There was an Old Man of Kildare,
Who climbed into a very old chair;
When he said,--"Here I stays,--
till the end of my days,"
That immovable Man of Kildare.

NO. 31 O'HIGGINS ROAD, CURRAGH CAMP, CO. KILDARE.

I climb a stair
that isn't there

stand on a landing
in mid-air

each step I take
creates the next part

of the vanished house
lost to time

as see through
as a cartoon ghost.

This was
(still is) for me

No. 31
O'Higgins Road

my world
the universe of me.

What was once
my bedroom...is now a cloud

a window
become a moon

night and its storm
sit in our living room

a bird tiptoes
down the stair

flying through
nine year old me

reaching for the light switch
to turn on

what isn't there.

NO. 31 O'HIGGINS ROAD, CURRAGH CAMP, CO. KILDARE.

I climb a stair
that isn't there

stand on a landing
in mid-air

each step I take
creates the next part

of the vanished house
lost to time

as see through
as a cartoon ghost.

This was
(still is) for me

No. 31
O'Higgins Road

my world
the universe of me.

What was once
my bedroom...is now a cloud

a window
become a moon

night and its storm
sit in our living room

a bird tiptoes
down the stair

flying through
nine year old me

reaching for the light switch
to turn on

what isn't there.

WALKING FROM THE RISING SUN TO KILDARE TOWN.

I take up
my stick &

walk:
back into my past.

Planting the countryside
of my youth

with each step
the years falling away.

The young me unfolds
into being.

The flag of self unfurls
snaps into the lost moment.

My shadow strides
ahead of me

impatient with this
flesh and blood man.

My shadow stops
waits for me to

catch up
catch my breath.

He stares at me
with broken dandelion eyes

a green milk bottle top
mimics a nose

a leaf acted
as a smile.

I laugh at this me
created by chance

and happenstance
step once more

into my shadow's footsteps
let it lead the way.

A tree which had been
there since I had been three

sarcastically remarks" "Oh, is it
yer self that's...in it?"

"It is!" says I
addressing the sky

spread before me
a vast blue field.

Furze blazes
with yellow.

Horses turn to
the gallops.

The sudden thunder of hooves
jockeying with laughter.

I left here to
make something of myself.

I, then...a nervous nobody
returning now

a mere nothing
a success only at failure.

I recite Hopkins
to a straying sheep.

The sheep suspiciously
regards this poet

hitting his stride now
"Nothing is so..."

The sheep coughs.

"... beautiful as
Spring!"

I tell a passing cloud
who is in too much of a hurry.

The poet's proud words
falling by the wayside

as me-then and
the me of now

stroll down
(cane nonchalantly in hand)
memory lane.

The Future hiding just

up around the

corner.

i went to see my mamma in the county of kildare
the home i was born brought and raised up there
we talked about the times that we used to share
when ever i was down she gave me love and care

if i began to cry she would love and comfort me
wipe away the tears so my eyes could see
days we went out walking all along the shore
we would watch the tide coming home once more

looking at the fields with there shades of green
we would count them all.  and how many we had seen
all these different things are the things we did
that i did with mamma when i was just a kid.

a mamma in a million is what she is to me
always by my side mamma she would be
all the special times that we used to share
in the place i was raised in the county of kildare

There was sadness and despair
For one thousand years;
Today I bet on the horses
Racing in Kildare.

In the shadows rose the gallows,
his execution date drew near.-
Wolfe Tone, denied a soldiers ‘death,
could not hold life that dear.

He took a blade to his own throat
and cut a swathe of red.
It’s said he lingered but a week
then brave Wolfe Tone was dead..

He was the father of desire
for an Ireland brave and free.
Desire famine could not ****
nor emigration flee.

He choose the manner of his death.
He did not die a slave.
It put his life in context-
His words transcend the grave

Each year on the day he died
as long as Wolfe’s lived there
They lay a spray of roses
on his graveside in Kildare..

WALKING FROM THE RISING SUN TO KILDARE TOWN.

I take up
my stick &

walk:
back into my past.

Planting the countryside
of my youth

with each step
the years falling away.

The young me unfolds
into being.

The flag of self unfurls
snaps into the lost moment.

My shadow strides
ahead of me

impatient with this
flesh and blood man.

My shadow stops
waits for me to

catch up
catch my breath.

He stares at me
with broken dandelion eyes

a green milk bottle top
mimics a nose

a leaf acted
as a smile.

I laugh at this me
created by chance

and happenstance
step once more

into my shadows footsteps
let it lead the way.

A tree which had been
there since I had been three

sarcastically remarks" "Oh, is it
yer self that's...in it?"

"It is!" says I
addressing the sky

spread before me
a vast blue field.

Furze blazes
with yellow.

Horses turn to
the gallops.

The sudden thunder of hooves
jockeying with laughter.

I left her to
make something of myself.

I, then...a nervous nobody
returning now

a mere nothing
a success only at failure.

I recite Hopkins
to a straying sheep.

The sheep suspiciously
regards this poet

hitting his stride now
"Nothing is so..."

The sheep coughs.

"... beautiful as
Spring!"

I tell a passing cloud
who is in too much of a hurry.

The poet's proud words
falling by the wayside

as me-then and
the me of now

stroll down
(cane nonchalantly in hand)
memory lane.

The Future hiding just

up around the

corner.

WALKING FROM THE RISING SUN TO KILDARE TOWN.

I take up
my stick &

walk:
back into my past.

Planting the countryside
of my youth

with each step
the years falling away.

The young me unfolds
into being.

The flag of self unfurls
snaps into the lost moment.

My shadow strides
ahead of me

impatient with this
flesh and blood man.

My shadow stops
waits for me to

catch up
catch my breath.

He stares at me
with broken dandelion eyes

a green milk bottle top
mimics a nose

a leaf acted
as a smile.

I laugh at this me
created by chance

and happenstance
step once more

into my shadow's footsteps
let it lead the way.

A tree which had been
there since I had been three

sarcastically remarks" "Oh, is it
yer self that's...in it?"

"It is!" says I
addressing the sky

spread before me
a vast blue field.

Furze blazes
with yellow.

Horses turn to
the gallops.

The sudden thunder of hooves
jockeying with laughter.

I left here to
make something of myself.

I, then...a nervous nobody
returning now

a mere nothing
a success only at failure.

I recite Hopkins
to a straying sheep.

The sheep suspiciously
regards this poet

hitting his stride now
"Nothing is so..."

The sheep coughs.

"... beautiful as
Spring!"

I tell a passing cloud
who is in too much of a hurry.

The poet's proud words
falling by the wayside

as me-then and
the me of now

stroll down
(cane nonchalantly in hand)
memory lane.

The Future hiding just

up around the

corner.

Oh, my name is Jack Stewart,
I’m a canny gang man
And a rovin’ young fellow I’ve been.

I’m a piper by trade,
I’m a ramblin’ young blade,
And ‘tis many the tune I can play.

Now here’s a simple song
To say what they done.
I told them about all those fears
And away they did run.
they sure must be strong,
And they feel like an ocean
Being warmed by the sun.

Their mouth is open wide,
The lover is inside
And the tumults done.
Collided with the sign,
They're staring at the sun,
They're standing in the sea.

I’ve got acres of land.
I’ve got men at command.
I’ve always a dollar to spare.

Note the trees because the
Dirt is temporary.
More to mine than fact, face,
Name, and monetary.

Put money in my hand and I will do the things you want me to.
Vanity overriding wisdom, usually common sense.
Should I delete it? they said they'd read it.
They promised they would never ruin it with sequels.

So come fill up your glasses of brandy and wine.
Whatever it costs, I will pay.
So be easy and free when you're drinking with me,
I'm a man you don't meet every day.

