In my Honalee,
I abandoned the wish
For time to rocket by.
The burning suns didn't sink
Fast enough behind pirate's sails.
Where desire is the moon phasing
Like tidal currents to the watershed.
Youth and time inextricably race slowly
With each passing celebration,
Until the full-feathered fly like dragons,
And our present fills the sky, and me,
Keeping look out.

In my songs
I learned
Of love and peace and harmony.
Heard the injustices of humanity,
The harms incurred,
The hurts endured,
The tranquility of let it be.

Despite my flights,
I fed you,
Feathered the nest,
Did all the rest
To feed all your dreams.

Now weeks fly,
Your babies will cry.

Stay still thwarted worm.
This beak, though worn,
Is not yet ready for you.
The day will come,
The hour creep up,
The minute of expiration,
But it's that second one dreads,
That moment.

One mustn't read
Poetry;
One must listen
And expeience
Poetry.

One never expects one
Standing *****,
Straddled with club in hand;
There's a postage stamp
With pole and flag
Daring resolve and grit;
So one checks one's stance,
Sneaks a glance
And slightly adjusts one's grip;
Then a reaction occurs
Like controlled fussion,
And out of confusion comes sense.
The contact cements a crack and launch,
Startling one like a gun;
One scratches one's head,
Dumbfounded and red,
One's aced a hole-in-one.

I saw a girl
Who belongs to me.
It was in her gait,
The way she turned her face,
And cocked her head
For clarity.
That girl belongs to me.
She's a reflective skeptic,
Knows a half empty glass,
But she doesn't cover
Her eyes with wool,
She knows when it's half full.
She enjoys serenity.
Yes, that girl belongs to me.
She only lives a life of fun,
Her demenor's one of curiosity;
Just the other day
She turned one.
Yes, that girl's one of mine;
I'd pick her in a crowd,
Spot her out,
Without a doubt,
That girl is so sublime,
She's definitely
One of mine.

"Mr. Biden, tear down this wall," pled Juan.

One may observe one's quite absurd,
And question why one's not deterred,
When one hears what one's observed.
One's world abounds with wondrous places,
Peopled with mosaic races.
When one blurts out a black man's black,
One says one's not a Democrat.
If one detects one's hue of skin,
One says one's not Republican.
But one is blamed for mouthing words
Like Indian, Paddy, Jew or Kurd.
One's innocuous indiscretions
Has one's eyes rolling on occasions.
Should one be blind to the homeless,
Then one can't see one's not blameless.
When one supports a Pride Parade,
One proudly says one's not afraid.
If one's an anti-abortionist,
Then one must help the Innocents.
“The sick and dying are a great expense,”
One yells demanding the same treatment.
One preaches hard-line on foreign shores,
Would **** the ******* in one war.
One's a diplomatic boor
(And one's glad it's there and not here).
If one knows one conceals a gun,
One's compensating for the wee one.
If one encounters a common thief,
One should keep one's company brief.
Should one hear a politician,
One needs to separate fact from fiction.
One sees terrorists everywhere
From the confines of one's chair.
One speak of one's impending doom,
Looking out from one's room.
There's so much angst one lays on one,
Yet we are one,
We're not one.
Our time here has ebbed,
Will flow,
One must leave.
One must go.

As new immigrants
We were sent
Irish Sweepstakes
Across the blue.
Too young to understand
The ponies,
I understood the secrecy
Of keeping secret
The lottery.
Half a century on,
Life is the lottery;
A more exhilterating
Game of chance
Than a one Punt ticket,
And the bookies
Give good odds.

When one chooses
One's words carefully;
One doesn't speak
With one's mouth open.

Life is terminal:
It's one Stop
On the eternal journey.

Ones who look
But never see,
Are ones who won't
Agree to agree.

Ones who hear
But never listen,
Never get
One's position.

Ones who touch
But never feel,
Have heavy hearts
Forged in steel.

Ones with answers
Who never ask,
Are usually blowing it
Out one's ***.

Ones who smell,
Well...
Avoid those ones.

I'll have a bite
To eat -
A cup of wine,
Some broken bread;
Set them all at ease.

I should sit and wash
My feet -
A water bowl,
A ragged towel;
Clean off the dust
From off the street.

