Poem: Believe

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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!)

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?

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

Another Queen

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

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

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.