Randomosity

Poem: Valentine

2012-02-13T18:03:00.000+01:00

Briefly it made me a little sad
the lack of roses arriving, or chocolates in heart shaped boxes,
until lucky remembrance would have it recollected
how once everything was about you,
leaving me exhausted with the impossibility of making
someone else’s happiness my goal,
trapped in the misery of lost dreams,
the focus of your disappointed anger,
worn out by trying and failing, and failing again
to infuse some joy into our joyless wretched life
and calling this love despite all evidence to the contrary,
bar once a year when we pretended with flowers
that this is the life we wanted to be living.

Poem: Grief

2012-02-03T21:52:00.001+01:00

It takes a least two bottles of wine before I feel anything now,
stupidly crying changes nothing, you still not here.
I went looking for something to let me see you again,
But it was all bright lights and twisting shapes and you are still gone -
And me disappearing into looking for you.

If this is what it feels like to have a broken heart, I hate it.
A stupid way to play with words, it beating through the hurt,
Not broken, but broken all the same and nothing makes sense anymore
But the flying away to a place that never existed to begin with -
I wish I could find where you are and live in it.

This was always what I did before, I've reason now,
Never needed the excuses, but they have proved useful.
Hurting myself is incidental, I would tear the heart from the world
And burn everything to blackened ash to have you here -
I would end it rather than be in it without you.

It is impotent, this determined rage, no chemical can restore you.
No deed so exquisite and perfectly terrible that i can trade
And no one to trade with, which was always the case anyway.
I will take forgetting and long numb days of drowning in oblivion -
It is better than all this pointlessly grieving.

Blog Post:Poem: Potential

2012-01-20T19:09:00.000+01:00

It broke my heart a little bit, talking to this lovely boy,
He is pretending for his friends, who know anyway and don't care,
He is worried about his Da’, an ‘auld bully of a man
And is so scared of what everyone is going to say.

I told him, someday you’ll leave here,
and all the terrible hard things about being a teenager
will melt away to nothing again, and you’ll be happy
when everyone loves you for who you are.

He can’t see it yet, but he’s going to be magnificent,
I can tell by the spark in his eye, the brightness of him
and the fact that he shines already, still putting himself together
and working out how to become a grown up.

In a year or so he'll leave school behind, where they bully him,
He'll not be afraid to be himself anymore, free of them,
Away from small minds and mean names he will blossom.
When he finds his place in the world he is going to be amazing.

Poem: What now?

2012-01-16T19:45:00.000+01:00

I was supposed the be the one
Who did not know how to live in the world.
Years of abusing anything I could abuse,
And you worrying after me.

That time, you watching me
Come apart at the seams,
Too drunk to to make sense
And sobbing about something
I could not explain.

Or the bleak dark days
When I was flying somewhere,
You putting me in the shower and feeding me
And waiting for me to come back again.

I should have been the one to leave,
Tried so hard to be lost,
Who would have guessed
I would get better at living
And you would be the one
That ended up being defeated.

What will happen to us now,
With no one left standing
To pick up the pieces
And keep our heats beating.

Poem: Dublin

2012-01-16T19:37:00.000+01:00

How I loved you
and you tore the heart right out of me,
little things at first
just how we change over time,
but then that guy kicked black and bloody
down outside the George one Saturday,
and I thought to myself - is this my town,
and what happened to us
that we have these poor broken boys
wrapped in cardboard on the Ha'penny bridge?
And the man won't read the Gas meter because of the needles,
and the rest of last night
scattered across the streets in broken bottles
and puddles of vomit and piss.
So time to leave and my heart breaking,
wanting to bottle Temple Bar and take it with me,
just the craic, the shiney tourist bits
but not the desperation that ate away at us
after the tiger had fled
and Dublin was a broken thing,
a city like any other,
not my home at all anymore.

Poem: Little Things

2012-01-03T19:30:00.001+01:00

If I have the ability at all to create something beautiful, then I will.
It is far easier to condemn and be critical, the world leans that way
And sometimes we are drowning in stupidity.

Then there is a moment, a little thing to appreciate,
Take it, a cliche, a rainbow, a sunset,
These are few and far between, but oh, they are magnificent.

Stop and breath it in, do not be clever for a moment, embrace it,
Soon it will fade away, as these thing are wont to do,
And there will be another reason to be angry, or disappointed,
Something else to tweet about, another tirade started.

But if you have it taken a little time to smell the roses, savor red wine,
To paint a picture or love a friend, read a good book start to end,
Then when the world bites and your heart is broken,
And you can not take back words in anger spoken,
You will not need Gods or Horoscopes, fairy rings, mediums or empty hope,
You will have these moments you captured in time,
When it was you and the world, and the world was just fine.

Poem: New Years Eve, 2010

2011-12-30T23:30:00.000+01:00

Counting down, three, two, one
And cheering, strangers dancing in the street,
Party hats and singing songs, drunken merriment,
This saying goodbye to the year.
I wonder now if you were listening to it,
We're there fireworks outside your window
And did all the world seem happy?
Bright snow lit Dublin, drowning in joviality
And you bowing out, did you wait for that moment,
Three, two, one, and it's over, new years day,
And you, no longer afraid of the dying.

2011, and Christmas wishes.

2011-12-20T11:02:00.002+01:00

2011 is nearly over, and it seemed like a good time to do a sort of personal 'review' of the year. It's been an eventful one, both brilliant and terrible. I left the job I'd been in for five years to start something new- a move totally out of character from my usual 'play it safe' approach to things. I decided I'd had enough of living on my own and moved house, with my sister as a room mate. I started to focus more on writing, on trying to create something. After always being very vocally happy about being single I started to think it would be nice to find someone to share things with. I made attempts to be more involved with the real people in my life, putting more effort into the friendships I have, and developing new ones. I got tired of being on my own, the comfort I had always felt in relying only on myself had been diminished.

There was a moment that started all of this need for change, the terrible part of the year. An awful thing that happened that shifted the way I interacted with the world. On New Years Eve, 2010 my friend took her own life, alone in her apartment, about 15 minutes away from me. She didn't call me to talk, but I'd never been that type of friend. A casual friendship, meeting in the pub or exchanging superficial chat. If she had called me I would have gone to her, and though I realize it is a normal reaction to a suicide I felt dreadfully guilty that she did not feel she could reach out to me.

It has taken me these months to get to a point where I was not entirely sad and unspeakably angry. An absolute sense of loss and an inability to understand what the reason for her decision was drove away the ability to think about her clearly, to put together memories of her not tainted by the way she died. I will never know what was in her mind, what pushed her to that point, I will probably never totally forgive myself for not seeing any signs of what she was going to do.

She was a woman that I was in awe of, so very full of life. She was the only person I have ever met who always made me smile, just by walking into a room. She was fiercely clever and impossibly glamourous, always pristine, always full of ideas and excitement. She engaged completely with the world, with honesty but never cynicism. It is inexplicable that, in the end, the world defeated her.

When I think about how she died I get a horrible sinking feeling in my gut, like being dropped from the top of a rollercoster. I have a memory of the last time I saw her playing over and over in a loop in my mind, I have examined it from ever angle, trying to find anything that might have been a plea for help. She seemed happy, excited by her new marriage, looking forward to Christmas and alive, in love with life.

I miss her very much. I think about her often. I wish she was still here.

Not being able to understand has made things very difficult, and the one thing we will never have is closure, we will never know why.

We cannot change what has happened, I will never see her again and can never ask her. I have gone through torturing myself, looking for the thing I missed, the hint that indicated she needed help. I have been so sad, thinking about the small things she will never do again. Simple things like having a cup of coffee, washing her hair, telling a joke. And the big things, finishing her PhD, having a family, living a life that had so much promise. I've missed her and I have been angry with her. I would give pretty much anything to have had the opportunity to try to help her, and to still have her with us.

This time of year can be difficult for a lot of people, Christmas bringing with it it's own particular pressures and difficulties. This season, amid the fun and festivities, I will be thinking of the friend I lost, and the friends I have who might need to reach out.

Now, I think about her and all of the things she will not do and am determined that I will not waste opportunities. The simple things I have been so cynical about are important, other people and their messy, fascinating lives are the reason to be here. We only get one chance at this living, and to refuse to allow ourselves to be happy, out of some misguided idea that we are somehow too clever to appreciate the tiny reasons to be so, is a special kind of stupidity.

For those I do not know who are in difficulty, there are supports available. If I can be so presumptuous I will say to you what I wish I had had the opportunity to say to her. There are people who love you, you probably do not even realize how many lives you touch, how heartbroken those people will be if you are not there, and how willing they will be to talk to you and support you. You are not as alone as you may feel.

My life is a work in progress, as all of our lives are. For christmas this year I will offer you all a simple wish that I would always have considered a trite cliché before, but which sums up what i would like for myself and for the people I love. A wish for a very merry Christmas, and a happy new year. Xx

National office for suicide prevention (Ireland): http://www.nosp.ie/

Poem: December, 2011

2011-12-17T10:54:00.001+01:00

We have forgotten the things we promised not to forget
And an old poem is rattling around inside my head
About a lost idea of Ireland, and the wishes of long gone hero's,
Over and over, 'was it for this?', 'was it for this?'.
On the evening news I watch the stupid bobbing heads lying
Through their soulless fixed grins, bloated uselessness
Squeezed into a nice suit. It's almost enough to make you wish
Bertie would come back, and at least make the situation amusing.
Misplaced, clichéd pride in a pint of the black stuff
Or stupid green hats and the cheapest of our fairytales
Serve as an excellent distraction while we surreptitiously take down the
Cead míle fáilte signs, not that anyone is coming.