I'll disclaim
I'm a traitor,
Run to temple,
Hang out later.

Minimalism gives me no choice.
The fewer words, the better.
Brevity is next to godliness.
Someday, I will cover
The entire canvas with
One stroke of the brush.
So, I am reminded:
In the beginning
And the end,
There is one
Word.

I've racked my brain,
Buckled with strain
Got sweat beading 'bout my eyes.
I'm working to write
The One Word Poem,
Master it
Before I die.

I'v got two words
That work quite well,
Two words that have
A story to tell.

You see,
The problem with
A one word line,
I'll never get
The poem to rhyme.

Look at the life line
Of an hundred year old;
And despair. Deeply.
Then look at your children.
Deeper than deeply.
It's not getting better.
I'm with my grand kids,
Deeper.

We can either cross or stay inside
Our self-imposed borders.

In Wexford
I saw Superstar;
An Irish Jesus
That well pleased us,
But you may think that dross.
In retrospect,
We might agree,
They hung long
On that cross.

The message was as legible
As orbits in astrophysics.
The syntax was true as
A mathematical equation,
Not calculated by accident or coincidence.
And precise, announcing,

HAPPY VALLEY NUDIST CAMP

Boldly, on a southern hillside,
In white-painted stones,
On Hywy #22,
On the crossroads between youth and age,
Doubt and confusion.

The stones are gone.
Picked over, or, rolled down the hillside.
And the Hywy is hardly used.
How. By accident or happenstance?
Or a higher intelligence orchestrated
The arrangement of the stone message.


And this happened outside our town.
On the road to London.

The familiar small towns,
On the way
To Georgian Bay,
Have gone;
Box store intersections sprawl
Where General Stores once served.
It's hard to find pie and coffee,
To watch the cows come from the barn,
Or comment on the standing corn,
Of a late September morn.

For some,
Death's a doorway;
For others,
It's a lid.

It takes all my resources
To see life
As the opening night
Of a brief run.
It's hard to keep on script,
To act normally,
As I've done,
For now.
Got good and not so good memories,
Got the present to keep up,
And got the non-events
Of the future ahead;
Then... what?

It's not like the movies,
Or the kid being hurled
Through the windshield.
I'm no longer a spectator.
I won't be talking about it;
The media will report
A well-turned condolence:

A fine parent, child and sibling.
Dedicated teacher and friend.
We would like to extend our sympathies.
Sorry for you troubles.

Troubles!
I'll have none of that.
That's for survivors,
(As If I were a
Shipwreck
Or reality show).
Well, I didn't.
Did well for a brief time:
Good job, spouse, kids,
Collected a few pensions
Lived middle class with
The occasional splurge.

Stones only have
Limited space,
And I've already said
Too much.
Then pre-existent consciousness
Prevails,
And I am back to where I began:
It takes all my resources
To see life
As the opening act
Of a brief run.

I went out for some air
As Ophelia's winds ripped Cavan
With whips and cracks,
Swaying wires til they met like Gothic lips
Whistling a lilting melody
In a wave winding along the Carrick Road.
They wailed as banshees,
Warning men with crosses,
Women in seclusion,
Screeching in their ears,
The fairies left their hillocks,
The cairns are empty vaults;
Ophelia drowned out prayers that night,
And slipped for Scotland's shore.

Gaia, The World (nee Earth)
Suddenly, at home, aged 4.5 billion years, The World Gaia (nee Earth),
surrounded by her loving nucleur family, Gaia passed away after a long
battle with humanity. She is survived by her partner of 3 billion years, Luna,  eight siblings, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, and countless cosmic cousins. Predeceased by a younger brother, Pluto.
Gaia was the mother of all, and a selfless provider. She brought rain or let the sun into everyone's life.
Cremation has taken place.
In lieu of flowers there is nothing else.
Condolences at this time are fruitless.
There will be no service.

My original spring was wound,
Tight as a Swiss watch.
The fore-finger and thumb
Of the nun turned the crown *****,
As only the Sisters could do.
Any subject could be converted
Into a lesson of the life of Jesus.
A plus sign becomes a cross.

     Even Jesus knew the angles
     To be a carpenter and Savior,

Grace and Faith kept time.

