I wonder if I'll dare
To go out on the roof tonight  
And tilt my head towards the stars  
The city lights are glowing bright as a carnival  
A garden of golden flowers

In a ghostly purgatory
Of mist and copper ferns
We drove atop the world
Towards Baltimore, and the cold sea
The bone-dry air

Where we ate and laughed like better times
Nostalgic nights of youth
The memories now aged with time
Like bitter vinegar to wine

When the thinking ends
You can feel the wind
Brush against your feet
You can see the rain
Dripping from the apple tree
Its branches shaking outside the window

A shadow like me
Its leaves are blacker than black
Against the grey sky

Post-apocolypse
A cloud of billowing ash
In the aftermath

Of Vesuvius
Rain falls on cold embers
In this film noir

As my hair turns black
And clumps, black as rotten stumps
Black as mottled roots
Clung to a pale corpse

Droplets play in golden light
Then a lightning strike
The gravel sound
Angels passing on the ground

Wandering lost as moths
From light to light
My eyelids hang heavy
Ready to close me out

Phoenix in the night
Burning
Burning her broken heart

[ I ]
The window framed the quiet scene
My still mind had painted there
Pastel shades of grey and white
That sailed across an ocean sky
To travel right and disappear

I felt her personality
In choice of subject, her use of colours
So vibrant and true
Though I knew

That all great art
Is channeled, not thought
A piece taken from the heart
To be planted anew

[ II ]
At night the lights were dotted lines
Along the shore,
Glittering
Orange and incandescent

As the crescent moon sent her light reflected
To shimmer fragmented and grey
On endless waves
I ran along

The sea wall
Drunk on love and beer
Singing "Hallelujah" with hair trailing
Feeling perfect as a rose in the rain

There's a halo in the clouds,
A rainbow that glides
With the crescent moon

The day is spent, the moments gone
I come up for air at every one
And forget the last

The moments pass
They come from where?
Someplace close but far from here
Like a song I can't quite recall

As my face rests on the fogged-up glass
Eyelids flash. A drop of rain falls
Onto my tongue, and I fall asleep
In the backseat of the car

You in the darkness with the old grey church
Weeping down its stone walls, and the rain
Singing softly to the sounds of a dancing sky

You: the illusion, ever so inviting
The lonesome cloud gliding over the horizon
Glowing alone in perfect silence

You: a moment lost in space,
Not even asleep, not even
Awake, not even

You sigh a frozen breath
And leave with a song

That echoes through the night
Where you are now gone

the soothing darkness
seeps through
the glass, and i don't know
where i'm running off to

laughing loudly, lying, walking
whiskey filled, and tranquil
i drink some more, and smoke with an aching throat
i get lost in half finished thoughts
of her smile, and her hair
so perfect like the rest of her

our eyes meet just like they used to

and i feel
like i'm running out of remedies
like the tiring walls of my heart
are closing in
on me

like i will forever be
as lonely, ugly, and worthless
as i have always been

I sit listening to his lingering melodies
But his words don't comfort me
They don't hold me anymore

In the shower I cry
My tears disappear
But I don't
I hold my legs tight and wait
But I won't wash away

And I know what they'll say
That I was so full of life
Gathering around to ask each other
"Oh, did you see that coming?"

Just listen for a second
Just listen
Please
You may hear me

You may hear my fading footsteps

I'm sorry
You'll never know
Why I had to leave

Because no one will be looking
When I slip outside
And drift away

There are gusts sometimes
When my hair is swept
From my eyes and I just feel

The cool wind pull my feet along
The sandy gravel of the path

Lamplight leaving shadows of each  tiny stone
And the branches swaying calmly
Like the blue ribbon on my notebook

A black cat prowls out of an opening
Then stops when she hears me there

And I stand like an actress as she stares
With my hair swaying like reeds
On a grey shore

Like an elevator I will let everybody down
I will lift you up and watch as you leave me
Cold as echoing metal,
Empty

You awoke before the rest
Their sighs and breaths
Disappeared in the dark morning

If only they would wake
And leave you unalone

(Your words stand on my soul
Like a paperweight

There's no need to shout when
You can bore us in-
to a zombie-like state)

Is it sadder I have to
Listen
To you speak

Or

That you have to teach
This *******
To me?

