a cul-de-sac of poems

etched from inside out

bed-rail piss-pot.  The monkey-

pole shadowed my wall like
a modern day gallows, all these
broken down hyphenated words of wonder.

My electric profile bed lifted me to forty-five 
degrees and I stumbled like a thunder-bird
figure into the wheelchair.  Erratically I fall
into and out of my day.  The end of my story

is the beginning of my tale , I dwell on the edge
of sorrow, on the cusp of suicide.

I dreamed that someone was there
I woke to silence the hum of  the wheel-
chair charging the poets essential loneliness.

I dreamed another world
another street an inner music
I was dreaming poetry
I went deeper
into the shallows
and found another form.

1.


  
       SILKEN

       A single rose emerges.

Plants its indelible mark

   on the corner of my eye.

I want to cut you off.

       Place you on the surface

of my dreams caress your stem

    and smell the fragrance

          that secretes.

            I have you

                 here

            on the bed

              extracting

           Leaves marked

              like freckles

             on your back. 

            Your
quintessential

           silk

        on my lips

       drop

        lets

     of summer

              rain

              fall from

             The petals. 

I place you in a glass on my windowsill. 

The young thorn pricks my finger inserts

Beneath the skin reminding me how to hold

you honestly, tenderly.  I know your vibrant

colour wont last but beside it on the stem

         is another bud to bloom.

SHE

She captures the light

Like a grouped collection

Of solar panels painted

by Picasso.

She’s a necessity, a gulp of water

When thirsty a droplet of joy

in my mood that drastically

changes my spectrum of colour.

She’s life and love

You don’t need the word                              

Happiness.











WHAT PATRICK KAVANAGH SEEN

 or a disused house in county Louth.

  Just up Duffy’s lane over the fields towards Mucker

Kavanagh country the borderlands just a milefrom Hack-
balls- cross, through his poplars over his wooden gate
and I was lost in an old abandoned cottage
it was as if the people had just walked out the door like
a film set of Patrick Kavanaghs catholic Ireland.

I was lost in a world of sacred hearts blood from thorns

and sepia-toned pictures of Jesus, bloody icons littered

every step I took, It seemed as if I had walked into 

his poems in memory of his Mother and Father.  

I didn’t even know what a poem was then,

all I knew was he had the jack of a car and I had 

the branch of a tree and we were out on a mission.

                                                                         

We believed that we were doing border patrols for our     

childhood force the I.R.B.P. Irish republican border patrol

with the jack of a car the branch of a tree and Muttley

the O.C. of dogs.  He was beaten kicked and rifle butted

for years by the British, he hated men in uniform so the cattle

and sheep were men in uniform being chased through the fields

sometimes he got a little close and got the odd kick to the head.

We we all traumatised by Belfast but we were running a free.

A FENCED IN POEM

I’m digging for a soul

Without god

In this wild existential

Garden.

I step away from

a sentimental path

and find light in dark

a truth in my truth.

The wind blows

Everything west

the world looks like

a Donegal landscape.

HALF A SESTINA
for Stephanie

How can i write a sestina for you
six stanzas of six lines concluding death
killing yourself in a three- line envoy
I, who doesn't know the time of day
when the lines of your life were diverted
to lie low in the blue-stoned soil.

Reliving grief, my hands delve in the soil
moulding a clay figurine of you.
Retracing the black paths that diverts
my gaze away from sunset to death.
A photograph of you on your wedding day
your smile did not convey loves envoy.

Was it back then that the messenger
whispered phlegmed words that soiled
you soul to fall early to your funeral day?
did a touch reach out and abuse you
fondling filthy caresses to die
out there on the back roads where diverted

diversions took you
round and round
to fall foul of the dead end?

THE RED COAT

During times of universal deceit, 

telling the truth becomes 
a revolutionary act. 

                      George Orwell

I was ten or twelve

when my father

told me to burn

a good red coat.

This was Belfast

In the early

seventies so

I done what

I was told

but

to this day it

has always

niggled me why

I had to burn

that coat.

My father is dead

and my sister

who was wearing

the coat

she killed

herself

and I think

this is why.

This was 

the coat

that carried 

the gun

that killed 

the man?

DEPTH CHARGE

The depth

of my poems

Were 6 x 6

a good memorial

or a red red rose.

I read the books

And dug through

The sedimentary

Sentiment.

As you see

My poems

Are getting

Shorter. 

Life in this

Wheelchair

Is 2 x 2 but

Less is more

Than more.

Pagan Poet

One sylabble
Appears
On the page
The word
Sun.

The clarity
Of the new
Day forms
The seed
Of a poem.

The soft sway
Of language
Breezes across
The fertile
Earth.

CUT DOWN

The shards of light rest

On summer grass like

a sprinkling of snow.

The light reflects

of cars and shadows fall.

The scarlet and rustic autumn

Fall upon the ground.

Im sitting here projecting

The past, the present

and the future.

A cop was killed here

yesterday and a lawn is cut-

down today.  I’m in the present

as sparse as summer trees.

summer skies, blue beyond blue.

