"finnegan" poems
Through paper thin walls
I can hear my neighbour
Marigold.
She starts with the same lie
every time
my husband Finnegan
will be home soon
let’s make this quick.
I can tell what kinks
the john has paid for
by the uniqueness
of the name she gives
her fake husband.
I once asked,
why the make-believe spouse?
Marigold responded
with delicate articulation
a girl in this line of work
needs to pretend
to have some normalcy
in her life
a reason to be kept alive.
Having nothing left to conceal
she lives her life
like no one is watching.
She leaves me astonished,
wishing to live one minute
as open as she lives every moment.
May 29, 2019
May 29, 2019 at 12:46 AM UTC
depression
is not crippling sadness
as most think it is.
well, sometimes.
it is
apathy
most of the time
who cares?
no point.
everything *****
I lost my job today
cried, a little
but I cry about everything.
mainly
apathetic
now I truly have no reason
to ever get out of bed
sure,
I'll look for another
way
to live
but this *****
leaves me with no motivation
no motivation
to apply to colleges,
even though I have
a 3.9 GPA
no motivation
to hang out with friends
even though I am
lonelier than ever
no motivation
to eat food
even though I am
starving
after
I left my now "old work"
I had the impulsive decision
to rescue a dog.
maybe
if I have another creature
to look after
love
feed
I will start
to care for myself, too.
the shelter
made my heart hurt
the kittens
weren't crying
just
sleeping
in their jail cells
uninterested
in life
or their possible new
friend
looking at their possible
rescuer
with disinterest
looking
through their cage
like me.
finnegan
was a terrier mix
a stray
he was whining
licked
my hand
when I reached to him
eight years old
missing
his right eye
life has trampled him
yet he is not hardened
I cried
with him
as I walked him
around the play area
he sniffed everything he could.
curious
investigating
not crying anymore
just happy to be free
from the hell in his cage
he
treated the workers
with affection
like he treated me
with affection
it took awhile
until he came close
and cried while I pat him
climbed in my lap
and cried
I know
buddy
walked him inside.
the woman,
at the counter
looked at me eagerly,
"so?!"
I looked away.
can't
do it
not
today
I'm sorry
him and I
are both looking
for affection
love
a way out of this mess.
but
I can't help him.
no job,
no sure way I can buy him food
buy me food.
I can't
buy a living creature
out of impulse.
he needed security
I cannot provide that
only warmth.
I need to be happy
he cannot provide that
only warmth.
goodbye,
cutie
puller of heartstrings
I promise
someone better than me
will take you away.
not today
lost myself
lost my passion
lost my lust
lost my job
lost
my
soul.
Feb 19, 2016
Feb 19, 2016 at 5:45 PM UTC
"I have two cats!"
he said with a laugh...
as he fell to his knees...
and rolled on his back...
The time was all there
but the money went flat.
The essence of nightshade
That will do that.
So onward he marched...
and later he squeezed
but rightfully so,
the windowless breeze.
With fortnights on days
and cherry blossoms in bloom,
Mr. Finnegan woke up.
It was half past noon.
Dec 12, 2014
Dec 12, 2014 at 1:28 PM UTC
Outside the Windy City
lives the Lady Finnegan -
Carol dearly loves the Lord Jehovah
and is a part of His earthly plan.
Her heart has been pierced
by God's Holy Spirit;
for she placed her life before Him
and has chosen to submit.
Her adoration for the King
has burst forth with heart's joy,
from reading her great nephew's literature
within the borders of Illinois.
Now she's become God's messenger
via her gifts of Joe's Christian poetry -
For the fragrance of God's Love
envelopes her with scriptural potpourri.
Blessed to be a blessing,
her friendship has touched me -
For we have found common ground
between kinship and a love of poetry.
Author Note:
Dedicated to my Great Aunt Carol Finnegan,
the sister of my maternal Grandmother, Marguerite *****
Learn more about me and my poetry at:
http://www.squidoo.com/book-isbn-1419650513/
By Joseph J. Breunig 3rd, © 2009, All rights reserved.
Jan 10, 2013
Jan 10, 2013 at 6:52 AM UTC
Finnegan, begin again
is it time to wake?
The belfry bats are singing
from the yew trees, "heigh **
heigh ** heigh hooooo . . . "
as lips lip fleshless lips of air
Bloom clinks a glass with
M'Intosh, "Three quarks
for Muster Mark!" and
Stephen drinks tea from
lotus flowers poured by
Nausicaa while sirens call
between the clashing rocks
"Come home Telemachus, come
home Penelope, come home
Mary, come
home . . . "
Apr 5, 2014
Apr 5, 2014 at 5:36 AM UTC
there is no courage in dying
the inevitability of mortality
defeats all mortals
words do not evaporate
nor has a life ever been
ill spent
the ardor of love
transcends the spare
bits of temporal time
we are allotted
revealed truth is
immutable, reified
by the quill you so
aptly wielded
as you traverse
new landscapes
guided back to
the ***** of love
may your heart
be filled with
gratefulness
may your vision
remain keen
the universal mind
fills with questions
asking...
did you help the world
see with new eyes?
