I write

I write

without pen, keyboard or fingers

I am not inspired

and I don’t carry a muse in my trousers pocket

or in curly hair going thin on top.

I am not more creative

than any of the entire population of China

or the wrinkled man that ate two pork sausages,

runny scrambled eggs,

white buttered jamless toast,

that swilled milky bog-standard tea

in Cafe Beva this morning

before it started to spit a shower

on mourners paying their respects

outside the undertakers next door.

I write in toilets,

while driving a car,

while pretending to hear voices,

and speak in tongues.

I wrote this verse while stuck

in the Jack Lynch Tunnel,

and finished it during a phonecall

in which my therapist said she couldn’t see me before Tuesday.

I never run out of paper

even while I watched Queen of Katwe

in Mahon Point Omniplex last night.

I carry the surface on which I compose

in a compartment some call mind.

I marry my mind with the flow

of unexpressed experience

with dreams that tarry like hovering dragonflies in shade

before emerging to linger

above rushing riverwater.

I write

mindfully.