There once was a hornet in heaven
That slept with its mates all the time
It neglected its work
Thought life was a perk
In the end the creature ran out of steam, was exposed as a sinner, starved of its dinner, and died.
There once was a hornet in heaven
That slept with its mates all the time
It neglected its work
Thought life was a perk
In the end the creature ran out of steam, was exposed as a sinner, starved of its dinner, and died.
Worn out
worn down
Fatigued
Wrecked
Brain-dead
Knackered
There has to be another word
Too much escaped me this evening
There has to be another day
on the horizon
coming through the dark
Yawning is another world
There must be a form of relief
around the bend.
You have to get out of the orange armchair
No matter how comfortable your bottom feels.
It’ll be grand to stand up and move away from the Masters
Maybe it’s time for tea or another glass of Bordeaux
At least the exercise will help you decide
Whether another square of mint chocolate is worth the taste
Doubts are common, uncertainties rife
There’s no guarantee you’ll be more comfortable over a boiling kettle.
A black cat wants attention as he scratches behind my head
Puma’s food is in the room with the washing machine and screwdrivers
The dog looks asleep, breathing like a metronome. He’s easy to watch.
Louis hasn’t had a run all day. I wonder how he’ll be in the morning.
There’s no time to count, no seconds to add or subtract
There’s time to be negotiated, time to dwell on how the odds are stacked.
The President claims a Mulligan
His ball is in the rough.
The President demands a Mulligan
His ball’s gone out of bounds.
The President has threatened Mulligan
His ball is lost
(in the wilderness of ground under repair).
He set his sights on an Albatross,
he’d even have claimed an Eagle,
but the longer he stood with his mates on the tee
the more false his handicap grew.
The President stuttered
The President muttered
The President uttered
“This game’s been fixed, this fourball’s unfair
I’ve been gazumped for sure.
I’ll mark your card, I’ll sign my own
I’m President of this Club,
that all that matters to me.
Oh Captain, I’m Captain, My fearless trip is done,
My ship has weather’d every rack, the prize I’m owed is won.
The House is near, the cheers I hear, the people all exulting,
My eyes are red and basking true , my Trumpets bright and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O my bleeding drops of red,
See on the deck those cheaters lie,
with obscene fools and dead.
I am your Ryder Cup,
Born true to win and sup,
With flags and faith
Bells, bouquets, wreaths and scathe
I’ve played the better golf,
I even own the course,
and built the TV towers.
Exalt my Partners
Decry the other side
To Hell with their merriment
Their game’s forever spent.
I’ll play on
through night and day
through dawn & dusk
to the bitter end
Until all the Links are broken,
Courses strewn with rakes & flagsticks,
Greenkeeper’s gone
begging for another apprenticeship.
I’ll play on
I’m the winner
I don’t need an opponent
I don’t even need golf clubs
I am that good
Your mind’s too slim
Your heart’s a virus.
The Royal & Ancient game was never better
than when I built the course
and wrote the Rules,
than when my handicap was Gaga
and on my crown was MAGA.“
The President still swings his club, his caddie gone
His ball is running out.
He’s on his knees
Praying for a Mulligan.
Beowulf was not elected.
When Jesus became a god, there were no elections
No mail-in ballots
No counts
When Shakespeare wrote The Tempest
and Sappho canoodled with Aphrodite,
When Milton was in Paradise,
and Wordsworth having Intimations of Immortality,
you didn’t have a vote.
I was in Florida four years ago
on my sofa
watching the sixty seven counties tick,
a map turning red.
An uncomfortable seat that drove me to bed
convinced America might be hung before I woke.
The sofa is uncomfortable again.
This time I’m in Pennsylvania
waiting for a ride to Minnesota
breathing Texas.
Waiting for Godot
waiting for the music of the future.
