A romantic grace that ebb and flows
A wilting palour, or gleaming candour.
Dressed in the most splendid melancholy
Dost thou, Yesteryears, again bloom and wreathe
Piercing the fibres of succoring apathy
Unyielding, haunting asymmetry
Ghost of my Roisin Dubh vent thy effrontry

Befriended street lamps' static hum
Timed steps slashed through electric buzz
Fled from the dawn's grey stain
chased night with anxious breath
                                              erupting
Out­flanked and pinned down
                                         by the days

Strike up the band, roisin the bows.
Compose another tired piece.
I dread the melody
and cringe away
                              from the next movement
I'm only up for burned out wandering.

     Another balance overdue
Took out a loan for time well spent
     Roll out the carpets for the doomed
It's unforgiving turf where our steps are bent

I'll draw these lines
     of ghostly profile night
and coax the specters out
We'll roll on with the tides
     where we can dance macabre
until the core unwinds.

Defend the fort for sleeping ghosts
I'll man these walls until the dawn.
I'll fight these memories
beneath the banner of
                                  some others
Shell-shocked with gun arm
                                  growing sore

Outside, the sidewalks glow red-orange
I throw my shadow on the sparks.
Charred homes on cindered streets
I draw my bow
                           across shaking half notes
Chart out a map of burnt meanderings.

     Default on friendships I misplaced
I'm wrapped tight in familiar fear.
     But I'll warm to those familiar strains...
Because it's 5 o'clock somewhere, and Summer's here...

I'll cross the lines
     into the ghostly night
and wake the specters up
As fires kiss the night
     so I can sleep real sound
and let my core unwind.

North Atlantic Wind
Rip through this useless flesh
As I stand before you one last time before death
A sacrificial offering in a search for some inner truth
Let your fiercest storm strip away all I possess
Eight hundred years of hated oppression
So as to sell our miserable freedom
For a state sponsored religious repression
For what died the sons of Roisin
For what died the sons of Erin
To an over protected child with a shyness from birth
Anxiety, insecurity, a national depression
North Atlantic Wind
Take me from this Irish disease
Nationalism, Catholicism, Alcoholism buried within
Howl now away it's bitterness
Roar upon me your enlightenment
Let me be relieved and shorn of all these tired excuses
No longer ones of Gods' or chemicals or States of fear
Strip me to my core, and let me see what's finally within
North Atlantic Wind
Answer all it is that I never felt to ask
For it is I and I alone that I now must fatallly see
And to stop my running and hiding from this Irish disease

My North Atlantic Wind
Let this be my end.....