star, sapphire of the water,
sapphire of love,

the moon, throws
off her jacket,
bares her flesh in the
autumn rain,

leaves melt to the
floor,
streams of gold
and amber
start to blur,

surreal landscape,
mooring rope of golden rain,
as you kiss me
i ***** into
your corners,

unwind like the
night’s sapphire
dew,
mesmerized by
the dark waters of
your touch,

mesmerized by your love.

An open Rosary,
Sprawled on the table
Has the shape of Eire.
Towns joined like beads
On winding, rope roads.
At the end of the main street
In Shercock, Lough Egish,
Or a thousand other towns,
Looms the church spire,
God's rod.
The square still bustles on Wednesdays.
The smithy's forge
Now lights up a Paddy Power;
The Euro Store sells needles and thread
Where once a seamstress sat;
Shish Kabobs on flat bread sell
Where the butcher's counter displayed the day's cut.
But scrape away the paint
And attend to the devotion and mystery
Of small town Erin;
Where only the pubs maintain names
Decade after decade.
There, on the wall, see the rebels
Enjoying a football match,
And the crowd, laughing,
Has their backs.

They make their way through the crowd.

Beneath the sky amber in the last sun
the retrieved spark steers their feet
to explore the gorgeously festive town
smelling of discovery at every turn
of people and shops and sellers
and food tempting to be tasted
women too lovely not to be noticed
houses illuminated like light is free
flying as in a dream long in the coming
but arrived too glorious for any regret.

The younger when a few paces ahead
stops so the other could catch up
always remembering the six years
matter much in the count of speed.

The sky above grows older and paler
but their blistered feet feel no pain
from the four hours of rewinding years
glistening as night dew in their eyes.

It was all faintly lit gloom
where her silhouette wouldn't betray
if she was sleeping or awake
amid the thick smell of disinfectant
the world debarred from the room.

I trust not one of you, she would say,
moving germs, a tribe of dirt,
that's what all of you are.

Countless times she would dress and undress
drenching herself with dettol
changed linen time and again
and her only pursuit of happiness
was denying even the closest an access
to evade disease only she knew.

Others would find in her
a diseased mind.

When she died
men were hired to burn her
and the celsius ensured
she had a germ free passage
to the next world.

.          Seized by the moment,
          the gravity of a memory
           lay closed the window
             to the outside world

               Eyelids surrender
            in the breath of a sigh,
         the silent pacing footsteps
unable to walk beyond their shadow
       nor their footprints left behind,

      never needing to turn around
               to look back to feel
      the weight of every laden step
         across the old Arch Bridge
        spanning the river far below

             The cold wet sidewalk
         rumbles like the throbbing
              heartbeat still echoes ,..
                     resoundingly,
           through the muted voices
          of a past buried away alive

                 Halted footsteps
           become a blacker silence
                  at the precipice
     of the Arch Bridge railing ties;
   revisited deeply with eyes closed,
         wide open so many times
                 before  and  after
  that  long abhorred day since past

   Reliving an old noir silent movie,
       tarnished time and the river
              coursing through it,
    remaining unable to wash away
    the stains of that watermark tide

                 Standing   frozen
      as a weatherworn bridge tower,
  high above raging waters far below
feeling a cold chill, empty as a pocket,
            perpetual teardrops flow
  filling an empty thimbleful with love

           A thimble seems so small;
               just a pitted silver cup
       to shield from a piercing pang,
              and yet  a welling  love
             uncommonly  overflows ―
        tossed over the bridge railing
             toward the river below
       to see if hope really does float

            Seized by the moment,
          a random act of kindness
            and a thimbleful of love,..
                    lay open again
            a pensive soul's window
                to the outside world ...


                 rivers ... 11/06/2017