Now picture this, I'm a bag of *****, put me to your lips
I am sick, I will punch a baby bear in his ****
Give me lip, I'ma send you to the yard, get a stick
Make a switch, I can end the conversation real quick
Okay nobody speak, nobody get choked
You wanna here a good joke?

The comedy of man starts like this:
Our brains are way too big for our mothers' hips,
And so nature, she devised this alternative:
We emerge half-formed and hope
whoever greets us on the other end
Is kind enough to fill us in.
And babies, that's pretty much how it's been ever since.

Now the miracle of birth leaves a few issues to address.
Like, say, that half of us are periodically iron deficient.
So, somebody's gotta go **** something
While she looks after the kids.
She'd do it herself, but what, is he gonna get this thing its milk?
He says as soon as he gets back from the hunt, we can switch.
It's hard not to fall in love with something so helpless.
Ladies, I hope we don't end up regretting this.

That was then,
this is the twenty-first century,
And there’s too much aggravation.
It's the age of insanity,
What has become of the green pleasant fields of Jerusalem?

This is the age of machinery,
A mechanical nightmare,
The wonderful world of technology,
****** hydrogen bombs biological warfare.

There used to be a guy for this type of thing,
An underwater guy who controlled the sea,
Got killed by ten million pounds of sludge from New York
and New Jersey.

Water dissolving and water removing
There is water at the bottom of the ocean
Under the water, carry the water
Remove the water at the bottom of the ocean
Water dissolving and water removing.

Then there’s the creature in the sky
Got ****** in a hole, now there's a hole in the sky
And the ground's not cold.
And if the ground's not cold, everything is gonna burn.
We'll all take turns,
I'll get mine too.

Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by, water flowing underground
Into the cold again after the money's gone
Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground.

So I ain't got no ambition, I'm just disillusioned.
I'm a twenty-first century man but I don't wanna be here.
My mama said she can't understand me,
She can't see my motivation.
Just give me some security,
I'm a paranoid schizoid product of the twenty-first century.

When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful
A miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical.
And all the birds in the trees, well they'd be singing so happily
Oh joyfully, playfully watching me.
But then they send me away to teach me how to be sensible
Logical, oh responsible, practical.
And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable
Oh clinical, oh intellectual, cynical.

Then I had visions, I was in them.
I was looking into the mirror
To see a little bit clearer
The rottenness and evil in me.

You know I think my schooling was phoney?
I guess it's hard not to agree.
You say, "It all depends on money
And who is in your family tree."
Right (right), you're ****** well right,
You got a ****** right to say.
Right, you're ****** well right,
You know, you got a right to say.

Been around the world and found
That only stupid people are breeding,
The cretins cloning and feeding,
And I don't even own a TV.

Put me in the hospital for nerves
And then they had to commit me.
You told them all I was crazy.
They cut off my legs, now I'm an amputee,
******* you.

I don't need no education.
We don't need no thought control,
No dark sarcasm in the classroom.
Teacher, leave us kids alone.
Hey! Uncle Sam! Leave us kids alone!

We wanna grow up to be
A debaser.

“Look at me, look at me
Hands in the air like it's good to be
Alive and I'm a famous rapper,
Even when the paths are all crookedy.
I can show you how to do-see-do.
I can show you how to scratch a record.
I can take apart the remote control,
And I can almost put it back together.
I can tie a knot in a cherry stem.
I can tell you about Leif Erikson.
I know all the words to "De Colores",
And "I'm proud to be an American".
Me and my friend saw a platypus.
Me and my friend made a comic book.
And guess how long it took.
I can do anything that I want cuz

Who gives a **** about an Oxford comma?
I've seen those English dramas too; they're cruel.

So, why would you speak to me that way?
Especially when I always said that I
Haven't got the words for you.
All your diction dripping with disdain,
Through the pain, I always tell the truth.”

“Look at me, look at me
Just called to say that it's good to be
Alive in such a small world.
I'm all curled up with a book to read
I can make money open up a thrift store.
I can make a living off a magazine.
I can design an engine
sixty four miles to a gallon of gasoline.
I can make new antibiotics.
I can make computers survive aquatic conditions.
I know how to run a business,
And I can make you wanna buy a product.
Movers shakers and producers,
Me and my friends understand the future.
I see the strings that control the system.
I can do anything with no assistance because

I give a **** about the Oxford Comma!
I climbed to Dharamsala too, I did.
I met the highest Lama.
His accent sounded fine to me.

Now, why would you speak to me that way?
Especially when I always said that I
Haven't got the words for you.
All your diction dripping with disdain,
Through the pain, I always tell the truth”

Comedy, now that's what I call pure comedy.
Just wait until the part where they start to believe
They're at the center of everything
And some all-powerful being
Endowed this horror show with meaning.

Now, Uncle Sammy, did you hear about this one?
Tell me, are you locked in the punch?
Sammy, are you grinding on a pelvis?
Hey baby, are you losing touch?

If you believed they put a man on the moon,
If you believe there's nothing up his sleeve,
Then nothing is cool.

Moses went walking with the staff of wood.
Newton got beaned by the apple good.
Egypt was troubled by the horrible asp.
Mister Charles Darwin had the gall to ask.
Well I took out my dogs and them I did shoot,
All down in the county Kildare.
So be easy and free when you're drinking with me,
I'm a man you don't meet every day

And in the Twenty-First Century
From the height of the highway onramp we saw,
Two dogs, dead in a field,
Glowing on the oakland coliseum green seats wasteland,
Dogs, dogs we thought were dead,
They rose up, rose up when whistled at,
their rib cage inflating like men on the beach being photographed,
A guard dog, guard dog, for what? for what?
Against tofers ellis pennyless athletics fanatics,
Getting into games through a whole in the fence,
For the owner of the blue tarp tent,
Pitched by a creek beneath an onramp,
In the privacy of the last three,
Skin and bony tree, devoid of leaves,
And us undeceased, and our new cds,
Dippin' on goodies, oakland
it's hard to stand the sight of two dogs dead under a sky so blue.

But you think you can tell
Heaven from hell?
Blue skies from pain?
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?

I’ll say they secretly long to be some part of a car crash,
Long to see their arms stripped of the tendons,
The ****** of swelling exposed veins,
Webbing the back of their hands,
To be a red tendoned dog,
To be red tendoned dogs,
Blood breathing by the side of the highway.

Oh, their religions are the best.
They worship themselves yet they're totally obsessed
With risen zombies, celestial virgins, magic tricks.
These unbelievable outfits.
And they get terribly upset
When you question their sacred texts,
Written by woman-hating epileptics.
Their languages just serve to confuse them.
Their confusion somehow makes them more sure.
They build fortunes poisoning their offspring,
And hand out prizes when someone patents a cure.
Where did they find these goons they elected to rule them?
What makes these clowns they idolize so remarkable?
These mammals are hell-bent on fashioning new gods
So they can go on being thoughtless animals.

See the dwarfs an' see the giants,
Which one would you choose to be?
And if you can't get that together
Here's the answer, here's the key.
You can freeze like a a man of century thirty.

I'll save my breath and take it with me
Till a hundred years and so
Shame you won't be there to see me
Shaking hands with Charles de Gaulle.
Play it cool an' Saran wrap all you can
Be a century thirty man,
You can freeze like a century thirty man

So I live like everyday is my last,
But I plan for tomorrow as if I will never pass.
A Pharoah on the subway
Who never had dreams of jets but fell asleep on run ways.
I just know that one day, that anything I needed I could mold.
Get everything you want it ain't always good for the soul.
A mix of self-worth, some help, a little control,
And I don't know the rest, good as mine is your guess,
The recipe ain't the best, to make it though is our quest,
And if you choose to accept, the meaning of life is yes.

So, we ain't going to the town,
We're going to the city.
Gonna trek this **** around
And make this place a heart to be a part of, again.

That’s the dream but
There are times when all the world's asleep,
The questions run too deep
For such a simple man.
Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned.
I know it sounds absurd,
Please tell me who I am.