The world looks so different
From down here
Watching birds glide like grey kites
As clouds float together yet lonely
As faces in a crowd

I wish she knew
How the way her hands glide like pale doves
To cover her face when she laughs
Makes my heart melt

How she smiles
And suddenly the world will never
Be good enough
For me
How I would hold her hand
And kiss her tears away

In the dark, freezing my skin in the rain
Droplets collect on blue window panes
So clear and calm and beautiful

Loneliness is always there inside me
Black puddles on a starlit road
I stare into and see myself

My tears leave ripples in the cold water
He has his arms wrapped around her
I'm so completely worthless

Loneliness
I can't tell the difference
Between myself
And the endless nothing of the universe

The white Moon makes raindrops into dark crystals
Snaking down the cold windows

Have you ever noticed the whiteness of the rain
As it bounces in passing headlights off the asphalt

As the heavy clouds cover the stars
Blinding us from where we are

Like we could be anywhere
Like a rainy night looking up as droplets slide down the tent's skin

Pattering
Shivering
Thinking

We're nowhere
Huddled under covers
Losing time in the darkness
Lost in an endless dream
As we drift back into sleep

The night air is warm as it brushes past me
Like curtains lit by lightning floating in an open window

The lost moth wanders between suns
From sun to flowering sun
Searching for home in the night

don't write a poem
for me
it would be pointless,
it would be
a paradox
to try
to give beauty
to something
so ugly

your eyes paint the clouds black


i feel the wet grass that glows the colour of dusk,
i sense the light reaching out into every night

the shadows swim between headstones
and up to the pines
as angels fly past us
fading out

the ghost of a lone swan

resting on my arm
you see her, so still and so beautiful
and before day comes we're gone

by the pier
alone with the endless rain

stained gold by the flowering light
drowning out in orange glow

i see the waves
as they breathe cold darkness into the streetlights
see the reeds in the wind,
hear the roar in our ears

the falling slopes we climb
lost in a million sounds of the rain
floating without senses
lost between the stars

Flicking through old photos
Since forever stashed under my bed
Mum points at one of me
Little, laughing
And my brothers
In colourful winter hats,
Climbing white trees,
A one of a kind cold day
The brown leaves sing
"Weren't you so cute?"
To think Christmas is wasted on me now
And I lie lamenting the happiness of someone long past
My throat hurts at the effort of not just bursting out
Crying
Like a baby as I lose control
In front of my own mother
That wasn't me on that fence
The little face swinging upside-down
That was someone pure
Locked inside me
That was light on a piece of card
I don't feel
Like a person
Anymore
I'm a mish-mash
Of random
Things
I am a split second
That's almost gone
I am traits, emotions, chemicals, hormones, electricity, fear, love, friendships
Fading into a maelstrom of humanness
Mounds of recycled carbon
Made-up meaning
Lost in fog
Where I begin and end fades
Into everything and nothing
I'm the dirt in the ground
The stars in the sky
Something words can't describe

Droplets of dark divine
                       rain
Don't really taste
                       of              
Wine, but water  
  
Still I savour those small things
Ringing out the night's nothings
On the wind's bitter gifts

Til there is nothing left
And I have outlived myself
The cyclone leaves pirouette
Down into moon-glow
Puddles, ripples

The moment will soon be past
Eight thousand hours or so, I have tasted
But a fleeting crumb of the universe
Myself

Forever outliving myself until
The Sun's beams stain the clouds
Then who will look upon this frightened page
And see my soul in theirs?

I sit alone beneath a dry hood
That patters like the slated roof
On days you slept scared

Of rain and thunder
I am all there is again
The page gets wetter and wetter

As the words fade out

To write real poetry
You have to feel something
So I'm sorry

In my shining spotlight the rabbit scampers
Across the fields, its bright white eyes, and stops
Crouching in the dewy grass of a foggy night
In the pale-faced cold wind of winter

In the light of the supermoon
In the light rain fog of November
And what is fog?
In the darkness
Something that I remember

The glowing leaves pile up in my pockets
Yellow ones burn like lemon flames, green like pears
They all find their way someday between the pages
Of my stained petal books

