How she was dying for a smoke,
And how she was dying from smoke.
It was perfectly pleasing
To pretend in the past,
When she was blessed
With youth and youth's charm.
When she was once a wild flower,
Strong, with wanderlust,
Blood red petals,
Far from Death.
Until her streams ran dry,
Causing thirst within all of us,
A thirst for life,
Her life, if not, our own lives,
In which, she was a constant North Star
Or maybe, for some,
A thirst to end the pain,
Her pain, Unimaginable,
A thirst for silence,
Our deafening speechlessness,
A thirst for oblivion.
Sinking into the Deep Sleep,
She leaves behind, her pain, her worry,
But never our love.
Always
Our
Love.

-Jamie F. Nugent

I thought I heard you cry,
From the other side of this crowded room.
Though I could not see you through the crowd,
The sound is more clear and present
Then any other in this frowzy room,
Louder than the half-dozen doltish conversations,
Louder then the raindrops crashing on the window pane
Louder than the wind, as it howls outside threateningly ,
Louder than my own thoughts in my erratic head,
They scream "I did this", and yell " this is my fault".
Your would-be tears make me doubt myself
And question my very nature.

-Jamie F. Nugent

Your mascara runs,
Along with us in this rain,
And happiness runs.

Raindrops on your face,
And all along top lip,
Running down your smile.

My rainy day girl,
Love does not drip it cascades,
'Till we're drenched, unquenched.

-Jamie F. Nugent

I never could play the violin very well,
Unlike banjo, bass or guitar,
Violins require that delicate touch
And precise bow.

It is easy to pluck a banjo
And make it talk.
It is easy to slap a bass
And make it walk.
It is easy to hit and strike a guitar
And make it weep.

And it inconceivably simple
To make a violin stretch,
Just drag the bow,
Be it horsehair or the wood
Across four unbroken sliver strings,
Like a knife.

Making sounds that birth cringe and shiver,
Sickly shaking notes that winge and quiver.

-Jamie F. Nugent

All of my love - held on-top of a pin,
I can barley fit your love in this room,
Makes me want to cast away all my sin,
A love like this is rare as a red moon,
I can't remember how your lips did taste,
That taste fades away with the memory,
But your love shall never be put to waste,
It is all that I have left; can't you see?
Does your little heart have in it a dent,
Or do you lock it away in your chest?
I gave you up like sweet things during Lent,
My will, so strong and so undone, obsessed,
We'll suffocate under love and love's weight,
We'll infiltrate thunder and meet our fate.


-Jamie F. Nugent

Moments of surpassing loveliness,
That you compose like a symphony,
That are twice as gorgeous,
And threefold as complex.

You have fire with in yourself,
Pretty little flames.
You contain this beat,beat, beat!
Tribal percussion,
Drumming all through the night.

With the grace of your wrist,you throw
These pink paper airplanes,
With inviting invitation on the inside,
They glide through the winter air,
Until they fall upon my doorstep

-Jamie F. Nugent

He slipped those chords in, because
She was a Goth and he thought
She'd be impressed.
He had always been a sucker for
The type she was.

He could not help but submit
Into her being,
Into her eyes, her dark green eyes,
Into her voice, her soft as silk voice,
Into her brown hair, dyed darkest black,
Into her red rosy lips,stained shades of purple lipstick,
Into her ghostly pale skin, forever untouched by a sun,

Her name was Susan, but she rathered Siouxie,
That was what he called his obsession,
His teenage lust.
That burning feeling, that stumbled over him,
Like the edges of the sea crawling over the sand,
Until there was nothing left in him,
But that feeling, and
His knowing that he had to do something about it.

-Jamie F. Nugent

You were my only pleasure,
You were my only softness,
You brought out my best, but these days,
You bring out my paranoia,
When I turn the street's corner,
Thinking I see you in the corner
Of my eye, only to be
Another girl with your same composure.
Sometimes, I am just a heartbeat away
From the button on the telephone
That reads '4'
The last digit of your digits,
But then, I put the telephone to bed,
Just like I should put this to bed.

