The sun that day was too bright.
The sign outside my high school,
Lettering black on white,
Protected by a wooden frame.
“No school” had always been cool,
But not since Ivan came.

It says “School Closed Tomorrow,
Listen to Radio for Update”
For most this sign brings sorrow,
For some it’s just a little too late.

A mass of rubble outside the doors,
Wreckage rife.
Churning water destroyed these floors,
And wrecked life.
A loss of pens and many a book,
Utter devastation,
Students work old Ivan took,
Along with education.
Tears shed as I have to leave-
A tiny demonstration
Of the destruction Ivan’s flooding caused.
I did leave, but not before I paused,
And cried for God’s creation.

In a world that is a sea of seductive men and women amidst a sea of seductive beds amidst a seductive darkness we are all just stubbed toes.

She doesn't realise I'm madly in love with her.
She's so in love and it's beautiful
and it kills me...
I guess it's all out there now. ****.

Smoking is terrible for you - we all know that,
But there's nothing quite as **** as a cigarette
With its wafts of smoke curving sensuously up
Like a winding staircase to heaven.

Maybe it's that, that Bacall and Bogie dance
Of noir fog above a lit cigarette,
Or it could be the intimate way
The word "young" is carved out on your slab,

Or the intimate way that the smell lingers
On the clothes of loved ones long after
You're dead and buried.
Nothing makes a guy harder than rigour mortis.

The tear duct is a feeble thing
For little girls who dance and sing.
A man is a superior beast
Who swears, fights bears and eats a feast
Of steak! He knows his wants and takes
Those wants and has no fear of snakes,
But now and then those ducts are used,
But not out of choice - they are abused!
For shame those times when man has cried –
One hopes they died or died inside!
Perhaps it's okay and not quite mad
If the duct, per say, was maybe stabbed –
An eyelash broke, or one could choke
On meat! The heat could get a bloke
To force a tear to stain his eye
But no, my friend, no excuses this time
Because, even in a crazy rhyme
Real men, who fight bears and steak dine, cry.

In times of extreme stress -
My peak anxiety,
I come out in terrible spots -
Just one or two
strategically placed.
*******, why tonight?

A horrible thought wanders by, as I dream of my fellow HP writers who have put pen to their pain, and wonder how many I've hearted are dead.

Time is a curious thing. The old cliché.
Not in a "heavy" Marty McFly way
But how, in one moment, you can pray for it
to grind to a halt.
Perhaps as you pound the asphalt
With your dancing shoes
Gasping, through puddles of ***** and **** and *****
To make the very last Nightlink
Of a heart-breakingly beautiful night out on Dublin streets.
And then another moment be wasting it away,
On writing poems, writing *******, writing the truth,
Or standing on the edge of a very tall library building roof
With the short sharp explosion of brain matter, praying it away
As it mulches on the concrete below.
Head first, to ensure success.
To ensure that for the love of god it isn't slow.
How time must crawl for people who can't move...

Each second dripping as slowly
as the painful near of a near-perfect tap.
Or "faucet" as they call it in America.
But then again we have buildings, pieces of paper, all kinds of crap
older than their whole country so what the hell do they know?
Their policemen shoot unarmed civvies or send them to prison  
as a sort of politically correct racial genocide
(because black privilege gets such lovely jumpsuits and body bags.)
Then again, we let priests ****** children here
and think **** is less upsetting than women's rights.
Time doesn't change how consistently wrong people can be I suppose?
If anything we overcomplicate ourselves.
Just think, if I had been born five hundred years ago
I would have died of pneumonia, or something asthma-related.
Or probably gone blind? My eyesight only is getting worse
(although is that to do with my endless-stream-of-computer-screens?)
I feel like that should be worse but I can't bring myself to decide.
Time seems to ask a lot of questions although maybe that is just
because I'm trying to stretch this poem out as long as it takes
before my twenties are over
and my life is more clear and certain
And I have a steady job that I hate
and I am less of a shambles
and have gotten over the depression
and the alcohol binges alone
and the fear of the future
and the self-doubt
and the loneliness
and the sickening
feeling in the pit
of your gut
when you
realise how
slowly
time is
passing
and you want to die.
Or not. I can never concentrate long enough to care.

