The world

does not care

if your days and nights

are torn asunder

by the crimes and tragic mistakes

of yesteryear.

I hear, now,

the traffic of time

speeding on into

the gaping black-hole

of the avaricious

and all devouring

night.

Land of pain

and complaints

teaching it's young

the miserable lessons of failure

and injustice that went cruelly mad.



An island

with rugged shores

that turn in

on it's own populace.



Rising.

genuflecting

and falling 'fatefully'

again

into the puddles

of it's own demise.



All that remains

is an emerald sadness

filled with living ghosts.

Distance stretched
the length of our nearness
that time in the park, the Phoenix Park,
when the deer fled from our coming
and you, silently with the sound of thunder,
walked over there knowing that I, being unsure
and trying to think the reasonable thing,
would follow when desire was to strike out
and savour the wounds of a false pride.

But then the November darkness came quickly
where you had come to stop
and swirling leave shoals
rose and fell like souls
praying for the next rush
to lift them higher
before a distant bell
rang out my destiny.

Come into my heart forever,
horizontally and vertically
to the greatest distances and heights.

Come and be with me in every step
and breath I take.

Come and share all the toil and hardships
of this mundane existence.

Come and divide it all
in pain with the occasional
scent of heaven.

Come, my love, into the womb
of my future.

Come, my love, come.

Come and stay for infinity!

When I am as

a rusty frame resting

in the dump

of it's own miserable present

I can but hope to become

dung

for a new spring.

With the ever increasing tempo
of time sprinting forward,
like a thoroughbred gone frantic down the course,
the years of yesterday
dress in both the most alluring colours
and the most heart-rending sorrows.

A girl up the way
has entered puberty.

One day she wears
the most outlandish clothes and colours
and the next
black, gray or blue.

Fond of protecting
the little ones, in one breath,
she stands separate from adults and everyone,
in the next.

Perhaps,
she talks with classmates and girlfriends
about the changes to her body
as she throws fierce energy into gym
and pursues intensely with pimples and glasses
her various and numerous studies.

Recently,
she was halfway up
the Everest of a lamp-post
before her mother came out
and roared her down.

There is a woman,
so kind and great of heart,
who visits our church.

From Eastern Europe
she is tinier
than even the smallest Piaf.

When she sings
in praise and adoration of her Creator,
you can almost see
the pillars tremble
in harmony;

as her voice
totally and powerfully
pervades the innermost depths
of the entire congregation.

The cue - the cue - the cue
for a joyful entry
Django on your radio
lures him dancing through the door
and your face plays and portrays brilliant colours
with the laughter of a spirit
being momentarily freed
from the sadness of it's earthly shackles.

Typically reflecting
the soul and taste of your race;
poignant in the moment
but eventually flowing
to the heavens,
the unattainable
and the ideal.

Your joy is in fighting for dignity;
the well-being of nobly conquering
all jokes made at your own
and others' expense.

Yet within you
there is the sublime humour
magically transcending pettiness
and hates of every gender.

You ascend
into celestial understanding
and sweet compassion.

However
in the end
you are a tired compromise
of love gone wrong
while bearing fruits
for insecure futures.

Nothing more can be said
to describe your beauty
in all it's temperamental
indulgences and lack of self-restraint.

Handel

played on a concertina

in the dreamy hours

of a June night

spent

on the shores

of the far reaches

of Connemara

as we confessed

many sorrows

and ample joys

with a northern glint

in the sky.

Injured to mutter in mad ways
(a town's sneer won't let him scream)
his eyes settle for blind sights drawn
from painless but poisonous prods -

their targets a scrapbook of wheat and chaff
in this womb where no one watches
the self-embraced death of desire
that blocks hidden tears from surging
to a valley tomb.

Another day will pass unnoticed
by this stranded and shoved out being
who, from a soft chair in the night-shade,
sits churning up the past.

The spider in his heart
weaves dreamlike webs of ancient death
and hangs them high above the stonegray vapours
that pour from the Vesuvius of his mouth.

Rapidly rising rosetinted images
explode into the infernal fire
that soon consumes the insipid blood
made passive by someone's contempt.

