After school hours, sleepily
Looking down from the window sill
A deep rest in spring wind chill
If I close my eyes
To this brilliant world
Reflected scenery dances still
If I blow a low whistle
Towards the blue sky
Walking becomes a little more spry
Turning my music a little bit down
To listen to the lively corner of town
When I look up with slight rejoice
I hear a distant singing voice
Ah~ Ah~ Ah~
Today begins like any other day
Bathed in the sun slowly drifting away
The most pleasing place to reside
Is here right by your side
Dull clouds early afternoon
A sudden shower in the middle of June
Blue sky peeked out when I arose
Colors arc out accross concrete meadows
The bell chimes when I reach
Out through the window and to the beach
Warm breeze blows through the empty hall
When I looked up I heard you call
Ah~ Ah~ Ah~
Let’s rest into the sunshine
Taking breaths in a comfortable rhyme
We may not speak for very long
Though with just that I feel so strong
My quiet heart echoing true
When I’m here with you

Sometimes I ask myself
when did my thoughts and hopes of blue and green
turn into violet worries, violent dispositions
When did this soul with its empty bookshelf
burn all its unwritten scripts of things yet to be seen
and my steady solace turn into a contradiction

I know what I want in life
when I see my favorite pieces of art
scattered accross the canvas of my solitary nights
my cold fingers once touched it and I can count it on all five
I want to believe that I'd be content with really only a shard
to know my dreams aren't just made of imaginary sights

My open heart drives me
in uncertain directions with clear aspiration, sometimes just insane
but always looking, always wanting, always one heart ahead
If my eyes could only look beyond uncertainty and I'd finally see
a way that goes far and will let me travel along a green country lane
If I could feel as if I'd know why it seems so difficult not to be dead.

In everything that had to be broken and shed
these distant promises on remote and empty shores
For only the contingency of all that could be good and whole
Truly not knowing where this road might have led
and still keep my hands open and reaching and breathe in deeply through all of my pores
let me just find one wholesome and abiding content in this burning library inside my soul

I kissed you because it felt so right
I kissed you because I knew it was wrong
I kissed you because I felt a connection that we both said we lost with our current partners
I kissed you because I knew from the moment I saw you accross the room that you would mean something to me and by something I mean everything
I kissed you because she can't
I kissed you because my undeveloped brain acts too much on emotion and impulsity and not enough on logic
I kissed you because the way the moonlight reflected your face was so beautiful
I kissed you because I couldn't pay attention to what you were saying because I was too focused on your lips and not the words coming out of them
I kissed you because it was the perfect response
I kissed you because the look in your eyes was something I couldn't explain with any words
I kissed you because I can't possibly explain to you how I feel when those sweet eyes meet mine
I kissed you because when I heard that song at work with the lyrics that I no longer remember I knew you were perfect
I kissed you because you have what she doesn't
I kissed you because you deserve to be kissed, actually you deserve much more than a kiss from me
You deserve a Grammy worthy kiss from a scene in a cheesy movie
I kissed you because I hadn't felt those caterpillars in my stomach burst into beautiful butterflies in so long
I kissed you because there wasn't anything else in the world that I wanted more in that very moment
I kissed you because it felt so right

But now it feels so *wrong

I wish...

I wish that I was better with words.

I wish that I was more confident.

The kind of confident that would let me walk up to your door and tell you everything. Tell you everything that goes on inside my head as far as you're concerned.

But I'm not.

So I can't.

But I want to.

I want so badly to tell you that maybe, just maybe, you, are the one.

Not in a Matrix gonna save the world from the machines kind of a way but in the way that real people think of the one. The one that I've been looking for, the one I gave up looking for, the one that I didn't think even existed.

At least not for me.

I want to tell you that I think you may be the one and I want you tell me that you've been wanting to say the same thing.

But you couldn't.

Because you weren't good enough with words.

Because you didn't have the confidence.

Wouldn't that be ironic.

But I'm also scared.

I'm scared that I'll see you and tell you that I think you might be the one and hear you say thats all very nice and you might be my one, but I'm not yours.

And you'd be sorry.

You'd be sorry and you'd mean it because you are kind and you are beautiful. But it wouldn't help.

So what do I do?

Do I risk it? Do I tell you and cross everything and hope and pray that maybe, just maybe, I might be your one too?

Or do I say nothing.

Do I say nothing and just continue to lie here every night the way I have been since I worked out what it was about you that caused you to be in every thought that I have and every dream?

There is safety in saying nothing.

