She rambles a bit when she's excited to see us.
We're brought up to speed with her goings on
In the home that was built around her

As fast as her walker will go, we scurry to the front room
Where bread is cooling on the rack, and her excitement brims
To regale us with the morning's itinerary

It's all done to bring us into her world; to make us a part of it.
It's how she holds us close, making sure we're there with her,
As she may not grasp enough to be there with us...

She doesn't hear so well anymore you see,
But she didn't hear that from us as we smile and nod intently;
Just happy to be there, to be a part of it all

Crowded streets, alive with a rhythm
That moves too fast for me.
I carefully weave through a town for the artists
Who need someone to be,
Into a quiet place;

A crowded mind, sustaining an echo chamber
Fit for our times.
Surrounded by a thousand decisions
I look back at a life
Up on a pedestal.

Where I missed the signs in smiles and glances,
And hold out for those second chances
At the moments that I've missed;
Never lived.

(I) Detach from the dream disrupting the rhythm
That makes you you, and me?
Lost in time;
Compulsively collecting the moments
That made me want to be
In this quiet place to read

(Read) All the signs in smiles and glances;
I won't change the world discarding chances
To move on from when we lived,
But we'll live, we'll live, we'll live...

(I'll live)...through all the second-hand supposed answers
Composing poems in hopes of small advances
Towards the peace of mind I need
To find me again.

Crowded streets, alive with a rhythm
That moves too fast for me.

If she knows, she's keeping the secret of generations. When she leaves a room, it resonates for her until she returns.

A generosity of spirit unsurpassed and a one of a kind soul.

I'll miss her something serious.

.

My everything swelled

Until my fear grew legs

So to carry me from you

And your everything too

.

I've always known her on her own;
Bereaved by the man whose name I carry with me
Before I first carried it home, ******* on my thumb.
With no time for waiting on the day to catch up,
She's up and gone on tomorrow's adventure.

We've often run to her along the trail; To lose her again
As she paced up the Burren, or along a country lane in
Liscannor until met with a natural place to pause -
To fill her lungs with a wistful world,
Then to double back for the ones she loves.

I've always known her on her own, but never alone.

Ease yourself in up to your waist
And grit your teeth against the cold.
Take a slow step deeper with searching toes;
Learn to wade again against the tide.

I have always preferred the land;
To stand where I can see a horizon's
Distance and not risk being
Enveloped by it.

My risk was his wish underlined
By a body of work. He's away now from a life
Made up of **** ups, and break ups,
And love, and changing lives.

She never humoured anyone,
And she never made us small.
She gave our words more meaning
Than we dared and she thanked us;
Not with a word but with the understanding
That was her nature; Born in her
And given to us freely as she felt us worthy.
Another thing taken for granted,
Or to reflect on;
To learn.

She left long before
I flicked through her life in an album;
Before we cried and before I sang to her,
Or for her.
It's not clear anymore.

You are only lovely when I allow it:
When I let you out to trace the times
Your perfect puzzle-piece body
Sat home with mine;
Quiet hands on your chest
And on your stomach,
Breathing closer;
Holding tighter to muffle
The 'nails in skin'
Sort of **** that was
Held at a distance

You are only lovely when I allow it:
When I let you out to suffer the nights
You were left alone with my mood

You are only lovely when I allow it:
When I let you out to worry
As you hold together -
I sink into my crawl space
Pushing the rubble to the top

You are only lovely when I allow it:
When I let you out to relive and to relove
The way I should have

The blank space beside her name carries him back home.

Slick grass glistened heavy
After summer showers fell before a sun
That trickled veiled toward transcendent trees
Towered on the outskirts of the demesne - It unsheathed
A pearlescent canvas for a dreamer who paints ideals;

A reader finding signs in smiles and glances
Strolling paths free of fear to free imagination;
Summoning hopes against a fresh red/orange
Backdrop, and ignoring perilous heights to cast
A thought to moments yet unlived -
This fool's masterpiece.

Through tight slits in wooden slats
I catch the three-legged wind chime
Which hangs by a thread from
An overhung roof, by the gutter.

The owl - whom keeps watch,
Double sided, double gazing
At the goings on in the garden and
Mirrored happenings on the wall -
Sits quietly at the centre of his universe
With knotted thoughts so intertwined
For years he has neglected
Or perhaps forgotten how to
Play the jingle resting on the breeze.