A volcano of anger erupts around you;
Tears sting as they stream down your face,
Filling each pore with a burning sensation -
White, life has left without a trace.

Furious screams spew up into the air,
Splatter the sky and melt away dreams.
While the molten rock will eventually cool,
The damage has been done, it seems.

A saddened look caught forever in time,
You stand there, frozen, forever hurt.
Scalded once for a sinful crime,
One touch of fire - forever burnt.

You’re but a shadow, coloured grey,
The same that paints a pained Pompeii.

I came to the beach today because I've so much love to give.
I came because I've nothing else good to spend time with.
I came because it's healthier than getting drunk on ***** -
Better for your health than watching movies or the news.

I came to the beach to feel the breeze brush across my face,
To watch the foam fizzle and the memories erase.
I came to the beach today to feel completely free
To escape the many wrongs of life and all the tyranny:

To see the sea, you see, is just a free therapy session.
Unfortunately salt doesn't quite cure depression,
But what the hell's a cure going to do to change,
To change a world that's doomed to always stay deranged.

The beach is ever-cloudy and is always filled with stones.
It's cold to the point you cannot even start to feel your bones.
There are too many people to put my mask on to...
Too many people with stupid questions to ask you.

Girls in bikinis , having a swim, who clearly are psychotic,
While I'm just sat here watching, writing, and being neurotic.
I came to the beach today to try to help escape my pain
It didn't work but, hey, at least I did escape the rain.

I came to the beach today to try to look at life anew,
But really, I just came to the beach today because of you.

He sprinkles this sugar on the world
Trying to make it a little bit sweeter.
Our response suggests he succeeds.

Each grain spinning like a hurricane,
Frozen droplets floating towards the earth
Until they kiss the frozen ground.

Confusion, as they aimlessly drift through the air.
Billions build up and coat the world
In a blanket of peace, hope and wild dreams.

Hugged plants are squeezed a new colour,
Rooftops too, are repainted white.
The bitter cold troubles no one.

This frozen sweetness engulfs the land,
And perfection is amongst a youthful world.
Perfection that thrives in the luminous dark.

But, nightfall slowly realises our fears,
And when weary eyes awaken to the morning sun,

All of Earths hopes and dreams
Have started to melt away.

The wind and rain are battering your window, and all you can think about is your 13 year old self, and how the watermark was up to your neck

On my bed, giving life to the latest poem
And suddenly a soft sound scratches my ears.
Again, again, again, constant:
One, two, three and there it is again –
Frustration flicking my bedroom window,
Staining that sparkly pane with its insane irritation.
The pain sounds again.
A delightful butterfly struggles to contemplate
The gap between the glasses of my prison wall.
Beautiful; fluttering frantically; fragile.
My intentions are purer than the billion colours
That elegantly engulf those deceptive eyes.
I delicately, ever so delicately urge
That curious creature back to nature’s beauty,
Urge it away from the blandness of the bedroom,
But humanity has never, will never be so forgiving.
My little push is the destruction of such beauty:
Maimed for freedom, slaughtered for escape,
A victim of war, humanity’s war.
I feel guilt but more so regret,
That, although that poor creature
Suffered such an untimely demise,
He had achieved a life worth living:
A butterfly who freely fluttered
The bedrooms of the world,
And escaped the irony of being
More humane than man could ever dream.
I envy that poor, superior creature,
For I am just a butterfly breaker.
I am just an animal.

She drinks fine wine and oozes class - with eyes and a smile that melt my heart. Here's me, just oozing, with cider and tears for company...

You were the blanket of winter's dusk
Snug beating back an icy haze
But what I wanted was to feel the fire
Of hearts amidst your summer days

Anxiety is the thought of people as scary
And the thought of death or loneliness as comforting.
In 2016, look around and tell me it's odd.

Bus, man, world, waiting.
Orange, blue, sand, sea.
Home, dream, stop time -
Eyes just like life.
Pain finally away.

She adored cinema and took it all in. Now she is blind and touches the screen, constructing the images in her head, weeping at their beauty.