Is this my starring role
Or just a cameo?
Who am I living for?
Well, I can't take no more,
'Cuz when it rains, it pours
What am I living for?
I don't got much, but I got heart and soul.
I found myself through all the highs and lows.
Oh Will I drown in the pain,
Or go dance in the rain?
What am I living for?

So, I can lead a nation with a microphone?
And I can split the atom of a molecule?
Look at me, look at me
Drivin' and I won't stop
And it feels so good to be alive and on top
My reach, is global
My tower, secure
My cause, is noble
My power,
is pure.

And it’s the end of the world as we know it.
it starts with an earthquake
Birds and snakes, and aeroplanes
And Lenny Bruce is not afraid
In the eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn
World serves its own needs
Don't mis-serve your own needs
Speed it up a notch, speed, grunt, no, strength
The ladder starts to clatter
With a fear of height, down, height
Wire in a fire, represent the seven games
And a government for hire and a combat site
Left her, wasn't coming in a hurry
With the Furies breathing down my neck.

Paranoia, paranoia,
Everybody's coming to get me.
Just say you never met me,
I'm running underground with the moles, digging holes.
Hear the voices in my head,
I swear to God it sounds like they're snoring.
But if you're bored, then you're boring.
The agony and the irony, they're killing me.

I’m dead but the world keeps spinning.
Take a spin through the world I left,
It's getting dark a little too early.
Am I missing the dearly bereft?

Timmy, Timmy, Timmy Turner
He was wishin' for a burner
To **** everybody walkin'
He knows that his soul in the furnace

Young man walkin', wishin' for a burner
Four, five, six, ten ratchets on 'em
Ten men with 'em, ten clappin' on 'em
Dead men with 'em, dead men, get 'em
Four-five rip 'em, four-five zip 'em
You talk money, young men get 'em
Beluga, beluga, beluga
he fell in love with the Ruger
he fell in love with his jeweler
he fell in love with the mullah
It's all about the rule
It's all about the move
It's all about the rules

That was then,
Now I am a man, man, man,
Up, up in the air
And I run around, round, round, round
this downtown and act like I don't care.
So when you see me flying by the planet's moon,
You don't need to explain if everything's changed
Just know I'm just like you.

So I pull the switch, the switch, the switch inside my head.
And I see black, black, green,
and brown, brown, brown and blue, yellow, violets, red.
And suddenly a light appears inside my brain
And I think of my ways,
I think of my days
and know that I have changed.

So, be easy and free,
when you’re drinkin’ with me
I’m a man you don’t meet every day.

Why do mechanics need manuals when they’ve fixed it before?
Answer my question or I’ll walk out the door!
Didn’t they attend trade schools or get O.J.T.?
Why need repair manuals?  That what gets me.
I just want a mechanic who won’t refer to a book.
Just fix my car already, don’t give it a second look!

Why do pilots run checklists and reference their charts?
Just push the dang button and hope the plane starts!
Didn’t they go to flight school and pass all the tests?
Pilots fly most days, so who needs all that mess?
I want a pilot who knows without referencing a chart.
Just get on with the flying and prove that you’re smart!

What about the doctors who are practicing still?
Why can’t they get it right?  And that includes the bill!
They’re always researching new studies in journals
When time’s better spent attending patients’ internals.
I just want a Marcus Welby, Ben Casey or Kildare
Instead of keeping up to date, I just want them to care.

Why do lawyers review case studies and legal decisions?
Such antics in my book leave them open to derision.
All that studying in law school should have been enough.
After passing the bar they should already know their stuff.
I just want an attorney who’s a know-it-all ace,
Not a book worm mouthpiece to plead my case.

Finally, the poets, being wordsmiths their art
You won’t see them referencing a checklist or chart
But look, in their hands, just what can that be?
A dictionary?  Thesaurus?  Are those what I see?
A real poet never needs help reading Shakespeare or Keats
Using Webster and Roget would make all of us cheats!
If a poet is real, the words should just flow
I think that all poets should automatically know
The right words to use, and literary crutches forgo
How dare they try better vocabulary to hone
They should come up with good things to say on their own.
I’m looking for poets who’ll just know what to say
Like Lewis Carroll’s poems in his heyday:
“Twas brillig, and the slithy toves, Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogroves, And the mome raths outgrabe.”

Don’t bother looking up his words, for that would be a dumb thing.
Using a dictionary or thesaurus, you might actually learn something!

REVISITING NO. 31 O'HIGGINS ROAD,
CURRAGH CAMP, CO. KILDARE

Time, that great
wind blew

away all the windows
doors and walls

of the home where
I had learnt to read

until now no house
exists at all.

Only the empty space
that a bird flies through.

I keep the roof
over my head

just to spite time
the one I drew with crayon

it still persists
in the child's mind.

My short-sighted dyslexic eye
can still see such things

a herd of brontosauri
moving from sentence to sentence

across a wilderness
of pages.

My finger tracing the sound
of a name

R.M. Ballantyne
my mouth trying to do the same.

Time too has taken
away the boy

and by some strange alchemy
made me an old man.

But the child's mind
laughs at this trick

the mere aging
of flesh.

The child that
cannot die.

The house that doesn't exist
except for my crayoned purple roof

and a name I still like
to sound.

"Come words!" I command them
as they gather me

hold me like flowers
held in a hand.

The herd of brontosauri
moving now from

one page
to the next.

i went to see my mamma in the county of kildare
the home i was born brought and raised up there
we talked about the times that we used to share
when ever i was down. she gave me love and care.

if i began to cry she would love and comfort me
wipe away the tears so my eyes could see
days we went out walking all along the shore
we would watch the tide coming home once more

looking at the fields with there shades of green
we would count them all.   how many we had seen
all these different things are the things we did
that i did with mamma when i was just a kid.

a mamma in a million is what she is to me
always by my side mamma she would be
all the special times that we used to share
in the place i was raised in the county of kildare

Clover honey sunshine o'er Sassafras rivers
Proud Martins sing for notoriety , full bloom-
white sugar , shivers in the afternoon pasture
Our last Raven of the hard day season
Roaster , stained glass color kinda holidays -
liquid Kildare clover valleys , euphoric July nightshades

HISTORY. . .HAPPENS.

It is 11.32
in 1132 and  - now.

A sunset sets fire
to Kildare

burns it to the ground.

Night takes the town
in its arms.

Memory sets fire to time.

I, a mind invisible
( divisible by all )

move through the pages
of history

slip silently through
the ages

an unobserved
observer.

The ghost I've
yet to be.

The latitude of now
the longitude of then

the ****** flux
of history.

Voices scattered throughout time
( spoken in as 16th century accent )

whisper to me
greedily

wanting to be
remembered.

". . .the successor of Brigit
was betrayed

carried off...put into a man's bed
forced to submit to him."

"I hear you..!" I say
". . .I hear you!

". . .seven score killed
in Cill Dara...most of it burnt..!

The Chronicles tell
the tattered tale.

The voices once again
lost in the wind.

Diarmud Mac Murrough's
violence on Kildare

happens all over
again and again

written upon the wind.

The **** of the abbess
destroying the divinity

of her authority
her harmony.

A woman baptises
her new born

with milk
as in the old way.

The fires of her age
flickering across her frightened face.

Brigit born anew.

Time tamed
comes to my side

licks my hand
like some mythical hound.


"Take me back..."
I command
". . .to my own now!"

"Now!"
I cry.

Out of the Silken Thomas
one two and three inebriated

merrymakers sway and spill
out into the Christmas of I984.

One big one small and one very very tall
together they sing

informing the yet-to-be
of what is lost and past.

"Rejoyce!" the snow says:
"...snow falling faintly through the universe

and falling faintly...upon the living and the dead."

I tell the night
that is already passing into

the great beyond.