And the shell survives the light ******
that issue from a bathroom bulb
through holes in threadbare shut curtains.

Cigars from Summatra -

100% tobacco, strong in flavour

and catering for the hungry tastebuds

help

in between

putting on one's thinking cap

and an unadulterated

course of action.

Feelings -

tugging

at my heart strings;

pressing

all the buttons

at once!



Written in collaboration with Marie Shine.

Our local publican
comes from Amsterdam.

Because of his heart
he has to watch it.

Yet,
once in a blue moon
he gets very drunk.

His
favourite trick then
is to shake
every customer's hand

and tell them
with an assinine grin,
insultingly,
to disappear
and never be seen
again.

Ah!
Nobody
takes offence

and
the next day
everything
is back to 'normal'.

A world of splinters
embedding themselves in the flesh;
the spirit surrounded by a crown of thorns;
pangs of received and on-others-inflicted wounds
tormenting any hope of durable reconciliation -

the birth of wisdom is suspect to mockery.

Maybe, it should  accept and succumb
to ignorance and impotence.

3 brown, tall, large and stately bottles
of Trappist monks' beer,
each with their own individual and historical label,
stand quietly, sentry-like on a shelf.

Craftmanship in
3 colours and 3 tastes,
7, 8 and 10 percent strong:
from dark robin-red - fresh, soft and a little sweet;
to dark blond - fruity and sweet and sour;
and finally amber - fullbodied and sweet and sour.

Religious beer
celebrating
the festive season
of Our Saviour's birth.

3 times a heavenly treat, indeed!

There are no stabs of conscience
as memory, understanding and will
all work together in constructive harmony;

yet the spirit's sad gaze
looks out from the window of it's heart
at the transience of passing flotillas
of sleep-invoking clouds.

The past a millstone of regrets
permeating, like a rosary-beads
of penance, the present.
The future a misty dream
of fading ideals.

The pretence of too many new beginnings
lacking, eventually, any appearance of permanent lustre.
Each new day just another blob in a copybook
of fragmented scribblings.

Late at night
in a white, silent
and sleeping village

The Elizabethan
Serenade
seduces a heart
playing
solitaire.

A Granny Smith
a day etc.;
pears left to ripen
on a window sill
are worth waiting for;
1 kiwi = 4 oranges
in vitamin C -
do eat the skin!

Fruit for the eating -
elliciting a little homesickness
for our lost Garden of Eden.

Up there,
above the crowns
of darkened bare wintry trees
the rabbits delight
in all the joys of good conversation.

They are no more afraid
of eavesdroppers
or of the colour
of their coats.

The sea,
dark tonight -

lights twinkle on a hill
and there is the sinister sound
of shingle been dragged down
into reluctant depths.

Above,
a foreign-bound jet
flies into the distances
of refreshing differences
and welcome change.

I await,
like a weather-beaten statue
for impregnation.

No angel of annunciation
dares to haunt
the sadness of my dark corner.

Outside,
a mountain-ash in blossom
looks forward to bearing
it's fruit of red berries.

I have difficulty in looking that far ahead.

There was something comforting
in being back in London;
crawling out of Euston station
and climbing into a cab.

The taxi-driver was polite and diplomatic
as I soon warmed up to the idea of beans on toast.

Occasionally adorned
with glasses of brandy
and appletart and cream;
while cigars are passed around
stimulating very good storytelling -

a highlight in the life of a coffee table.

Alleluia !
The visions and insights
increase with each passing minute -

whirlwinds of growing wisdom
together with the receiving
of perpetual graces
and eternal values.

All difficulties surrender
and disappear into oblivion
where the horrors
of non-being thrive.

Without You
I would have no anchor
and would be left drifting,
aimlessly, in the endlessness
of a sea without shores.

More than radiant
Your loving light
flooding from the infinite reservoirs
of a teeming heart
into the vast spaces
of an ever thirsting mind.

Triumph,
triumph,
triumph!

A fanfare of triump,
a fanfare of life
marching on -

anew,
anew,
anew!