I open my blinds to a golden haze,
As the colour ironically blinds me.
A swift turn averts his burning gaze
And my favourite t-shirt finds me.
It says ‘Mr. Cool’! It’s find – a peach!
It does what it says it would do –
It cools me down on my favourite beach
Because it’s all blue.

The palm trees dance and the ching-chings caw
As the soft sand burns my feet,
But I bury them deeper in the flawless floor
‘Cause I cannot feel the heat.
A few fluffy clouds caress the sky
And pose for pictures new,
Then they gently drift slowly by
To leave the canvas blue.

I step into the Caribbean waves
And my troubles abandon me.
Perplexed by the corals sunburned maze
As I gently drift to sea.
The pain subsides like the weary surf
And I drift to pastures new.
The sea helps erode the purple hurt
Because it’s all blue.

My shirt, the sand and the sun-splashed sky:
They now engulf my world.
The sound of a seagull’s desperate cry
Is seen but can’t be heard.
This fuzzy grave is a safety net,
I know that much is true.
I’m leaving Earth but I’ll never forget
That it was all blue...

It's often on chilly afternoons when you think of mundane things like warm blankets or if a banister could support a rope to snap your neck.

I
The morning traffic settles down
When the smell of chips create a haze
By the arts block.
Squawking fills the passageways
And now a familiar face taps
Your weary back
While you are drowned by stomping feet
And despite the try your mind clots;
The name deletes
And you’re left thinking it is Scott,
While all this time his name is Pete.
He didn’t hear it through the stamps
And we sit lakeside by the lamps.

II
Morning: you arise from consciousness
And faint stale smells of beer
From the night on Dublin streets,
A night you won’t repeat, unless
The moon reclaims the lands.

And of course the Paddy’s day parades,
That, one naturally assumes.
Just thinks of all the hands
Raising pints by the spades
In a thousand bright green rooms.

III
You stretched your arms above your head
And yawned at a class you’ve never hated
You dozed, and watched the screen revealing
The thousand boring images
Of which World War II was constituted;
Their burning qualities weren’t appealing -
They stung until the world went black
But the light crept up between your shutters
And you heard the backgrounds snobbish tutters,
Despite meeting them on Grafton Street
Where you exchanged drunken demands.
You awoke and cringed as you were aware
Of the tuft sticking up about your hair,
But instead of a fix-trip, to save your feet,
You covered it with your hands.

IV
You stared up at the flawless skies
That fade behind the Newman block,
Or often watched insistent feet
At four and five and six o'clock,
Or watched the fountain-spewing pipes,
And watched the swans watch life’s disguise
While you recalled wild fantasies,
Of walking down a college street
And opening your eyes to receive the world.

And now my eyes have been unfurled
And I feel like a god, a king
For I have seen an infinitely mental,
Infinitely wonderful thing.

Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
And treat the worlds like you treat the women
And hopefully both will give you lots!

Sometimes, with a drink, my poetry makes music.
Others, it echoes Hemingway's cry.
I never liked editing, but always did like
Talking *****.

A lot has happened since I wrote last:

The buzz of the university hive,
The blossom of a love, perhaps,
The sunken ship of a recent dive
Resurrected by society maps.

The gallop into some part-time tosh –
The push and heave of a new routine.
Assurance of some Christmas dosh
(About as sure as part-time could mean.)

The stress of snow that assures my fears,
The irritancy of an icy day,
I am now an adult, it appears,
And my childhood life has flown away

To a warmer place on Cayman sands -
A place I know I will never return,
For while I may travel to Cayman lands
My Cayman childhood was left to burn.

It is icy pastures I now graze
And snow that keeps me trapped away
Where temptation begins its seduction phase...
I stick to my decision that day
For now I am happy and the future begins:
My directional debut lies in wait
And a possible partnership to be kings?
A production team? We’ll leave it to fate.

Exams beckon, I’ll deal with them first.

As we stare pointlessly at the skies
And sweat as we swallow the stuffy air
The wondering waves don’t realise
That we are even there.
Our bus stop thrones: an empty lair
Where we can safely hide.
While people think there’s nothing there
They still don’t dive inside.

No matter how hard our souls have tried
My good friend Mr. P and I
Have failed and wailed and often sighed
As cold, lonely air dampens eyes.

