City Lives

 

City Lives.

They shout into space,

answer each other like whales

across great haunted distances;

they never meet,

only sound waves ever meet.

  

Alone in their canyons,

hives,

shoals

they roar.

Rooms upon rooms

upon houses upon houses

upon streets upon streets:

roars spilling out,

spilling over,

spilling down.

 

A million sound waves,

a million discordancies

tumbling, surging, 

pouring out

onto the streets,

into the traffic,

wheels, cogs, pistons:

 

that cannibal jazz

of cities.

 

New or Old Religion

Old religion it may be, but worship of the goddess of the earth ensured that earth was not defiled. Ecology for pre-science days; the planet would be in a be in a far healthier state if those beliefs still prevailed.

 

Clay in her mouth,

clothed in darkness, caged in stone.  

She speaks in

the crumbling of mountains,

creeping of oceans across continents. 

When she pauses,

earthworms devour boulders.

All the beautiful days

"All the beautiful days,

 all the beautiful days...." 

And he died

with all the beautiful days

like a wishbone in his throat. 

Two passers-by stopped and looked: 

How did his eyes become like that?

They became bleached blue with liquor madness. 

How did his face get so torn up?

He often fell but was not dead. 

And old, why is he so old?

Because he fought with every single day,

and each day's victory was notched into his face.

 

                                                                           from Sunfire (Dedalus Press, 97)

Tonight I Nearly Died

Tonight I Nearly Died.

 

Tonight I nearly died

in the Sunday chain

returning to Dublin.

A scythe

arched onto the road.

As I rushed

I nearly overtook life. 

What did I learn? 

My eyes are good

dilated in horror.

 
                                                              from Sunfire (Dedalus Press, 1997)