St Féichín's Warning

As hare – whiskers taut, eyes bulging –

he scours the mainland

in the grey hour of evening

when demons go searching for currency.

Sitting sentinel on day’s shore-line,

grabbing at the seen and the half-seen,

reining in phantasms,

deciphering the commotions of molecules,

he senses, suddenly, a juddering in the air

from around some looming presence 

– an approaching darkness, darker than night – 

and an ice-bolt hits him.

With the flesh creeping along his flanks,

he kicks back his hind legs

and bounds through the tussocks,

to the church in the hollow.

The bell’s baleful clonk, strange at this hour,

draws shadowy figures out of the night

into a bedraggled huddle

standing anxiously in the sanctuary of the church.

.

Féichín, with one last tug on the rope,

and hare’s wild gaze in his eyes,

turns to them gravely

to announce the arrival of Satan on Omey.

And on that ominous note, happy new year. 

Wonder at a City Pond

Mallards, water hens, swans; all round-bellied on the pond

or rotated 180, peaky-arsed upwards, delving for food.

Down there the arrow-headed, sleek-sided, taper-tailed

dart between beaks, hooks and gobble-jaws.

The magnificent refinement of bodies here at a city pond;

we strike the pavement to move along

as a flock of gulls, maybe fifty or sixty, swoop low over the water,

cutting the air; blades, slivers, silver clavicles.

I can't help feeling after the breakdown of the recent climate conference in Madrid, that it's time for us to insist through the ballot box that breakdowns are no longer acceptable, that representatives should be locked in until resolutions are found. It's gone too late, and too catastrophic to be accepting less.
And, as for those who don't accept climate change as a reality, we should insist on their participation; whether accepted or not, the implications are too great for anyone to be taking risks with our children's futures.
With the greatest hopes for enlightenment among our leaders, let's hope for a great 2020, as in vision and the new year. M

On a clear moonlit night I fell asleep in a field

and dreamt I was sleeping there.

All night a terror of being vulnerable

stood just beyond the pool of my dreaming,

 immediately outside my defences,

even my waking.

No People

The hunch-doubled thorns,

ingrown pantries

dung-puddled;

the moss-stone walls

tumble-gapped.

The nettle-cracked doorway,

lintel-fallen

byre-footed;

the cloud curtained windows

elder-berried.

The stone-sheltered air

bumbled still,

ruin-reverent;

the submerged garden ridges

dumb-founded.

A Canal Vision

In the dim light of a December evening

swans, bright as struck matches,

are gliding over the oarweed of traffic lights

on their way to Harold’s Cross Bridge.

Ghosts on winter’s dark glass,

blind to the world’s commotion,

they pass without trace,

blind even to their own beauty.

Market, Emily Square, 60's

                            Gulls
pecking in the litter of clothes,
scarved heads bobbing
on the spume


for there were more coins than notes.

      

    Shoes,

their uppers and stitch-work

bent this way and that,

fingers inserted to the toe

for they had more copper than silver.

                                       Spoils,

back and back and back,

that incessant wrangling

over threadbare rewards

for their’s was then far less than plenty.

Crucifixion Scene

I’m struck by the basketry of bones containing the thorax;

that unexpected view of internal anatomy,

a map of pain.

I think of Frida Kahlo, the broken ionic column that supported her,

the deer struck with so many arrows,

all contained within her defiance.

And then I see that the bones are not containment,

they are radiant;

they radiate strength.

Passing

Desert,

clouds of shifting

sands,

landscapes

forever passing by.

Moon,

blank-faced

forlorn,

always assumed

you were going somewhere.

Love Song

Here I am, grey haired and lonely,

singing out to sea in a voice that cannot compete

with the thunder of the tide;

yet still I persist, for nature has shaped me to it.

And if, by some unlikely chance, my song drew a mate,

she would almost certainly take umbrage,

be indignant at first sight;

but, as I’ve already pointed out, this is my only way of being.

So here I am, cursed to an activity

that degrading me, promises only further degradation;

churning out a song

that the waves themselves contrive to suppress.

Sleepless

Spent the night driving

my wheel-less car, light-less

to dawn’s road-less gravel.

Day, eventually projecting

itself in the round,

revealed the signposts,

all written in an unknown script.