THE WET-ROOM

Sitting here

on a disabled 

toilet with a lap-

top resting on

my lap and wheel-

chair in front

to stop it falling.

      

I’m bone dry

Here in the wet-

Room washing
away and erasing
words.

Creating an in-
let and an out-

let of poetry
that shapes
my shore.

**

MAN MADE TREE

The pollen of thistle-

down heads north

on a gust that carrry’s

with it blue plastic bags.

They passed my window

And I imagined a tree in

The arse hole of nowhere

full of pink and blue

plastic leaves.

THE WOMB DREAM

Laying here in the dark

My phone my hub and

My TV on stand-by

Are like cars in a city-

scape when I blink.

I put the lamp on re-

membering my dream:

holding the bed-rail

and the monkey pole

on the back seat of

a taxi swerving cross-

town traffic holding

on to this white

knuckled dream.

The vomit and the bile

Are like a mouthwash

Behind my teeth.

I manage to gag it

Back down.  Imagine

I’m getting motion

Sickness in a dream.

A girl is on my lap

Giving me a welcome

To New York blowjob.

This isn’t just any

Dream this is a womb

Dream im being born

An adult, her waters

Break and I come

Gushing out onto
the hospital floor.

I switch the lamp off

And im in the dark

Again watching lights

Dance across my room.

My carer calls and pulls

The curtain and my foot-

Falls onto the floor

And I start to forget

The cityscape the womb

Dream and the dancing

Lights.   I hold the bed

Rail and the monkey

Pole and stumble into

Reality, my wheelchair.

CONTRABAND

"War is peace. 
Freedom is slavery.“ 
                    George orwell

1.

The cows are lying down so

the rains aren’t to far away.

I was going to draw this land-

Scape but ill try it in words:

The road and the river beneath

Me cascades into an s bend

Washing away and erasing
the memory of the old
smugglers route.

I bet if I stopped and searched

The cars all would have contra-

band.  I wouldn’t mind a bit

of contraband,  it sounds good. 

My Ordinance survey of the traffic

is 12 to 15 cars every 30 seconds.

Ill try to capture this poem in

A thirty second parameter.

The black Mercedes came from

Nowhere and crossed this bridge

Where I‘m parked in a blue car

Craning my neck to watch a heron

dander softly through the water

Craning its neck for prey.  At

This meeting of the waters caged

Like a prisoner on this bridge parked

Into a thirty second span where a high-

Way man died a hundred years ago

And he’s buried on this highway

beneath a blue cloudy sky.  I start my blue

adopted car and drive of into disability.

2.

the roots have creased and lifted

the tarmac path like tiny ramps

for the wheelchair to slow me

down.  I sit by an empty bench

where on sits my book.  I look

hard into grass and hear

the shores lap my shore.

I wish this tiny peninsula

Would float of into Lough

Neagh but I would still

Be tied to tradition.

 I sit here in "The galley"
 café among the marina
men talking tides
and the new
 mooring
 tying them

to tradition.

FOOTNOTE:

were all tied to the gallows of tradition

life seems like an illegal existence.

so are we watching that trival tripe big brother

or is big brother watching, this blog is my diary room.

A CLOUDY POEM

“Poetry is the sound of sense”

                                       Robert Frost

Just as I write this title

(a cloudy poem) it be-

comes abstract folding

into the cream of my crop. 

I’m watching a cloud fold

into a cloud, I could say it

looks like a greyhound but

some one else will say it’s

a rat or a cat so lets just say

it compresses into a cloud.

Poetry folds in on itself, it means
all things to all people.  Every
word has to have a way in

 and a way out.  Folding
and folding and folding and folding
in on itself compressing into a cloud

of vapourised emotion, a poem.

SILKEN

For p

       A single rose emerges.

Plants its indelible mark

   on the corner of my eye.

I want to cut you off.

       Place you on the surface

of my dreams caress your stem

    and smell the fragrance

          that secretes.

            I have you

                 here

            on the bed

              extracting

           Leaves marked

              like freckles

             on your back. 

       There upon

         The fresh

      Clean space

is your little

 hill

      blushing.

Your quintessential

           silk

        on my lips

       drop -lets

     of summer

              rain

              fall from

             The petals. 

I place you in a glass on my windowsill. 

The young thorn pricks my finger inserts

Beneath the skin reminding me how to hold

you honestly, tenderly.  I know your vibrant

colour wont last but beside it on the stem

         is another bud to bloom.

SKY FISHING

For Sinead and Glenn

I’m looking through my window

Watching a white cloud drift like

An 1830s ink pot and quill in

A blue Keats- ian sky.  My secret

Language whistled not the sash

Or the soldiers song and blocked

The bombs and bullets of twenty

Four hour and forty eight hour

Curfews. 

That language that was on the tip

of my tongue when the camouflaged

frankenstien monsters goose-stepped

Through my home tramping

Across culture.   My dads old

78s collection lay broken on

the floor the plaster tore of walls

and floorboards pulled up.

Like a scene from an Akmatova poem

I can still see it now in sepia-tones.

Those days of milling the young old

Have been replaced by books

And the secret language I stored

Has beome these words of touch-

Able dreams.  I was a space cadet

Still am thank you soupdragon.