Poem: The worst moment was...

2011-12-02T19:01:00.001+01:00

I thought the worst moment was January third
Two thousand and eleven, four thirty four pm,
When I heard about you. Then it was
January forth, all day, when I made phone calls
To make everyone else know it too.
It was March second, when we found out
What they actually meant about what you did
When they said accident. It was March twenty third,
Hating sitting in a bloody church, listening
To all the reasons you should still be alive.
It was the end of July when I realized
That I had forgotten to count the days
Since you died, and it was months now.
It was September eighteenth when I had to
Go looking for a photograph, because I had forgotten
Some aspect of your face. It was yesterday,
When I found myself crying in the middle of the day,
Because, out of nowhere, I thought about you.

Poem: Far from ideal

2011-11-29T20:52:00.000+01:00

Sheep do not look at eagles and wish that they could fly,
That would be stupid.
What I am is a real construct,
made up of memory and influence. Dreams are different.
I can no more take the things I want and live them
then the sheep can, it is not a question of determination,
I am no more capable then them.

Poem: Broken

2011-11-27T20:04:00.001+01:00

There were pieces of me left
Scattered around your apartment
Which you kindly packed up
And left in a box at my front door
So I could take them inside
And begin the tedious process
Of trying to reassemble myself.

Poem: Winter

2011-11-27T19:51:00.000+01:00

Winter is coming again, crisp clean cold and Christmas lights.
The plants have died, the trees naked and stark against autumnal skies,
This is my season. Briefly I pretended to be a Summer flower, for you
But of all the fairytale characters I most wanted to be the Snow Queen,
The White Witch. I was never a Disney princess.

When the sun was shining I played at make believe, pretend warmth.
I do not feel it, they tore it out of me with good intentions,
I am safe. For awhile you made me wish that I was better, able,
Somewhere deep down I think it would have be something to love you,
But it’s a relief that it is over. I am glad that it is Winter.

Poem

2011-11-12T18:33:00.000+01:00

For a while we worked, the things I gave you were enough,
I think we were mostly happy, but you became greedy,
decided that you wanted posturing, and stupid pointless words,
Like we were living in an American sitcom.

Gradually you felt something was missing, me just being me,
You wanted to hold my hand walking down the street, and constant hugs,
wanted to sacrifice everything for brainless make-believe,
Until we meant nothing worth having.

I was never going to give in, and I was so angry
You fighting every day, so determined to make us ordinary,
And constantly saying it, buzzing in my ear like an idiot.
I wanted to throttle you.

Until you ruined it, you for me were my reason,
My every moment, my waking in the morning,
Bigger than platitudes, and better then needing them,
You were my everything.

It didn’t need saying, there was nobody else so trusted,
So treasured, until you needed me to change,
I hope you find some lovely imbecile to parrot sweet trivialities
And that she makes you happy.

Poem: Different Lives

2011-11-10T17:48:00.000+01:00

We used to sit in a group up in the park
drinking revolting mixtures of spirits
robbed from gullible parents liquor cabinets
and smoking cigarettes we bought two for ten pence
from the irresponsible shop keeper who also sold us our penny jellies.

As time passed we introduced the softest of illegal substances
and availed of the dark winter evenings to gently molest one another.
With nothing to do and nowhere to be we unintentionally
spent our days dissecting modern philosophy
and running from the Garda when they showed up unexpectedly.

Later on, through fortunate chance and happenstance
I stumbled my way into a University and blagged myself a degree.
Learning to roll my r’s and sandpaper the rougher edge of Dublin from my tongue,
While you staggered from expulsion to Dole queue to probation
And erased the sparkle from your eyes with alcohol and heroin.

I got myself an office job and a pretty apartment
And became adept at hiding the places I grew up in,
While you robbed a post office and got locked up
And died bleeding in a dark cell of an overcrowded prison.
They didn’t believe when I said, I used to be friends with him.

Poem: Apology

2011-11-06T13:07:00.000+01:00

It is not an easy thing, to say you are sorry,
I know you wanted so much more for me
And are disappointed that I could be so ordinary
As to let myself be trapped by something so stupid.

I have tried for explanations, unfair to expect you to understand
How loud it can get inside my head, just excuses
But I was searching for some kind of respite
From always having to be myself.

I wanted to see what would happen if I took myself apart
I didn't consider that you would be the one
Left to pick up all of the pieces and try
To fashion me back out of them.

It must have hurt, it must have made you angry
That I hid them from you, gave you promises
And presumed you were so stupid that you would miss
The best part of a bottle of whiskey on my breath.

The person that I am, that's all that there is
And no amount of tears can change it, not now
I know that it is entirely selfish of me,
But letting everything disintegrate felt extraordinary.

You need to stop trying to save me now,
The girl you want back is a lost, I barely remember her
I think it would be easier if you just hated me,
And for what it's worth, I am sorry.

Poem:Bravery

2011-11-05T18:46:00.001+01:00

This is bravery,
Being in this moment
and the next
and all of the moments to follow
when everything is full of hurt
and fear, wolves at the door,
bottles of whiskey,
and regrets and regrets and regrets.

Poem: Deinon

2011-10-26T17:54:00.001+02:00

These wishes,
they are such things,
beyond precious,
priceless and pointless
they breath for us,
pulse beneath the skin, alive,
fantastical and desperate,
the very essence of being, the reason.

These wishes,
they are such things,
wonderful and terrible
they sustain us, eat away at us,
unattainable in reality
they flirt with us, taunt us,
they are too loud voices
in silent churches,
they are incongruous.

These wishes,
they are such things.

Poem: Time heals

2011-10-18T09:30:00.000+02:00

Enough time has passed now for us to talk about other things and smile.
Every word no longer weighted with your absence, every meal not tasteless.
We have stopped expecting that you will walk in the door,
And there are moments when our thoughts are of something else.

Yesterday I did not cry for you, the first time since.
And it seems that I was wrong, the world kept turning.
I am surprised that the sinking feeling in my stomach has gone,
And my heart still beats, miraculously unbroken.

Having offered up limbs, heart and soul for one moment with you
I have stopped trying to barter in vain with hearing-impaired Gods.
Slowly things are getting better, perhaps we will survive this after all,
And time will turn you into nothing more than reminiscence.

Poem: This Girl

2011-10-17T12:36:00.000+02:00

She is the bravest person that I have ever met,
Despite the constant quiet fear
That makes her appear wholly unremarkable.

She has a small scar on the side of her wrist
That she finds herself rubbing in times of stress,
A tiny raised knot of flesh that you would not notice.

She has an almost imperceptible dip in her skull
Just beneath the line of her hair,
That she imagines aches constantly.

She has thin silver marks on her forearms
Indirect reference to old hurts
That well up unexpectedly to choke her.

She has astonishing reserves of bravery
That she uses to wake up every morning
And live as a part of the world.

She has a bitter understanding of cruelty
That she cannot help but replay
In the faces of prospective friendships.

She has nothing untainted by bad black memories
That she does not allow herself to think about
But which have distorted everything.

Poem: An Irish story

2011-10-14T20:53:00.002+02:00

This is not a sad story, this is something else, a small voice saying she is worth more but another going,
‘ah go on, who do you think you are anyway?’
(its Fr Ryan, and her Da and one particularly cruel teacher
who used to take the ruler to her with no provocation)

She is adept at pretending, the kids sitting outside the pub on Sundays
and calling that an outing, she loves them practically, clean knickers and (mostly) full bellies,
big loans from Tommo in number 6 for shiny white communion dresses,
but the youngest has her heart broken all the same, what with the fucking language out of her
and continuous summons up to see the Nuns who make her ashamed of the state of her best coat,
sneering at the state of her, and no amount of smacking is any use in making her behave,
   (‘just like her mother, not having sense enough to shut up,
   mouth on her like a fecking fishwife, and useless to boot’)

She is ruthless in her rearing, dragging them up, mortgaging all her hopes on them getting the leaving cert.
The eldest was pretty enough to be a model, before she got herself into all that trouble
and ended up living down Stoneybatter with a mewling mouth to feed and dirty boots under her bed,
so that it was a waste of time, all the nagging her to get to her books,
Jesus wept but she made eejits out of the lot of them, going around with that bump under her school jumper,
such a clatter she got when it all came out, she’d had to drag the aulfella off her, damage done anyway.
   (‘I’ll teach ye, ye little bitch, you’re nothing but a whore,
   riding God knows who and ye needn’t think it’s staying here)

She used to have hopes for herself, a nice house in suburbs, maybe her own little job in a shop
just for pocket money like, maybe get her hair done the odd time, or bring the little ones for sticky buns,
but that was before all the babys, one after the other, and he wouldn’t hear of using anything,
saying it’s like washing your feet with your socks on, and no chance of the other, not with the cost of it.
Once she joked he should tie a knot in it, and he left her eye black for a week, think you’re clever,
she should of kept her gob shut anyway, by now she should know better.
   (sure theres a pair of them in it, always caterwauling,
   for all his fists, she's been known to take the frying pan to him)

The neighbors gossip about her, there but for the grace of god
but sure, what else would you expect from a scut like her
and those kids, out and about all hours destroying the peace,
sure it's no wonder that they turned out the way they did,
and her with her airs, her ma was a real lady muck too,
God forgive me, she asks for it really, but that man leads her a dreadful life.
   (forgive me father for I have sinned, it's the thoughts in my head
   but Jesus knows things are bad, likely I'd be better off dead)

Poem: Now and Then

2011-10-08T12:36:00.000+02:00

What are we now, after all of this is put to bed, wrapped up neatly, blonde curls in pink bows.
Look at us, we are a picture in a storybook.
I still mean all of my smiles but when I am sad, oh it hurts.
How it still hurts.
I’ve counted them, one to ten, we do not talk about six, the worst time, the deepest one
Not that I am blaming, those were difficult times for all of us, it’s just the age thing separates me.
Mostly it is a thing that happened, a once upon a time that spills out of me when I’ve been drinking,
Mostly it is nothing worth relating.

