From Bath to Cork with baby Grace

 “WEEKENDS are sacred” in the eyes of the RIVER.

Categorically. 

Springboks are here. 

How did they travel from the south?

Coracles, currachs, gigs, paddle boats …

On the back of a bird?

“Arriva Aviva”. 

The point of watching is to practise counting the points.

_________________
Rugby is headache.

Midges’ heads manage to swarm 

without tough tackling
———

“We will be doomed”
unless we COP ourselves on.

Irish Times headline:
Another trauma coming around your corner.
Cassandra whines, 
she knows,
risks speaking-out
after catching Gretta
on the wind
and RUMOUR.

According to that infallible crowd-sourced authority,
dooming is glooming. 

It’s too late to change the way.

Even the moon has moved on

and the occasional star imploded.

Such is the secret of eternal strife.

It’s too late to remember the way

the beginning began with a raindrop  and a puddle, 

the way it always has.

As if a merry-go-round mattered,

as if a smile could make up 

for all the sins,

for all the fragments. 

In a nutshell, the end may be already beginning. 

As STONES cried, “All will be revealed – in due course”.

Arena of terror

Arena of death

Arena of negligence. 

Howling eyes, 

Tears over-flowing, 

Anger welling,

Hope, barely daring to appear. 

Lead us not into the River Styx, 

ever again.

Wake up.

Smell the rotten eggs.

Listen to the missiles.

Feel burnt, 

flooded,

high. 

Continuous improvement, 

permanent revolution,

infinite pain

– the ups and downs 

– the ins and outs 

– the far and wide:

PERMACRISIS VICTORIOUS

“Word Of The Year” today.

______________________ 

Once upon a time,

there was an illusion 

that assumed it was a TRUTH,

while living in a dreamworld.

Like three little pigs, 

Illusion was the one that smiled
– butter melted to sugar in her mouth 

Confusion, the silly pig,

Disillusion, the vicious one.

Houses of barbed wires,

houses of foolish fashions,

houses of blocked arteries. 

Not much talk of NFTs.

————

The second mystery of the melody 

is no poem.

The improbability theorem states:

“A mystery always repeats itself

until the end of Time, 

when all is revealed

to be inside-out.”

Do you know 

Alice in Wonderland picked her nose,

scratched the hare’s ear,

and was dealt a royal straight flush?

Alice “Winner of the Penultimate Hand”.

You might well wonder what happened 

before the final whistle,

the last over,

the penalty shootout.

After the inkwell imploded,

the pen paused, 

and the heavens opened.

Patience …
the tale has barely begun.

———

What rises, is alive and never sleeps? 

The RIVER.

——-

The Path to Ukraine runs into West Cork.

A plan to raise the bar, and drink a toast,

was hatched while zooming with a knife and fork 

that shaved black ice, and broke into the host. 

Who’d swap their seat around this RIVER bank 

for half a loaf of time or tide before 

the end conspires to start anew with frank 

exchange, with heart exposed to soul like yore? 

____________________________________

Begone sweet doubt, uncertainty beguiles

the fool that rests, while hedgehogs sleep beneath

the fallen leaves of oak and ash, the trials 

of our winter begging respite, a wreath.

We’re all Ukranians from far and deep,

a measure and a half, too proud to weep.

A friend in pain is a friend in need,

a man worth love, 

Stumbled, Limped Crippled.  

Drugs  make a difference 

to his creation story,

Worth manufacturing, 

worth consuming,

Stained. 

Barmbrack
The Barn 
“I was born in a barn …” 

SEE WHAT IT MAKES YOU FEEL ABOUT YOUR OWN LIFE

___________________________________________________________

1st

“I am the RIVER.

I dance

the dance of a thousand eyes,

the ballet incarnate,

the paso doble personified,

I tango through the hard times,

like a squirming earthworm

seduced by a chrysalis 

copulating with one of its own kind

We rivers lust for sea. 

Once upon a time,

before the EARTH was born,

there wasn’t much to think about. 

There were no feelings,

no wars,

only explosions.

No worms, grasshoppers, spiders, bees, crickets

disturbing the peace. 

No Ukrainians, Moldovans 

No Cork. 

But there was SILENCE waiting for wind,

and a voice. 

This is The VOICE,

The Voice that lives.

When you reach 50,

You mature

No longer own the word “Young”.

——-

When you reach 50,

you’re alive

Noticing what matters to you.

———

When you reach 50,

You deserve

a better life more than ever.

————

When you reach 100,

you’re more mature than me.

You’re a character.

I must go down to the Crawford again,
to the flowering fields and the food,
where the taties grow and the paintings flow,
where the artwork tickles the mind.

I must go taste the bread again,
the kidneys, marrow, and tart,
where banisters lead your taste astray,
and visitors walk in free.

It was Meat and Potatoes seduced me in,
the smell of paint down Opera Lane,
a butterflied leg, and seeds of the hearth,
no lonely hours within.

The children, they have their space,
one wide, wide place for play.
The boy with the Cork earring,
and BLT for tea.

And to the powers that be,
the nation’s customs, your art,
storytellers gilding the heart,
entrancing the earth’s energy.

I’ll return for the kidneys again,
for Doran’s sweet, brown sauce,
longing to lick the plate,
a persistent return that’s great.
.

My every step a prayer,

Every move a prayer,

Every word a prayer,

Hallelujah

There was hope
They crossed the border
A chorus of joy
The discomfort worth it.
The water gone
Hunger setting in
Bodies weakening
hope still high
A better life beckoning.
Children crying.

