"Where are your gloves?"
A man with watery blue eyes,
And steaming black coffee asks me.
I almost cannot hear him over the brutal wind,
The city taken by storm.

He leans closer and whispers,
"They are giving some away,
Under the bridge."
As if I know exactly which bridge he is speaking of.

Winking,
He continues past me on the street.
Homeless,
But fortunate in his kindness.

I Dreamed of Peace  


                                 I dreamed of peace
                                 where games cannot touch my saddened heart;
                                 where the winters spray of discontent cannot
                                 make my blood cold, cannot make my marrow
                                 ache and my inner force limp wounded to the gray
                                 and weeping bank.

                                 I dreamed of peace
                                 where fire words shot to take me down
                                 miss their target and fall harmlessly in joyous fields
                                 of ripened corn, standing strong, smiling, repelling
                                 all the pointed barbs; whose yellow husks cannot be pierced
                                 but in reflecting provide a  nourishment so replete
                                 the archers arm is wearied by the load.

                                 I dreamed of peace
                                 where no longer do I wake at night
                                 seeking reassurance from apparitions that their calling
                                 means no harm;
                                 where the raven sitting on the drooping branch
                                 is not waiting for my soul’s ascent;
                                 where the soot covered face peering from the bracken
                                 is not the axe man arrived to take me home.

                                 I dreamed of peace
                                 where the fire in my brain is quelled
                                 by knowledge, accomplished thoughts of reason and
                                 not prone to dissatisfaction;
                                 where thirst is quenched in rivers so deep
                                 my dive can never touch or scrape the sides and
                                 in whose fear I need not fear;
                                 where my essence is left untouched , my spirit not assaulted
                                 by ego and forced appraisal.
                
                                 I dreamed of peace
                                 where false disinterest lies split and gaping
                                 and hypocrisy oozes its puerile bile across cracked and
                                 concrete stagnant floors;
                                 where beggars no longer assault my passing
                                 with arms outstretched and hope etched into canyon
                                 city faces;
                                 where the malcontent is driven to the slackened shallows
                                 and forced to face their own reflection.

                                 I dreamed of peace
                                 where lightening skipped and danced across the waves
                                 and thunder played the most delicate of notes;
                                 where wind swirled not in anger but caressed
                                 the sparse sand dune grass and the stilt legged
                                 petrel bobbed in anticipation;
                                 where the fuss of self induced stress is placed inside the trench
                                 and covered by the dirt of self awareness.

                                 I dreamed of peace
                                 where only peace may step and no intrusion
                                 may be entered;
                                 where neither the able nor the vacuous may encroach;
                                 where neither the sun drenched and rich may acquire that which
                                 others have stooped to learn;
                                 where the essence of time is encased and made bare
                                 and does not beat to a false clock;
                                 where all I have been and all I am to be is in the one,
                                 and there is no need to climb a further set of stairs.

                                 I dreamed of peace.

I do not think of you lying in the wet clay
Of a Monaghan graveyard; I see
You walking down a lane among the poplars
On your way to the station, or happily Going to second Mass on a summer Sunday--
You meet me and you say:
'Don't forget to see about the cattle--'
Among your earthiest words the angels stray.
And I think of you walking along a headland
Of green oats in June,
So full of repose, so rich with life--
And I see us meeting at the end of a town on a fair day by accident,
after the bargains are all made and we can walk
Together through the shops and stalls and markets
Free in the oriental streets of thought.
O you are not lying in the wet clay,
For it is harvest evening now and we
Are piling up the ricks against the moonlight
And you smile up at us -- eternally.

Magic is the nature
Magic is the water flowing
Magic is the air
Magic is the food
Magic is the peace
Magic is the love
Magic is my life
And most of all
Magic is my family.

I still remember how you looked that January afternoon
The way your hair was after the snow.
The briefest of split seconds- as it landed, before it melted to nothing.
Bitterly cold but suffocatingly warm
The start of something was crisp in the air.

Unfamiliraties and awkwardness melted away with the snow
And something else came and replaced it.
Something infinite and permenant.
Something beautiful.

In that solitary moment we could never have thought it might not quite last forever.

That's why the snow always makes me think of you.

After it all.

Deep beneath dirt is where I would like to be
perhaps then, under rock, no one would find me
and my body would be left to decay not from hurt but debri
and you, my pain giver, I would not see
but I think, all the same, that eventually
I would crave you and want to dig myself free

If I love you for a moment,
take up a space in this continuum
with a twinkling of the heart,
let it not be

when I gasp at the brush
of your fingertips slipping beneath
the fabric of my integrity

Let it not be

when your lips skim
the curve of my bones, when you
make my core quiver and release

Let the moment in the continuum -
in the spaces in an expanding nothingness -
Let the moment I love you
be

when your head rests atop mine
on a snowy night in a running car
and your hand presses slightly to my back
with a softly spoken
"Goodnight."

Stop showing
You love me
A little at a time.

Stop saying
You care
Bit by bit.

Stop keeping
Me here
For tiny pieces of time.

Because I need
All of you
Not piece by piece.

I love
All of you
Not just some parts of you.

So love all of me
All the way
All the time.

Or let all of me go
All at once
For good.