I can’t do that kind of closeness but who needs it anyway, most people are pointlessly ordinary,
I do not answer when you ask me about relationships bar an aside, something trite and glib that makes me seem
selfish instead of broken, just these little things,
What might have been, a sometimes lonely, an impossible longing
And no tears left for anything,
Which is sad in itself, I suppose.
It faded like you promised me, but still just numbed, just numb.
Still waiting.

Poem: Another Love Story

2011-09-27T17:47:00.000+02:00

This was to be the great adventure,
we were to pack up our pasts and explore the unknown, hand in hand
we would break down barriers, create new histories and legends
to replace so many broken glass moments and twisted grey myths.

We began so full of hope,
but despite our open minded wonder at the majesty of the world
childhood serpents were still hissing in our ears.
We could not escape the stains of black nonsense corrupting our hearts.

It did not take long,
the shame they had taught tracked us down and pulled us apart,
the purest expression of us debased by these pious protestors,
dirtied and distorted until we were justified in our shame.

By the time the end came
we were bodies purpled in a latticework of anger, afraid
we took refuge in the simple destructiveness of hateful humiliation,
all was lost in absolutism. They owe us a myriad of possible tomorrows.

We were to be such a love story,
this would have been the great adventure
but for half remembered lies neatly wrapped in doxology,
abhorrent as it always was, is now and ever shall be.

Seven Months

2011-09-05T23:12:00.002+02:00

It took seven months
for it to be said aloud.

I still miss her,
this wonderful, impossible woman.

It’s been seven months
since one dark evening,
one senseless moment
that changed everything.
Seven months of angry mourning,
shocked bewilderment
and one word we were not saying.

Seven months since all the little things
were too much
and in inexplicable despair
she abandoned us.
It has been seven months
without knowing all the whys.

Seven months since she died.

Seven months for someone to say suicide.

Poem: Written

2011-06-30T00:06:00.001+02:00

A favourite author talked about the world,
written on our bodies,
marked out in our silhouette
the small lines that tell our stories.
You are a tension in my shoulders,
a slight shrug,
an awareness of myself,
a tremor in my hands
and awkwardness in my carriage.
You are written somewhere in me,
perhaps hinted at by the grey hairs
that have started to grace my temples,
or an occasional distance,
an expression that crosses my face
when I think about you accidentally.

Poem: Regret

2011-06-14T01:05:00.000+02:00

There is no reason I would have called you that night.

I wish I had.

I wish that I had thought to do it,
I wish I had done something differently,
But as it happened
I was at home, tweeting 'happy new year'
to people I do not know
While you, in some kind of despair
Were dying.
On your own.

Poem: Dublin

2011-05-03T23:30:00.001+02:00

In the morning it will be raining, or the sun will shine
And the river will flow through the centre of the city regardless.
There will be a crowd, or one or two, depending on beds and funding
It will be one short no matter the weather and circumstance.

My city is bleeding loss and hurt from the cracks in the street
At 6am they sneak in, stepping over the sleeping, to drag protestors away.
On occasion you see the missing, lost amongst the invisible
Conspicuous at last, if only by their absence.

‘We neither know nor care to look for anything but reasons’
An explanation for the state of things as they are,
But we do not want to dirty our hands
With the excrement created by our lust for progress.

You were stained with the hurt and sickness of neglect
And for weeks I watched you dying.

There is very little for which we should feel proud.

Poem: Love Stories

2011-05-03T23:25:00.001+02:00

This is the oldest story ever to be told,
the very first tale that came with shedding gills, taking to land.
We like our words, to say forever and love
and lie with a casual banality that mocks us.
Nobody before us, or nobody yet to come, is different
and when the stars burn their last there will be lovers
who weep their soft lies together at the ends of everything.
and pretend that theirs is the first story to have anything other
than a happy ever after.

Poem: After the End

2011-05-03T23:17:00.000+02:00

She felt she was alone – mostly this empty house,
This constant aching from nothing, nothing again.
She did not get the happy ever after that the stories promised her
The let this be the happy last page now.

Life keeps on writing the story, the parts that we do not tell.
This is murky, dirty; let us illiterate, after the ‘I do’.
A simple thing, a lying down and not waking up.
A no explanation, these things just happen, no reason.

Crumble, pour salt, waste away and ruin the dreaming,

Poem: Anonymous

2011-04-27T12:24:00.001+02:00

In having something to say, saying it, but hiding
There is a certain kind of crawling cowardice,
In little insipid negative comments, remaining nameless
There is a nothing to respect or deign to discuss,
In being too afraid to be identified, even virtually
There is a pitiable pathetic pointlessness,
In having convictions, but no courage in them
There is no merit to the things that you are saying.

Poem: Campfire

2011-04-26T18:22:00.000+02:00

Speaking of the past,
a crackling memory in glowing embers.
How I will remember that time
after white ash has blown away
and all that is left is scorched earth
and bitter cold. Once we ate melted mallows
and huddled together in the warmth
of living stories.

Poem: Love Story

2011-04-21T11:56:00.001+02:00

In the morning light you said no more,
A ring on her finger, a promise in her womb
Every lie you told me proved to be true
And despite it all I’m losing you.

Built on a promise of yesterday, this is us
Shattered glass slippers slick with blood
Once upon a time we were in love.
We are mostly broken; we see the truth in hurt.

Love based on broken glass and fists,
Mouth my neck and weep with it
Slam this girl against a wall and thrust
Want, a bloody lipped parody of lust.

Then home to the woman you would never hurt,
Back to sweet nothings and safer love.

Poem: I thought

2011-04-12T01:25:00.000+02:00

I thought, in getting older I would understand things more clearly,
I do not understand.
I want to stamp my feet and scream at the unfairness
That is in this.

I thought that, in getter older I would lose naivety
You have left me confused.
I want to turn back time and say the right lines
To change your mind.

I thought, in getting older I would learn acceptance
It is beyond me.
I want to change what happened magically
Do something differently.

I thought, in getting older I would see the world differently
It would make sense.
I want to make agreements with a deity
And rewrite history.

I thought, in getting older nothing would hurt me
It would be impossible.
I want to bring you back to the living
And change everything.

I want this not to be happening.

Poem: Love Hurts

2011-03-30T11:41:00.000+02:00

There is no rhyme for this, the grubby business of dying
cannot be romanticised on this occasion, while we are watching it.
Running to the pharmacy for stronger drugs to stop you weeping
while we watch in horror as the pain tears through you
and yet, selfish as we are, we prolong your suffering,
fighting against you for every minute and calling it the love
that means we cannot bear to lose you. So we continue
this terrible torture, beyond the bounds of common cruelty.

Poem: Valentine

2011-03-28T14:26:00.000+02:00

Poem: Reactionary

2011-03-25T13:37:00.000+01:00

I have built myself from the wasted scraps of my once upon a times,
we are fools when we believe in old magics and mages
and hide from the monsters underneath the bed,
praying to stories while we bleed and beg.

It is dangerous and stupid to wrap ourselves in wishes,
when the alarms sound we play with limited time
and lift our hems away from the filth
blinded to everything through choice.

We parade wilful ignorance as blessed virtue
but the children are still crying between the pages
of some great liars book of shadows
and blood stained words of gospel.

If I was another type of person I would arm myself with them
these shameful hurts and horrors,
but still, for all of our never again promises
we cheerfully hand over our children.

Poem: Intervention

2011-03-23T12:53:00.003+01:00

I thought that I would do anything for you
for whom I feel the closest approximation of love
that I can manage. It is not true,
I had imagined epic bloody sacrifice
but not this quiet intervention,
the desperate plea in your eyes
that says you love me more than I do.

I was not angry with your pleading,
but numbed, numbed, hands beginning to shake
with waiting. Run away from the situation
the noise of my thoughts,
the remnants of who I was
before all of this happened, too fast.

I forgot that the me hurting, hurts you too,
the watching me disintegrate has broken your heart.
I am emptily sorry and brokenly guilty
that in the end I will lose you for this,
the only thing that you could ask for
that I cannot give to you.

Poem: Thank you

2011-03-04T17:09:00.001+01:00

Thanks so much for taking the time out of your busy day
To stop me in the street and let me know smoking is bad for me.
I won’t keep you talking, I know you must be busy,
Perhaps on your way to McDonalds to give warnings about obesity
Or to stand in the confectionary isle at Tesco’s to tut at people buying chocolate.

Then it will be off around the many Dublin pubs with dire warnings
About the negative effects of alcohol and increases in binge drinking
And all the while everyone will be indebted to you and thinking
How lucky they are that you happened to come along
And scold them into health and harmony.