Imagine having a post-mortem on your birthday …
exegesis
digging into
excavating
the archeology of life
findings
mapping the lifescape
mining the lapses
misunderstanding the stone
hieroglyphics
burial chambers
Growing up among
berberis, hawthorn, briars
cabbages and chickens
Living with
memories, mountains and memorials
to failures.
Glory be to Paul the Failure
In the Beginning was the Bang
when the whiskey bottle slipped
from his fingers onto tiles.
And the Smell was with Father and Mother until beyond Lent.
Born to be bewitched, bothered and blind
As if Genesis was transcribed into the Jungle where we’re born to find
the map of the maze that is to come to
You,
Everyman and Everywoman,
Humanity,
animals that have a good night’s sleep,
speak over breakfast,
slave all day,
skimp on sex
and suffer
organically.
Never an autopsy
No suspects
Natural causes
A birthday deceased
and laid to rest with honours,
Pardons
Prose.
Women
Amen.
You can’t write
Give thanks.
Whenever
You have nothing to say
Give thanks
Whenever
You can’t see see any way
Give thanks.
It gets you out of a hole.
You have two eyes:
even though they may not work the way you wish they would.
One to the right, one to the left
even though you may be sat on a fence, looking down a middle course.
Close your eyes, watch that vision sleep
even though you dream with lashes still and eyelids shut.
Your vision loves a rest.
to turn the clock back
The hour has passed
into the past.
You’ve lost
your turn to protest
against the party of time.
Go march for release
of the sixty minutes
you’ve incarcerated.
The liberation of time
depends upon more than you invested
when you had wind behind you.
Let there be no more ticking hands
nor tick-tocking cuckoos
not shadows cast on dials.
Let’s push the right hand forward
and squeeze a dribble out
from behind the prologue that is past.
There’s always a couple of leaders competing for affection:
The one in splendid garb
praises the survivors for surviving.
assures them they are loved, admired, revered,
tells them they’re a magnificent example to others
says this over and over:
‘because of you, we have hope
because of you,
we will be stronger than ever.’
II
The one in the crumpled suit
Praises the survivors for surviving,
Warns them their war isn’t over
The worst is yet to come
unless we fight to the death
unless we look into the eyes of the enemy
steadfastly renew, recover, and rebuild
before it is too late.
and cries
‘Now is the time for action,
not relaxation,
no patting each other on the back.
We must turn the tide.’
I see the stars,
You cannot lock me down.
I spy the sky,
You cannot lock me down.
I think my way
You cannot lock me down.
I dream my world,
You cannot shut my imagination into kilometres.
I travel the universe, by day and by night
I fly over mountains and oceans, cities and streams
I am out and about
Working where I have always worked
In the office of hearts
Sweeping leaves from your way
W
Writing my laws
Without restraint
You cannot lock me down.
The dog wants to go out
The cat is staying in
The kettle’s growing cold
The birthday’s story told.
Underneath the fruit bowl,
Or was it in the fridge
Perhaps beside the oven
There’s probably a coven.
In the middle of the night
There are stars burning bright
And cobwebs do their work
For spiders home to lurk.
The dog’s come in again,
The cat’s gone out to hunt.
After slumber has sped past
There’ll be tea for breakfast.
Fashionable in my day
Business is service
Pandemonium at bay
an alien
an unidentified flying object.
I believe in me.
I am a miracle,
a transfiguration,
an apparition,
I believe in me.
I am salvation
resurrection
an assumption
I believe in me.
Have I introduced you to the ghost that came to live in Cork before the flood?
The one who settled down …
The one who will come again …
Inconsistency is key
– if your purpose is to bond with unreliable, unpredictable & erratic people.
If you think the majority of people are like that,
you’d be inconsistent if you posted with consistency.
No self-respecting poet would ever write the words ‘quality assurance’ in a poem
unless the poem was designed to win an award from the health and safety officer.
Only a desperate composer of verse would droop their pen down into such stale ink
and think they might get away with being mistaken for an ironic metaphoric genius.