"Remember O Thou Man
Oh Thou Man, oh Thou Man.

Remember, O Thou Man
Thy time is spent.

Remember, O Thou Man
How thou camest to me then

And I did what I can
therefore re. . ."

WALKING FROM THE RISING SUN TO KILDARE TOWN.

I take up
my stick &

walk:
back into my past.

Planting the countryside
of my youth

with each step
the years falling away.

The young me unfolds
into being.

The flag of self unfurls
snaps into the lost moment.

My shadow strides
ahead of me

impatient with this
flesh and blood man.

My shadow stops
waits for me to

catch up
catch my breath.

He stares at me
with broken dandelion eyes

a green milk bottle top
mimics a nose

a leaf acted
as a smile.

I laugh at this me
created by chance

and happenstance
step once more

into my shadow's footsteps
let it lead the way.

A tree which had been
there since I had been three

sarcastically remarks" "Oh, is it
yer self that's...in it?"

"It is!" says I
addressing the sky

spread before me
a vast blue field.

Furze blazes
with yellow.

Horses turn to
the gallops.

The sudden thunder of hooves
jockeying with laughter.

I left here to
make something of myself.

I, then...a nervous nobody
returning now

a mere nothing
a success only at failure.

I recite Hopkins
to a straying sheep.

The sheep suspiciously
regards this poet

hitting his stride now
"Nothing is so..."

The sheep coughs.

"... beautiful as
Spring!"

I tell a passing cloud
who is in too much of a hurry.

The poet's proud words
falling by the wayside

as me-then and
the me of now

stroll down
(cane nonchalantly in hand)
memory lane.

The Future hiding just

up around the

corner.

I’ve run the gamut
From plus to minus
From nearly the worst
To among the finest.
But there was an actor
I’d love to date again.
The incredibly attractive
Richard Chamberlain.

Richard Chamberlain
You magnificent man
I blush to write a poem
But I will do what I can
To get the point across
That you’re one of a kind
To think otherwise one must
Be deaf, mute and blind.

I am just old enough to
Recall young Doctor Kildare.
I am sure with cable now
It always plays somewhere.
But, for a young gay kid
I immediately lost my heart.
I could not convince myself
You were just playing a part.

To me you were the doctor
That could heal where I ailed.
No matter that at this time
What I felt could get me jailed.
I just went on and pined for
This beautiful man on TV.
Every word he said seemed
To be music to young me.

So when I got the chance
To spend an evening with him
Dancing at a nice party
Thrown by a mutual friend
I jumped at the chance
And broke a cardinal rule
I told him of my crush on him
I am sure I looked the fool.

Thus, it really wasn’t a date
More of an amazing evening.
That kind of happy accident
I still have trouble believing.
But it counts as a date to me
When a delightful, classy man
Spends the evening chatting
With an obviously smitten fan.

NO. 31 O'HIGGINS ROAD, CURRAGH CAMP, CO. KILDARE.

I climb a stair
that isn't there
stand on a landing

in mid-air
each step I take
creates the next part

of the vanished
house
lost to time

as see through
as a cartoon
ghost

this was
(still is)
for me

No. 31 O'Higgins Road
my world
the universe of me

what was once
my bedroom...
is now a cloud

a window
become
a moon

night and its storm
sit in
our living room

a bird tiptoes
down the stair
flying through

nine year old me
reaching for
the light switch

to turn on
what isn't
there

THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
      RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON

( for John Smith )

It was...
Oct 5th - 1970.

A Monday.


The day had gone
from dry to drizzle to

wet.


It was the 278th day
of the year...only

87 days remaining
until the end of the year.

I knew I had to act now.
It was now...or never.

Time? I forget the time.
Time was standing still.

Huge clouds
menaced the horizon

impersonating an Armada
of Spanish Galleons.

Full sail ahead then.
I took a step into my future.

The smiling President drawing
nearer and nearer.

In Nass
the drenched crowed cheered.

In Newbridge now
flocks of children chase the car

like he was some
kinda Piper from Hamelin.

I kept a close eye on
the secret service

all dressed in the same suit
looking like clones

of one another
talking into their sleeves.

My gaze searches and settles
upon him

like the cross-hairs
of a ******'s rifle.

Sure he had called his setter
King Timahoe

after where his folks came from
another American looking for his roots

bolstering the Irish-American vote.

And now here he was
the man himself

in person
the 37th President.

Irish colleens dancing
upon a make-shift stage

in the square
of Kildare.

He's here oh so near
I can see the pores of his skin

a bead of sweat trickles into
that infamous Nixon grin.

Dare I do it now?
My hair falling into my eyes.

My mind flashes back to
1729

when his Quaker ancestors
fled the Emerald Isle.

Three centuries pass by in a second and
we're here

in the middle of
The Vietnam War

and he speaks of
"a passion for peace...preventing war...building peace."

Yeah yeah...sure sure!

Carpet bombing Cambodia
the famous Nixon duplicity

the "credibility gap" opening
between what he says and what he does.

Oh there are protests
he has 5 eggs hurlers.

"Splatsplatsplatsplat and splat!"
Only one near hit.

And one man protesting
the price of a pint

up'd( for the occasion )to
one shilling and jaysus seven pence.

What's the world
coming to?

School kids waving
their plastic( in slow mo )

American flags
on little plastic sticks.

I raise my flag.
I raise my...voice

shooting my mouth off
with a great shout:

'TRICKY DICKY! TRICKY DICKY!
WOULD YOU BUY A USED CAR FROM THIS MAN!"

Several secret service scowl.
My words hit him...Nixon frowns.

Character assassination.

Mr. McCann
aka "The Bicycle Man!"

curses me
in Irish.

After all he is
my Irish teacher.

D'anam leis an diabhal...Ó Diomasaigh!"
("Your soul to the devil...Dempsey!")

"THE TIME HAS COME TO CALL
A ***** A ****** SHOVEL..."

I yell as
I get a clip around the ear.

McCann holds his hand
over my mouth.

Then suddenly Nixon
is no longer

there.

The hurled words
disappear into the air.

Us school boys
***** damply back to double Maths.

The De La Salle
Academy looming up before us.

Mr. McCann
hoovers near.

I cover both
my ears.

But he only tousles
my hair.

"Ahhh mo amadán beag cróga!"
( "Ahhh my brave little fool!")

"Maith an bhuachaill...maith an bhuachaill!"
( "Good boy...good boy!")

He grins.
Slips me a sixpence.

I sing the new Led Zep
only released that day.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Being only 12
I had done what had to be done.

My political life
had only just begun.

REVISITING NO. 31 O'HIGGINS ROAD,
CURRAGH CAMP, CO. KILDARE

Time, that great
wind blew

away all the windows
doors and walls

of the home where
I had learnt to read

until now no house
exists at all.

Only the empty space
that a bird flies through.

I keep the roof
over my head

just to spite time
the one I drew with crayon

it still persists
in the child's mind.

My short-sighted dyslexic eye
can still see such things

a herd of brontosauri
moving from sentence to sentence

across a wilderness
of pages.

My finger tracing the sound
of a name

R.M. Ballantyne
my mouth trying to do the same.

Time too has taken
away the boy

and by some strange alchemy
made me an old man.

But the child's mind
laughs at this trick

the mere aging
of flesh.

The child that
cannot die.

The house that doesn't exist
except for my crayoned purple roof

and a name I still like
to sound.

"Come words!" I command them
as they gather me

hold me like flowers
held in a hand.

The herd of brontosauri
moving now from

one page
to the next.

WALKING FROM THE RISING SUN TO KILDARE TOWN.

I take up
my stick &

walk:
back into my past.

Planting the countryside
of my youth

with each step
the years falling away.

The young me unfolds
into being.

The flag of self unfurls
snaps into the lost moment.

My shadow strides
ahead of me

impatient with this
flesh and blood man.

My shadow stops
waits for me to

catch up
catch my breath.