Life anew,
life anew
bursting the seams
of it's winter clothes

into the dazzling dance
of a newly arrived spring!

Cellophane shining
and flapping
in a dusty wind;

overshadowed
by distant blue
hot heavens and mountains.

Forever,
you walk through dry pastures
admired by the ghosts of dead civilizations;
resting in a sand-dusted corner
you savour the wine
as it wets men's throats
without twitching a nerve.

You make a fool of the camel
who insists on appearing satirical;
being so strong as to let
pockets of stabbing light
pierce your pools of welcome shade.

Finally,
you are never totally surprised
and with a shrug of the shoulders
say: 'Let us get on with the job!'

I must be mad -
up the whole night,
a favoured night,
writing and writing;

while the village
thinks
that the lunatic
is probably
at it again.

Not being capable
of imitating a song-thrush
(I know his speckled colours!)
and being in possession of a guitar
that won't or refuses to play itself
I will gladly admit to an arrest,
somewhere, in my developement.

There is an easy way
and a difficult path;
but most of the time
life is not gentle.

We nearly all end up
politely wiping our feet
on a tear-soaked mat
before the door of death.

Swirling
through the fresh snowflakes
of my mind;

feeling
warm and sociable
in the taverns
of my contented heart -

I embrace this winter's day
as a benevolent gift selected
from Your inexhaustable
chest of treasures.

2 and 2 is irrelevant,
3's and 4's are ridiculous -
feed your furry bears,
your Ollie Elephants and quack-quack ducks!

They are days
spent in pure learning,
though you may not know it;

no fractions, A-bomb formulas
or historical disorientations -
politics and religion
are mingled into one and nothing.

I am not
in control anymore;
unidentifiable powers play
with the furniture
of my brains.

I must go on
I tell myself;
there are things
that need to be done
but to what end?

Elements
*****
the putridness of pain's
existence
down the bows
of my sinking ship

as a scream
turns into a gurgle
before
it has really got underway.

The impressions of the day
mould into memories
fleeting across the pages
of time and space
while reclining in a metaphysical armchair -

before entering night's
palace of dreams and countless desires.

Please put a brake
on my writer's greed
and let me patiently await
Your promptings when and where
You, in all Your sagacity,
choose fit.

With this darting pen
the meandering streams
of my associations
become clear rivers of thought

before being engulfed
by a sea of unadorned paper.

A colossal ****** -

a symphony crashing
in the heart's mind
and in the mind's heart;

into a momentary harmony
and unity of mortal being.

Sooner or later everything gets played out
and the music stops -

childhood almost before it has begun
with youth rushing on to it's doom
and adulthood  showing some semplance of maturity
before middle-age despondency.

Wise old age reveals itself as a grinning caricature
reflecting comically the way things should have been.

In this silence
there is not the hush of a breeze,
not the purr of a cat,
not the hum of summer bees
and not the wiping of feet on a familiar mat.

In this silence
there is the absence of fear,
the quenching of thirst
and the quiet eating of hungry bread.

In this silence
there is the wise old look that says so much.

This silence is and is not
the lapping of gentle waters on the shores of a lonely lake;
is and is not the cries of gulls
hovering above the cliffs of etenal seas.

In youth
my impatience was pure
and my ignorance supreme.

All advice was treated as criticism
or as a declaration of war
on the sanctuary of my little toe.

To be human
is almost everything
in itself -

and is the happy-go-lucky mess
that still turns this planet around.

Life's sometimes hundrum haze
and maze of tangled thoughts
are now and then lit by illuminations
fleeting through the lens of revelation's eye;

like a full-moon in June fringed with
a late-night-hot-navy-blue satin sky
or an expanse of shimmering water
dotted here and there by an odd-dark-green island.

Waves and leaves rustling in the contented sphere,
radio-voices and soft music floating over
the air-waves travelling from a distant dwelling;

the identification of a wild plant or flower;
your only child putting his big toe in his mouth.

Miracles without grandeur,
miracles of simple import
with no screaming white gulls
spoiling the tranquil view of the sea's horizon.