Ending

 

 

He, who covered my body

with snail-trails,

whose hands were wrack

swept over my skin,

kisses on my back

a colony of shell fish.

 

He, who would have crossed a mountain range

for an hour between my thighs

now crawls over me

with wizened passion.

Gutted of love,

he comes clawing,

scavenging; 

and insults me with lies

that have made greater pincers 

of his mouth than his hands.

 

What does he see in me ?

 

Meat to excite him,

his groper's desires,

even his fingertips betray him.

But no more,

the erotic becomes ugly,

decrepit manoeuvres disconnected

from their original meanings;

the touches stain you.

 

I have watched him slither from my gaze

a thousand times a night 

while slipping the word love 

from his vocabulary;

watched him develop this communication

of knives and forks.

Eerie art

Reflections in puddles and pools can throw reality into the most unexpected compositions of forms and colours. Juxtaposed with the watery medium's actual surroundings, the resulting artistic effect can be stunning.
I find this to be  particularly true of bog holes. The spare beauty of the landscapes, the bleakness of winter skies in Ireland, the suggestion, (since they tend to be oblong, rectangular), of an ethereal grave. If I stop to look, I'm likely to find myself  absorbed into melancholic thoughts.

Bog Hole

 

Mute Michael laid out on water

shivers like a flag.

 

Fissures of sky rake him,

his mouth worms.

 

Night, extinguishing the bog cotton,

finds him alone

 

treading visions,

dressed in bottomless black.

 

 

 

 

Detail from painting by Elaine Leigh. 

Who Has Seen the Old Men?

Poverty makes  old look older.  Clothes become outer skin. Identified by their clothing, faces become unseen. We discount the clothes before there is ever the beginning of engagement with the person's face. And so, having dehumanised many of the most needy, we can live, happily avoiding the poverty on our streets.

 

 

Who Has Seen The Old Men?

 

Who has seen the old men

getting their suits

tanned to their backs? 

 

Ghost of a check,

button-holes frayed,

crew-cut threads.

 

Years worn on face

and on cloth;

the cloth becomes the face.

 

And when the Summer colours

come clashing

on the young, 

 

who will see

the old men

in their ashen clothes?

A love poem

I Give You       

 

This tree's dripping fruit

to place in your mouth

to ripen your tongue.

 

The water guttering down

these green leaves

to be a trellis of fingers

about you.

 

This soft drizzle of sunlight

to fall gentle as the petals

of meadowsweet on your cheeks.

 

This bindweed and all tendrils

to hook and bind

our desires together.