I'm listening to the house ,
the popping of the joists ,
the groans from years of delapidation . The arguing
with local foundations .

Age has its benefits in the forms of doors as they no longer stay moored to the walls but swing in indecision like the fools who stand in perpetual obsolesence .

Where then do my thoughts propel my rudderless oblivion ?
My angst , the thumb in many dikes , leaves me as powerless before the mass of my desperation .

How dare the Ghosts of daylight leave me marooned in the shadow of shadows .

I am confused and challenged by the hidden agendas and secret subpoenas of an alien race of thought .

And were I capable of burying the haunting images , would they not
sprout from my seeds of discontent and flourish
yet greater than before ?

. . . evidently so .

flannel shirt and torn blue jeans
she always held her cards close
to her fragile heart
her wild heart

(a heart not for me)

and she fades into a cold wind
whitens into snowflakes
and wild infatuation

i'm faded

the torn page
from a list of lovers
broken and sad

my love is moonlight and mare's tails

the night's stars
shot full of lost tomorrows

A long time
ago
when I was
a teenager,
I had a
wonderful,
tender-hearted
girlfriend.
She was patient.
I was wide
awake, and green
as a frog.

She said,
don't rub it so
hard, you will
hurt it.
Think of it as
a new toy you
discovered.
It's small, and
you need to be
careful.
It isn't a
pimple that
you are
trying to pop.

I can still smell
her hair, lilacs and
pond water.
And on
gentle summer
nights, I hope someone
is being kind to
her love button.

I weave words into woods
and forests of dreams
feeding your fear with stories
of giants and beans
stalks and straws
cracked golden eggs
scrawny fingers
a glass eye and
wood for a leg
to aid your sleep
come werewolves and bears
ghosts and ghouls
for a nicer nightmare
so come now hither
come to the deep
and dream
a dream my dear
if you dare to sleep

AND IF YOU HEAR ME SPEAK
( for Granny Dempsey )

and if you hear me speak
of the greenest goosegogs
then it is obviously the summer of '63

with the sunlight of that year
trapped tightly
within them

and if you hear me speak
of goosegogs and a certain year
then I most

certainly will be
talking of
my blind granny

who used her crooked hands
to sculpt my face into being
and I am here

because her blind hands
saw me so
completely

and I was made
anew each year
as if I had never been

before
but
am now

and if you hear me speak
of goosegogs, the year of '63
and my blind Cork granny

then you will know
that I speak of
the gentlest love

I have ever known
and now I will speak no more
for I have said everything

that can be said
and that
goes beyond all saying

POOR POOR JESUS

"Jesus!" she shouts
"Jesus Christ!"

She runs over to the crucifix
gives it a huge hug

cries with all of her
three years of self.

"Poor Jesus!" she sobs
"Poor poor Jesus!"

Christ cries
a single painted tear

unable
to comfort her.

*

This poem is simply about my little daughter's innocence and compassion.

All crucifixes made her cry for she could only see the physicality of his suffering and not the symbol. And as always, if it was a bird with a broken wing, a cat with a limping front paw, or a baby crying she would always want to comfort it. All she had was her hugs and tears and her own little scrap of humanity and she would use these gifts fiercely to fight what she saw as an injustice that anything should have to suffer.

She befriended sticks and stones as if they too were living beings. All she knew was that these things were in the world at the same time as she and so must be allowed their moment. And the only way to combat the brokenness of this world was to love it all the more.

I had shaped her a little saddle which clipped onto the crossbar of my bike( just like my Dad had done for me)and we would cycle out into the country to find trees to adore and cows to amaze at and birds to marvel to! My body would form a protective cage around her and she would scream to me "Be the wind!" and we would flash by the scenery like a streak of green and gold praising the very leaves on the trees and the sunlight that ran through them.

We had stopped at a wayside shrine that some man who was good with wood had fashioned from his own hands. She ran forward to it with outstretched arms and it looked too as if this painted Christ carved with all his suffering was also running towards her. "The sad man on the tree" as she called him. He suffered her to come to him and she embraced him with all of her self. He shed a single painted tear that hung upon his check as if at any moment it would splash and fall in yellow.

She gave him all of herself to help heal his sadness, imbuing him with her tiny belief.

AS MONDAYS GO IT WAS THE BEST OF MONDAYS

it was
a state of the art
day

perfect
in every
way

as if God
had created it
then thought about it

and made it
even better
this time round

the light
pristine
immaculate

like God
sent a postcard
saying wish you were here

and I
delighted
to be

Quote by : James Russell Lowell
All God's Angels Come To Us Disguised


A glimpse of light beyond the sea
soft gentle winds upon the shore
a whispered secret I can't see
you are the angel, I adore
a breath away from your influx
I enter in and you restore
concealed beyond earth's parallax
you are the angel, I adore
Archangel of God's Paragon
protector of the rich and poor
you come to serve as you bring calm
you are the angel, I adore
A glimpse of light beyond the sea,
you are the angel, I adore.

Written by: Vienna Bombardieri
aka Mystic Rose