He stares at me
with broken dandelion eyes

a green milk bottle top
mimics a nose

a leaf acted
as a smile.

I laugh at this me
created by chance

and happenstance
step once more

into my shadow's footsteps
let it lead the way.

A tree which had been
there since I had been three

sarcastically remarks" "Oh, is it
yer self that's...in it?"

"It is!" says I
addressing the sky

spread before me
a vast blue field.

Furze blazes
with yellow.

Horses turn to
the gallops.

The sudden thunder of hooves
jockeying with laughter.

I left here to
make something of myself.

I, then...a nervous nobody
returning now

a mere nothing
a success only at failure.

I recite Hopkins
to a straying sheep.

The sheep suspiciously
regards this poet

hitting his stride now
"Nothing is so..."

The sheep coughs.

"... beautiful as
Spring!"

I tell a passing cloud
who is in too much of a hurry.

The poet's proud words
falling by the wayside

as me-then and
the me of now

stroll down
(cane nonchalantly in hand)
memory lane.

The Future hiding just

up around the

corner.

THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
      RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON

It was...
Oct 5th - 1970.

A Monday.

It was the 278th day
of the year...only

87 days remaining
until the end of the year.

I knew I had to act now.
It was now...or never.

Time? I forget the time.
Time was standing still.

Huge clouds
menaced the horizon

impersonating an Armada
of Spanish Galleons.

Full sail ahead then.
I took a step into my future.

The smiling President drawing
nearer and nearer.

In Nass
the drenched crowed cheered.

In Newbridge now
flocks of children chase the car

like he was some
kinda Piper from Hamelin.

I kept a close eye on
the secret service

all dressed in the same suit
looking like clones

of one another
talking into their sleeves.

My gaze searches and settles
upon him

like the cross-hairs
of a ******'s rifle.

Sure he had called his setter
King Timahoe

after where his folks came from
another American looking for his roots

bolstering the Irish-American vote.

And now here he was
the man himself

in person
the 37th President.

Irish colleens dancing
upon a make-shift stage

in the square
of Kildare.

He's here oh so near
I can see the pores of his skin

a bead of sweat trickles into
that infamous Nixon grin.

Dare I do it now?
My hair falling into my eyes.

My mind flashes back to
1729

when his Quaker ancestors
fled the Emerald Isle.

Three centuries pass by in a second and
we're here

in the middle of
The Vietnam War

and he speaks of
"a passion for peace...preventing war...building peace."

Yeah yeah...sure sure!

Carpet bombing Cambodia
the famous Nixon duplicity

the "credibility gap" opening
between what he says and what he does.

Oh there are protests
he has 5 eggs hurlers.

"Splatsplatsplatsplat and splat!"
Only one near hit.

And one man protesting
the price of a pint

up'd( for the occasion )to
one shilling and jaysus seven pence.

What's the world
coming to?

School kids waving
their plastic( in slow mo )

American flags
on little plastic sticks.

I raise my flag.
I raise my...voice

shooting my mouth off
with a great shout:

'TRICKY DICKY! TRICKY DICKY!
WOULD YOU BUY A USED CAR FROM THIS MAN!"

Several secret service scowl.
My words hit him...Nixon frowns.

Character assassination.

Mr. McCann
aka "The Bicycle Man!"

curses me
in Irish.

After all he is
my Irish teacher.

D'anam leis an diabhal...Ó Diomasaigh!"
("Your soul to the devil...Dempsey!")

"THE TIME HAS COME TO CALL
A ***** A ****** SHOVEL..."

I yell as
I get a clip around the ear.

McCann holds his hand
over my mouth.

Then suddenly Nixon
is no longer

there.

The hurled words
disappear into the air.

Us school boys
***** damply back to double Maths.

The De La Salle
Academy looming up before us.

Mr. McCann
hoovers near.

I cover both
my ears.

But he only tousles
my hair.

"Ahhh mo amadán beag cróga!"
( "Ahhh my brave little fool!")

"Maith an bhuachaill...maith an bhuachaill!"
( "Good boy...good boy!")

He grins.
Slips me a sixpence.

I sing the new Led Zep
only released that day.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Being only 12
I had done what had to be done.

My political life
had only just begun.
*

The long forgotten "never-to-be-forgotten" visit made to Hodgestown near Timahoe in the county of Kildare back in the day as we leave the Sixties sadly behind us for the austerity of the '70's and the "Yes we can" of the Sixties begins to loose its lustre.

The Timahoeans are not exactly proud of giving the world Mr. Nixon and stay quite quiet about it. The Kennedy visit was the golden one and Clinton and Reagan had theirs but Tricky Dicky's one has faded into the fog of history.

"Jessamyn West, who has written so eloquently about the background of our family, has said, the Quakers have a passion for peace. My mother was a pacifist. My grandmother was a pacifist. Jessamyn's mother was, her grandmother, her grandfather, going back as far as we know."

President Nixon in the Timahoe graveyard.

Don't know what happened to him then!

"The time has come to call a ***** a ****** shovel. This country is in an undeclared and unexplained war in Vietnam. Our masters have a lot of long and fancy names for it, like escalation and retaliation, but it is a war just the same." - James Reston.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Led Zeppelin 111 - Immigrant Song.

WALKING FROM THE RISING SUN TO KILDARE TOWN.

I take up
my stick &

walk:
back into my past.

Planting the countryside
of my youth

with each step
the years falling away.

The young me unfolds
into being.

The flag of self unfurls
snaps into the lost moment.

My shadow strides
ahead of me

impatient with this
flesh and blood man.

My shadow stops
waits for me to

catch up
catch my breath.

He stares at me
with broken dandelion eyes

a green milk bottle top
mimics a nose

a leaf acted
as a smile.

I laugh at this me
created by chance

and happenstance
step once more

into my shadow's footsteps
let it lead the way.

A tree which had been
there since I had been three

sarcastically remarks" "Oh, is it
yer self that's...in it?"

"It is!" says I
addressing the sky

spread before me
a vast blue field.

Furze blazes
with yellow.

Horses turn to
the gallops.

The sudden thunder of hooves
jockeying with laughter.

I left here to
make something of myself.

I, then...a nervous nobody
returning now

a mere nothing
a success only at failure.

I recite Hopkins
to a straying sheep.

The sheep suspiciously
regards this poet

hitting his stride now
"Nothing is so..."

The sheep coughs.

"... beautiful as
Spring!"

I tell a passing cloud
who is in too much of a hurry.

The poet's proud words
falling by the wayside

as me-then and
the me of now

stroll down
(cane nonchalantly in hand)
memory lane.

The Future hiding just

up around the

corner.

*

Set off with my chipped ankle and on a stick forgetting how far it would be....so it was my past revisited me and came to view this hobbly old man who claimed he was once this young boy!
All it proved was that I was an auld codger who didn't know his left foot from his right! But by God I can limp a good 4 miles as well as any other auld fella.

HISTORY. . .HAPPENS.

It is 11.32
in 1132 and  - now.

A sunset sets fire
to Kildare

burns it to the ground.

Night takes the town
in its arms.

Memory sets fire to time.

I, a mind invisible
( divisible by all )

move through the pages
of history

slip silently through
the ages

an unobserved
observer.

The ghost I've
yet to be.

The latitude of now
the longitude of then

the ****** flux
of history.

Voices scattered throughout time
( spoken in a 16th century accent )

whisper to me
greedily

wanting to be
remembered.

". . .the successor of Brigit
was betrayed

carried off...put into a man's bed
forced to submit to him."

"I hear you..!" I say
". . .I hear you!

". . .seven score killed
in Cill Dara...most of it burnt..!

The Chronicles tell
the tattered tale.

The voices once again
lost in the wind.

Diarmud Mac Murrough's
violence on Kildare

happens all over
again and again

written upon the wind.