‘Quality’ is for beginners in poetry – an abstract expression that begs to stir the soul
to life, without breathing a syllable with guts or garters, and delights people asleep.
As for ‘Assurance’, rhyming with insurance, half -rhyme to insouciance, indifference
personified, the word doesn’t even dance, or dalliance, eat ants, glance or entrance.
However, put them together, send them on a date, engage them, marry the buckoes
– that way lies a turd of a turgid teaser, the type elephants lay for hyenas to admire.
I forgot to write on Thursday. Spent the day talking & daydreaming. There must have been food – and thought.
Daydreaming is misunderstood by those who don’t do it. They imagine daydreaming is simply lingering loafishly while others slave away.
I wonder if I’ll forget to write today.
It’s not good enough to say to myself
“I have soft stubble … No one cares … It’s my hair …”
I can do better.
Every time I excuse myself I nurture a self-fulfilling prophecy. Don’t I?
“It doesn’t matter” means it doesn’t matter to me what others see, what they suspect, or even what they imagine.
Whom do I remind you of?
Whom do I look like?
Whom do you take me for?
The trouble with being curious is that your curiosity is limited only by your imagination.
“What do I look like under stubble?”
If I asked an average abstract painter that question, what average abstract answer would I get?
How would it differ from the answer you’d have given if I’d asked you this morning over coffee on a Zoom Meeting?
If a balloon loses air in a toy room before the party starts, does it make much of a difference to the adults?
It’s not good enough to say to myself
“It doesn’t matter any more.”
The year I was born was good,
it rained, the sun shone,
and there was snow on the peaks of MacGillycuddy’s Reeks.
The following year was bad
though earthworms flourished, corn crakes called,
and more books were sold than ever in the history of humanity.
In nineteen hundred and fifty two,
I escaped the threat of extreme unction.
The Quiet Man was found Waiting For Godot
Another journey towards maturity and posterity.
II
Remember Christmas
Miracle of life and death
A butterfly flapped.
III
Mary Oliver wrote “You don’t have to be good”
My parents showed “It’s best to live the way you should”
Conscience was a fashionable word,
Contrition was the world,
Confession insisted upon.
Surrounded by Holy Water fonts,
it was a miracle I grew up in Limerick
among books.
In those days, someone had to match Christmas cards with envelopes.
IV
I remember meeting Picasso’s woman.
– perhaps that was Dublin –
I’m sure she had three heads.
Five heads flowed along the banks of the Shannon
Frank the Wisdom, Patricia the Joy, David the Magnificence, Deirdre the Talent
Peter the Intelligence.
Siblings under one roof
Chislers
V
Resurection is
much more attractive than birth.
Rising from the dead.
Recovery is
a form of absolution
– a revolting cry
Recognition is
a quintessence that collides
while opening eyes
I stand on the shoulders of great mothers and grand fathers
The example
The permission
The encouragements
“This is for you to consider.“
“It’s your eternity”.
Chapters of dialogue alongside the AGA in the kitchen
– like a primary school for the rest of my days.
VI
There were Nurses marching outside the maternity ward of Bart’s Hospital, as he was born.
An amniocentesis in Homerton Hospital.
A whirlpool for my head
The nurse from Manilla crushed under the weight of a fainting father to be.
Moleskines
Filaments for the chronicle
So many fragments to stitch together.
VII
Let’s celebrate the glory days of life
No matter where the gold and silver lie
and put aside those thurd’rous hours of strife
until they shed fresh light upon our cries.
It’s time to paint with colourful design
To decorate our home and dress the bed
In case this tide flows out and we decline
Beyond the spit of smiles and slump misread.
It’s Fall, when leaves turn brown and drift away
A season to renew the bridge we built
Back in the days we loved the wind that swayed
The leaves of barley on the field of quilt.
There’s no magic will disguise the mystery
Of how to grow without complicity.
So there, dear friends, are lines composed to mark the twist in the road
into maturity, without undue humility.