If I don't say anything then you can't say anything bad. You can't say no. You can't say that maybe you don't believe in the one. You can't say that you had your one once and it didn't work out so how can you possibly have another.

I know its crazy, but thats the way you drive me.

And its crazy that you drive me crazy. It's crazy that you've gotten under my skin the way you have. Its crazy that you've gotten under my skin so completely, you're like a tattoo. Like a tattoo in a private place, a hidden place. Like a living breathing tattoo that I carry round with me all the time and I'm the only one that knows that you're there. And I'm glad you're there. I like you there.

So I keep wishing.

Only now I wish that maybe you read poetry and you happen accross this somehow and read it and pick up the phone and say "Hey... stop wishing so much, just kiss me."

I wish.

Over the ravaged battlefield, a pall of death hung fast
I watched in silent horror, as the wounded breathed their last
The screams of bloodied soldiers, echoed down the sodden trench
As vermin ate the flesh of men, unbothered by the stench.

A drizzling rain was falling soft, as darkness slew the day
I knew my life was fading fast, so I began to pray

Oh GOD! Above in heaven, as you look down on this Hell
You see,through this black holocaust, a frightened Sentinel
The time is fast approaching Lord, when we'll meet face to face
And I'll be held accountable, for my actions in this place

No words in mitigation, can excuse the deeds I've done
I'm a product of my nation born to die upon the Somme
Before deaths bullet takes me, when I'm ordered from this hole
I beg you to forgive me and recieve my wretched Soul...

The order came along the trench ''Get ready to attack''
The cold hard hand of terror rested firmly on my back
Down along the frontline, whispered prayers of men grew quiet
While mass extermination waited out there in the night
Each brief second seemed an hour, as I saw my life flash past
Then somewhere in my reverie, the whistle blew at last

That cold hard hand of terror pushed me forward from behind
A burning rage and bloodlust closed the senses of my mind
Rifle shooting deadly sin, over no-mans land I stumbled
The dead of prior battles, in heaps around me,tumbled
A piercing war-cry on my lips, my bloodlust not yet sated
Firing blindly, all the while, the foe he grimly waited

Halfway accross hells quagmire, the flares popped overhead
Casting down an eerie glow on the living and the dead

Caught like running Ghosts of men, by those floating midnight Suns
Fodder for Deaths banquet, silhouetted for their guns
The whine of flying bullets filled the air about my ears
A smell of death, its **** and blood returned me to my fears

Realising our predicament, caught between two stools
Though Death reaped us like fresh grass, we all ran on like  fools
A bullet caught me in the chest, just below my shoulder
I fell upon the barbedwire and felt my blood grow colder
Hanging there, as life ran out, screaming for assistance
I saw myself and comrades, from what seemed a mighty distance

So adrift upon some sea, Life, winding down within me
But Oh! the manner of my Death, a very sad short story
A lad of nineteen summers, I had never loved a wife
Nor done the things I dreamed I'd do in the young days of my life....

My nation called ''We Need You Son'' in nineteen and fourteen
And preached of War and Battle as a bright and shining dream
With words like, Honour, Glory, Pride........ Bravery and Duty
Beguiled my generation by painting Death as beauty....

A message from the government explaining my sad tale
My poor beloved family will soon get in the Mail
Telling lies of sacrifice for our nations worthy cause
BUT NOT RELATING,HOW I DIED OF GOVERNMENTAL FLAWS.....


Written on October 5/2005.. Copyright.Eamonn O'Dowd.

I am from too long grass
that left muted green stains on my knees
From rock gardens overrun with punny yellow snapdragons
which delivered into my care all sorts of fascinating creepy crawlers

I'm from ash grey two by fours
which were all together fun to climb on
but gave nasty splinter when they were mad

I'm from the woodchips and sand
that provided me an elaborate landscape
in which to house my boundless imagination

I'm from the tail of sulfur smoke
that burned white hot through the crisp October Sky
and propelled my rocket to high heaven
or so it seemed to my eger eyes

I am from Thursdays
from green and red rhubarb leaves
and dirt under every fingernail
I'm from hurling half-rotten tomatoes
at the fence accross the ally
and running haphazardly from angry neighbors

I'm from lasagna and jell-o
candels on Christmas eve
and the squirt bottle of water
my only defense against ants

I am from obscure old families
who came over like so many others
and played the ***** in the secret choir loft above the church
I'm from woodwinds and piano strings
and never a silent moment
From reading aloud and reading alone
and from those who did the reading

I'm from the future and the present and the past of a million different stories
And I've always been headed towards
Where I'm from.