-Jamie F. Nugent

Perfect and elegant, like some statuette,
Impossible to touch
She seems just like a silhouette.
Behind brown eyes,
Behind the looking glass,
She sees
All the men, who've fallen for her,
Their shattered knees.
Unbalanced, I'd become,
Upon passing her on the staircase,
As she'd walk, in her quick pace,
Hair, brown, curly at the ends,
Brushing the banisters top,
Sweet and addictive,
Like a narcotic lollipop.

-Jamie F. Nugent

I want you.
I want you
not to leave
just yet.
I want you
not to go
off into
that ***** storm.
I want you
to taste sweetness,
my sweetheart.
I want you
to stick around,
just a while longer,
Like a candle
Caught up in
an inferno.
I want you.


-Jamie F. Nugent

An old calendar ,
A Christmas present from me,
Only seen nine mouths.

-Jamie F. Nugent

The weekend lovers,
They never talked when sober,
Strangers come Monday.

No kindness from him,
Wants not her love nor her mind,
Just her body, drunk.

Lonely in his arms,
She keeps up the masquerade,
Nothing else to do.


-Jamie F. Nugent

In the nick of time,
You held a candle
To my hands, trembling,
Just before my
Fingers turned blue;
I am allured into
Your flickering flame,
Heating my bones.
The dogeared pages
Of your open book,
I could be your bookmark,
For a while,
Just until the last chapter.

-Jamie F. Nugent

Just give me a snow-day,
So I won't endure a slow day,
Toss me a snowball,
Resurrect me a snowman,
Anything you could do to
freeze this humdrum dullness,
And knock over the hourglass,
Anything at all.

-Jamie F. Nugent

(For Jaimie)

Orange sky, brings the early dawn,
I think to myself in sleepless yawn.
Because I am slightly too tired to say,
In the dawn, of this, my best friend's birthday,
Into thoughts in my head, I sink,
How it is just so insane to think,
She is a women now!
She is a women,how?
In all strange ways, we are almost the same,
In all strange ways, almost the same name,
Her heart is like a morning of spring,
Sounding of bluebirds, the songs they sing,
So let us sit down, relax in the kitchen,petal,
Slip off your shoes, as I boil the kettle.

-Jamie F. Nugent

She once read me her poems,
But the only knotical ones,
Not the ones that revealed
Her tragic secrets or past.

That was when I knew,
She would sooner see me
Become her castaway
On a desert island,
Then on her ship,
Sailing away,
Or standing with her
Hand in hand,
On a beach,
Throwing stones
Into the sea.

I could feel the water seeping through
And knew that our shipwreck
Wasn't too far away or too long now.

And after all out simplicity
After our final curtain fell,
I was just left standing in the dark,
On top of the parts and pieces
Of her somber ship,
That I stole from her
Like a kiss,
She watched me sail away
As I watched her sink.

-Jamie F. Nugent

Maybe there are a few more drops
Of blood that we have not yet ******
From each other,
until we are
See-through skeletons
under ripped red umbrellas,
Bone dry
in our tailor-made threshold.

And maybe there are
Blacker bruises
we could paint each other in.

Deeper scratches you could give me.

And maybe we are not done
******* up our love through straws,
like it is a pink parky milkshake,
that will soon sour,
Maybe we should pour it away,
Maybe we should drink it down,
By the mouthful,
And just let it hurt.

-Jamie F. Nugent

Saint Valentine's Day,
The only rose she received,
Gift from the waitress.

-Jamie F. Nugent

I clean when I'm stressed,
The house is spotless right now,
I just try my best.

-Jamie F. Nugent

Loader then bombs,
What happened was unspeakable,
You kept it in your mind,
And Oh My God,
What happened here?

Every nightmare you've ever had,
You've cried out to your mom and dad,
And Oh My God,
What have we here?

You took your secrets,
And buried them in the dirt,
Now, I've no idea,
But Christ it must hurt,
And Oh Sweet Lord,
The tears you've poured.

And Heavenly Angels fall the furthest,
And God knows you don't deserve this.


-Jamie F. Nugent

Lust Often Violently Evokes
Lost Obscure Vulnerable Emotion;
Lakes Overflowing Verge Earnestly
Letting Out Velvet Explosions.