Then you can take yourself into the beauty shops
And, not allowing yourself to be distracted by the flesh on show,
Explain how sun beds encourage malignant growths,
you will be forever the hero who saved their lives
and from now on they will be happy with pasty white.

Perhaps drop into some restaurants and express
your concern that table salt will lead to early death,
I guarantee that they will all throw away their chips
And not think you intrusive in the slightest
But will see your intervention as a precious gift
And not for one moment assume you’re a Git.

Poem: Ireland

2011-02-22T23:21:00.000+01:00

The world is a shit place, lets not play pretend.
Everything is a bloody mess.
I can write you a lyric poem, if you want me to,
I can talk about the sun reflecting on glass for forty lines,
And we can all sing about beauty and sigh,
And bury ourselves in the comforting lie.

These Dublin boys are bleeding out neglect in broken needles,
Pissing outside the Blooms hotel, long since lost.
Ah sure, God is watching over us, ah sure,
Some old Irish bucket of crap, we disappear
Into apathy, disappear and never come back.

We need something outside of that.

Poem: Inspiration

2011-02-22T22:52:00.001+01:00

It moved from the sublime
breath of Mneme and her sisters
to be diluted. Trite and useless
corporate slogans to mimic
the Muses. Lost is it now
in contentiousness, a demand to be
aroused by this. Inadvertent imitation
of Pierus, or the foolish pride
of the Sirens. Wrathful must
lost Goddesses be, with inspiration
lost in phraseology.

Poem: Mistaken Identity

2011-02-05T12:23:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I saw you in the street
And went up to you to say hello
Of course it was someone else
Because you are gone
Lost to the confusion of myth
And the make believe of eternity.
I had forgotten already,
Just for a moment.

Poem

2011-01-06T01:47:00.002+01:00

It is strange to think that when you came into my office with Christmas wishes,
that would be the last time I spoke with you.
That you could be a bride in September and gone before the year ended
and that when I sent you a stupid new years message you had already died,
the fates ignoring that you were so full of life.

When we went home for Christmas we did not expect that the next time we met
would be in shocked silence around a table, or talking about practicalities
while we tried to make sense of senselessness, not knowing what to say
because it felt like some kind of a terrible sick joke
that you would not be coming back to us.

I never imagined that I would spend a morning making phone calls
to tell your friends and colleagues that you were dead,
because you were young and beautiful and making beginnings.
Nothing about this is even close to being right,
I cannot believe that you have died.

With the stupidity of senseless morbid thoughts I keep thinking of
how you made me laugh, complaining about the cold Irish weather,
I told you to just wait until January, that it would get worse before it got better,
how stupid a thing to say, with the benefit of hindsight, all things considered
and how now you will be so cold forever.

I am waiting, like a child, for someone to come and tell me there was a mistake
for you to arrive, laughing, and say that they got it wrong.
You cannot be forever lost to us, to be forgotten, dead and gone.
It is it not fair, that you could be ended so bluntly, inconsiderately,
when you were so vibrant, so alive, so young.

I will miss you joking with me, you smiling and loud and demanding,
you vibrant, you living and talking in giddy accented rapidity.
I wish, for what wishing is worth, that you were not lost and us bereft,
but still dreaming your dreams, still loving your loves,
with a young woman’s ignorance of the time she has left.

Poem: 2010

2010-12-21T16:46:00.000+01:00

It started on a Friday, with a suicide bombing in Pakistan,
while I nursed a hangover and navigated Dublin snow
which had just turned to dirty grey sludge when we heard about Haiti,
later to be overshadowed by 8.8 and tsunamis in Chile,
though we were more concerned when misbehaving volcanoes
grounded us in chaotic airports.

This year we watched waters spoiled by oil, and worried about shortages
and tutted at the ineptitude of the Grecian government,
not knowing what was coming in six months time.
We fell out with the French over handballs and cheating
and shook buckets for the sake of those deceased and displaced
by Pakistani monsoon rains.

We allowed ourselves a feel-good moment watching rescued miners
and one of bemused bafflement by antihydrogen atoms at CERN,
then watched in anger as our country faced financial disaster,
making November about bailouts and blizzards
and losing faith in the things we used to rely on
in foolish complacency.

At the start of it I was different; a simple passing change
inexplicably darkened the days to seeming insurmountability
which cannot be attributed to any one happening,
but soon it will be over and we can dust ourselves off
and begin the important work of forgetting,
not learning anything.

Poem: Lies, damned lies and...

2010-11-16T13:55:00.001+01:00

Make your way in silence to the edge of our cities
and hide yourself there, behind the newest addition
of multi million showcasing we call art.
Keep your eyes downcast, do not cry out
or we will find you and bundle you off to anonymous elsewhere
to muffle your voice, fearing the human story.

You are 22 per cent that falls through the cracks of policy.
The other 78 do not want to bear witness,
as you peer through the double glazing,
flattening the flowerbeds and rosebushes
and mucking suburban content
with the detritus of a broken life.

Poem: Safety

2010-11-05T12:37:00.001+01:00

It is the right thing to be kind, from a safe distance,
if you let it the terrible weight of others need will consume you
and you become a parody of compassion, trampled and used up,
pathetic in your bruised black acquiescence. Mortified martyr
to the consuming greed of your own capitulation.

Lost in subservience you cease as an entity onto yourself,
a perversified puppet to another’s damage, you are nothing
but a willing victim, revelling in the depth of your terrible sacrifice,
waiting for the world to take notice. Ridiculous distortion
of the notion of empathic intervention.

Take yourself to one side and be alone, you are damaged,
unable to connect without making yourself a casualty to
the human tendency to take advantage, inspired by your submission
and masochistic kindness. Beautifully broken
you will be safe at last in isolation.

Poem: Shame

2010-10-26T11:52:00.000+02:00

As small children we were taught about it in baggy school uniforms and knee socks
and never wearing patent shoes lest the boys saw our underpants reflected in them.
We were taught about it at rare school dances,
where the nuns pushed us apart telling us, ‘leave room for the holy ghost’.

Later on we were taught about it in class with talk of a man and a woman,
being married and doing your duty, bearing children.
In not speaking about pleasure and desire they taught us about it,
leaving us confused, betrayed and alarmed at our own bodies.

We were taught it in girls disappearing from school once bumps began to show
and in scandal when one teacher was asked not to return.
In not talking about the diversity of sexuality they taught us about it
telling us lies about punishment and consequence.

In teaching us about it they took what was good and pure
and twisted and corrupted it until every longing was a perversity.
On our knees and confessing our impure thoughts in dark rooms
we were taught it, without their ever needing to say the word.

Later on, in trying to rebel against it we rediscovered it, deepened it
in the bottom of a bottle, a handful of pills or powder and bad decisions.
In being determined not to feel it we bargained our happiness against it,
driven by it we sacrificed ourselves to dirty dark rooms and misery.

Poem: Are you Happy?

2010-10-01T12:59:00.000+02:00

Are you happy?
Have you lost yourself in this Americanised insensibility
demanding that it be a continuous state,
expecting to smile every moment of the day.

Do you measure everything by it
and desperately scramble for its attainment,
scorning that it is enough to be content.

What will the cost of achievement be,
did you shelf common sense and empathy,
swap the diverseness of experience for fantasy.

Did you forget that pursuit was the actual goal,
negate all thought in favour of soul
taking one part as the sum of the whole.

There is bliss beneath pain, did you forget
When you planned to go smiling from birth to death
As a pointless grinning marionette.

Go ahead and bask in your vacant glee
Feeling virtually nothing and calling it happy,
You have my grief, my heart and my absolute pity.

Poem: Epitaph

2010-09-28T15:52:00.001+02:00

The wind is howling through the old oak trees.
Who would have thought?
Sweet smiling eyes, sweet eyes smile.
Whisper your secrets in a cat’s ear
But I can see you. The hunter is here.
Lift up your frock, at least above your knee
And the wind is howling through the trees.

I can see you hovering in the corner of my eye
First left, left to right and sink lower again.
It was a back tooth wish this time,
Quarter for quarter and swallow a dime.
The first clock is chiming but the last keeps the time.
And the wind is howling, and the trees cry.

Poem: Winter

2010-09-27T14:01:00.002+02:00

Poem: A dream

2010-09-23T15:05:00.001+02:00

Here is a hope for you, here is a dream,
I have wrapped it in silver paper
and hidden it, unfulfilled and secure.
You can keep it, put it with the rest of your curios.

I like to look at it sometimes, this glittering thing,
but we must not touch it
it will shatter too easily, already it is cracked at the edges.
Protect it from me, hide it from the world.

I am trusting you with it, it is precious,
without it I would wither away,
I will not risk it with foolish determination.
Mind it and admire it, do not let me lose it.

Do not look at it too closely, it will blind you
with its burning need
but glimpsed from afar it is beautiful, promising.
Treat it gently, keep it safe, do not tread on it.

Poem: The World

2010-09-22T01:09:00.001+02:00

There is something bleak in the winter sun, we expect it now.
A long time has passed since we took the magic out of the rainbow-
Picked it into it’s component parts and marvelled for once at reality.

Twenty five letters to play with and we have Shakespeare or Jordan,
Words crafted carefully or thrown to the new wasted world,
So much uncovered, yet clinging in desperation to insipid fantasy.
Twisting our tortured forms, hoping to create human chrysalis
Whilst ignoring our wings and stagnating in ignorance.