The Sacrements were frequent topics.
How many would we receive
Between Baptism and Extreme Unction?
After Confessions, I once asked,
Is it possible to sin between Penance and the curb?

     All things are possible with God.

You didn't want to die with a blemished soul;
Being responsible for more thorns and nails
Pounded into the emaciated, pitiful flesh
Of the one to emulate,
With Grace and Faith.

I was fervent in prayer.
I wanted to carry the Holy Eucharist
To the housebound or hospitalized;
Through the throng of thugs
Ready to defile the wafer.
I was ready to die a martyr,
With a benevolent, sober Jesus,
Guarding from the clouds,
Right hand raised like a Judo chop,
Blessing me, preparing me,
Protecting me with a corporeal force field.
Grace and Faith kept time.

I pined to wear the Altar Boy's Cassock,
Soutane-like, long and black,
Topped with the surplice;
To ring the bell, light the incense,
Hold the Communion Plate
Under Mammy's chin
As she knelt in supplication,
Before the Madonna,
My blessed Mother.

Did she envision me as a Jesuit,
Tending to the lame lepers
In the jungles of Peru and Africa.
Me, who issued forth from her.
Faith kept time.

The dark hour was closing in.
The spring was loosening,
Unwinding as I relaxed.
Marian sat beside me,
Thinking of our orders
At the drive through.
The Nehru-collared clerk
Slid the glass window,
Listening to our wants.
I offered her a napkin
To keep the crumbs
Of her little black dress.

Lou,
You're an orphan now.
The deciding vote
In your favor,
The good kisses,
The latent reconciliation
Linger in this thick room.
You won't need to clean chimneys,
Work in a blacking factory,
Get your ears pinched, and your **** kicked.

You've laid out a fine plaster effigy
In this cherry box;
Yet Enzo's nature is hidden:
His personal tears
And public laughter
Aren't in this demeanor
With rosary weaved into the basket of his hands.

We've polished our shoes,
So we stand and discuss
The crucifix wedged
To hold up the lid,
And how we follow our fathers' footsteps.
We knew it to end this way
With our fathers' generation.
     But you must know your father lost a father,
     That father lost, lost his...
I too am orphaned, Lou,
And we'll continue on
As orphans do.

We sketched it out,
Construed an outline
With bullet points;
Worked on the draft,
Fashioned the conclusion
While forming an introduction,
And through infusion,
Developed an argument.

From thesis to synthesis
We entered the plot,
Quite sure of twists,
Not knowing the costs.
Our assay would go
Something  like that.

Plodding forward
Through antithesis,
The crises, decisions,
Then the denoument.

In conclusion,
To summarize:
The vacant character
Of my eyes,
Was the climactic dowfall;
Your hero dies.

The final draft
Was finely crafted,
Something just like that.

Our corner graveyard
Looks so inviting,
The lawns are cut,
There's solar lighting.
A wrought-iron gate
Is freshly painted,
Shade trees shelter
Graves of the innocent.
The Italians built a mausoleum,
Where pictures of their deceased greet them,
Looking full of vim and joy
At having pictures taken.
Beneath the temples, in the crypts,
Celtic crosses and brass plaques,
Olympians and outcasts,
All professions, our world's best,
Lie wasting just like us,
In their oak, brass-handled coffins.

My friend's Father,
Who's just that,
Has a Papa Francis.
And her entire congregated family
Won't acknowledge her
Very existence.
How can she communicate.
There's a crack in the crucifix,
And it's splitting, running up the wood,
Past the cruciform,
To the Head.

Our hearts are mere muscle,
They'll weaken, atrophy;
They need exercise.
Do your reps,
Make it sweat,
Massage it to full size.
You may be surprsied
How it effects your thighs.

I was here first.
     *I seriously doubt that,
     but, for the sake of argument,
     let's say you were,
     here first.
     So?
     I was here second.
     This isn't a race.

We were here first.
     I seriously doubt that,
     but, for the sake of argument,
     let's say you were,
     here first.
     So?
     I was here second.
     This isn't a race.

The moon wore Janus masks last night,
Winking and nudging at our daily shenanigans;
Our wrong turns, the vanity of our foibles,
The apprehension of non-events,
Poking at our comedy of errors.
Our youthful angst.