And I always find my way
Into the Moon's light,
Where blue sea laps softly on smooth stones
Of the shore
Of the skin
And the silence
Of the night

It makes me go "Jesus Christ. Look at the view"
Middle of October, birthday,
Driving past Bantry bay
Treading boots on a carpet of brown
Leaves, the forest walk in Glengariff

I walk and wonder
Why the ivy leaves sprout from the mud  
Scattering green shapes on the ground
Spread across the floor like mushrooms

I see the thin branches hold a preschool painting
A trillion burning instances of colour
And nothing is human here, but you
I am only the moss that clings to the trees

Like a pointilist masterpiece
The apple-green and autumn yellow spots
Gather in canopies above the rocks
While the white streaks and dots
Dance wildly in the black stream

And so
The orangeness, as I turn, flies diagonally,
Looking down across the dampened stones
The colour of fire paints the falling petals
That flip like red feathers

As the stream flows clear as molten glass
And the foam, so dove white on the surface
Bubbles against the edge of it
Splashing boulders,
Rinsing toes

i love to count
the wintry things
two lips

the tundra glides
                past the slates
as, perched on wires, the crows wait
for their white coats
              to build

two covered boots
              walk the ice on the road
as the children and their bikes
stick out

distinctly red, half hidden in snow
the wet ice of the street
            two black tires

a trail of feet
i count five flakes
one cold face
one pink nose and two flushed cheeks
eight car hoods

mounds of snow piled up on each

snow,
            the snow falls
feathering down to the ground
            through the cold
settling down on woolly clothes

my tongue stuck out to catch the snow
landing, thawing, melted down

condensed. five, six, seven, eight,
thousands, millions
          an infinite
blizzard
        of snowy
children
dancing, muddy footprints

orange gloves on numbing digits

hot chocolate inside
snugly

both palms
around
        like a lighter's
flame
in a cold home

and the birds' wings clap
as they fly
from the branches
in the frozen
      barren
fields

My thoughts are poisoned
I can't relax, I can't rest
Nothing makes me sad

Or happy, I try
I can't relax, I need rest
I need to fix this

mute, in a bubble
black holes open - and swallow
swallow me all whole

party, I won't be
some, something, I want to be
somebody not me

I fumble over
alone, I speak like the dark
but I guess I try

the empty glances
alone, I guess I liked her
I got used to it

I saw one of my doubles in his circle. The confident centre of attention. Laughing, laughing, his blue eyes met mine, his grin grew wide and I hid my shame beneath my hair.

I got a haircut
I didn't want to
My nerves
Shot through
My veins on the day
Like white acid and the shaking
My knees made holes in the table
I almost ran away

No one noticed

I wonder if anyone would care
If I didn't show up today
What good am I to the world?

I wish I could be like you
Like a worthwhile person
Who captures stares and crowds and makes you wonder why you're so pathetic in every single ******* way
(I always say
The wrong thing)
I want to smash my face against the wall and drown in the joy of those who forgot me because I did not entertain

I meet a new double every day
I have too many

My doubles, the difference is you can talk to people without feeling a gun pointed to your head
Like you are going to die if you move as much as a muscle
Or say something that doesn't make them laugh
And I don't know where to put my hands

I am tired of hiding
In the corner hating everything

Creation is in our breath
our silk noise is frozen cold
as sound fills the capped peaks
as a red bike sticks out of the snow
that covers each dead root
it cushions each robin's  fall

it hangs from branches
like blank tears, long sheets
of white paper
a fox mother guards her silver cubs
she wears a white coat when she comes
the snow is what she knows

i have not seen these hills
since she came to me
offering her eyes
that see through the clear silence
she stared, and crushed my sound
till she scampered away

the black ravens fluttered empty
the leaves echo from the skeleton
the sound echoing like a shot
our boots sinking into deep holes
his feet leave tracks on the snow
where mine have left

when I turn he is not there
i can hear the raven's wings
and our tracks lie asleep in the snow
where mine have left

when I turn he is not there
i can hear the raven's wings
and our tracks lie asleep in the snow

My shelves stack full of books half read
Half poems I could not ring
Limp as a starfish upon this bed
As the bird's sweet chirpings sing