Stronger, healthier and safer then we have ever been, we panic.
Imagining paedophiles in every playground and the earth burning beneath us
We twitter uselessly around nonentities, prattling instead of listening.

Today’s newspapers no longer tomorrow's fish and chip wrapper
To pay homage to the Gods of health, safety and stupidity while
We cradle the blood soaked innocents we forced to be our heroes
And imprison the broken in a kinder chemical Bedlam.

A long time has passed since we took the magic out of the rainbow,
We have forgotten the majesty of simple solutions in fractured light-
A whole world pointedly looking away, frightened children covering their eyes.

(This has been posted before, but much edited...)

Poem: Damage

2010-09-20T00:36:00.006+02:00

They got to me in the end.
I thought I had escaped them
with my books and poems, with my thinking.

They got to me in the hidden inside place
where I live as myself, snide whispering voices
I had forgotten, still influencing.

They got to me with made up stories,
make believe that lurked and grew in secret
only to appear in a hateful moment.

They got to me, they tore through
sense and goodness, until I found myself
parroting bad black lies, instinctively.

They got to me, just when I thought I was free
From dusty, dirty old books, from this
ugly stupidity. They got to me.

Poem: Heroine

2010-09-16T12:01:00.000+02:00

She is all used up, worn to nothing by the harshness of life,
go ahead and talk to her about dreams
with your idealistic cosseted view of the world,
then watch her step outside to barter her hopes
in exchange for so much poisonous escape.

She believes herself loved, he waits for her
in the next room, listening closely for her distress
so that he can intervene when she needs saving,
they trade on household chores, he washes the dishes,
buys the drugs, she spreads her legs and mops the floors.

She smiles emptily into the distance, spaced and absent
but for rare moments of shattering reality
when she talks about the remembrance of hands on her skin,
each moment of desperate surrender breaking her apart,
etched with terrible clarity on her body and heart.

We make her a cautionary tale, another statistic
to use for advocacy and funding,
when she was a child she dreamt of what she would be,
now she is wrecked, vanishing into the footnotes,
filed away with the rest of the detritus.

Brash, brazen and angry, she views the world with a cynical pragmatism
that makes mockery of our wishing wells,
all of our desultory interventions meaningless
in the face of bone weary despair, a broken life,
an unfortunate contemporary human sacrifice.

Poem: Virtual Anger

2010-09-14T12:59:00.001+02:00

It is easier to be angry about nothing at all,
Spewing ferocious hatred, irascible in our insistence
That we are right, like it matters in
The greater scheme of everything.

It is a certain song, a lyric or
Some television programme, swearing
On the radio, how dare they,
We give in to righteous anger.

Put it in a letter, on a blog,
Tweet it, how much hate can you
Fit into one hundred and forty characters?
@everyone, the world had turned to dirt.

Impetuous, we do not think about anything,
Retweet this, borrow an opinion
Without thought, hesitation or consideration,
Ideas are cheapened, moot social currency.

Virtual opinions for a virtual world,
Reactionary causes that matter if they are trending,
Easily we can all pretend to care
When it requires us to take no action.

Poem: Mediums

2010-09-03T14:27:00.001+02:00

Despicable carrions, gorging on grief,
picking over old bones with gleeful deceit,
vile abusers of the bereft and bereaved
exploiting their victims need to believe.

Heady with power they descend and they feast
and call it a comfort, this rape of the deceased.
Their despairing prey so intolerably misled
by these liars who claim to speak with the dead.

Poem: Result.

2010-09-02T12:46:00.001+02:00

The men are hanging around the backstreets, like they did when they were boys
uninterrupted now by school or wide waisted shouting mothers
beckoning them home for dinner and bed.

There is no need now for secretive smoking, and the cheeky calls to passerby’s
have taken on a leering and sinisterly threatening air
darkened by hopelessness and disappointment.

These men are the faces behind the numbers, the real world result
of the consuming greed that used them up
and spat them out to be forgotten.

With nothing to do they drink and fight, armed with their own pointlessness.
At midnight the Guards come and move them along
to be somebody else’s problem.

Poem: Nothing Matters Anymore

2010-06-03T23:45:00.001+02:00

It is not true that nothing matters anymore
but I have spent four hours pacing,
Beyond shock,
Contemplating,
There is no time left for our wasting.

These were my words,
My craft,
I fed my soul to parchment,
Long since I was parched
I emptied out my heart to this unimportant paper,
Never loving, never touching,
Thinking I would have time later,
Tell you later,
Empty words, empty paper,
And always later.

Time runs out, I had forgotten
Books can be burned, the pages rotting,
Twisted from their one time wish
For a poem lasts little longer than a kiss,
They do not matter next to this,
It is only you, not them I miss,
Without you I do not exist.

Everything for one more kiss,
And everything destroyed by this.

It came too swiftly in the end,
To lose my heart in such a friend,
So simply pace and try to write
And drink and weep into the night.
Wrapped in this hurt I am contrite,
I did not love you as I might.

In this pain I am now alone
And only need you because you’re gone,
Burning need,
Broken poem,
Always and forever gone.

Poem: What they will do.

2010-05-12T13:37:00.001+02:00

They will teach you how to be someone else,
It’s easy to play at make believe, to hide under the bed with the monsters.
They will hold up your deepest shames and fears and tell you that they are true,
And you will go on your knees and thank them for it,
Wrap yourself up in lies upon lies, call them your prayers and swallow them,
They will give you a spoon full of sugar and applaud your efforts.

You will learn how to fit in with their vision of the world, God will love you more,
So it will not matter that hating yourself eats at you or that mirrors mock you.
You will be lonely, but you will not remember that it does not have to be that way,
Your body will belong to them, the purest of pleasures corrupted as sin.
They will take from you all of the joy and love and life that you could have had,
And leave you empty, unable to vocalise what it is that you have lost.

There will be no part of you they will not corrupt, you will believe it is for your own good.

Poem: Rain

2010-05-10T14:46:00.002+02:00

It is raining outside, the sun catching in the drops
Creating a glistening difference in the mundane.
From this vantage point I can see the city,
Alien in a blanket of coloured umbrellas.
Water gathers in the gutters, mixing with spilled oil,
Creating swirling rainbows on the ground.
Just for this moment, still and soaked through,
It is easy to watch and remember what we forgot.
Soon everything will be washed clean and waiting,
The past drying out in Summer puddles.
Hopeful, amid small hurts and happenings, we realise
That the world is very beautiful, despite everything.

Poem: It Does not do,

2010-05-07T14:28:00.001+02:00

It does not do to dwell on dreams
And live in make believe,
To take others truths as certain things
And forget to question these.

It does not do to wish on stars
And be defined by dying light,
To allow ourselves be shaped by fantasy
And not be what we might.

It does not do to cling to lies
And use faith as blind defence,
To be afraid of the great unknown
And surrender common sense.

It does not do to ignore the truth
And mythologise reality,
To bind ourselves in code and creed
And not wish to be free.

It does not do and yet is done
And we feel safe in empty trust,
To make sense of a nonsensical world
We each do what we must.

Poem: Things we won't do now.

2010-05-03T01:21:00.000+02:00

We will never go out at one o’clock in the day and drink until the pub closes,
Stumbling home to cold Chinese food in your house.

We will never have a ’do nothing day’ and wander around town, penniless
Looking at pretty things that we do not have the money to buy.

We will never have another fight about something thoughtless
That one of us said to upset the other.

We will never decide that it doesn’t matter and laugh at the reasons behind it
Over cans of cheap beer and cigarettes.

We will never get in trouble again, for not being able to keep
Any of the secrets we are told from each other.

We will never gossip shamelessly about everybody that we know
For hours and hours on the phone.

We will never get stoned and lie on the floor, listening to music
And singing along tunelessly.

We will never dress up in suits and traditional white dresses,
And make forever promises to each other.

We will never have even one more second where we are together.

Poem: Believe

2010-04-30T22:51:00.001+02:00

I do not believe in things that cannot be true,
Insects but not angels.

I did not believe in this thing we call love,
I could not touch it or quantify it.
You told me everyday, and I smiled, condescending,
But you accepted what I would not say.

I was always the cynic,
I did not believe in broken hearts,
Now I cannot reason away misery,
And trusted semantics have crumbled to ash.

I cannot change the person I am.

I miss you more than I can begin to explain,
Never before did I want to believe in Fairytales.
Would that I was rich in faith,
And could imagine you waiting for me, happy and safe.

But when I am in that twilight place,
Caught between waking and sleeping,
I feel your presence and know it is wishful thinking.

I would never have believed that my heart could be breaking.

Poem: Medium

2010-04-26T01:14:00.003+02:00

I dream of you sometimes.
When the cold is in my heart and bones
And I am lonely again
I wish that you are whispering to me,
And reaching out from some great, black
Mystical beyond.

So it was easy then
For him to say a name and sway on his
Black draped stage and flutter his fingers
Over my cheek,
In some mockery of how you once touched me.

I wanted it to be you so much
That the table bucked and rattled
With the strength of my want, and
I thought that I could smell you in him,
Taste once again your taste in my mouth,
Feel you moving with me, breathing your breath on my neck.

I ached for you and he saw it,
Cramming his pockets and purse with
My hope and hurt and desperation.
For a while I wanted to belive the lie
But I know that there is none of you left
The truth? There is no life after death.