The **** of the abbess
destroying the divinity

of her authority
her harmony.

A woman baptises
her new born

with milk
as in the old way.

The fires of her age
flickering across her frightened face.

Brigit born anew.

Time tamed
comes to my side

licks my hand
like some mythical hound.

"Take me back..."
I command
". . .to my own now!"

"Now!"
I cry.

Out of the Silken Thomas
one two and three inebriated

merrymakers sway and spill
out into the Christmas of I984.

One big one small and one very very tall
together they sing

informing the yet-to-be
of what is lost and past.

"Rejoyce!" the snow says:
"...snow falling faintly through the universe

and falling faintly...upon the living and the dead."

I tell the night
that is already passing into

the great beyond.

"Remember O Thou Man
Oh Thou Man, oh Thou Man.

Remember, O Thou Man
Thy time is spent.

Remember, O Thou Man
How thou camest to me then

And I did what I can
therefore re. . ."

THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
      RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON

( for John Smith )

It was...
Oct 5th - 1970.

A Monday.

It was the 278th day
of the year...only

87 days remaining
until the end of the year.

I knew I had to act now.
It was now...or never.

Time? I forget the time.
Time was standing still.

Huge clouds
menaced the horizon

impersonating an Armada
of Spanish Galleons.

Full sail ahead then.
I took a step into my future.

The smiling President drawing
nearer and nearer.

In Nass
the drenched crowed cheered.

In Newbridge now
flocks of children chase the car

like he was some
kinda Piper from Hamelin.

I kept a close eye on
the secret service

all dressed in the same suit
looking like clones

of one another
talking into their sleeves.

My gaze searches and settles
upon him

like the cross-hairs
of a ******'s rifle.

Sure he had called his setter
King Timahoe

after where his folks came from
another American looking for his roots

bolstering the Irish-American vote.

And now here he was
the man himself

in person
the 37th President.

Irish colleens dancing
upon a make-shift stage

in the square
of Kildare.

He's here oh so near
I can see the pores of his skin

a bead of sweat trickles into
that infamous Nixon grin.

Dare I do it now?
My hair falling into my eyes.

My mind flashes back to
1729

when his Quaker ancestors
fled the Emerald Isle.

Three centuries pass by in a second and
we're here

in the middle of
The Vietnam War

and he speaks of
"a passion for peace...preventing war...building peace."

Yeah yeah...sure sure!

Carpet bombing Cambodia
the famous Nixon duplicity

the "credibility gap" opening
between what he says and what he does.

Oh there are protests
he has 5 eggs hurlers.

"Splatsplatsplatsplat and splat!"
Only one near hit.

And one man protesting
the price of a pint

up'd( for the occasion )to
one shilling and jaysus seven pence.

What's the world
coming to?

School kids waving
their plastic( in slow mo )

American flags
on little plastic sticks.

I raise my flag.
I raise my...voice

shooting my mouth off
with a great shout:

'TRICKY DICKY! TRICKY DICKY!
WOULD YOU BUY A USED CAR FROM THIS MAN!"

Several secret service scowl.
My words hit him...Nixon frowns.

Character assassination.

Mr. McCann
aka "The Bicycle Man!"

curses me
in Irish.

After all he is
my Irish teacher.

D'anam leis an diabhal...Ó Diomasaigh!"
("Your soul to the devil...Dempsey!")

"THE TIME HAS COME TO CALL
A ***** A ****** SHOVEL..."

I yell as
I get a clip around the ear.

McCann holds his hand
over my mouth.

Then suddenly Nixon
is no longer

there.

The hurled words
disappear into the air.

Us school boys
***** damply back to double Maths.

The De La Salle
Academy looming up before us.

Mr. McCann
hoovers near.

I cover both
my ears.

But he only tousles
my hair.

"Ahhh mo amadán beag cróga!"
( "Ahhh my brave little fool!")

"Maith an bhuachaill...maith an bhuachaill!"
( "Good boy...good boy!")

He grins.
Slips me a sixpence.

I sing the new Led Zep
only released that day.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Being only 12
I had done what had to be done.

My political life
had only just begun.

THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
      RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON

It was...
Oct 5th - 1970.

A Monday.

It was the 278th day
of the year...only

87 days remaining
until the end of the year.

I knew I had to act now.
It was now...or never.

Time? I forget the time.
Time was standing still.

Huge clouds
menaced the horizon

impersonating an Armada
of Spanish Galleons.

Full sail ahead then.
I took a step into my future.

The smiling President drawing
nearer and nearer.

In Nass
the drenched crowed cheered.

In Newbridge now
flocks of children chase the car

like he was some
kinda Piper from Hamelin.

I kept a close eye on
the secret service

all dressed in the same suit
looking like clones

of one another
talking into their sleeves.

My gaze searches and settles
upon him

like the cross-hairs
of a ******'s rifle.

Sure he had called his setter
King Timahoe

after where his folks came from
another American looking for his roots

bolstering the Irish-American vote.

And now here he was
the man himself

in person
the 37th President.

Irish colleens dancing
upon a make-shift stage

in the square
of Kildare.

He's here oh so near
I can see the pores of his skin

a bead of sweat trickles into
that infamous Nixon grin.

Dare I do it now?
My hair falling into my eyes.

My mind flashes back to
1729

when his Quaker ancestors
fled the Emerald Isle.

Three centuries pass by in a second and
we're here

in the middle of
The Vietnam War

and he speaks of
"a passion for peace...preventing war...building peace."

Yeah yeah...sure sure!

Carpet bombing Cambodia
the famous Nixon duplicity

the "credibility gap" opening
between what he says and what he does.

Oh there are protests
he has 5 eggs hurlers.

"Splatsplatsplatsplat and splat!"
Only one near hit.

And one man protesting
the price of a pint

up'd( for the occasion )to
one shilling and jaysus seven pence.

What's the world
coming to?

School kids waving
their plastic( in slow mo )

American flags
on little plastic sticks.

I raise my flag.
I raise my...voice

shooting my mouth off
with a great shout:

'TRICKY DICKY! TRICKY DICKY!
WOULD YOU BUY A USED CAR FROM THIS MAN!"

Several secret service scowl.
My words hit him...Nixon frowns.

Character assassination.

Mr. McCann
aka "The Bicycle Man!"

curses me
in Irish.

After all he is
my Irish teacher.

D'anam leis an diabhal...Ó Diomasaigh!"
("Your soul to the devil...Dempsey!")

"THE TIME HAS COME TO CALL
A ***** A ****** SHOVEL..."

I yell as
I get a clip around the ear.

McCann holds his hand
over my mouth.

Then suddenly Nixon
is no longer

there.

The hurled words
disappear into the air.

Us school boys
***** damply back to double Maths.

The De La Salle
Academy looming up before us.

Mr. McCann
hoovers near.

I cover both
my ears.

But he only tousles
my hair.

"Ahhh mo amadán beag cróga!"
( "Ahhh my brave little fool!")

"Maith an bhuachaill...maith an bhuachaill!"
( "Good boy...good boy!")

He grins.
Slips me a sixpence.

I sing the new Led Zep
only released that day.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Being only 12
I had done what had to be done.

My political life
had only just begun.

*

The long forgotten "never-to-be-forgotten" visit made to Hodgestown near Timahoe in the county of Kildare back in the day as we leave the Sixties sadly behind us for the austerity of the '70's and the "Yes we can" of the Sixties begins to loose its lustre.

The Timahoeans are not exactly proud of giving the world Mr. Nixon and stay quite quiet about it. The Kennedy visit was the golden one and Clinton and Reagan had theirs but Tricky Dicky's one has faded into the fog of history.

"Jessamyn West, who has written so eloquently about the background of our family, has said, the Quakers have a passion for peace. My mother was a pacifist. My grandmother was a pacifist. Jessamyn's mother was, her grandmother, her grandfather, going back as far as we know."

