Never did I belong in this patch
the hatch of lies and misconception
where ice covers all there ever was
where maps are painted, never was
the touch of grenades and bombs
as tombs and gravestones stomps

Never did I belong in this patch
the coded identity, the spirit implosion
where ice covers all there ever was
where the hyperbola sits ever alive
on the mouth of the North Pole
as distance lands remains unreachable

Never did I belong on this patch
the production zone of slave machines
where we labour and bore workers
where institutions are unfunctional
feeding loneliness to the masses slowly
as the truth remains covered inside ice sheets

I wake in this city
This city that didn't bear me
This city that didn't raise me
And yet it's this city that i seek to find something of me
Not in the pubs or the clubs or the karaoke bars
Where revelers conspire to dream and drink to the stars
Nor the cafes where poets and artists in a foreign language create.
Pass the market stalls where secondhand books and vinyls are stacked like freight
It is to the quietened streets of the old town I go
Where i long for the walls to speak once more
To reveal their hidden histories
To help fashion some sense of a man
One unknownst to me, my fathers father whose name I share
A fine skilled seamster, thus a tailor by trade
Not arriving to this city for work on fabrics of nylon and silk
But to stitch and sew the flesh of limbs in a paramedic corps
Another pawn of the Great War under King George's command
Driven only by economic necessity from a penal homeland
Not of conscription, politics or some moral conviction at play
For the price of neutrality is one that poverty simply refuses to pay
Returning home to an Ireland of hostility or silence at best
Medals now lying deep in pockets not proudly pinned to chests
Irish heroes don't fight in a British war for a King's crown
No such stories from father to son shall ever pass down
And now, a grainy photograph, three medals for a sons son to take
A dog tag that bears my name, a number and RC to depict a faith
From a man exiled in his home as a forgotten prisoner of war
To honour a legacy i find myself in this city afar
Asking the same questions of him as to me
Is this city the last place he truly felt free?

I see you
          falling
               through
                   the purple air
                       eyes bulging              
                          teeth showing
                              like a blind, hungry tiger
                                      without a sun to guide
                                             without a son to follow
                                                  without day or night
                                                       to know the alligators
                                                        on the black river
                                                       in the jungle
                                                   where the russet snakes
                                                  wrap themselves
                                                 around your mind
                                              squeezing seeds from it
                                                      
I see you falling from
     the emerald tree, first
           clinging sanguinely
               then giving in to wind
                     and gravity, toppling
                      dropping like ripe fruit
                    splitting open spilling
                   your tawny seeds sharing
                your succulent flesh, flesh
               which feeds succeeding
             trees, trees where you can

sit to watch
             the tiger
                   and
                      the
                      alligator
                        struggle
                           struggle for
                              a place to be
                                     before they fall
                                          through
                                             the purple air
                                                air that forces
                                                 out the seeds
                                           seeds spewed
                                       on the green
                                    granite mountain
                                under the sizzling
                              saffron sun.

someone once said that if you love something,
you should set it free.
as if this is something done so easily.


they could have explained a little about
the tide of chilly, bittersweet memories
that greet me every morning
making my socks wet all day

Bring to me infinity
From where it dwells in lore
Or return with empty, wounded hands
And speak of it no more.
For if we are eternity
As one, when brought together
Why then do our faulty lips
Find pause upon "forever?"

Does the **** have any less a right to grow,
than the rose?
Does the moon love the sun for lending it light,
or envy it for the same?
Does the wind bear ill-will to the trees for the obstruction,
or does it thank them for the music?
Are we all in this world marching toward an end,
or back to the beginning?
These are the things that keep me awake at night.
These are the things that impede my dreams.