Category: poetry

The Pope is coming on the Joe Duffy Show

The Pope is coming on the Joe Duffy Show

Wherever the people are gathered, I want to be

However Irish men and Irish women care to listen,

I want to be

among those who have supported me

those who built my churches

my schools

my hospitals

my laundries

my graveyards.

I have prayers to make

on Joe Duffy,

Confessions to make

on TalkToJoe.

Contritions to express

on Liveline,

Penance to receive.

DIVINE HEADLINE

Will Joe take my call?

Hear my all?

At all?

Don’t I deserve to be heard?

Can you not stomach another apology?

Another stream of Vatican Vernacular Verbatim?

They call me Francis

I am not Franciscus

I am the Vatican

Institutional Man

I stand for the Vatican

I behave the Vatican Way

I did not write a letter

There was one on file

Rome designed the words for me to deliver.

Rome will be on Joe Duffy.

If Irish children, Irish women and Irish men

believe,

if you believe me, the Vatican, the Bishop of Rome.

Wherever the people are gathered,

I want your belief

Will you have me on the show?

Will your researchers prepare me?

Calm my nerves?

Steady my trembling tongue?

Joe@RTE.ie

I am the Holy See.

Moving

IMG_9960

Moving

(for BKB)

Our kitchen clock has ticked,
time to pack up,
time to clear out,
cardboard boxes,
still life on the living room floor.
A full-stop.
Another paragraph written.

This house has done its work.
Candles burnt.
We were here,
a joint composition,
major and minor keys,
melody,
atonality,
dissonance,
harmony.
Unfinished symphony.

More than poetry.
Infinity of haiku
silent rooms between
characters.
On this stage,
we voiced parts,
fashioned scripts,
co-authors.

I’ve written my way through this house,
stepped beyond the deck,
out into a backyard
to trees and stream
underneath snow.
(Memories in parentheses)
Our kitchen, hearth of home,
chairs, a shrunken table,
furniture that made space grow.

Chicken noodle soup from a can,
potato chips,
grapes,
milk from a carton,
silver spoons,
our last supper.
I don’t know where we’ll eat tomorrow.

Never known the next phrase,
the sentence to come,
the chapter after this,
the story’s conclusion.

Like a hummingbird’s nest,
where we eat, drink, love, grow, sing,
shall we weave together twigs,
plant fibers,
bits of larch leaves,
shall we thread spider silk to bind our nest
together
and anchor
to another forked branch.

Song Lyrics

Electrifying you

I slept thru every dream with a moonbeam in my ear

And every time that Venus cried the lightening hit my side

You were my lover thru the night though you were out of sight

Behind the mind

Electrifying you

Electrifying you

Behind the blind

You were sleeping on the beach, you were buried in the sand

And every time that Venus cried, I swore I knew you sighed.

You were a better lover then, I want you back again.

Behind the blind

Electrifying you

Electrifying you

Behind the mind

I climbed a mountain high,

with your breath blown in my ear,

And every time you slipped away, I tore a thread and say.

You were a sleeping lover bee, you burnt my spirit free

Behind the mind

Behind the blind

Electrifying you

Electrifying you

Moonbeam

Moonbeam

Moonbeam

The Pope is on His Way

(Chapter I – draft)

Pope Francis is coming to Ireland,
knickers are in a twist.

Coming to pray
Coming as planned
Arriving to bless
Landing to confess
the sins of the faithful
the sins of a hierarchy,
families concelebrate.

Repentance
Benediction
Crucifixion
Restitution
The children defiled,
the mothers condemned,
infants stolen, like birds eggs, blown away abroad.

Christ’s vicar on Earth,
the man from Rome,
History man
Encyclical man
Ex cathedra man
Transubstantiation man
The head of the clan
Father of all children
Head of the State of Original Sin.

Yellow and white,
Immaculate robe,
Conception of the Word
Sentenced to mortal coil
– like the snakes Patrick drove
into an everlasting sea.

Whom shall the Hurt see?
Broken Shattered
Splintered Torn
Reverend Mother Mary Magdalen
Brother Francis on the shoulders of Goliath,
Disciples of John Charles McQuaid.

Francis knows
We paid our dues
We sacrificed our flesh and blood
We gave our sons and daughters to the cloth
We confessed
We took our penance
We made good confessions,
and we took Extreme Unction.

In other words,
We supported you
We consecrated you
We elevated you
We assumed
you would lead us into the Kingdom,
past Peter,
through the gates,
bathed with a holy spirit.

Instead,
The bastardisation of love,
projection of affection,
sublimation of copulation,
birth control by unnatural rhythm
– Unnatural Inclinations

Welcome the Man
whoever you be,
Expose the Man to tears
Strip back the cant,
Roman chant
We know where you’re coming from,
Where will you hang your hat?

For thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory
for now.
Amen

Concocted

Concocted
Dear Ray,

I am a meaning-making machine,
I concoct my own reality.
Conjunctivitis rules,
this teabag doesn’t work.
I am my body,
raspberries for all.
God bless the tea.
I am at home,
it leaks sometimes,
I have fallen asleep here.
Do I mean too much for my own good?
Without Rosetta Stone we wouldn’t be where we are.
And the fire in my brain
has burnt an imagination
to cinders.
It is the morning of the day,
this is my way.

There is now an interlude…