did you satiate a
hunger for understanding?
did thunder sound from
your melodious musings?
did your whispers bespeak
enigmatic revelations?
did you knock someone
off their horse with your
eclectic epiphanies?
did you fearlessly
love?
give selflessly?
speak honestly?
did you bind
the broken?
did you cleave
the separated?
did you repair
the breach?
did you shame
the arrogant?
did you burn effigies
of dogmas?
pierce the armor
of rust strewn ideology?
bury the corpse
of dead religions?
did you write
psalms of
affirmation?
did your
lamentations
sing the light
of hope?
did you transcend
the confines of banality?
caress the seduction
of beauty?
did you kiss
a love starved
world?
did you embrace
our common
afflictions?
rest easy my
brother
you did these things
and more
you did not
do these things
and more
your mortality is affirmed
in a sweet symphony of death
your words are
confetti sprinkled
upon the earth
each letter a seed
taking root, sprouting
a bloom of truth
a rich abundance
joyously harvested
in a celebration of
the courage of
your blessed life
Selah
Michael Reardon
left this earth 5/19/12
at the age of 56
Godspeed Beloved
Music Selection:
The Dubliners
Finnegan's Wake
jbm
Oakland
5/24/12
Feb 18, 2013
Feb 18, 2013 at 5:55 PM UTC
The **** on the steeple
Proclaimed and denied to
Four corners, looked down,
And twisted.
Old men in green suits with crow's eyes
And alabaster covered bones push open doors
With wooden feet.
The postman, empty-kneed, rides his Deere
Over green fields with rabbits,
Laughing to himself.
Rentals in drives plan the day's jaunts
To ****** or Kenmare.
Shops carry faded signs:
Donovan, O'Sullivan, Finnegan.
The crow drops on the roof of Holy Cross
Which doubles as a retirement home;
Its clients plaint palms skyward with the wind.
Five hundred leave each week:
"Ireland's best... so fresh it's famous."
The laggers serve tea and scones,
Or ply in shops they may someday own.
There are no slow boats here.
The green suits leave naturally,
Others by air.
This is no country for the young
With their hillside tilting windmills of power.
Below, a young woman eats, holding
Her knife like her father, eating,
Silent, staring.
Crow and rabbit inhabit,
Stones tumble and lay for a hundred years.
Each day a new apocalypse offering
One opening. No wrappings,
No ointments, no fresh water.
No throne to approach, no voice calling
Them home.
No seventh son to dip his finger in the well
And soothe.
May 5, 2014
May 5, 2014 at 7:59 AM UTC
when we met
my cathedrals were full
and swollen with
light
the narrow
white yawn
of oblivion, curling
into a ball -
we kick
down the road
past Finnegan's Wake
Drive.
and the last Lamb
in a Lion's
mouth.
i saw you as a goddess that would forgive me
my crippled inertia
and afford me a palace of goodwill
in the hysteria
of change.
but how i lost you in an empty
confounds me.
it breaks for unicorns
and nothing is
sacred.
it beggars belief
but affection stains
the miracle
like infection feigns
the lyrical
and so goes the sparrow, for now...
so goes the Widdershins of our distant embrace
and the wrong star jaded
and marooned in our perpetual
default.
a mad zodiac, plastic in the vapid spool of Eternity
a somewhat always gone
at the very center
of our being
together.
Mar 29, 2015
Mar 29, 2015 at 9:13 PM UTC
The shadowy man followed me home
from Finnegan's Pub on 52nd St. last night.
This was first time I had ever saw him.
Mar 5, 2017
Mar 5, 2017 at 3:22 PM UTC
"ineffable tension;
homesick in someone
else's prison.
stranger than
'finnegan's wake.'
in the beggaring hours,
time is all that persists.
the pages speed-turn
possessed by the
prelude of
open space."
-shoo.shu
Dec 29, 2015
Dec 29, 2015 at 7:30 PM UTC
I just read the first page
of James Joyce’s ‘novel’
Finnegan’s Wake;
Joyce makes up new words
and uses so many new words
that I could not comprehend
what Joyce had written.
Should authors make effort
to use words
which their audience
can understand?
Jul 22, 2019
Jul 22, 2019 at 1:45 AM UTC
" Collectively, we have the power to improve the world more than any other generations have done for us."
Jul 22, 2015
Jul 22, 2015 at 1:57 PM UTC
Most every day
for years now,
I have taken up
Finnegan's Wake
and read a page
chosen randomly.
No doubt, I
have read
it through
at least twice.
I still have
not a clue
what it means,
but, oh, what a
magical stream
of consciousness
in which
to plunge,
to frolic
and to swim.
~mce
Sep 27, 2015
Sep 27, 2015 at 3:21 PM UTC
I read Finnegan's Wake,
The cover
And half the first page;
After that,
I got bogged down
And had to disengage.
May 22, 2017
May 22, 2017 at 6:40 PM UTC
chaos within
dancing star
Wendy darling
wonder where you are?
cell phone poems
near and far
Finnegan’s Wake
Irish bar
Solo stroll
dolphins Del Mar!
Sep 10, 2019
Sep 10, 2019 at 10:07 AM UTC