The other mask keeps an eye closed
To our secrets,
The thoughts we cannot share;
Our furcht of past to future
Since our first fires,
Since someone said, You've said too much,
Or, What business is that of yours?
I've buried my losses beneath that mask,
With all the irreplaceable loves and deaths
Of my real drama.

I am older now,
And we've been together
For decades now,
So I don't pretend
To remember
Our first kiss, now.
Anyhow,
It's sensations are still with me.
That kiss was a sentence.
Anywho, or, Anywhom,
What's more important,
Is...
I don't foresee
Our last
Anytime soon.

Our poems are like tickles,
They give both joy and pain;
With blissful tears and tearful giggles,
We'll read those poems again.

Poems are like damaged hearts
In need of surgery;
There's a cut that heals
With lines that seal
The scars along our hearts.

In this race,
Receive the baton,
And pas it on.

One tear of love or joy
Can fill a resevoir.

One tear of hate or pain
Is a diluvial drop.

The tears in between are
Neither drought nor flood.

The omnipotent
Doesn’t lead seminars.
The Universe is real.
Believe.

By being
Individual
Beats
Of a
Universal Heart,
Our actions
Prevent
Arrhythmia.

Dedicated to John and Bob

From first flesh we move down widening halls
That lead to lives of wondrous walls.

Our spidered fingers gripped walls of brick,
Cruets, cups and candle sticks.
Incense clouded open graves
When we too believed we too were saved.

Between Annex walls we learned our phonics,
On tin-roofed walls we lived our comics.
Garage walls scaled showed different views,
Kitchen walls steamed with soups and stews.
Our school yard walls tallied pitches
That marked our summers of youth and wishes.

Now lift memory's pane and go back
To the white-framed walls of a secret shack.
There, in confusion we would cling
To the unknown wonders girls would bring.
These young boys' walls we both outgrew;
Now new walls sprang, as we did too.

Coffee House walls offered something new.
Wet kisses lingered near shadowy walls,
We heard poetry read in a backroom stall.
Recreationals made our new skin crawl.

Cliff walls were breached by stairs of clay,
Carved by Incas on a turquoise day.
Tent walls echoed with impish fray,
Green walls beckoned at the end of day.
These walls gave rise to hot desires,
Like Vikings planning funeral pyres.
New music, cheers and weekend guests
Stood us ***** to pound our chests.

Those walls no longer ring our shores;
Time swept us forward with worldly lures.
We doffed our coats of suede and frills,
And donned new clothes and workday skills.
The walls of work are a rocky climb,
Stones laid by us, for yours and mine.
Such towers & turrets of heart & hearth
Guard all we know of any worth.

I see distant walls on cliffs, in fields;
Where do they lead? What will they yield?
Yet, there three friends climb one more hill,
Climb one more wall. Then all is still.

Can you feel the seismic rift.
Shift your weight. Keep your balance.
Hold steady.
The ground is moving beneath.
We've been waiting, expecting this to happen.
It's Mesopotamian.
Hordes will be swallowed up.
Legions will burn,
We will be punished,
But there will come calm.
Our will be done.
Until the debris stops falling,
Look down, cover up.
Look up.

Our world is in bits;
Hawking has it flipped.
There isn't a theory
Of everything,
Everything has
Its theory.

The world is losing
Gravity,
But no one can escape,
We're hurtling on our petrie dish
In a gel that seals our fate;
Gravitating
Towards black holes;
They're closer than you think.

In China
There's a wall of dust,
Seen clear from outer space;
Our living waters die
In a legacy of disgrace.
We're citizens
Wearing masks;
We should hide our faces,
But we're running daily tasks.
We're fossils burning
Fossil fuels
Found in cremation gas.

The amphibians
Are on the fringe;
Whales can't sound,
They run aground.
It's an environmental slaughter.

Our world has lost
Some gravity.
We need to plant our feet,
But  charnel fires
And greenhouse gas
Have hastened our retreat.
Migrating birds lose sense of time,
Confused by the lights.
The morning dove coos at night,
The nightingale at dawn;
We're like
New turtles muddling,
Under lost starlight.
We must grasp
The gravity
Of burning
Burning  light.