The legs which dangle from the
Moon with noisy knees have
Lost their tone or dulled to make
Their silent stand against my wanting ears -
A fitting punishment.

The only steps to stifle my regret are
Toward the watching eyes to
Shake the clapper;
Summoning a tempest to end an age
Of silence from the much too long
Forsaken keeper of the chime.

The creature waits clenched.
It waits hunkered and steadfast
For the quintessential moment to
Dangle your pride and cut its
Throat where you can see it.

The creature waits fuming.
It waits - shadowed and drip-fed -
For the penny to drop from its height;
To pierce the soft body of calm
And let loose the mess.

The creature waits grinning.
It waits smug and hysterical
For the time and times before this
Where it beat down a smile by
Forcing the question:

What is wrong with me?

Fires in ditches and fields with
Newspapers, boxes, and dry grass
As our accessible anthracite;
Once smouldering enough on its own feet
To become its own source is when
The limbs were stripped and introduced;
Torn from trees or salvaged from
The outlying waste - they fed the
Crackle - spitting whispering embers skywards.

As children with little sense, our noise
Was all we could offer to appease
Wayward youth's disorder.
The crippled heat was secondary,
But to watch things burn was valuable;
A ring of lives held tenuous.

One thing I came to know
From the nights we gathered in droves is
That within this life of loose bonds and swells
I soak in the hungry gloam.

As you speak careful words they fan out
From your lips to soak adoring souls -
You paint their cages with a message of escape
And you reach between bars to warm the
Cold cheeks of the lowly.

As you search for the people behind
Translucent skin you spare a kiss -
Guiding them out, granting them
The freedom you pen in never-ending
Spirals on unsheathed arms.

It wasn't you who promised your crown.

We all grew to take more than we deserved.

It wasn't tackled with a surgeon's finesse
But the battered brute of conviction.
I can still see the two man cross cut saw
Jammed deep in the bark - but a tickle.
A mail of thick branches disguised as
Dense fodder stood strong against waves.
Throwing everything at it - raining sawdust -
As the giggles were heard for miles around.
Now standing crippled, taunting as it sways -
The battle's won but the war will have its day.

Dig deep in the sand with a cupped shovel-hand
Until you come across a healthy source of water.

Scoop up what you see and let loose the soggy contents,
Let them dribble through a careful filter fist.

Slowly drip foundations and upon them start your fortress
Using steady streams of trickled dribs and drabs.

Stalagmites in hyperspeed form walls and lookout towers
With the damp bricks one by one constructing peaks.

Spectators of all sizes will collect and cast their gazes
But you must keep up the focused droplet swell.

Maiden battles can't be won and so the masterpiece will crumble
To the tide that forces motes to overflow.

Waves crash and reek their havoc on the castle that you managed
To build with will and manky dripping palms.

The sand on which it once stood will be flattened out and polished
To make way for a palace twice as grand.

Stop kindling the fire.
Wait until the embers are
Enough to forge a season;
To kiss hot skin to sleep
Or to the raggedy edge, to tease;
Not all for fun but again to feel
The glowing ashes left in the pit

Kept alight, I felt their heat
And how they dwindle --
Stifled by the chill of passing time
And the many crystalline branches
Chipped from snowflakes

"Winter must be cold for those
with no warm memories..."
The sentiment reduced to shards;
You were my winter warmth,
But it's my spring that
Carries the frost

A ripened sky splits and bleeds
Mangled reds and blacks;
An instant melts as heat from
Clustered newborn suns --
Blistered from the wounds --
Collects and beams 1600 feet
Earthwards from Fat Man's
Plump and pompous underbelly.

The pure-light pin-***** stopped
The city's pulse for a moment;
Collecting remnants of the
Beating hearts (of artists,
Doctors, students, parents,
Preachers, rats, and peasants)
To plant on rotting soil -
A hellish fungal pustule.

The swelling abscess breathed
But once and burst to
Ripple excess outwards
Soaking up the landscape;
Ingesting miles and spewing
Spores towards septic skies to form
A mass of mushroomed
Might and pyrrhic triumph.

