Hailed as the land of opportunity,
The four corners sent humanity
With promises of liberty
For those suffering cruelty
From religion, race and poverty.

Today it's a land of delusion,
Too many in exclusion
Because of religion, race and poverty,
By displaying inhuman duality.

Come visit Canada,
Here you'll see,
What America once aspired to be.

Your ***** bank
Has recorded N.S.F.
Make deposits,
Don't withdraw.

There were sharp, dark nights
When I was sent to the store;
The alleys and empty lots
Were void of comfort light.

There were night sweats
When figures approached;
I would pause on the sidewalk
To hear the retreating steps.

I'd turn to watch a dark outline
Cross under a canopy of branches;
His procession out of the light
And into the long sharp night.

Abandoned houses had draped windows
In the dark of morning deliveries;
Black, steel steps lead to balconies,
Beneath them darker yet.

My window displayed the silhouettes
Of cold thin twig fingers;
And the darkened stairs had a balanced creak,
Or a shoulder bumped into the landing.

I pulled the blanket over my head,
Darker still, I let the night roll on.
That was night.
Tomorrow has dawn.
What's night is night.
What's dark lives on.

I can't recall being born,
The cuddled snug of being warm
Beneath a roof so weathered
On a seasoned flax-mill farm.

I've an inkling of being two,
In a scene played out by me and you;
On a mattress, in the sun -
A new-born cried, and died too soon.

Then memory's blur cleared by three,
We sailed away on the Irish Sea
On a listing boat, across the Blue,
The last link to the last banshee.

By four we'd long since slammed the door,
And I knew cowboys and Celtic lore -
A new-born cried, she died too soon,
The eye peeped through the Judas door.

By five so many had left the home;
By eight a.m. we were left alone
Pushing prams, swings and forward,
No T.V.,  radio or telephone.

At last, by six, I clearned the webs,
A whole new world lay dead ahead -
A new-born cried, he died too soon;
By seven I'd internalized
The dreaded finality
Borne by the dead.
.

The things some do
When they're alone,
Would melt the marrow
In your bones.

Some scratch their ***
With such vigor,
Sink to their knuckles
Up their nose,
**** themselves
In *****-hose,
Find their stash,
Find their liquor,
Get high alone,
And that's good for some.

Oh, the things some do
When they're alone.

They scrape the goo
From their eyes
In the afternoon;
Hork out phlegm
In the kitchen sink,
**** loudly,
And not think it stinks.
They pop a pimple on the mirror,
Do nasty things
(I won't say liver).

Oh, the things some do
When they're alone.

They'll surf the net
For *******
In HD or photography.
They'll roll gobs of wax
From both their ears,
Run naked up and down the stairs.
Landscape private body hairs,
And like a monkey, smell their nails.

Oh, the things some do
When they're alone.

Some deficate in the shower,
******* until they holler,
Then spark a doob,
Check out the mirror,
Then cogitate on tomorrow.

Oh, the things some do
When they're alone,
It's good they're done
Alone at home.

In a museum, or forgotten barn,
A small red twelve inch two wheeler
Hangs on invisible wires,
Or is covered in pigeon droppings and dust.
But Tannehill rode it once,
Like something in a dream.
He was too long-framed for it.
He controlled it, rounded the corner,
Pedalling hard down the sidewalk,
Across the street from our new house.
I gawked from the front yard:
He was a boy with his bike,
Like The ****** on T.V.
It was the first I learned to ride,
And the falls were magnificient,
On grass or asphalt.
Girls' bikes were easy,
One size fits all.
Then I learned to pedal
Beneath the cross bar of the big boys'.
Push the pedals,
Shift the midrift, and be gone.
Always from somewhere
To somewhere else,
Far from the soft front lawn.

When I was young
We left our Granny
Back in County Cavan.
She surely thought
We'd meet no more
On this side of heaven.
I was but a lad of three,
One of six... no, seven;
For many years
She wrote to me,
Far from the Irish sea.
Inside her air-mail envelope,
She told how much we're missed,
She'd enclose a hand-stitched handkerchief,
Edged with her Irish kiss.