Poem: Shrine

2010-04-18T23:17:00.000+02:00

Shrine

It is still here,
Surrounded by dusty reminders
Of what was,
What can never be.

Still, silent
An old LP hitches and turns relentlessly
With each catch
As a final full stop.

Nobody lives here anymore

Poem: Bravery

2010-04-14T13:51:00.001+02:00

It takes real bravery to pack up your past,
Those hurts that wake you in the night,
To recognise that which should not have happened
And make the choice not to fight.

To know your dreams and surrender them
And follow a different road,
Let them be stories you tell to yourself,
Forgotten once they are told.

To limit your reach, let the stars remain distant,
And wishes as silent parts of yourself,
And smile through it all, and say you are happy
For the sake of somebody else.

Poem: We wish for impossible things.

2010-04-12T01:34:00.000+02:00

There are some things you should wish for
With your half-baked, heart ached toss of a coin,
These are your wishing well moments, your bubble dreams,
These wishes, they are impossible things.

Yesterday, once today, is memory
And blue black bruises fade to brown
She wished for clean white kisses, yellow mornings
These wishes, they are impossible things.

You reach right handed, left bloody
And one time caress is a slap
She wanted soft touches, babies, white weddings
These wishes, they are impossible things.

Sometimes she is so much smaller then this
And curls in a corner to cry
And in the darkness, there pain sings,
These wishes, they are impossible things.

Once upon a promise they spoke magic
And led us then to believe
Beneath our shoulders were angels wings
And so we wish for impossible things.

Poem: Afterwards

2010-04-08T13:13:00.000+02:00

We pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and try continuing.
I have grey hat that makes my eyes look blue
And four hundred and sixty three books gathering dust
That swirls in the evening sunlight, as it always was.

I launch myself into the evenings, the night is better,
The days are getting longer and smothering us in light.
I wear dark glasses and hide in the corner of the pub
Waiting for the bitter sun to fade away.

At midnight I come home and dance in the dark,
I dream that I am flying over the city alone
But when I wake my hands are clenched in fists,
Head thumping and churning stomach sick.

Whiskey in your morning coffee makes you warm,
But the Winter is nearly over. I need to wear leather gloves
So I do not touch the filth of the world, perhaps I can buy lace
In summer colours, so it does not seem so strange.

There are four thousand and seventy six paving stones between here and work,
I am careful not to step on the cracks between them. Cobblestones are harder
But I am trying to come up with another arrangement.
Can you come back now please?

Afterwards, I carefully saved up every moment,
They are bottled and waiting in the corner, when you return
We will open them and let time flow out, it will be like music.
I do not make bad wishes anymore.

Poem: Glass Animals

2010-04-07T00:09:00.001+02:00

Glass animals casting rainbows on the wall
And ceiling, I thought they were fairies,
Dancing in the sunlight, the magic of them was spellbinding,
When I was still just a little thing, at my beginnings.

Later, I hung prisms in the window,
Hoping that I could capture them again,
But this city apartment does not let the light in,
The walls remain grey, as is fitting.

Poem: Tir na nOg

2010-03-29T15:33:00.002+02:00

What does Oisin feel now, leaving the golden haired daughter of the sea God
Because his heart ached for the sight of his beloved Roisin,
On returning to find her magic gone, wiped out by cruel robed men
With their hatred of all of her naked glory.

There are no words to say to this warrior poet as he crumbles,
To explain away our inaction in allowing her to be raped and broken,
But we have forgotten the poems of the Fianna, and Roisins pride,
Allowing all of our stories to be named as legends.

Our dreams of Tir na nOg are lost, dug up and emptied out to make room
For another consecrated concrete block of desperation.
The Tuatha de Danann are bleeding in the back streets
Reduced to powerlessness, as are all of the old Gods.

Poor Roisin

2010-03-24T13:28:00.000+01:00

Poor Roisin, she was a damaged child, but brave.
Gathering together her dreams, taking up arms
In the name of a brighter tomorrow, and hope,
She broke away, out alone, poor Roisin.

Poor Roisin, she had just begun to be free,
She was not ready to break those ties, see the dangers
Lurking behind the alters, lauded and robed,
She let them poison her home, poor Roisin.

Poor Roisin, she thought that green fields and luck
Would be enough, washed down with a pint of the black stuff,
She did not take care of the little ones, put her faith in God,
Allowed them to be broken and robbed, poor Roisin.

Poor Roisin, she is so confused now, so betrayed,
Brighter tomorrows blighted by bygone days.
Once again she must fight, force a change
Finally drive the monsters away, poor Roisin.

Poem

2010-03-19T00:17:00.002+01:00

I wrote you a poem, and put it inside a Valentines card,
In some sort of out-of-character romantic offering,
You glanced but briefly, we don’t do hearts and flowers,
And asked for me on my knees, for the day that was in it.

I knelt, why not, and gave you this moment of surrender,
We both know that I am the one who calls the shots,
By virtue of the darker days, and your fear of my drowning
In sadness, where you cannot hope to reach me.

I will give to you myself, it was in the poem,
But only those parts of myself that are mine to give.
Line seventeen, I am leaving you, for your sake,
Though I know that you do not want for me to leave.

Line twenty two, it was a long poem, you got bored,
I am going to find somewhere silent, and stay there,
And you cannot come with me, you cannot come,
I packed my bags while you were sleeping.

Line forty, rambling descriptions, something about sex
And you in me, and me disappearing, it’s a mess.
Hand on heart, it beats here still, I’ve forgotten
The reasons, but I have retained the will.

Line sixty, I love you, in my way, this way,
Love and hate, all mixed up and confused in
The chemical mistakes inside my mind,
No more pills, no more lines, just goodbyes.

This Woman

2010-03-10T15:08:00.000+01:00

Mostly she does not think
Rocking, rocking in a haze of bliss
Bought with her body, hands, kiss.

The first time he touched her she reached up
To push his hands away but was confused
By tiny pin pricks of pleasure buried
Somewhere beneath the hurt.

Later she would lie still, every inch of her body
Bathed in his sweat and her shame
While he panted and pushed
Somewhere above her.

In time she would leave him taking with her a body
That was no longer her own, which would bear her strange
Beloved children that she cannot touch,
Fearing the unbroken innocence of them.

This is not my Ireland.

2010-03-07T19:24:00.001+01:00

It should be enough now.
I try to imagine two soldiers, barely more than boys
Doing something as mundane as collecting a pizza
Before the world filled up with shots around them
And left them dying on an unremarkable Saturday,
A year ago today.

It should be enough now.

If I could

2010-03-04T01:16:00.000+01:00

I would like to go back please,
a time before clocks began ticking away from one moment,
When I was still creating experiences, not recovering from them,
When I still measured the moments until, not the ones since
And had never wished I could stand still and stop counting.

I want to return now,
the old painted perfect tomorrow dreams, new mornings
Promising better today, wanting tomorrows and tomorrows,
Rather then this consuming continuing yesterday, it’s broken promises,
Its destruction of dreaming in showing the fallacy of wishing.

I would reclaim for myself,
moments of total expectation where the world was possibility
Wrapped in fairytale endings and happy ever afters,
Long before I was circus mirror image of myself, aching with clenched waiting,
Broken apart and drowning in the starkest expectation of this.

Best Laid Plans

2010-03-04T00:08:00.001+01:00

You must away now, so soon?
We had just planted the first seeds, too late in the spring
Forgetting how time creeps and crawls, seeps past us.
You will not see next years Daffodils, or this years roses,
We are hoping for the new lambs, one more Easter,
Without realising I bought one egg too few, a new dress in black,
Mourning clothes and court shoes.
We used to plan for forever, it was so short,
Years to months to days, soon minutes and nothing.

Birthday Poem (since its @derrenbrown birthday!)

2010-02-27T01:29:00.000+01:00

Birthday poems in perfect rhyme – printed, reprinted, used and abused
Until we trample what meaning they may have had into bromidic nonsense,
Cheap with our words, these platitudes speak only of negligence –
Once, in consideration, words had power, we fettered them with our indolence –

But then, in thought, with intent and meaning, we look for better wishes
Which do not sickly, sweetly mush with feigned devoirs,
It is a good thing that life has seen you kind thus far –
And these innocuous rhymes, I wish you many more.

Life?

2010-02-18T23:24:00.000+01:00

Three times Monday, then the weekend
And time spirals into something else
Amidst bottles of wine and breaking hearts.
They didn’t mention life would be like this.
But it is.

Friday bleeds into Sunday, blurred with discontent.
Mine is a Rosé, then later on straight gin and tears,
Dancing past midnight when we forget to think.
They didn’t mention life would be like this.
But it is.

Is it time for white dresses and breeding yet?
Shall we continue to wallow, past growing up ideas,
To hell with commitment, meet me out back by the bins.
They didn’t mention life would be like this
But it is.

Long ago stories, cleaner then now moments
Try this one darling, you will dance with the stars.
Save up memories for when life is reminisce,
They didn’t mention life would be like this.
But it is.

What’s in a name, words loved and forgotten
The promise and potential of once turned to rot,
They didn’t mention life would be like this.
But it is, and it is,
And it is.

How I feel today

2010-02-12T17:23:00.000+01:00

Another Queen

2010-02-11T12:08:00.002+01:00

She is regal as she tells me, brokenly
That she came here dreaming
of a better life for her boys.
Now they speak rapidly
In a language that she cannot understand
And are embarrassed by the scars on her face
And between her thighs.

