One afternoon in the kitchen listening to some of my favourite old songs from my Punk Rock days
The *** Pistols God Save the Queen, Pretty Vacant, Did you no Wrong and Silly Thing
Then I started listening to The ******'s New Rose, a great riff and then Neat Neat Neat
Neat Neat Neat doesn't have as good a riff but it has this mad guitar piece in the middle where it just goes crazy...wild!!!
At this stage I just had to get it out, yea! I had to get out my air guitar
I'm a virtuoso Air Guitar player, if there was an Air Guitar contest I'd win easily
So I get my Air Guitar out and suddenly I'm whizzing around the kitchen
I'm doin' a Wilko, a Wilko Johnson (RIP Wilko)
I'm flying around goin' crazy with the music
Now I'm wearing these casual Work Pants that I like to wear
And they have pockets everywhere, and they also have funny hooks and loops coming out of them, I never knew what they were for
(Probably for hanging tools)
As I'm flying round the kitchen doesn't one of the loops from my pants get caught in one of the cupboard door knobs
And suddenly there's this Big tug and an awful Wwwrench!!! Noise
I stop and wonder what the **** was that...I look
The door of the cupboard's been ripped off its hinges
****! I say to myself...Ssshit!
I'm after tearing one of the cupboard doors off
Then I stop and wonder for a moment and slowly a smile creeps over my face
"Wait a minute", I think to myself
 Now that... that's Punk Rock!".

She numbly sits in a ragged sleep shirt
Her life in tatters all around her,
Pieces scattered bent and broken
It’s cold and raining in her soul
And she lost her new umbrella.

Celebration banners flap in tatters
From the New Year party deemed long over.
Confetti pools in puddles at the curb
Staining rainbows in the murky water.
The echo of the midnight chime a memory.

Three hundred unfulfilling days await her
Should she stumble to her crippled feet
And stagger to the place that should be home.
But there will be no cocoa by the hearth fire
Or anything that might engage her mind
Except the fact that there will be no rescue.

Sitting numbly in her ragged sleep shirt
She has no thought of any better place
Available to someone with an injury like hers.
An wound that cripples ingenuity
And renders her unwelcome
In the tangled depths of her own mind.
        ljm

Losing three special people in a matter of months was enough
Now almost three years have come and gone.
Losing the three of you isn't easy
The phone rings and imagining hearing your voice again
Getting an email
Knowing these things will never happen again
Knowing that it is in my mind and heart
Hoping that there are better things ahead to look forward to but losing  my mother, a mentor, and a dear friend within three months of each other requires a lot more than coming around the bend
The truth is I have and continue to do so because you would expect nothing less of me
Coming around the bend

C@rainbowchaser2022

"BORNE BACK CEASELESSLY INTO THE PAST"

Here
(in the here and now)

the Present
nails down

the reality of everything
it sees.

It fixes this sun
to that sky.

A bird breaks
free from the trees.

The lake lapping
at her sandalled feet.

Her watch tells her
it is five past three.

Her sunburnt face.
Its constellation of freckles.

She can not see
this time

ever ending. . .

But it does.
It did.

Now fifty years
have come and gone.

Things float away
into the past.

The sky has been
replaced

by a sky
newer than the one she'd known.

The bird has flown away.
The trees cut down.
The lake no longer knowing her.

She does not have time
tied to her wrist.

She dislikes trapping the world
in tick tocks.

Her face pale now.

Forgetting who
she had been.

She looks at herself
in black and white.

A stranger
stares back.

CRÚISCÍN...CÍSTÍN BAISE
(LITTLE JUG...LITTLE PALM CAKE)    

Auntie Mary’s
currant cake & blackberry jam

“Mmmmmmmm”

The jewels in the crown
of our forever summer

holiday

precious Corkonian objects
brought back to the lowly lowlands of the Curragh.

All the blackberries
that ever were

bursting with sunshine
& childhood

Jumping into
the jar for her
as if it were
an honour.

They & I
transformed by her

love
& lovely laughter

cake baked
with smiles & chuckles

winks & singings.

Me on her knee...tiny
being kissed to bits

Me being devoured
by an enormous hug

smothered in bosoms
many many yellow flowers on her purple pinny.

Her blowing my curls
out of the way

so that her smile
could kiss me

more &
more...er!

Me unable to
comprehend anything

of her
Cork accent.

Me saying “Yes..? ”  &  “No..? ”
in all the wrong hilarious places

(to my great embarrassment
& her great amusement)    

her breath
tickling my cheek

telling me
she loved me
...loved me...

& that I looked
so good

she could
“...ate me! ”

*

( Homely little terms! A little jug of milk and a little cake in the palm of your hand.)    

A cístín baise is a little cake made on the side of the griddle especially for the child...eh...“helping” with the baking.

This was written for my Aunt Mary who passed away recently leaving me with nothing but the memory of her love...her all abiding love...that not even her death can diminish. I simply adored her.

The Cork accent is like fast fluent French cross pollinated with sing- song Welsh...almost impossible to understand unless you are immersed in it for a couple of months! But of course she would also play with me and make up a whole lot of what they call in Cork... “glig glag”...silly talk.

She was so easy to love.

A child’s delight!