-Jamie F. Nugent

Warm daze, when you wore flowers in your hair,
Sleepless nights, a scarf wrapped around us both,
Under a June moon, paradise was there,
The blue of the night, from the undergrowth,
We're down in the dark, no sign of daylight,
We're here in the night, with sounds of the wild,
If the howls frighten you, then just stick-tight,
Your black hair, moonlit, perfect mess it's styled,
Take me to the beach, bury me in sand,
Don't you know you are my approaching tide?,
The broken finger on the other hand,
When there's no where to run, no where to hide,
We could live in castles made from the sand,
Wouldn't it be perfect and oh so grand?

-Jamie F. Nugent

Cracks and chips off the Post Office pillars,
Concrete Angels wings, riddled with bullet holes,
Stand in the middle of Main Street.

Nine and ninety years ago,
Yet feeling like it was the day before my birth,
Just before my lifetime.

A ****** Sabbath to change everything.

There are many noble reasons
To shed one's blood
And give one's own life.

There are none to justify
Spilling the blood of another
And taking their one, only life.

And the philosophers,
During meek mid-mornings in April,
Were hanged without trial,
Gone judge nor jury.

Or sent to firing squad,
For the quicker, 'kinder' death.

But their deaths,
Slow nor instant,
Were not in vain.

-Jamie F. Nugent

The ship has set sail into an ocean, black and calm.
Just this morning, you got the letter from your mother,
Handwritten in felt tip, slightly stained with a tear,
Telling you to keep warm and stay safe,
To fill your stomach and fill you pockets.

As your sister stands on Dublin's docks to see you off
and wish you well.
She shrinks with the distance growing between you and her, and
She looks twelve and three quarter years younger than she is today,
The little girl who you fought with all the live long day over nothing.
Now, she's the women who put up a fight over your sailing away.
Sometimes, brothers and sisters never change.

She knows that this is for the best,
but she would never admit that,
Not with words,
She feels her words, weightless; would just sail right away with you.
You wonder what she will look like if you see her again,
Will she have received wrinkles from worrying about mother?
Will her chestnut hair have turned white as the snow burying her bare feet?
As she thinks that you can no longer see her,
she's succumbing to the cold,
She starts into her coughing fit,
you watch with desperate despair

On the Eastbound coffin ship.

-Jamie F. Nugent

At mid-day,
you left work early to drive your father to hospital,
bad knees,
old bones.
Instead of saying a cheerful goodbye,
you simply say to turn off the machine after you have gone.
A few hours later,
you are sat with your poor old father,
in a hospital canteen,
smelling of chemicals,
over a brown wooden table,
slurping disappointing green soup,
bread not entirely fresh nor stale,
just too expensive.
Then there is the chime of your cracked sliver phone.
Pressed up to your ear,
you hear the sound of your partners voice,
unsteady but to the point.
She tells you tragic news.
After it's said,
you forget to say a word back,
or even to hang up your phone,
gripped in hand.
John,
poor poor John.
John who had worked at the factory
ten long years longer then you have,
he was ******* in knots,
******* in chains,
chains red rust with sawdust,
chains meant for hunks of wood,
not chunks of flesh,
not bone,
breakable hallow bone.
The boys had to cut the chains.
And they turned off the machine,
hours after you said to
and moments too late.

-Jamie F. Nugent

How you fell from grace,
Brittle leafs from Autumn trees,
Have I fallen too?

Jamie F. Nugent

Just a summer's day
This melody in our minds
You're drenched in sunshine.

-Jamie F. Nugent

You're a summer's day
Our minds in this melody
In sunshine, Just drenched.

-Jamie F. Nugent

Oh what a gorgeous,
cruel and ugly city,
Where titanic buildings
tower the gray sky,
Where the natives
are fluent in gibberish,
The prudent rapid ramble rumble
of Liffeysiders.
Spare a few shillings
for the ******'s fix?
Or pretend,
like most passer's by,
That you're deaf,dumb and blind.
The quick slick kick
of boot heels on stone bricks,
Down the Trojan streets
I would fellow
like desire lines,
Bumping into para-mores past,
awkward small-talk,
How they have changed,
for the better?
A winter's day,
feeling like spring,
Bustling ancient streets,
That are charmingly gruesome,
Warm and lonely.