President Nixon in the Timahoe graveyard.

Don't know what happened to him then!

"The time has come to call a ***** a ****** shovel. This country is in an undeclared and unexplained war in Vietnam. Our masters have a lot of long and fancy names for it, like escalation and retaliation, but it is a war just the same." - James Reston.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Led Zeppelin 111 - Immigrant Song.

HISTORY. . .HAPPENS.

It is 11.32
in 1132 and  - now.

A sunset sets fire
to Kildare

burns it to the ground.

Night takes the town
in its arms.

Memory sets fire to time.

I, a mind invisible
( divisible by all )

move through the pages
of history

slip silently through
the ages

an unobserved
observer.

The ghost I've
yet to be.

The latitude of now
the longitude of then

the ****** flux
of history.

Voices scattered throughout time
( spoken in a 16th century accent )

whisper to me
greedily

wanting to be
remembered.

". . .the successor of Brigit
was betrayed

carried off...put into a man's bed
forced to submit to him."

"I hear you..!" I say
". . .I hear you!

". . .seven score killed
in Cill Dara...most of it burnt..!

The Chronicles tell
the tattered tale.

The voices once again
lost in the wind.

Diarmud Mac Murrough's
violence on Kildare

happens all over
again and again

written upon the wind.

The **** of the abbess
destroying the divinity

of her authority
her harmony.

A woman baptises
her new born

with milk
as in the old way.

The fires of her age
flickering across her frightened face.

Brigit born anew.

Time tamed
comes to my side

licks my hand
like some mythical hound.

"Take me back..."
I command
". . .to my own now!"

"Now!"
I cry.

Out of the Silken Thomas
one two and three inebriated

merrymakers sway and spill
out into the Christmas of I984.

One big one small and one very very tall
together they sing

informing the yet-to-be
of what is lost and past.

"Rejoyce!" the snow says:
"...snow falling faintly through the universe

and falling faintly...upon the living and the dead."

I tell the night
that is already passing into

the great beyond.

"Remember O Thou Man
Oh Thou Man, oh Thou Man.

Remember, O Thou Man
Thy time is spent.

Remember, O Thou Man
How thou camest to me then

And I did what I can
therefore re. . ."

THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
      RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON


It was...
Oct 5th - 1970.

A Monday.

It was the 278th day
of the year...only

87 days remaining
until the end of the year.

I knew I had to act now.
It was now...or never.

Time? I forget the time.
Time was standing still.

Huge clouds
menaced the horizon

impersonating an Armada
of Spanish Galleons.

Full sail ahead then.
I took a step into my future.

The smiling President drawing
nearer and nearer.

In Nass
the drenched crowed cheered.

In Newbridge now
flocks of children chase the car

like he was some
kinda Piper from Hamelin.

I kept a close eye on
the secret service

all dressed in the same suit
looking like clones

of one another
talking into their sleeves.

My gaze searches and settles
upon him

like the cross-hairs
of a ******'s rifle.

Sure he had called his setter
King Timahoe

after where his folks came from
another American looking for his roots

bolstering the Irish-American vote.

And now here he was
the man himself

in person
the 37th President.

Irish colleens dancing
upon a make-shift stage

in the square
of Kildare.

He's here oh so near
I can see the pores of his skin

a bead of sweat trickles into
that infamous Nixon grin.

Dare I do it now?
My hair falling into my eyes.

My mind flashes back to
1729

when his Quaker ancestors
fled the Emerald Isle.

Three centuries pass by in a second and
we're here

in the middle of
The Vietnam War

and he speaks of
"a passion for peace...preventing war...building peace."

Yeah yeah...sure sure!

Carpet bombing Cambodia
the famous Nixon duplicity

the "credibility gap" opening
between what he says and what he does.

Oh there are protests
he has 5 eggs hurlers.

"Splatsplatsplatsplat and splat!"
Only one near hit.

And one man protesting
the price of a pint

up'd( for the occasion )to
one shilling and jaysus seven pence.

What's the world
coming to?

School kids waving
their plastic( in slow mo )

American flags
on little plastic sticks.

I raise my flag.
I raise my...voice

shooting my mouth off
with a great shout:

'TRICKY DICKY! TRICKY DICKY!
WOULD YOU BUY A USED CAR FROM THIS MAN!"

Several secret service scowl.
My words hit him...Nixon frowns.

Character assassination.

Mr. McCann
aka "The Bicycle Man!"

curses me
in Irish.

After all he is
my Irish teacher.

D'anam leis an diabhal...Ó Diomasaigh!"
("Your soul to the devil...Dempsey!")

"THE TIME HAS COME TO CALL
A ***** A ****** SHOVEL..."

I yell as
I get a clip around the ear.

McCann holds his hand
over my mouth.

Then suddenly Nixon
is no longer

there.

The hurled words
disappear into the air.

Us school boys
***** damply back to double Maths.

The De La Salle
Academy looming up before us.

Mr. McCann
hoovers near.

I cover both
my ears.

But he only tousles
my hair.

"Ahhh mo amadán beag cróga!"
( "Ahhh my brave little fool!")

"Maith an bhuachaill...maith an bhuachaill!"
( "Good boy...good boy!")

He grins.
Slips me a sixpence.

I sing the new Led Zep
only released that day.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Being only 12
I had done what had to be done.

My political life
had only just begun.

A SMALL YARD IN THE CENTRE OF IRELAND
( For Jeremy Loynes )

every morning
the small yard
stole some sunlight

just enough
to cover itself
in gold

before the shadows
stole it
back again

it was only
a small yard
in the centre of Ireland

hosting a coal bunker
a mangle
and an outside loo

the visiting cat
and the small child
knew exactly when

to dash out
and soak up
the precious glow

the yard gloried
in the gift
of such sunlight

and the child
who grew and grew
to become the man

who never told anyone
of the stolen
sunshine

until the words
gave the secret away
whispered it to the page

*

The small yard used to belong to the house that was called No. 31 O'Higgins Road in the county of Kildare. It no longer exists and has vanished into the air losing all the time it was. This was the small universe of both child and cat so much beloved by both of them. Only I can travel back there...find my way there...following the trail of memory and be there whenever my mind needs a place to hide as the man becomes the child he was once upon a long long time ago.

THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
      RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON

It was...
Oct 5th - 1970.

A Monday.

It was the 278th day
of the year...only

87 days remaining
until the end of the year.

I knew I had to act now.
It was now...or never.

Time? I forget the time.
Time was standing still.

Huge clouds
menaced the horizon

impersonating an Armada
of Spanish Galleons.

Full sail ahead then.
I took a step into my future.

The smiling President drawing
nearer and nearer.

In Nass
the drenched crowed cheered.

In Newbridge now
flocks of children chase the car

like he was some
kinda Piper from Hamelin.

I kept a close eye on
the secret service

all dressed in the same suit
looking like clones

of one another
talking into their sleeves.

My gaze searches and settles
upon him

like the cross-hairs
of a ******'s rifle.

Sure he had called his setter
King Timahoe

after where his folks came from
another American looking for his roots

bolstering the Irish-American vote.

And now here he was
the man himself

in person
the 37th President.

Irish colleens dancing
upon a make-shift stage

in the square
of Kildare.

He's here oh so near
I can see the pores of his skin

a bead of sweat trickles into
that infamous Nixon grin.

Dare I do it now?
My hair falling into my eyes.

My mind flashes back to
1729

when his Quaker ancestors
fled the Emerald Isle.

Three centuries pass by in a second and
we're here

in the middle of
The Vietnam War

and he speaks of
"a passion for peace...preventing war...building peace."

Yeah yeah...sure sure!

Carpet bombing Cambodia
the famous Nixon duplicity

the "credibility gap" opening
between what he says and what he does.

Oh there are protests
he has 5 eggs hurlers.