THE SHAPE OF SLEEP

Has moulded my pillow

into my fathers bed.

He sleeps in soil, in me

tossing and turning memory.

The few of his words
I remember have fabricated
my sleep and are now
fabricating my day.

A MAGIC HAND OF CHANCE

I.M John Keats

I shook this living hand warm

and capable of earnest grasping.

If it cold in a melancholic ode

In the veil of deaths delight.

When that fit of melancholy

Falls like a mournful cloud

Do not weep my rivers of tears.

a prose-tale

the name

implanted

itself took

root and merged. 

a half truth,

a distorted memory.

one that really

did happen?

its as if its

behind sight

the emotion

removed.

the thought

you thought

was true? 

becomes

a prose-tale.

BAY A

The tree

In the mirror

By the pebble-

Dashed wall.

Looks cold

Dark naked

and alone.

BLUR ON A WINDOW IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

For C.D Wright

That image is drifting away already

 an image coming out of an image.

a man standing against the body of a man.

Will my sons son ever see the sepia-tones of the past.

Will they hold an ebony and ivory walking stick

Stumbling between this world and that

In an old abandoned cottage.

I took my five a day today, tablets.

My day begins in silence and poetry and ends

In silence and poetry.

An image within an image.

I go to my hide, my will to power.

Turning another days muck into gold:

A blurred memory from childhood stumbling across a main road

With my eyes closed to see what it would be like in the dark.        

BUS STOP

You who wrote on water

We have come full circle

From Keats’s waking dream.

Far beyond romantics revolutions

punk and new romantics.

We have been through sentimental

fairytales and its time to jump off.

Let the bus drive past the stop that says

Slave morality and jump off into the un-

Known round and round the roundabout

Through the country the cities and towns

And get off at the balancing lakes.

 COME LEG OR I’LL DRAG YA

            Its funny

how life

            becomes

a statement.

I used to laugh

                     at people who

were unbalanced.

Saying,

   “come leg or ill drag ya”

and now i'm un-
balanced you should

seen me every this morning

and every morning

stumbling like a drunk into

this wheelchair.

DIZZYING

I’m dreaming on a jet stream

Until it turns into a broken cloud

And the sky returns to a dreamy blue.

The world is dizzying out there

Beyond the glass, cars and prams

And beautiful people branching out

Into reality.

DUENDE

‘ no one puts flowers on the grave of water’

                                                          R. bly

I was baptised

in dark water.

I seen my reflection

in a puddle.

I put my foot in it

It splashed my skin. 

William staffords

‘Moose’ or Raymond

Carvers ‘Dog’or Ted

Hughes’s ‘Crow’

My poems are my thought fox.

Something else is alive.

A FENCED IN POEM

I’m digging for a soul

Without god

In this wild existential

Garden.

I step away from

a sentimental path

and find light in dark

a truth in my truth.

The wind blows

Everything west

the world looks like

a Donegal landscape.

IRISH REPUBLICAN AFTER-LIFE

Ireland
you gave

 me the blues

and this northern gale.

You made me dig
deep in my father’s
soil.

I write this
epitaph
behind you

in stone:

Belfast, Dundalk
and Craigavon

North and South
is beyond.

Interned
in your
special
powers


act.

KNOWING THE UNKNOWN

I.M. Wallace Stevens and John Berryman

Deep in the depths of

 irrationality

I’m being rational

creating accidentally on

 purpose poetry

like a pre-meditated dawn

a disabled reality.

Literature is my desire

to live in this

able-bodied world.

Ive been down the road

 of Lazarus and Berryman

Stood on the edge of my soul

Looked down at the river

But I couldn’t jump

So I resign here with

a blind brow.

THE SANDWICH

I’ve got bread

cheese, tomatoes

and poetry beside

a book of western

philosophy that’s

Last word is life.

THE POETS ESSENTIAL LONELINESS

I.M. William Carlos Williams

Poetry and art

are all that matters.

This waking and sleeping

is a process for that. 

I’m locked in an image:

a full moon and an autumn night.

A prayer of melancholy magic

a spell of natures hold.

The shadowed shapes cast

A projectile of life, a hat, a coat

making this despair live-able,

syll-abled .

WEEPING LAUGHTER

I feel like I’ve been

Released from prison.

All those poems of

Darkness have seen

into this light.

All those days

of tears drip

like leaves in

the autumn air

Re-cycling the cold

stark reality.

I’ll never forget that

diamond path

Now that I can laugh  

away those tears.

BALANCING, GREEN GRAFITTI

I‘m here at the balancing lakes

Among the housing estates with-

In green spaces, the reason why

I came here twenty fives years

Ago drinking thunderbird wine

Like a hobo on them railway

Lines living the Goodyear dream.

I stop at an empty bench plastered

In pink graffiti.   Imagine pink graffiti

In Northern Ireland, imagine kerb-

Stones of pink and white and blue

Or pink white and orange and we’ve

Just came out of a thirty year pink war.

Is my destiny down that left path?

Is it the one less travelled by?

Meandering past the heron standing

Guard, stilled in the waters of green

Graffiti, balancing.