Sigh. Cry, cry and re-sigh.
Will it be noticed if we die?

We sit upon our bus stop throne
And eternally wait for that bus ride home.

Waiting, staring, waiting,
Possibly debating
To do... nope.... more waiting.
Staring, blankly staring.
Looking, but not seeing
What passersby are wearing.
Not acting but just being
And certainly not caring.
Me and Mr. P
Simply letting life just be,
Simply watching and waiting,
While bus stop lives are living.
We’re not taking or giving,
But sadly staring, crying, waiting.






Movement. Finally he moves!
Uncovering such painful truths
That smash the usual daytime grooves
Of crying, eternal waiting,
Thoughts of dying and hating
Every second spent on a gum-ridden throne –
My secret the inevitable stone
****** into the pools of thought
And now that he knows he ought
To finally end that misery streak
As the traffic soon will meet its peak
And satisfaction he will seek.

Ten years ago this very day
He had such awful dreams
That his only friend was taken away
But a dream twas all it seems.

Now - an announcement of the truth
To put us both at peace.
A time we shared on Earth aloof
And now the pain will cease.

It was all too much - that fateful day
That came ten years ago
And to my friend, Mr. P’s dismay
I walked onto the road
And entered the usual bus
That together we’d usually get:
Dark blood splattered it and thus
Cooled the burning summers sweat.

Not much has changed since then,
We still haven’t gone very far.
We stayed at that stop: the men
Who were hopeless at driving a car.
Eternally we remain
As friends on our bus stop throne
But now, he too, has ended the pain
And we can take the same bus home.

The most refreshing of breezes holds you,
And you utter a sigh of pure happiness.
The sound of water splashing the shore,
Sloppily fumbling into the pool-side drain.
The sprinkles on the cake sparkle -
Stars are just as sweet,
Little beams of hope escaping the banality of life,
Escaping chalk - a dull blackboard cannot retain it.
Even the artificial blinding of humanity
Cannot take away from such beauty.
Palm trees are at their most stunning
At twilight, dancing to the rhythm of nature -
Darkness is much more majestic
Than it has been given credit.
The moon is but a sliver,
A small rip in the pitch black fabric of the sky-
It is smiling, a smile of pure content.
Believe me, my good friend, the feeling is mutual.

In Wicklow, the stars shine brighter.
You'd think they would offer some inspiration,
But all they do is remind us how *******
small we are.

Can you hear the drums Fernando?
The slow, pounding sounds of my heart
As it transcends the circles of time
To find that nothing has changed

It's being cancelled before it's time.
It's getting drunk off a glass of wine.

It's a full moon through clouds of pollution.
It's talk, talk, talk and no revolution.

It's no result and all anticipation.
It's ******* your own imagination.

It's eating without satisfaction.
It's science with no chain reaction.

It's getting some and wanting more.
It's asked for I.D. at a liquor store.

It's getting old and wanting more.
It's hoping, praying that there is more.

It's dying before you read the end.
It's living for a life pretend.

It's a half-full take on an empty cup.
It's slitting wrists and waking up.

It's falling in love over and over again without a real sense of hope about the future or a true grasp of why you are here and what it all means and why the world works in such a backwards way and why they all lied to us and why they all have such lovely smiles and lovely eyes (and dynamite tastes and senses of humour) and why I was mixed together in such a way that I would have about twenty one solid years before I ceased to function as a healthy human being.
It's just -

If one hundred and forty characters were all that's left to send help and save the world, I probably shouldn't have spent them writing this.

A dull, white cupboard,
It brings bland to an already boring room.
Just opened to grab a shirt,
Unusually unaware of its artistic values.
An unnatural breeze brings the brightness
And an arm, fluttering in the wind, escapes,
Its feeble body left behind.
Who would have thought lifeless limbs could bring life
To a dying bedroom?
A blue shirt on a clean canvas,
That first drop of paint sprayed yellow on its sleeve.
A sunlight stream breaking the blue sky
And piercing the eyes,
Or perhaps it’s the mosquito plane
Heading towards his outstretched palm,
Surrounded only by a blue abyss
And the whitewashed walls of heaven.
Only a higher power could create such beauty by
Breathing a blue sky into the clouds of heaven.
This is but a true masterpiece of God’s creation
-A blue shirt, trapped helplessly, in my crafty cupboard door.