_
                                             
WHEN THiNGS GO WRONG
                                                       \
                                                        It's
                                                          vital
                                                              th­at                      
                                        ­                     you
                                                          write
                                                        them

The story of a tiny gift, half chewed and fear-stained
Left on the alter outside the back door:

When first stunned with a slap or a precisely timed
Bite, a vigil is held -- wings twitch and flutter.
With a curious tilt, widened eyes record
Muscle spasms; calculating the
Flight risk; metering the force of the next
Outburst; prolonging the fun.

A game or performance art?
The victim's peers yell and screech
From the rooftops - do they know
The show is for them?

After few manoeuvres more it matters little
As a tiny neck snaps between missing teeth.
The audience scatters and the corpse is left behind
As an offering for those who feed the beast.

He took a heart and he plucked its
Strings recklessly to compose a second quartet -
Of love! Of passion! Of chaos! -
With sounds dredged from a hollow
Box inhabited by his masterpiece - Kamila.
Not the young, flattered, other man's living wife,
But the manifestation of his desire to depict
Longing;
An artificial, delicately moulded, fervent
Wanting.

One of the great classical passions -
Up there with Dante and Beatrice -
Tarnished by a most deceptive
Embellishment in exchange
For radiance.
His melody - although bracing a lie -
Sings to the fizzle in your chest and
The tingle in your fingertips --
A lullaby to the desperation he required
To convince us it was at all possible.

"And in your withered heart you know it's crap."

Clunky hands tick round
To beckon the rooster's crow --
No crisp morn summoned.

Perhaps sharp teeth sliced
Spilling chunks on moving gears --
Springs once sprung severed.

Though ticks still trundle
Their purpose swings freshly void --
Dense clunks breed gloaming.

With no shredding bay
Ending rapid eye movement --
Endless night transpires.

Pictures of your tubes and a wooden cross
Engraved is all I know of you.
I wasn't yet a thought when perhaps you wrapped a
Tiny hand 'round a trembling finger to feel a beat,
Or when maybe you cried just enough for everyone
Who kissed your little head.
I sidestepped all of your goings on and the grief
By a few years, but I will always miss you.

I will miss our bond.
You didn't stay long enough to grow into your mannerisms,
But I wonder what we could have shared.
Would you have been funny or serious?
Together or scattered?
Happy?

Somehow you've always been there for me.
You listened when I didn't know anyone else
Would and your flowers became my sanctuary.
Maybe you would kick my *** for
Being so uselessly sentimental,
And maybe you wouldn't.

It gets cold here, but you know that;
I hope you rest easy in your little garden,
Fit for a princess.

.
"Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter"
John Keats, Ode On A Grecian Urn.

.
I'm never sure how I should take his silence,
It's not by choice, that much I know.
For he is a piper painted on porcelain,
Left to inspire a dreamer in an Ode.

His immortal canopy never sheds a leaf,
But offers no shade - frozen in time -
And as it was written, he never came to life and played
His fair maiden her melodious rhyme.

It sits on his lips as they chip and crack;
A dry mouth, a pipe for melodies made.
Sadly for the piper, I don't share Keats' hope
As he said of his maiden, 'She cannot fade'.

This brave boy's riff will remain dormant,
Haunting and quiet - laid on porcelain,
As I can't help this overwhelming jealousy
Of the notes he'll never play trapped within.

How they reel through my mind but leave nothing -
Not a sound or a ripple of waves,
Whereas mine float a while and decay with little grace,
The dotted-quavers left fading on staves.

I'm never sure how I should take his silence,
It's not by choice, that much I know.
Yet I envy more than words his lifetime in a moment,
In a world in which I wait and watch things grow.

Anaemic black mist creeps its way between toes,
crawling eyewards, worming stealthily up shins,
pausing only to cup bolted knees and find more
progress toward the stomach's pit where it will rest,
For now.

The soaking - from outside in - is a violation as a pore
stretched aside is all the space this ten tonne mass
needs - a callused finger pulling back a fleshy curtain
to claim squatter's rights - mashing its body into a crawl space,
It curls.

Right here, in the depths, it will feed from its host and
gradually weave a tendril through intestines and bile
like a periscope, seeking and feeling for a route to the stem:
The source of everlasting sustenance;
The end goal.

Once it latches, it will live forever suckling stance.
The insipid parasite, the binding leech; as it takes hold,
consumes with its voidwalker embrace
and paints every memory with your fault;
Perpetual guilt.