She can feel the world shifting beneath her
As she struggles to be understood.
At night she dreams of the sun
And arid plains of forever and hope,
Away from the spit at her feet
And dark rains of Ireland.

Breaking up

2010-02-09T13:54:00.001+01:00

It is another day, another wake up and get up
And go.

You used to have eggs for breakfast and go for a run,
I stuck to cigarettes and coffee and going slow
And that should have been a sign of something I guess.

This ending has been mostly easy
Excepting the loss of your coffee machine,
Now I drink instant, and there is never fresh milk.

I can’t reach the top shelf, the light bulbs need changing,
The smell of the skip downstairs makes me gag
And I keep running out of toilet roll.

You expected that I would miss you more
But it is loss of little domesticities that hurts,
We were more familiar then we were in love.

Lost

2010-02-08T17:26:00.001+01:00

It was a small thing, a forgotten splash in a well
Of something more hope than a wish-
Once we believed in magic, foolishly,
We would be better with coins still in our pockets
And wishes kept secret and safe
Not turning green and stagnating
In the unforgiving waters of this world.

The Garden

2010-01-26T21:39:00.001+01:00

Garden colours,
these rustic greens and browns are lonely
for the want of vivid flashes of butterflies wings.

Flower beds running riot
and entwining in the long grass,
lapping at the edges of the stagnant pond
containing one, self satisfied, solitary fat fish.

The bird feeders,
neglected since December first, have run empty,
They no longer come here and fill the silence.

Everything in the greenhouse
has withered brown and dried.

In the midst of mourning I forgot your garden,
but with work and time it will be alright,
the hardiest plants always survive.

A bit of Sillyness

2010-01-22T00:53:00.001+01:00

He was a gallant knight on a trusty steed, they lived in a fairytale
For her he fought the terrible beast, in love he could not fail.
She was princess fair locked away from the world, waiting for her knight
He rescued her and they rode off into the setting light.

She bore his children, warmed his bed, he always saved the day
She buried deep her terrible dread that she was living in a cliché
He was a stranger dark and strange, she could not still her heart
They came together and allowed a different story to start.

She feared and loved him through her fear, he kissed her and made her weep
She spoke and sent him to his death for a secret she could not keep.
He looked into her eyes as the fight began, she swiftly looked away
His opponent was a more skilled man, soon he had lost the day.

He was a gallant knight on a trusty steed, they lived in a fairytale
For her he fought the terrible beast, in love he could not fail.
She was princess fair locked away from the world with her gallant knight
She dreamed of a time she could go off into the setting light.

Reactionary

2009-12-15T22:46:00.001+01:00

It is dangerous and stupid to wrap ourselves in wishes,
when the alarms sound we play with limited time
and lift our hems away from the filth
blinded to everything through choice.

We parade wilful ignorance as blessed virtue
but the children are still crying between the pages
of some great liars book of shadows
and blood stained words of gospel.

If I was another type of person I would arm myself with them
these shameful hurts and horrors,
but still, for all of our never again promises
we cheerfully hand over our children.

Poem for a Child

2009-11-04T01:29:00.000+01:00

It is time for bedtime stories, with loving lies
we weave for you these fantasies bred from old myths,
softened to Disney happiness, far from reality.
If we could we would make your life a happy ever after
You would be the princess who never needed to be saved
Cradled in worlds of wonder and magic, safe.
I will not be the one to speak to you of truth and tell you
that there are no princes or fairy godmothers,
you will learn that the world is full of monsters.

Loss

2009-10-27T13:56:00.000+01:00

We like to write poems about loss, being the universal experience.

I have written lines of prose, or romantic rumblings

about loss marked out in decay and gravestones.

These quantifiable losses that break our hearts

but briefly, until the wounds scab over and we continue.

Only occasionally, rocked by drink or loneliness,

picking at the scabs and taking perverse pleasure in briefly revisiting our grief.

This losing unites us; we sing with it and embrace each other

with understanding, there are many people we would like to hold again.

But our lost dreams are silent, witnesses to weakness,

these I wish moments, these growing up forgets

disguised as responsibility and circumstance.

Once upon a once upon a time, when we believed in magic

we could be anything but what we became.

Political Correctness gone mad? Or taking responsibility for what you say?

2009-10-23T13:04:00.002+02:00

When I was a little we used to say a rhyme ‘ineey, meeny, miney, mo, catch a ni***r by the toe’, you will notice in typing it I couldn’t bring myself to type the actual N-Word, because now I know better. At that time I had no understanding of the word, it was a meaningless as the Ineey Meenies and so I can perhaps be excused for using it then, where I never would now. (for those interested, it has been replaced in the rhyme now with the word Tiger)

Jan Moir wrote an article today trying to explain and excuse the words she recently wrote regarding Stephen Gately, but she failed miserably. She attempted to convince us that the intent behind her words was not what we believed it to be – well I’m sorry Jan but that excuse might work for a child saying a word they don’t understand but when you put something into print surely you have a responsibility to ensure that you carefully check your words so such a ‘misunderstanding’ cannot occur?

Moir states ‘Certainly, something terrible went wrong as my column ricocheted through cyberspace, unread by many who complained, yet somehow generally and gleefully accepted into folklore as a homophobic rant’, well I read it and I complained – the article linked Stephen Gately’s death inextricably with his sexuality, and made gross assumptions about his life and death. Moir now claims that she would have written the same article had Gately been heterosexual, I find this unlikely- but if she had it would still have been an appalling article. Statements like, ‘Healthy and fit 33-year-old men do not just climb into their pyjamas and go to sleep on the sofa, never to wake up again’ are undeniably ill-informed – so at the very least Moir is guilty of bad journalism.

Moir’s article today http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1222246/The-truth-views-tragic-death-Stephen-Gately.html , lacks understanding and integrity. A few half hearted apologies for offence caused are followed by a litany of excuses and the reiteration of her misinformed belief that ‘clearly much of it was an orchestrated campaign by pressure groups and those with agendas of their own’. She seems to be trying to convince us that she did nothing wrong, and has been misunderstood, and that she attempted only to question and seek the truth (which would have been an admirable pursuit had this been the case).

It seems to me that a little contrition and an admission that, whatever her intent may have been, she made a mistake in writing what she did, would go further then apportioning blame for the reaction her words caused.

Poem

2009-10-20T00:49:00.002+02:00

Perhaps she is the blue eyed girl still
Under years and yards of something else the heart still beats.
She sometimes wonders if the moments of manic possibility
Are worth the absolute lows that follow
Where the entire world is dark and the walls close in around her.

The pills she takes leave her dulled and sluggish
Unable to create, like her mind is wrapped in cotton wool,
But without them she tracks bloody marks in her arms
And covers her mirrors so she does not see her face,
So perhaps this numbed lethargy is the trade off for some kind of life.

Perhaps she is the blue eyed girl still
The child she was sleeping somewhere beneath the dark.
They have caught her fast, bound her in ribbons and bows
And expectations that choke the hope from her,
And numb her heart, so she can no longer weep.

Fairytale

2009-10-19T23:19:00.002+02:00

We were all born once, under the light of a lucky star,
these rays are only shadows now, memories
from a light whose source has long since died.
A moments sparkle lost in time.

We are brought up on fairy tales, dreams and nightmares
and cheerfully write ourselves into magic and stories
steadfastly ignoring sticky reality, so that we can be comfortable
And live in sensible fantasy.

This has connected us all with cobweb threads of deceit, silences
and uncertainties that we share and hide beneath our hurts and hopes,
successfully, we remain complicit in the stories,
Playing peek-a-boo with reality and memory.

We ignore and forget just enough to be called too much, apathetic
this whitewashed search for reason through soul leaves us tangled,
trapped, we would rather pretend that we cannot see the spiders,
Misimagining the dangers, we are also guilty.

I have so many stories of abuse and neglect and hurt stacked
in my chest and mind that I can hardly breath or think, outside of whispers,
these compartmentalised real world moments we smother,
Is everyone ready for the happy ever after?

We could end this, in theory, cut one thread and collapse the web.
If we would sweep the monsters from under the bed they would be burned
in the sun, and we would be free of them, we could begin again
write ourselves a different beginning, change to story’s end.

These heroes and victims are the shadowy parts of ourselves given names
so that we can understand, we are hiding from half remembered horrors and hurts
that History and the world has branded on our bodies,
bandaged by nonsense, magic and our myths.

We can reach back beyond the lies into the darks of time
and write the world as it should have been written
but together we gratefully drank from the Lethe,
And so we forget that we are imprisoned.

Stephen Gately's Funeral

2009-10-17T14:28:00.002+02:00

This morning in Dublin Stephen Gately's funeral was held, there is a palpable saddness in the city because we are laying to rest one of our own.

Stephen Gately grew up around Sheriff street, an area not know for its affluence, and we like to see other Dubliners succeed from the areas that are largely forgotten and ignored by Celtic tigers and increasing wealth.

I remember being an over excited teenager and meeting Stephen Gately by chance on O'Connell street, and his taking the time to talk to a group of us with great humour and patience - his being funny and kind. It is sad to think that such a young man has died.

It is a shame that tragic death of a young man has been ued by some to air their own ignorance and predjudice - and it should not be forgotten that whatever claim we feel we have on celebrity at the present time Stephen belongs primarily to his friends and family, to the people who knew him as a person and not as a popstar. They should not have been intruded upon in the grief to have to respond in any form to the stupidity of a journalist whose words should not have been printed.

