There are times
There are times the rain
is so heavy, and the cloud so
thick I can hardly see.
There are times the dark
is so choking I can hardly
breathe.
There are times the words
are strangled in my throat.
There are times the pain
grips throughout, and I
am completely at its mercy.
And there are times when it’s
much worse than that…
Every year’s a bastard, and every breath drawn in celebration serves but to fool players into premature revelry. Some kin to light, some kin to dusk. ‘Tis only in dreams afterwards that I swallow the fuss and regurgitate, thrush-like, through humid hair and a throat rasped with stuttering conviction. Throw up those names. Release each from hope. Let their legacy abide.
From January to May, brutality made hay. Released from Ministry, I flourished under the weight of Melissa’s warm voice, hour by hour, and stayed solid long enough for tablets to prove their fragile relevance. No longer dying to wake up dead. No longer dying to wake up dead, I saved Periscopes, wrote down the food Depression served. Exercise is the curse of the despairing classes.
Enough of this shyte – before I know it, I’ll be composing narrative thrash. In the beginning was the sentence – the phrase of life. What doth it profit a Paul if he gain the whole world and lose his pencil.
Reborn among cherries in Michigan, festivities in Logan Square, and a river cruise through the City of the Big Shoulders.
Bastard verse: Lost Love, Prayer, Dear Reader, Lines Written on the Birthday of Walt Whitman, I am a Wood Frog, From the depths of Hell in Summertime.
Wild Geese redeemed the lot. Where would I have been without Mary Oliver, or Mary Oliver, or Mary Oliver. Whitman may have been ballast – but Mary was my sail. Dreams, Holes in my Heart, Lost.
At last Il Paretaio – Tuscany – horses – the World Champion Ice Cream (champagne & grapefruit) – Sienna rather than Piza. And then there was Charlie the pony – or was it Ashley the Princess?
It was a year of schools. From Eglantine to Scoil na nÓg – from Hitchmough’s to Hyde’s – from one teacher to another. Bastard learning. Gin & Tonic. Taking the Mick.
And all the time we were basking in that Summer of Content , a Buffoon gave birth to bile, Brexit came to life – 20 years a dripping . Drip, Drip, Drip – the light went out on Little England and Little England coughed its way, multiplying cells, an Empire on its last legs. “Leave, Us Alone” – “Give us back our toys“. You can all rendezvous up your je ne sais quoi. Gute Nacht you coal & steel mongers. Our David, Your Brussels. Fuck Goliath. We have no need for manners – now that we have a Wall for President.
Oh yes, it was exciting to return from the Dead to abandon Dante in the cesspool of Buffoon Trump Tower, feet on putrid ground.
Let’s ignore Aleppo and tweet the Chinese out of existence. Let’s sit in Blackrock Castle Observatory Café promising to meet again for Xmas lunch. After my dearest wish has spawned an Age of Extraneous Inebriation, after Leonard Cohen has sung “Resurrection” to the tune of “Retribution“, cleansing the pallet so it’s ready to Stop All The Clocks and arrest Midnight before it strikes the gong for the Ascension into the Great Heavenly American Beast the Cute Hewers love to imitate.
In case you think Nebraska Alaska Montana Louisiana and Lisdoonvarna rule the Universe, I predict there will be Breath in 2017, there will always be an Aleppo – even if there will also be a Coalition with an Enda intent on hugging a Pope.
A bastard mongrel beauty – a #goodcountry waiting to be found.
Born in Aleppo
I come from a small place in between Paris, Nice, and the Hinterland.
I was born in Aleppo.
I had friends there.
Some had shoes,
others rice.
I don’t know what most survived on.
I was talking to Charlie Hebdo.
He said ‘you’ll have to laugh your way through all the hail,
you’ll die many times before Aleppo.’
I believed that line.
There was always a cat,
somewhere,
ready to pounce
with a hungry mouth.
Cats are drones.
One of the girls lost her mother to a cat.
We were all born in Aleppo.
It’s as if we came from Africa
drawn to die
on the bank of the River of Martyrs
before the smiles reached us.
Conversations are dangerous:more people have been injured during conversations than in all human wars.Conversations kill: more relationships are put to death during conversations than during all the songs ever sung by all the women. Avoid conversations like the plague: too many conversations hurt like earthquakes hurt. If you find a conversation friendly, remember pearls and oysters.
Avoid Conversations
Conversations are dangerous:
more people have been injured during conversations
than in all human wars.
Conversations kill:
more relationships are put to death during conversations
than during all the songs ever sung
by all the women.
Avoid conversations like the plague:
too many conversations hurt
like earthquakes hurt.
If you find a conversation friendly,
remember pearls
and
oysters
That woman.
That pesky woman is my muse.
