”

4
is
“My hand doesn’t like writing 4’s
so...it doesn’t.!

'Well, that's
enough of that! '

She glares at me
as if to say

'Don't dare
contradict me! '

'I'm going out
to play!

She proudly
announces

(a woman with her work
well done) .

And out...
...out she goes!

WHO MADE THE WORLD?

"It was a dark and stormy night..!"
as stories often start.

But - it wasn't.

It was no story.

And there was no such thing
as night.


And there was a complete absence
of weather.


Night( or day )hadn't yet
been invented.

Neither had the world
for that matter.

Creation was still
about two hours away.

Dear God hadn't even given it
a second thought as yet.

And yes He had thought about it
and Him thinking...usually made it so.

He had still to get His Mighty
Finger out.

He the Great
Procrastinator.

He had  become as one
with those University students

who would crawl about the earth
messing about doing nothing until

the final moment
the final dash to get

the assignment in.

Alas He had made them
in His Image.

There were things he would have
liked to fix if...

WW1 for one
oh and 11.

The atom bomb.
Climate change.

He saw all things
as time was

all the one
to Him.

And now these unknowns
how could He

have even
thought of them.

How to fix that ****
bungling bothersome Brexit.

And what was it
exactly?

Or that annoying orange blip
that ******* liar Trump?

And Gove(ugggh!)
and Boris( aggghh)
come what May they

would all
have their say.

What had He
been thinking.

Maybe it will
untangle itself or

He would have to cut
through the Gordian lot

with His
mighty sword.

Bit Biblical that.
Or a flood perhaps?

He could blame it
on that climate change.

He knew that Brexit bit
wouldn't do but

it would have to
do.

Worlds will be worlds.
Then He yawned.

"Whatever...whatever!"

"THE EARTH IS LIKE A CHILD THAT KNOWS POEMS BY HEART"

The night
had stuffed the dark

into every crevice
of the house

and his life
awoke to a big blue sky

holding a crocus
in the palm of its morning.

The world was springing
into being

all around him
as if existence had

changed its mind and
decided to stay.

A solitary oak
reached a gnarled hand

and snatched a cloud
( that happened to be passing by )

out of the air
just like that.

The cloud struggled
to break free.

The oak gave a hearty laugh
and let it go.

The cloud scurried away
fretfully looking over its shoulder.

"So, what kept ya?"
he asked spring.

Spring...just smiled.

". . .a way a lone a last a loved. . ."

My mind had
scabbed over.

I picked at the pain
again &. . .

so that the thoughts
bled &. . .

the only way I have
of keeping you

alive.

SANCTUARY

this one perfect moment
time rearing up like a wave
that never ever breaks

the train's scream
the dog's bark
chiseled into the silence

dancing to
the bandstand's music
a flock of flags

birds
writing themselves...unwriting themselves
across a page of sky

this moment
flees from time
claims sanctuary in my mind

LOST BALLOON

crawling from the crash
I couldn't have died
if I tried

I had a son to save
laughed
spat in death's face

pulled him from the flames
I forbade him to die
he disobeyed

the car exploded
burning the edges
of the night

I survive
without him
a death in itself

my reflection
does all the talking
I just stare in the mirror

Christmas now
I feel like a lost balloon
sticking to the ceiling

THE KIND OF THINGS POETS THINK/DO

all its little life
the triangle longed to be
a circle

"I want to get around!"
it piped up
in its little Isosceles voice

"It's...it's preposterous!"
screamed his mother Scalenely
"...whoever heard of such a thing!"

"You should be proud of your lines!"
scolded its grandpa
Equilaterally

"A triangle can not be..."
said his Papa in a right angled kind of way
"...anything other than a triangle!"

"I always felt I was a circle
trapped inside
a triangle's body!"

one day a passing poet
eavesdropped in an idle moment
on what the lines were saying

"Why ever not...why
ever not" said the poet
poet chaps tend to think like that

so he erased the brave
little Isosceles
drew him again as a circle

"Wheee!"
laughed the former Isosceles triangle
delighting in its circle-ness

this is the kind of things
poets think of...

. . .poets do.