-Jamie F. Nugent

Your hair is longer than before,
Mine is shorter than the last time,
All our dyes have ran out,
Into our natural brown.

Your a little taller now,
With a head,
not hanging as low,
A tighter spring in your step,
As you wittingly walk toward me.
I hated waiting,
But I've never stoped.

Eager, I can not help becoming,
In the shadow of our showdown.
Modest mercy is all I ask from you.
As we fire our double barrelled Deringers,
Bullets that shoot tangible mementos,
Pierce worthless wounds you have opened before.

-Jamie F. Nugent

'Doctor, well the problem is...
I can't get 'it' up...
' confessed the man, embarrassingly.
'Would this be...all the time...or just in the bedroom?'
pondered the doctor.
'See, I really only get 'it' up once a day,
just before lunch, actually, and if the wife isn't on it right then and there.....then I'd have to wait 'till the following day.....
it's the choice between
******* or having a warm sausage' he said
'Well, don't fret' assured the doctor
'I get this exact compliant more then you'd think'
'Oh?' the man sounded, feeling less shame now.
The doctor peered through his glasses
'But I'll need to see a photograph'.
The man's eyelids opened wide and wild.
'.......of your wife' finished the doctor.
'You need to?...what?' asked the man.
'Oh yes,I'll need to see what you're working with here'
answered the doctor,
'I mean,before an accurate diagnostic can be made' he said,
saving himself.
The man produced his wallet and showed the doctor a wedding photograph.
'A current photo' the doctor said.
'Ah,yes,that does make more sense' said the man.
He took his phone from his jacket pocket and
showed the doctor his wallpaper with his wife's full figure in it.
The doctor looked for a moment and then said
'well, I'm afraid all the drugs in the world aren't going to help to you'.

-J.F.N.

Loveless,
Love-letters,
That's what I'll send you,
That's what you'll send me.

Endless;
Dead end streets,
That's where I'll send you,
That's where you'll meet me.

Sleepless,
Insomniatic coffee-water drips until
It will dry up in the morning,
When the sun hits.

When the sun hits,
They will no place to hide away,
No lachrymose place to run to,
When the sun hits.

-Jamie F. Nugent

The black cloud will shroud
The multicoloured rainbows -
A hard rain is going to fall -
The honey bear won't wake
From her hibernation,
She will dream of placing
Her paws into golden beehives.

The swallows will migrate swiftly
To African shores of green and blue,
They won't be coming back soon.

Our black-cloud sky
Will be composed of ravens and crows,
Squawking tuneless nocturnes
Whilst pecking at our windowpane.

Where are our rainbows?
Where is our sunshine?
Where have our honey bears
And our swallows gone?


-Jamie F. Nugent

January is a serial killer,

January is a climbing pillar,

January is a ****** stain,

January is a crashing train,

January is a spider bite,

January is a sleepless night,

January is Eliot's contradiction,

January is an infinite affliction,

January is a lacerated heart,

January is the very worst part,

January is a poison potion,

January is death in slow motion,

January is a *****,

January nevermore.



-Jamie F. Nugent

The further out West,
The madder the mad people,
I love the mad ones.


-Jamie F. Nugent

So what if he comes?
I'm not surprised anymore,
Same old obsession.

-Jamie F. Nugent

There we were,
The right place,
The right time,
Undercover of
Darkness,
Earlier then
Morningtide,
Alone in the
Twilight hours,
You and I,
So entwined.
Two pale moons
Shine from outside
The bedroom window,
The night plays her
Deceptions as we are
Tangled up in illusions,
As we stretch and yawn,
As I wait for the dawn,
My temptations explodes,
Desires breaking into pieces.

-Jamie F. Nugent

If you are going to kick someone,
Use both feet.
If it looks like it is leaning,
Give it a shove.
Bend it until it breaks
And then bend it some more.
If you are going to shout,
Blow your lungs out.
If you are going to run,
Run fast and run far.
If you are going to jump,
Don't say when.
If you are going to love,
Love completely
And without an apology.
Just never regret
Or say sorry.