Until that man – that foolish clownish jester has collapsed on his own self-esteem…
Until everyone who eats with him is repulsed by his belching & farting…
Until all his children & wives & employees are sick of him…
Until there is a global alliance of USA Asia Australia Antartica Cork Canada Greenland Russia China Galway North Pole South & Middle America Mars Moon Cobblers Hairdressers Uncle Tom Cobley Walt Whitman Jesus Confucius Judas Mary Joseph Europe Kerry Cannes Curry Fish&Chips Pope Francis Rice Doonbeg and the Oscars …
Until he’s wet himself so many times White House cleaners go on strike for danger money…
Until the Fraud exposes himself as having had a transplant auto-generating intelligence…
Until that day and beyond – let us all follow him – and harass him into the sewer where he grew up and where he deserves a place in the Buffoons’ Hall of Fame.
Meanwhile – let’s all raise our glasses to that magnificent woman and her flying Twitter Machine.
Road-opening
The Council shut the road outside Crawford Woods
on Thursday
without warning
blocked the way down Church Hill
forced us all to detour
crawlingly
day after day until sundown on Saturday.
They even parked a road-repairing, four-wheeled, monstrosity
– a rhinoceros of a stone-chip spreader –
outside the house of Adrian and Eimear
so obtrusively
we couldn’t avoid talking to each other
for the first time since Halloween.
‘Twas sticking plaster on potholes
for the sake of bumps in the night
tyres in the daylight.
II
On the third, day the cock crowed
before the sun returned,
we could turn left again
to embrace our over-hanging trees
and shadow side.
Shards covered over
at least temporarily,
boulders removed
so earthworms can move forward now
beyond the known universe.
Road-opening without ceremony
an invitation to return to fruitful ways
– the journey of a lifetime.
Answers
“Why was I born?”
called the Jackdaw to the Raven.
“What’s the purpose of my life?”
whispered Piglet to Ratty.
“What does it mean?”
hissed Michelangelo to Raphael
with sour on his face.
“Where am I going?”
shouted a Dublin woman from the Northside
to Molly Malone.
“When will my answer be enough?”
I said to myself.
https://anchor.fm/embed/a4ec21
https://anchor.fm/embed/a4ec21
Reality
You stab me with your eyes
You strip my face away
You cut my mind asunder
and I am bleeding
all over the pillowcase
all down your rosy cheeks.
You’ve had your way with me
and next I’ll lose the ties
that bound us from the start
that calmed my fragile heart
that taught me we were one
so none could come between us
And I am waking
It is the dawning
on
– the age of reality
After the concession
A black bird sits on a telephone line,
suspended between wooden poles
aged by water.
This is no day for tears,
no moment for regrets,
no time for tearing-out hair.
There are other black birds
and a seagull catching light
over the Northside.
There is a hill to descend
a twisting road
past cars
and fading disintegrating leaves.
There’s even sun in my eyes.
It’s easier to say nothing,
to notice the knot,
to register the wish
to lock the toilet door
and simply sit.
Oh yes, there’s reason to be thoughtful,
there’s always reason to reflect,
looking at clouds heavy with mist.
There’s always a will to inaction,
a will to ossify.
Black bird statues
behind a crooked spire,
the one with the lightening rod on top.
The off-licence shut,
the graffiti craves attention,
I see Aer Lingus was looking for my vote
‘smart makes the right choice
for Stateside flights this winter’.
The wounded leopard must go back for more food,
the thirsting camel must trek on,
the beehive must protect and cherish
and guard their queen,
even when forced to swarm.
This is no day for tears,
it’s a day my mother did her best to prepare me for,
and my father knew would come.
Remember Job is more than one man,
and black birds are ever present
whenever there’s a breath to be drawn.
___________________
Our mother doesn’t believe in death
Our grandma doesn’t believe in death
Our great grandmother doesn’t believe in death.
Even after everyone knows she’s passed away
she doesn’t believe in death.
She believes in sign-posts
and the sort of markers that say
you’ve entered a new townland.
Our mum believes in evolution and re-cycling
and believes she’s back with the love of her life
the man she married for thirty years
her husband forever.
Our mum believes in the journey
The journey with people, the journey for people,
the good life.
Our mum is …
Our mum was ready.
Oh, she told her family a long time ago
that she was ready.
She lived her day-to-day with love
as generously as any creature.
She reached out to the widest family of humanity
and she believes that’s the only way to live up,
to live the good life.
Our mum doesn’t believe in death
she believes in Resurrection,
forgiving.
She believes she’s moved on
her work on Earth is done
her work among us is the best she could do.
Our mum believes she’s no saint
she has sinned
she’s made her peace
she is forgiven.
Our mum is in love
a love deeper that the lover who feels
they’ve found the one they were meant to find.
Our mum doesn’t only believe in God
our mum knows her God is love
and love endures for ever.
In the air there’s a sound
reviving and bound
for the inner ear,
a note sketched out
below a rug floating
there about three ages
removed from the pages
strewn with grooves
barely crowned.