The tide collects it all by morning;
The drama and the ***** napalmed across the path.
The scenes at second warning for most had been swept away
Before they wiped the sand from their shoes.

Empty cans of Dutch and Tuborg slouched on the dunes
Are tight-lipped about the Velvet Strand's secret ecosystem;
An underground microcosm;
A peripheral cluster of seething emotions drowned.

Memories of those years - although some expired,
The vestiges take pride of place - hold a cosmic clump of smells,
Tastes, firsts, goosebumps, hangovers, and ends.
I never before understood what I was holding on to.

Winters down in the shelters nearly killed us but we
Huddled through the cold, lit cheap firelogs and
Found our oblivion. It didn't take much for me to develop  
A stagger - tolerance for a lot of things was learned later.

I narrowly recall my first taste of poor judgement and
Hazy-headed stargazing. Six cans of Stonehouse
Dry cider - most of which ended up on the hillside -
Was a ridiculous endeavour that will always be sublime.

At the heart of it, I did it to impress a girl;
The one every boy has or has had that sticks;
Who holds your firsts and your hands and makes
Things simple if only for her complexity;

The one that never fails to bring upon digression when
Pens are involved. Revisiting reminiscence on a jarring note,
I think of my Junior Cert exams and a cross-dressed man
Exposing himself to two uniformed boys behind the public toilets.

This one doesn't stir the joy of the others.
This one I wish would dissolve;
An ugly, awkward blotch on a childhood.

Luckily fondness trumps disgust when recalling that place
Because of sunrises and sunsets absorbed from the roof.
The Summers spent jumping the gap and drowning in the
Heat of the sun were everything.

The fugitive sand between our toes and under finger nails
Became an accepted nuisance, a part of the territory;
A lingering grain or two to drag you back.
I miss waking up with the smell of last night's faded fire.

For Idil Ibrahim
In memory of Tim Hetherington - 1970 - 2011

I cannot stay and speak my truth while the front line has no voice.
The carpet doesn't share substance with the blood-clumped
dust of Liberia; Red wine doesn't stain nations and it hasn't
changed the world.

I cannot stay and walk these steps while the fragile youth stand.
Our Sunday morning route doesn't cover landscapes of wounds
and bodies; Central Park has never felt a thousand welted
feet march for death.

I cannot stay and see your face while molten plastic scars her world.
Your delicate eyes have never seen the darkness of a child's grief;
Our democracy cannot fathom the searing, slow drip after a family
massacred.

I cannot stay and feel worthy of your love while injustice goes unseen.
My lens has immortalised what we held dear, but is yet to capture
the human condition; I spoke to you like I spoke to them;
Through decades of mortar fire I spoke to them.

Fleeting, rolling days, weeks,
years of half-memories with
no faces,
but places - parks,
playgrounds, forests, ditches -
in which youthful time was
spent without a thought for
permanence or preservation.
The "best years of your life"
twisted, tarnished, pastel-
smeared to indistinguishable
faces, places, seasons,
feelings, fears, loyalties -
scrunched up and abandoned;
left to seep inside a clockwork mind
teeming with trivial tenterhooks
and patchwork recollections.

I've walked the path many times
before and since.
It is always calm -
baron but teeming
with a muddled
disquiet of
once thought
final thoughts.
It's a place of peace
in which everything
resonates chaos
to the point you can
feel it invade
each synapse -
Ivy smothering
your process.
A slow-release
maddening hum
amplified by the
wind sweeping through
monstrous, scrawny
trees in formation:
They held the bodies
and winced when
their branches broke.
Yet still there is a draw
to the energy
festering there,
be it from the asylum
at the top of the hill
leaking memories
of abandoned
sons
daughters
mothers
fathers,
or from the long submitted
acceptance
of martyrs who inhaled a
sharp cluster of reasons
as their last
with solidarity.

Those who've lost, or who've been lost;
The people who have nothing left.
If what that red-brick shell provides

Soothes but one of these sufferers,
It serves a purpose to us all.
A purpose it should not overstep.

An hourglass, tightly bound,
fused grain in streaks;
each one taking on a different stain
giving the illusion of a thousand horizons
stacked to make up a body - empty but aching
to be filled by waves.

From knots wound into a headstock
grows an addiction: a need to revive  
the skin left behind between grooves -
skin which serves to soften the break,
but also feed character to the swell -  
granting purpose to decay.