Through the echoing skull I've said
"Beware" for there be no mortal thing
Could tame the waters and lands of dread
Where my madness reigns as King

My heart does sink, a lump of lead
My chains to river cling
On spring's soft pillow I rest my head
To dream of other things

I am sat
In a tight picnic circle
Laid on the grey sand

I am a crusted seashell,
I am the limpets which cling to my skin
Like a sunken chest

The waves and sea gulls call
For each other and the cold
In the distance. The swimmers. The Irish

Sea and the Irish cold
Whistling,
The sea and the clouds

You are the froth
Flowing through my lungs like a white
Feather fallen from the sky

Silent
And dry
The rock's green hair swaying

The wind strikes the eye
Like a splash
And decays with

The grace of a coffin
For me the reeds have born their fruit
They stab the naked

Skin, you are still
Sleeping on your side
In the tent

You are still beautiful
Within, soon the ***** will unfold
And we shall embrace
The sea and her sons

The shining black  
Florescent streetlamps  
In the rain

My hair is heavy
And long and it grows over
My eyes

Look, the stream is smooth
And a mirror like the tears
That hang from the brown

Green leaves floating
And the grey perched on the wall
I'm at the edge where the river flows

Under like a fish
There's
A salmon

Hopping
On the river
Amongst a million ripples

The unanswered pleas
A fog condensed
Into crystals

They drip
To rest on her lips
And between her shining scales

Someone pushed me
Someone
I'm falling

I'm freezing
In here someone is under
The surface

It pulls
And I need
To help

Someone
A mirror
My reflection

My body at the bed
My mouth agape
I'm not awake
Anymore

[Before the storm]

I'm walking away from hope
Childish in my care for the cracked stone
I must be for my mother
            My forehead once felt her kiss
                              Then felt her wrist
I pity the men who can step anywhere  

Anywhere in the grey
Above Dublin's familiar streets
Bubbling, their tea in hell
           It has the taste of fear as well
                             I have made them
Their new reality did not account for me

I bought you a bicycle for your birthday
I helped you to unwrap it
And we rode through the morning
           Brushing nettles
                           And when fox brush fluttered
We were unsettled

Why were you so cold?
When the Sun submerged into galaxies
To become your face and your cheeks
         And the leaves lay on cellophane
                          Your eyes seemed so old to me
But your smile was philosophy

Long hair was blooming in the wind
A deal made with the God Time
No need for penitence
        No need for any of it
                         Tell me there is a way
And I will wage war with the waves

Speeding ahead with my eyes on the stars
And the moon which stays fixed
No matter how fast I pedal
Even when small stones
Get stuck in the metal
And I fly through the air like a feather

I lay with the pattering in a puddle
I lay with the rain and the mud forever

The rose red dresses flutter and float
Over beautiful girls with smooth legs cartwheeling
Dancin' like swinging jitterbug springs
Going round in a bebop rhythm
Through the saxophone blasting soul
And the jazz drums which clash and simmer

The yellow lights and red smoke floods
Singing and a' ringin' in circles
Filling the air with childish smiles and laughter
Freedom reigns on the crowded dance-floor
Synchronisation in the joyful movers
Who dance and drink into the night

I trudge through the blizzard with my boots sinking
To my knees in snow and the flakes
Cloud my frosted eyelids again

Wiping away the whiteness to allow my vision
A few feet in front as the onslaught of cold wet
Particles fall like horizontal rain

Moving fast as a hurricane
My knees are weakened to collapse
I am so lost I cannot think

Many friends lost on the way
Fallen and buried instantly
In pure white ecstasy

No time for ceremony
Hours ago I lost the main party
I lost the light of survival

In the blinding white
My frigid gloved hand above my eyes
Resolution in my mind

On the fringes of sight
In the dark myopic distance
I see the sea blue light
In the lonely darkness

The latch lifts with a heavy clunk
And like a rusted playground memory
The metal door creaks open slowly
Releasing no light from the dark
And the cold and the infinite parallel worlds
Of nothing

Stitched together lightly, shifting
Silent and brushing past like pedestrians
Or barges on a deep dark canal
Never touching and nearly feeling
The warmth emanating from the cold black and white
Bodies

The dark rain will fall
Again, but nevertheless
The rainbow follows