Words are majesty
regal tenants of the well
resounding
Utterances as dances
vowing to work
miracles
Places for space and space for places
names that an age back
meant more than nostalgy
Inventions from an page
of cloud cover
blanket-wrap, infant howls
The wage earned in deep preparation
for entry
along the narrow passage you never remember
except in dreams.
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.
The thrush has gone away.
At the very least, the brown wings
have not returned
to weigh down on the branch of the blossom tree.
The rose that rambles over the trellis
is abandoned
and vulnerable to the vagaries of wind.
At least when the feeding mother lets her weight
bear down on the thorns
there is some stability,
some attention holding the structure.
This may not be a heavy hand, or even a reliable hand,
but it’s like a listening ear, an attentive embrace of the neck,
a something that relieves the waving flowers
of having to stand on their own.
It doesn’t have to be that thrush,
a wagtail caress would be sufficient comfort
to remind my rose
it is never truly alone.
I am a writer
a born writer
published by a womb
Handwritten by a nib from an inkwell
between the lines
a joined-up writer
I am a copy writer
copybooks
essays scribbled from memory
Minutes taken at meetings
reporter, drafter,
instructing others
Propaganda scribe
editor of text
pointed editorials
I am a writer
I want to be published
I have nothing to say
except what you want to hear.
_______
And I am a writer
dream-writer
I create
thoughts I own
feelings I conceive
imaginations I imagine
I write in a vacuum I design for my muse
floating in space.
________
I too am a writer
a bought writer
my labour earns me food, shoes, shelter
I compose with blood, sweat and fingers fit for travel
to Atlantis and Arthritis.
________
I am writing my way through a stone,
split,
as if a schizoid elephant
home from Kubla Kahn
Watching you watching
her play in the swimming pool
a lizard soaks sun
… Birds fly
flap wings to rise high.
No human being can lift off
under their own steam.
A dream of a mountaintop,
clouds handong off,
sun lying low in a fountain of shadows,
we’ve come to witness the ascension into Heaven.
The sect gathering for the send-off:
Jesus is going home
under his own steam
– handy transport, transmigration of matter.
But what if it all goes wrong?
He blows up on take-off?
Remember the teacher
Whatshername – Christa blew up after 73 seconds.
No one’s considered the consequences
of debris falling to Earth
radioactive
Heavenly waste.
Everyone’s standing round waiting for something to ignite
the proceedings. The final farewells.
A lifetime of teaching
generates a multitude of pupils.
I’m the Health and Safety Officer,
the sod who had to make a Risk Assessment,
had to make out COSSH sheets on water jars
– all because there’s a chance he might turn water into petroleum spirit.
I’m in change of safety – hah hah,
in charge of “innovative flight events”,
single man assents without a net,
here to ensure no one’s hurt in the slipstream.
Who’s thought to commission a recce of the landing-zone?
Who’s been looking ahead and asking “how safe is it to land in Heaven?”
Typical – so long as the integrity of the risk management system is vindicated.
What do we care if Acts of God intervene!
The Council’s insurance doesn’t cover Almighty interventions.
The ‘best value’ analysis doesn’t call for consultations on ascensions.
There’s no best practice notes governing what you do on a Thursday
with a small crowd on a remote hillside.
Not one person believes this could open the floodgates.
Who expects trips to Heaven to become fashionable?
Who is thinking ahead?
Why should one tired, approaching-retirement official carry the can?
Jesus, I can’t even get to the man,
he keeps disappearing,
re-appearing.
Ah – hah – enter the dragon, eleven henchmen and mother.
Looks like we’re going to see some action,
countdown to eternity.
I admire the way he’s going first, putting himself on the line,
leadership in action.
Wish I’d thought of bringing the video.
Nothing like being a witness
at the first ever manned flight into Heaven.
Christ, it’s one small step for man.
One giant leap for Mankind…
Blue shoes in pink
pink carriages in blue.
A clasp of silver buckle
reflects the sliver of light
that reaches into the cabin
bound for Lanzarote.
Geese… I hope she doesn’t need the potty
and hasn’t wet my lap.
My experience of making a living as a creative can be summed up in two sentences. It’s brutal. It’s fulfilling. Most of the time, I can’t see beyond the brutality. Life is a relentless struggle to find work and pay the bills that leaves me sliced open and bloodied. I’m nothing more than a crimson stain mashed into […]
via Fighting Through the Tough Times — Life as a Visual Storyteller
We play on each other’s stages
to music we can’t hear,
sound out an echo
into a strange new background.
We meet each other in the familiar
and miss one another in the weather,
speak in diverse tongues
of pictures we’ll never complete.
We sound alike on the street,
on the top floor of the bus.
At the hairdresser we are all blown dry
and we all shed skin.
That’s where the story ends,
the adventure begins. The day starts
with the mass rising from sleep.
The joints connecting again.
From Bath to Cork with baby Grace 