-Jamie F. Nugent

That's not an anklet,
It's a ball and chain,
It might look pretty,
But it has you trapped.

The longer you wear it,
The deeper the scar,
The darker the bruise,
Just remember, in your hand,
You have the key.

It's never too late to get out.

-Jamie F. Nugent.

On the dark city streets,
Where we could found
Ourselves
So effortlessly lost.
You turn a cobblestone
Corner into the alley
By the old bookshop,
To read the lines
On my palms,
I'm not superstitious,
But you are mythical,
I can not explain you,
I can only try,
But I would not even
Come close at all.

-Jamie F. Nugent.

Elegys are the lies
we tell dead people,
When we know
they won't hear us
From up above,
Or from down below,
Or just in the ground,
in the dirt.
Wherever you want to believe,
Just believe they can't hear you.
When you say that
He or she was this or that
Now and then
When you were nine or ten,
When they came back from
The shop with a sugar laced treat
That was never quite as sweet
As them.

Lies,
all of it.

-Jamie F. Nugent

Just knowing that
you would be there
at the station to see me off,
a quick sweet kiss,
and then that look,
as I would shout out
a goodbye,
just knowing that,
made it not an impossibly to leave.

You still make my heart beat twofold,
and the boiling blood rush in my vains.

Do I make that heart pump a little faster?
That pulse,that throb, throb, throb.
If you were at the station,

Then I must.

-Jamie F. Nugent

The cold of early morning,
The cold that hits my sleepy dusty eyes,
And gets inside my drowsy head,
So much so that,
My thoughts become transfixed, frozen;
There is nothing but that chill,
That chill that whispers, winter is melting away,
That chill that sings, summer won't be long now,
That chill that screams, the chill won't stay.

-Jamie F. Nugent

The Christmas tree was dragged down,
Slayed like a beast, she was
Skinned of her decoration hide,
She looked a lot less pretty naked,
But God, she looked wild and free,
She was not ready to wither away,
She was not going to lay down and die,
Not just yet,
Not just now.

-Jamie F. Nugent

I stood there,
5'11 in secondhand shoes,
by the gate, house of god,
in the sun-drenched midday;
She drove up and parked,
as the bells rang out,
in her stainless sliver car,
newer then her leopard print hat
covering her white hair,
she approached me like a shadow,
twisted and hunting,
I stood there
by my red bucket full of change;
I did not wish her a 'good' morning,
instead just morn',
she walked up without saying a word,
but then,
when she was as close as she could get,
she said in the falsest of tone and substance,
'Good morning' and walked on,
the bucket, no fuller then before,
she walked in,
I doubt she could even spell cerebral palsy.

-Jamie F. Nugent

Only tongues could tell,
Just what happened in this room,
From behind the sun.

-Jamie F. Nugent.

You could speak sentences
Through your cracked lips,
That would make my heart
Miss a beat,or skip a beat,
I can not even tell.

--Jamie F. Nugent

Hot tears, streaming down cheeks
like raindrops hitting
on spaceship windows,
just before it leaves this world,
and all it's thin white worry;
Even Lazarus must have counted
the ticking of the clock,
just as his soul imploded
inside the crux of a blackstar;
He blindfolded himself
so we would not see what he saw,
and he never knew the people
he made weep,
but they understood him.

-Jamie F. Nugent

Girl with the gray eyes,
Girl who trips over her words,
her pretty dead stare-

Blue eyed boy, shy, coy,
he grabs her when she stumbles,
he loves when she stares-

Nice weird nervousness,
strange electricity pours,
static, when they touch.

-Jamie F. Nugent

She leaned back on the black couch,
we merge like gumdrops melted and gnarled;
sticky with sweat, long legs in a nightgown,
the bridal gown she wears
uncertain of whose bride she is;
she struggles at playing chess with her feet,
I struggle with my hands,
look at me, I could never win,
but if she knew the toil I was in,
would she laugh?
She has always had a nice smile.

-Jamie F. Nugent