I'm feelin' inspired today o' alt'days - when George Bailey'st' richest man int'own, but I can't think of out worth writin' so I wrote this.

Like a lot of "artists" I fall in love with someone about once a day. The ones it happens regularly with are the ones that are worth poetry.

You define what this life is worth.
Fame and fortune are irrelevant.
The brightest star gifted to Earth,
Higher than the lucky heaven-sent.

The glove that is a perfect fit,
I’d jump without a thought for you.
If you catch then so be it,
If you don’t then that suits too.

For you are a poem that captures wonder -
Unforgotten and kept close by.
You are romantic rolls of thunder
Shaking tears from the silent sky.

The dew that drips from morning lands,
The white foam of a waterfall,
The sunset by the Cayman sands,
The nightingale’s vibrant call.

You are the beautiful view of a cliff
From the edge as you watch the beauty below,
Before I fall off and think you are gone
But cling on to you tightly and never let go.

Between wild swearing and flailing kicks
A dark dog dreams,
And a tear is shed.
This doesn’t come from puppy-dog eyes,
For they have been aged by the worlds evil,
Scarred by an owner
Who isn’t anybody’s best friend.
Constantly hungry, those black iron bars
Block his only chance of freedom.
If only he could jump.
If only he could fly.
He wouldn’t have to limp on broken legs then,
Or choke on broken ribs,
And he could finally come to food,
For food never comes to him.
Tonight is a special night though,
Tonight he gets some scraps before bed,
And dreams he wasn’t trapped, and had wings instead.

If only we'd known
A dead child was what
The white people needed
To start to care and solve
The problems of the war-torn,
***** Third-World.
We could have drowned one
Years ago in a luxury
Bubble bath and saved all
The inconvenience of
Distracting us from
The Kardashians
And making us uncomfortable
And having to worry about
Whether they will
Take our jobs or
Become our neighbours
And then we would
Have to stumble over
The pronunciation of their
Very foreign names
And worry about their
Very foreign ways
And whether or not our
Train journeys to work
Would be targeted by ISIS,
Or, perhaps, our holiday
Flight to the Mediterranean,
With its simply darling little
Features that are just so
Intimate.
At least it would make a
Tragic story
To discuss over brunch
With the ladies of leisure
While they get off
On the intimate pleasure
Of donating old clothes
(Expensive ones mind you! -
The refugees won't know
They're born) to charity.
If only we'd known.
We'd have been able
To help ourselves sooner
Before it stopped being chic.

Summer’s Sunday morning trickles into life
As the sun shimmers through the tired trees.

Dew drips from the waking grass
Onto the course crust of the loamy soil.

The crisp sound of the swelling tides is eased
By the tiresome swish of a lazy breeze.

Sweat slides down a flustered face
While the scorching sun stifles the pores.

Ice crackles in a glassy cage
As refreshing fruit juice flows into life.

And deckchair viewers watch while runners scythe
A grassy field as a goal tickles an empty net.

When you are a young white boy
You learn that "God" loves everyone
And you should too because
Everybody matters.

Then, you find out by yourself that,
What they actually meant,
Was that "God" treats everyone equally -
Nobody matters.

We are all equally irrelevant.
Just vessels awaiting our white sheets.

Sometime later you learn that,
While nobody matters, it is the loudest
Voices that have the least to say -
Idiots clatter their saucepans during evening discussions.

So as the blue, white, and red shine brightly across the world
While the Eiffel Tower remains silenced by tragedy,
It is the deafening strains of the bandwagon we hear
Struggling to cope with its passengers,

While the repeated explosions of idiots
Continue to clatter their saucepans all over the world
And the Facebook ramblings and Twitter chirps
Of disillusioned folks who didn't ever
Learn that their toys don't matter.
That their race or gender or religion doesn't matter.