Above all else today we have buried a young man, whos life should be celebrated and passing mourned. Today the people of Dublin reclaimed one of their own, we should not forget, in the midst of the intrusive commentary that always surrounds celebrity, that Stephen Gately was a Dublin Lad, that he was far too young to die and that today is a very sad day.

Writers Block

2009-10-13T22:51:00.002+02:00

How has it happened that I do not have the right words
all that I have ever had,
silver tongued and sad.

I want to write you a happy ending,
or a fitting epitaph.

I want to find the scripted beats to make sense of this senselessness,
wiping away this hurt with couplets and carefully crafted pose.

I would mend broken dreams with a poem.

Perhaps now is the time, after so long.

Can this be our beginning then?
Shall we create a Limerick, or a sonnet,
Like greater poets before make timelessness
From your decay?

I still have dreams where I wrap my arms around you
And I can hear you breathing through the silence
Of these endless nights in my bed.

This is not enough,
I need to write away the loss and hurt.
Maybe now is the time for the words we dread,
But I must find another rhyme instead.

I cannot write you lost with the dead.

Forget the rules and rhymes of poetry,
comma here, emphasis.
There are no rules for all encompassing grief
No matter what the rulebook said.

You used to ask for bedtime stories, that I was too tired to read.
You used to talk in your sleep.

To make this feeling go through the motions
cannot ever be achieved, everything should crumble and fall apart
there can be no beauty buried in this need,
there should never be cause for poems like these.

You were here once, a promise, a hope

But nothing matters.

I have carried you for longer than you should be carried
You have been, as you are, you remain unchanging,

a trick or treat, like a fairytale.

To fit you to form and prescribe you to tone,
To contain you in painfully scripted verse,

Will not be done.

It is enough that you are dead.

No rhyme, no rhythm, no lyrical beat,
For a poem, once begun, must then be complete.

I do not want to say goodbye.

Perhaps now is the time, after so long.
Some hurts do not fit a poem.

I cannot believe that you are gone.

A poem that took far too long to write, for what it is.

2009-10-11T00:52:00.002+02:00

I wanted to write something beautiful about love
From some misguided notion that this is what a poem should be
But words escape me, trite and terrible.

I do not believe in this all consuming passion,
We like to tell ourselves lies to make purpose from nothing
And these old stories are stacked up in our heads are hearts
Making fantasists of the best of us, and lovers of the weak.

My heart does not shrivel and break from loneliness
And I am hungry for touch but briefly, fleetingly wanting
Until fortitude and that perfected control of mind and body reclaims me.

I would like very much to abandon need permanently
And retreat in safety from the promise of hurt
To my own numbed contentment
And to the safety of my words.

Fish Joke (abridged version)

2009-10-09T22:39:00.002+02:00

Far away in the tropical waters of the Caribbean, two prawns were swimming around in the sea — one called Justin and the other called Christian.

The poor prawns were constantly being threatened by vicious sharks.

Finally one day Justin said to Christian, “I’m fed up with being a prawn; I wish I was a shark, and then I wouldn’t have any worries about being eaten.”

A large mysterious cod appeared and said, “Your wish is granted”, and lo and behold, Justin turned into a shark. Horrified, Christian immediately swam away, afraid of being eaten by his old mate.

Time passed and Justin found life as a shark boring and lonely. All his old mates simply swam away whenever he came close to them.

While swimming alone one day he saw the cod again and he thought that perhaps the fish could change him back into a prawn. He approached the cod and begged to be changed back, and, lo and behold, he found himself turned back into a prawn.

With tears of joy in his tiny little eyes Justin swam back to his friends and bought them all a cocktail. Looking around the gathering at the reef he realised he couldn’t see his old pal.

“Where’s Christian?” he asked.

“He’s at home, still distraught that his best friend changed sides to the enemy and became a shark”, came the reply.

Eager to put things right again and end the mutual pain and torture, he set off to Christian’s abode. As he opened the coral gate memories came flooding back. He banged on the door and
shouted, “It’s me, Justin, your old friend, come out and see me again.”

Christian replied, “No way man, you’ll eat me. you’re now a shark, the enemy and I’ll not be tricked into being your dinner.”

Justin cried back, “No, I’m not. That was the old me. I’ve changed.”

“I’ve found Cod. I’m a prawn again Christian”.

Another Ending

2009-09-23T23:38:00.000+02:00

This has ended, as it must
White Lilly’s wither, all is dust.
Seashells crumble to fine sand
That runs through fingers when clasped in hand.

Such is love, dies and ends
My heart, as all, grieves
then mends.

Unweaving the Rainbow

2009-09-22T02:18:00.001+02:00

Unweaving the Rainbow.
(Richard Dawkins 1998)

I have seen a million rainbows, unmoved
By colour meeting colour on a rainy day.
Richard of York gave battle in vain,
But isn’t that always the way?

I known nothing of Science, to be fair
But then I am a poet, student of art
And should wax a rainbow beautiful
Not broken into its parts.

But the delicacy of such chance
A million raindrops fracturing light
And showing a fan of spectral colour
Where there had only been white.

I saw a rainbow yesterday
And by the understanding of why
It almost brought me to my knees
And its beauty made me cry.

West of Here

2009-09-17T00:27:00.004+02:00

An abandoned house brings to mind a ruin
Some gothic romance held together by ivy and ghosts
(and fairytales)
This house was different, looking to be an innocent.

I remember watching, horrified and awed
Black bags lined upon its lawn,
(some of them seemed small)
While a silent crowd, surprised, gazed on.

This house crumbled quietly
Beneath the weight of unspeakable deeds,
(and blood soaked endings)
But this house lived, it breathed.

It could not be allowed, this house
To stand to one mans hate and lust
(October 1996)
This house was reduced to dust.

I am quite easily amused...

2009-09-11T11:06:00.001+02:00

Therein Lies The Difference

2009-09-01T23:00:00.000+02:00

I would write the story of forever,
beginning when all things begin
but I would change enough
that we would all be standing in the sun.

I have watched you and you may not remember
that I held your hand and called for help
when I found you vomiting
after filling your veins with so much poison.

Today you asked me for a cigarette
and, I hope understandably,
I recoiled from you
in fright of the anger in your face.

You called me a snob and responded to my reticence
by throwing coins at me,
and it made me laugh
but this was mostly from discomfort.

I am no more then you
an old Irish ‘there but for the grace of God’.
I know what it is too be used up
and worn to nothing by the harshness of life.

It would be nice if everything was easy
but plenty of us cannot sleep at night
it is just a matter of perspective
measuring one hurt against another.

I would write the story of forever
where these smaller hurts were everything
and we could all weep about mostly nothing
and pretend that our nothings were what mattered.

We promised not to forget

2009-08-31T23:55:00.002+02:00

It was a week worth of newspaper stories and a march and then we forgot what we had promised never to forget and we moved on, but they cannot.

What is it that they have suffered, can we even begin to imagine?

Wake up smiling or wake up crying.

What about the day when they do not awake at all? If you are right then they will stand at the golden gates and be offered their chance to talk with your Almighty. What could they possibly say to him? He’ll be another scared little man who cannot bear to listen to them. Will he dare to condemn them then, for their sins, or will what they have suffered outweigh the worst that they may have done? Will he track through the script of their lives, circling all of their faults in red ink like some angry school teacher, will he try to smite them then?

What then from this booming voice of your male God, let him try to send them to hell, we will all be at home there. Your devil is more of a friend, he, at least, admits that it is his desire is to hurt us. Will you, who shake your shiny new testament at me, please explain why He, your God, has never intervened? Surely apathy is a sin, the eighth deadly sin. His ultimate crime against man he claims to love so much.

I want you, the believer, to stand before me and look into my eyes and explain it to me, why when they were so small, why when they trusted in him so completely did he let them down so much, why were his tests so harsh?

If he can send any one of them to hell let him, your great almighty Lord, accompany them, for he has sinned as much as any man.

What will become of your world then? When all apparent goodness is held up as corrupted and evil is seen to be the driving force of the earthbound and celestial alike, how then, and why, can you possibly continue in this faith?

Set fire to your home’s, steal your neighbours food, home and wife because, in truth, there is no salvation. There is only now. What can your bible do to help you when the heavens are falling and the golden gates come crashing to the ground?

How did so much implausible fiction become the entire world to so many, the power of your fancy stories that they became a way of life.

"I believe in God the Father, of all that is seen and unseen." How did the lies of the past become the structure of our world today and how will you cope when it all falls apart in your hands?

My faith doth magnify the Lord, but he caught alight under the suns strong beam and all I have left is a pile of ashes. What will you use now to fill this void with which you are left when belief and faith collapse and your entire world has lost all meaning?

Was it a child God who created our world and has he abandoned us now that he has tired of his play? There is as much possibility, as much truth, in this as anything you believe, nothing here means what you think it means.

For the moment

2009-08-31T14:22:00.002+02:00

If I could I would wrap you in cotton wool, safe,
and you would never need to know about when the world
is black, black, black and the rain clouds cover everything.

It would not help you, or anyone, if I gave in to this anger
and broke every finger on the hand that dared
to touch you in hurt.

Now it seems to you that things will never get better
and you think that I am being cruel
when I remind you that you are not the first.

You are better then this moment of broken
and sometime far into the future
you will call this an old memory,

For the moment it is okay that you are crying.