51 dead
Roasted flesh
Thirst boiled
Abandoned
The container of death
Jose went first
Delirious
Expired.
The doors to life bolted.
Relief from hell.

Drivers tired from the journey
Want to go home
Abandon the truck.
Time to go home to Netflix,
An ice-cold beer
Air conditioning,
A hug.
And collect their fee.
Release wives & children
from anxiety.
Ready to live a longer life
than the cargo they fled in the oven.

Once upon a time, the Earth was cold.
There were no books.
In a twinkle of time,
the multitudes grew hot
with opinions, options, and paradigms.
Nowadays,
there are too many books for you,
and there is global warming.

Books broke the back of the Word,
scribes begat scribblers,
illuminated manuscripts gave birth to maps,
travellers told tales of other words and worlds,
and now
there are too many books born and buried,
too many stories circulating.

Go into your local bookshop
on O’Connell Street by the Shannon River.
Indigestion guaranteed.
The only medicine a microscope
to browse the molecules of wisdom
that revolve in a particle of your imagination.

You are sharing the heated earth
with marks, words, phrases, lines, paragraphs, pages, chapters, volumes
– numbers incalculable –
like stars crying out for attention,
as if minute lights might shine your path,
as if the affection of your orbit
was craved by mysteries of an expanding multiverse.

There are too many stars for you to follow,
too many stories.
You will burn yourself into a black hole
if you consume all the particles in your local bookshop,
all the wisdom crammed on shelves
arranged for your salvation.

In the beginning was the Word.
They procreated the earth,
the world,
the matter that matters,
the sunlight that burns through fog,
and longs to peter out
before the books return to rest.

Light as a feather that fails

to excite the hippopotamus

in my mind’s eye,

Blind as a bat that breaks

whenever it strikes out

in my baseball bowl

So do the words

through my tongue

Into the microphone

Of my desire.

Green with damp,

Drizzled down

the neck of the verse.

Weathered the space

between gestation,

articulation

and dimples.

The way a dung beetle

saves civilised & uncivilised

life.

Beacons.

High as a kite that soars,

slips and slides on a draught of thin air.

Low as a blow from a black bird,

from a messenger

that delivers tidings,

from your mother’s,

mother’s mouth?

She had her own microphone,

her own mouthpiece,

her paragraphs.

Light and blind,

High and low

Hippopotamus and hippopotami.

It’s the way verse is written.

In case

you think I’m being funny,

I wrote to the Easter Bunny

asking for the egg I forgot,

and you know what I got?

It was too big to eat,

hardly much of a treat.

I gave half to the cat,

who’s already too fat

and a chunk to the dog

as we went for a jog.

So when we met the vet,

she was cross as you get.

I said I was sorry,

She said not to worry

– today.

That’s all I have written.

The chocolate’s hidden,

until after the speech

when you won’t hear me preach

“Friends, Romans, Toastmasters,

lend me your tears …”

I never wanted

to excite the cat,

bother the dog,

get a pain in my tummy,

trying to be funny

chasing the bunny

today,

but I’ve started this Path

before running a bath.

I’d love a matchmaker

to help this icebreaker

and

without any more fuss

come across humorous …
_____________________

I am a disaster,

in search of a plaster

to cover my mouth

so I don’t need to shout

cover up what I said

so spare you the dread

you’ll fall from your chair

and mutter a prayer

‘We all did love him once

not without cause

if only he’d pause

and stop being a dunce.

As for the rumour

he’s given to humour,

You can pull my leg

about the Easter Egg.

Even write to the bunny

you think I’m not funny.

I could be much worse.

Stranded in Cork Airport,

eating sausages

and potato cakes,

dried white pudding

and fried bacon slices,

chilled orange juice

with Americano by Nescafé.

A disaster of a flight to Manchester,

a swollen little throbbing toe,

a lame gait.

I could be much worse.

I could be frozen in Ukraine,

maimed in Ukraine,

my home destroyed in Ukraine.

Parched , starved, wounded, blind, deaf,

I could be a nightmare

walking from gutter through ice & mud,

past unmilked cows,

crippled donkeys,

chickens ready for wolves,

wet with weather that would drown an earthworm,

excremental trudge to the border

between

“Saturn Devouring His Son Peter”,

and some hope of at least an annual salvation.

I could be “The Scream”

on a bus from Mariupol,

from the shipyard in Mykolayiv,

leaving Freedom Square in Kharkiv,

I could be the last scream left living in Kyiv,

Lviv to Poland, to Germany,

into Rumania, Moldova, Lithuania, Estonia

– children lifeless behind me,

my lover lost.

I could be much worse.

I could be pulling the trigger

that’s dispatching the missile

into that apartment block,

and only leave a legless cat alive

to drown in blood.

I could be commanding my officers

to annihilate the opposition,

to obliterate all living humans

that stand in our way,

to invade the land of independence

and putrefy the landscape with tyranny.

I could be much worse.

I could be Vladimir Putin’s mother,

keening my infant’s fall from grace.

I could be stranded with Dante in the Kremlin,

in the dark Earth

where there is no peaceful place

⁃ except the grave.

I could be much worse.

The snow thundered in

Rolled across the border between sleep and wake

Unrelenting

Conquering the ground

Until every centimetre was covered with the colour of the white invasion.

There was no resisting her.

And all winter, this has been predicted.

All February we have been warned

We had no proof

until now.

The snow has spoken

The snow was ready

The snow has fallen.

The earthworms

underground

squirming.