The world is losing
Gravity,
But no one can escape,
We're hurtling on our petrie dish
In a gel that seals our fate;
Gravitating
Towards black holes;
They're closer than you think.

In China
There's a wall of dust,
Seen clear from outer space;
Our living waters die
In a legacy of disgrace.
We're citizens
Wearing masks;
We should hide our faces,
But we're running daily tasks.
We're fossils burning
Fossil fuels
Found in cremation gas.

The amphibians
Are on the fringe;
Whales can't sound,
They run aground.
It's an environmental slaughter.

Our world has lost
Some gravity.
We need to plant our feet,
But  charnel fires
And greenhouse gas
Have hastened our retreat.
Migrating birds lose sense of time,
Confused by the lights.
The mourning dove coos at night,
The nightingale at dawn;
We're like
New turtles muddling,
Under lost starlight.
We must grasp
The gravity
Of burning
Burning  light.

When she opened her  closet,
There was Jamie,
At the end of a rope.
All three twisted as the face,
With feet an inch from life.
A brown and yellow drip
Puddled the floor,
Touching the toe of a worn sock.
     If I can't live here, I'll die here.
Was pinned near the heart.
Stretching out her fingers,
Working fast for the unattainable,
Thinking speed and action
Could change the outcome
Of the hours old body,
Hanging,
Like a favorite suit
In need of dry-cleaning.

As a young man in love,
I was selfish.
I walked with you,
I shared food,
I slept with you,
It was my insatiable thirst;
Desire, and
I needed to gulp it,
At any cost,
For survival.
Perhaps you felt likewise.
I didn't know.

Now, being older,
That
Which I do
Out of love,
I do for you.

Break. Heal. Scarring
Break. Mend. Scar.
Break. Pretend. Scarred.
Break.

Don't write about pets,
Well, I don't bother to.
Or scribble metaphors
About meteors, the moon, and stars
Caught in jars without holes.
I don't wax on about my lawn,
Or wax off on matters of law.
I don't know the difference
Between love and hate;
Feeling both so intensely breaches distinction.
I used to love, but now abhor
It's cause for loss of self.
So, I write on self-understanding.
I'm not a cat, a crescent or shooting star,
I breathe outside the jar,
Outside the envelope
Where I can't get licked.

I was standing at the corner
Of Yonge and Bedlam Ave.,
When I spied a chap across the way,
The image of my Dad.

He had one thumb in his pocket,
The fingers hung outside.
His other arm craddled a book,
As often in his life.

His weight was shifted to the right,
With head cocked to the side;
He wore his cap over one eye,
Tweed jacket open wide.

He raised his head,
As I did mine,
Looked to me and nodded;
He smiled and touched
The edge of his brim,
I did the same as him.

We crossed with the light.
He passed
And went
Where he belongs;
Me, to the library,
My book was overdue.

"I know an agent, who knows your man, who has a machine to do the job in no time."

… I'll book a flight then

This time,
I’ll sail on a freighter cabin,
Back,
Have a B&B waiting
In a familiar town,
In County Cavan.

I’ll visit with my Uncle,
Drink ***-boiled water
From tea-ringed mugs.
I’ll pour out questions,
Wear an extra layer
To stay the chill,
With my muddy wellies
On his cement floor,
In his soot-walled room,
Behind the  sky-blue, wood rot door;
With the road encroaching,
As never before.
A light dangles from the end of a cord,
The tap is just outside the door,
A four burner propane stove
Provides heat to boil and cook.
The Immaculate Heart
Is missing from where it once was,
In the nook, on the wall.

The thistle encrusted lane
Leads up a hill, from behind,
To a natural well,
Where animals watered and grazed.
Beyond, hedgerows of bramble,
With walls of stone,
Delineate the fields;
Seven in all, they called their own.
But seven can’t stay home.
The youngest,
The unchosen one,
Lives there now on his own.

There' s no cold ash
In the open hearth,
Where generations
Died and birthed.
Despite the depth of the walls,
The rusted roof and lifeless stalls,
The whitewash too
Will bleed to earth,
Onto the tumulus of dirt.

... then, I will book a flight

The mother of the one
Claiming to be God-like
Was executed
By her god-like son
Playing his part
In a pagan tragedy.