Nobody, myself included, seems to grasp
The concept that we are all irrelevant,

Nobody, except those awaiting
Identification and burial,
Those who are comforted
By candles, flowers, and white sheets,
Who are whispering in the wind
The same question that eludes us all:

"Why is the world full of hate and evil men?"

And maybe it is in the acceptance
Of a spiteful "God", the acceptance
Of a mean, angry, vengeful pig of a "God",
A "God" who hates... Or maybe
It is in the asking of that very question:

That whisper in the icy November wind
That burns your hands at football matches
Or sitting outside in restaurants,
That makes them matter a great deal.

The more he thought about it, the more Audrey she became, until her class, grace, breathtaking good looks and her smile were just cinematic.

A lesbian nightmare is nothing
At all like a lesbian dream -
She had captured my heart
with her smile and eyes
But played for another team.

For over two years, every day, I've dreamt of dying. Historically, I've always hated change but I'd certainly consider killing for some now.

Film forms fast on a grainy screen
For pictures flicker from projector’s beam.

“So long, partner” through tears I see.
You know you’ll always have a friend in me.

Anarchy, insanity, beyond belief –
The death of a human, the rise of a Chief.

Nerves, a name, a limp and a fear
That the infamous Söze will soon disappear.

A dream within a dream within a dream on the screen?
That Nolan’s a mind-blowing genius machine!

Ants, an eye, and an awful lot of thinking
About what the hell that Buñuel was drinking!

You define what this life is worth.
Fame and fortune are irrelevant.
The brightest star gifted to Earth,
Higher than the lucky heaven-sent.

The glove that is a perfect fit,
I’d jump without a thought for you.
If you catch then so be it,
If you don’t then that suits too.

For you are a poem that captures wonder -
Unforgotten and kept close by.
You are romantic rolls of thunder
Shaking tears from the silent sky.

The dew that drips from morning lands,
The white foam of a waterfall,
The sunset by the Cayman sands,
The nightingale’s vibrant call.

You are the beautiful view of a cliff
From the edge as you watch the beauty below,
Before I fall off and think you are gone
But cling on to you tightly and never let go.

It's only just November and I'm already dreading the inevitable loneliness, the capitalist greed, and eventual meaninglessness of Christmas.

On lecture’s desk I slowly fall asleep
And gently push my troubles out to sea,
Then head to where my dreams will earn their keep –
An island with a population me.
A sunny, shoaly Caribbean beach
With Caribbean sands and carefree waves.
A place where there’s no need to learn or teach.
Imagination drowns the deep sea caves
In this glorious inspiration land,
Absorbing up the goodness all in one,
The rest remains abandoned in the sand
As both bake slowly, softly in the sun.
But now the time has come for me to wake –
On lecture’s end my friend gives me a shake.

I tried so hard to remain happy.
I truly did try -
For you, as much for myself,
But I fear that true happiness
Is the world's greatest lie.

Now it dawned on him why he couldn't get his mind off her. She had that Audrey Hepburn air and like Roman Holiday he just couldn't look away

She is fire. She is gold.
She is the stories left untold.
She is lightning striking wood,
The chaos in chaotic good.

She is the sore, red raw of slaps,
The echo of thunderstorm claps,
The blast of air on winter's days,
The salt-crazed fury of ocean sprays,

The pulsing radiance of suns,
The heated smoke from fired guns,
The steamy sweat from summer ***,
The magic of a witch's hex,

The sweet and sour tears of sadness -
Beautiful madness

Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?
Does it hurt hiding your wings?
Girl, you must be an angel
Because you're a figment of my imagination

Sent to prison for killing Autumn,
I made the same mistake last year,
Each bar an icy steel column,
Separating me from summers cheer.

My feet are numb, my fingers frozen,
Kept from the world in my frosty pen.
I reflect on the lonesome path I’ve chosen,
But know I will do the same again.

This prison is hell, chilled to the bone.
The warden called Weather is rather glum,
Winter does that to a man starved of home,
Its freezing walls are fast to benumb.

I beg for pardon of my crime,
I feel remorse and true dismay.
I am defrosted just in time,
To be released on Christmas Day.

I reflect on Winter’s release of me,
And wonder what the future will bring?
The gloom defrosts inside of me,
As my heart is warmed by emerging Spring.