"Splatsplatsplatsplat and splat!"
Only one near hit.

And one man protesting
the price of a pint

up'd( for the occasion )to
one shilling and jaysus seven pence.

What's the world
coming to?

School kids waving
their plastic( in slow mo )

American flags
on little plastic sticks.

I raise my flag.
I raise my...voice

shooting my mouth off
with a great shout:

'TRICKY DICKY! TRICKY DICKY!
WOULD YOU BUY A USED CAR FROM THIS MAN!"

Several secret service scowl.
My words hit him...Nixon frowns.

Character assassination.

Mr. McCann
aka "The Bicycle Man!"

curses me
in Irish.

After all he is
my Irish teacher.

D'anam leis an diabhal...Ó Diomasaigh!"
("Your soul to the devil...Dempsey!")

"THE TIME HAS COME TO CALL
A ***** A ****** SHOVEL..."

I yell as
I get a clip around the ear.

McCann holds his hand
over my mouth.

Then suddenly Nixon
is no longer

there.

The hurled words
disappear into the air.

Us school boys
***** damply back to double Maths.

The De La Salle
Academy looming up before us.

Mr. McCann
hoovers near.

I cover both
my ears.

But he only tousles
my hair.

"Ahhh mo amadán beag cróga!"
( "Ahhh my brave little fool!")

"Maith an bhuachaill...maith an bhuachaill!"
( "Good boy...good boy!")

He grins.
Slips me a sixpence.

I sing the new Led Zep
only released that day.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Being only 12
I had done what had to be done.

My political life
had only just begun.

*

The long forgotten "never-to-be-forgotten" visit made to Hodgestown near Timahoe in the county of Kildare back in the day as we leave the Sixties sadly behind us for the austerity of the '70's and the "Yes we can" of the Sixties begins to loose its lustre.

The Timahoeans are not exactly proud of giving the world Mr. Nixon and stay quite quiet about it. The Kennedy visit was the golden one and Clinton and Reagan had theirs but Tricky Dicky's one has faded into the fog of history.

"Jessamyn West, who has written so eloquently about the background of our family, has said, the Quakers have a passion for peace. My mother was a pacifist. My grandmother was a pacifist. Jessamyn's mother was, her grandmother, her grandfather, going back as far as we know."

President Nixon in the Timahoe graveyard.

Don't know what happened to him then!

"The time has come to call a ***** a ****** shovel. This country is in an undeclared and unexplained war in Vietnam. Our masters have a lot of long and fancy names for it, like escalation and retaliation, but it is a war just the same." - James Reston.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Led Zeppelin 111 - Immigrant Song.

OUT OF SIGHT
( for Shyam )

A constellation
comes to rest

amongst the branches
of a young tree

plays with
her leaves

for a little while

then when I turn
my head away

it rests
upon the ground

pretends to be a cobweb
stretched from hedge to hedge

and only in the very act
of my turning back

does it leap
into the sky

as if
"nothing"
had happened

an owl gives a hoot
but no one is listening

not even the moon
asleep on a hill

a mile or so
away

the constellation clasped
upon the night

beautiful as a brooch
made out of time

the squeak squeak
of a bicycle wheel

that needs an oiling

as I cycle slowly slowly
around the bend

the tick tick of the spokes
and. . .

. . .out of sight.

*


I wrote it walking around the Taj Mahal on a cold foggy morning with a shy Taj Mahal dressed in a respectable fog and nowhere to be seen...when this poem popped into being.

In India thinking of Ireland. I remember being on a beach in Lampadusa with the sun hitting a hundred and writing about furze ablaze with yellow on the Curragh of Kildare.

Shyam( the King of Kindness )was like a constellation stretching himself from the here to the there in his efforts to look after us in a regal fashion.

His good nature and kindness reminded me of this memory when I was very happy and living in this tiny moment.

He was everywhere and even when he wasn't there...he was there. Our lucky Shyam...bad pun on his name!

TRAFFIC CONTROL SYSTEMS

going 'round the bend
when Cúchulainn his very self
steps out and tells me to

"YIELD!"
or he would
set his wolfhounds on me

now when an ancient
mythological hero
commands one to yield

then one yields
with a squeal of brakes  
since the council

started to employ
old Irish heroes
from time long gone  

to deal with
wilful drivers
refusing to yield

"Ok ok Cúchulainn
keep yer helmet on!"
our hero snarls at me

"No backchat chap!"
I got out and pushed
the car around the bend

"****** demi god!"
I mumble
under my breath

Bran and Sceolaun
bared their teeth
and growled

"*** on with ya!"
Cúchulainn gave me a kick
I got on with me

*

An impressive Corten steel sculpture of Cúchulainn and his hounds. It is located on a roundabout at Ballymany, Newbridge in County Kildare and close to the Curragh Racecourse.  I'd encounter  it when rushing back to Dublin on the leaving of The Land of Ire.

He waved his Gáe Bulg at me, meaning "spear of mortal pain/death", "gapped/notched spear", or "belly spear." Jaysus!

I wasn't going to wait if he was going to go into one of his spectacular ríastrad ( transformative battle frenzies).I had seen one before and didn't want to see another!

"The first warp-spasm seized Cúchulainn, and made him into a monstrous thing, hideous and shapeless, unheard of. His shanks and his joints, every knuckle and angle and ***** from head to foot, shook like a tree in the flood or a reed in the stream. His body made a furious twist inside his skin, so that his feet and shins switched to the rear and his heels and calves switched to the front... On his head the temple-sinews stretched to the nape of his neck, each mighty, immense, measureless **** as big as the head of a month-old child... he ****** one eye so deep into his head that a wild crane couldn't probe it onto his cheek out of the depths of his skull; the other eye fell out along his cheek. His mouth weirdly distorted: his cheek peeled back from his jaws until the gullet appeared, his lungs and his liver flapped in his mouth and throat, his lower jaw struck the upper a lion-killing blow, and fiery flakes large as a ram's fleece reached his mouth from his throat...the hair of his head twisted like the tangle of a red thorn bush stuck in a gap; if a royal apple tree with all its kingly fruit were shaken above him, scarce an apple would reach the ground but each would be spiked on a bristle of his hair as it stood up on his scalp with rage."

The use of mythical heroes for traffic control was soon dropped as more motorists were killed by him as were killed in crashes. It was hard to get him to go back in the book!

Completed in March 2010, the sculpture by Lynn Kirkham cost €45,000 (paid for out of profits from Newbridge Town’s car parking fees) and the figures are made of Corten steel which has turned ‘rust-like’ over the years adding time and weather to its making.

The medicine was green
It did something to my ***
I read Things Not Seen
Thus it comes to pass

Maybe basketball today
My bookshelf still is full
Maybe Heidelberg
Baby Istanbul

I just wanna talk
Tell her troubled truths
Trinity Episcopal
Boston in my youth

Blood on the Rooftops
Brigid of Kildare
Is there anyone who knows?
Is there anyone who cares?


               Protection!

A SMALL YARD IN THE CENTRE OF IRELAND
( For Jeremy Loynes )

every morning
the small yard
stole some sunlight

just enough
to cover itself
in gold

before the shadows
stole it
back again

it was only
a small yard
in the centre of Ireland

hosting a coal bunker
a mangle
and an outside loo

the visiting cat
and the small child
knew exactly when

to dash out
and soak up
the precious glow

the yard gloried
in the gift
of such sunlight

and the child
who grew and grew
to become the man

who never told anyone
of the stolen
sunshine

until the words
gave the secret away
whispered it to the page

*

The small yard used to belong to the house that was called No. 31 O'Higgins Road in the county of Kildare. It no longer exists and has vanished into the air losing all the time it was. This was the small universe of both child and cat so much beloved by both of them. Only I can travel back there...find my way there...following the trail of memory and be there whenever my mind needs a place to hide as the man becomes the child he was once upon a long long time ago.