In This Mood

Sometimes,  perfect renderings of still life might signify a state of mind.

In this mood,

things become more defined, absolute, more themselves.

The silver sugar bowl is not just reflective,

but a collection of the objects around it.

The shadows between the soaking peas are as dark

and mysterious as those between trees in a forest;

scale is immaterial, the detail is precise.

Colours become experiences: I look into red,

as I’d search inside the flow a river; browns

take on the richness of mahogany,

a grain inside the colour, a dynamic.

I reach for the sugar and watch my hand, from mid-arm,

travelling over the table like a boat heading out to sea.

It seems that my eyes suck the energy that is in me;

build this crisp perception from my concrete,

leave me in darkness amongst the brilliance of things.

Christmas Song

I wrote this as a song a number of years ago. I wanted to write another Fairytale of New York............okay, okay, no harm trying or wishing. I gave it to a singer who insisted that it was a poem; I still see it as a song (albeit with an alternative beat) waiting for a melody.      

              Christmas Song

I remember frosted trees,

sugary sunlight on rotted leaves,

winter hedges crisp and still,

high above a blackbird’s trill.

And you with ice blue eyes

and brilliant smile

singing Silent Night and all the while

wishing

that Christmas was gone.

I remember frosted trees,

collecting cones for festive wreaths,

carols wafted on the air,

we stopped awhile to wonder where.

And you with ice blue eyes

and brilliant smile

singing Silent Night and all the while

wishing

that Christmas was gone.

I remember frosted trees,

crunching across the frozen fields,

two plaited trails that we made,

promise of  the life we’d braid.

And you with ice blue eyes

and brilliant smile

singing Silent Night and all the while

wishing

that Christmas was gone.

I remember frosted trees,

a bracelet made with holly beads,

I placed it in your hand,

said it would be our wedding band.

And you with ice blue eyes

and brilliant smile

singing Silent Night and all the while

wishing

that Christmas was gone.

            I remember frosted trees,

            how they’ve haunted me all these years;

            oh to have been half so wise

           I would have seen through your disguise.

.           

           

And you with ice blue eyes

and brilliant smile

singing Silent Night and all the while

wishing

that Christmas was gone.

            

Visit Issue 4 of ​AvantAppal(achia)

Visit http://www.avantappalachia.com/,  if only to read Gabriel Rosenstock's gorgeous submission. It's very fine; beautifully presented in Irish and English, it's  inspiring; the kind of poetry I'm always hoping to find. 

The Terrorist

I’m exploring a village in County Roscommon, a quaint little place

on the banks of the Shannon. I’m strolling around, trying to catch

the atmosphere like I’d try to catch a tan. It’s  Summer, there’s no traffic,  

a few boats on the river, some hall doors are open, the shops are quiet,

if a bee stirred that would be the height of it.

It doesn’t take long to get around the whole village.Countryside laps

to every backdoor, the church on its ground is silent  as a tombstone,

the Shannon drags itself painstakingly by, and the sun’s heat has settled itself down

among the clouds. In the fields the hay is saved, somewhere a cow is yawning;

and an old man drives past in a tractor, going three miles an hour.

I know this, because he is half way to the shop, when I decide to make a race of it.

There is quarter of a mile at most, straight road, and, walking, I’m already gaining

on him. He’s past half way, moving incredibly slowly. I’ve covered half the distance

 between us.  He’s three quarters way, I’m over half way.  I’m almost level, almost level

when I reach the shop.Later I discover, locals call him The Terrorist.

Armani stops at our house

The ethics around photography are more than a bit grainy. The professional photographer is one thing, often questionable, but at least, he/she would appear to have a reason to be there, but the amateur is a different ball-game.

This flashy customer caught my eye; privileged materially, and with very expensive camera, he gave himself license to pry.

Armani stops at our house

  

Ferrari

sunbathing on the verge,

Armani

surveyed from the wall.

Rolex

grinning up a cuff,

Nikon

stole granddad’s gappy smile.

Ray-bans

snapping the moment shut,

Gucci

stepped from the grass;

Pirelli 

spat dust into our gateway.

gentle as rain,

as petals,

as snow,

you 

were,

always.

Failing Light

In the failing light of a November evening,

among the rotting leaves on a suburban path,

I remember you, digging the garden ridges, shaking out

the groundsel, tossing the stones under the hedge.

Great events in your kingdom were scurryings in the grass,

a thrush feeding on a worm, raindrops falling from the apple trees.

Far from inspectors and reports, you held sway over

the straightening of ridges, regiments of onions and lettuces.

With each passing year, you settle deeper into memory,

becoming ever more intangible, like these rotting leaves

that leave only their scent hanging in the dank November air;

after all this time, you have become more like a conversation 

                                                                                I never had.

The Wind Claps The Slates

The wind claps the slates;

all night they are hooves running berserk,

all night the wind is inciting them;

all night.

At twenty past two and twenty past three

and twenty past four I am looking at you;

how I would love to have hooves to come

crashing through your sleep, to burst into

your solitude.

And there I would, for better or worse,

demolish the muzzled years with as much

violence as reverberates beneath iron shoes,

as  causes such a frenzy in stone that slates

stampede.

Granny

Granny in woollen cardigans, bespectacled,

smooth-cheeked, sitting at the stove end

of the kitchen table, stockings rolled down,

wanting the dog to lick the ulcers on her legs.

Cups of tea coming and going like seasons,

showers of sunlight canonizing her fitfully,

switching on the light of her soft white hair,

the wild rose that bloomed free in her face.

The comfortable plumpness of her body

always shaped to her generous curiosity;

her old voice gentle as seaweed on a wave,

chatting life back into the bones of the dead.

The Viewing.

Dead: the colour of old cream,

his eyes shuttered shut;

so neat, besuited and slim,

the weight he lost dying.

They made a basket of his fingers

with a rosary spilling down;

everyone said he looked lovely,

but when I touched his face

it wasn’t him at all.

Evening

Some poems never get there. This one has been with me for nearly as long as the old man it's written about.
It's frustrating, but, then again, it's probably a good thing that certain accomplishments keep us grasping.

Evening

Evening light dozed on unwashed dishes;

old dust coated china plates;

the Sacred Heart, smoked and sagging,

looked down from a height;

a clock ticked like a jaded heart.

His face, at the table, jerked uncontrollably,

occasionally he choked on his tongue.

All that might be called life was in a biscuit box

in a press: letters, photographs, Christmas cards, postcards;

and a silver pocket-watch he got from his mother.

Rivers Run

Rivers run over the land,

slivers of sky and light,

their spindly bodies flowing,

fish and ripples one,

alive.

Clamouring in the high places,

lisping in the  low;

spry in youth,

sedate in age;

always journeying to their end

to run again.

Peninsula

A peninsula: shingle, cockle and barnacle shells, strips of desiccated wrack,

greened with sea-holly. The wooden cabin, though frequently lashed with spray,

was salted dry, and coloured somewhere between bone and limestone;

I lived there for five months before you came.

From the land our light seemed no more than a single candle burning;

the clothes on our line had the appearance of  rags,

and the smoke from our fire curled into the sky with a nonchalance

that suggested our daily struggles with lighting washed up timbers.

You’ll remember the shingle made walking difficult; with each step the stones rolled.

You said it sounded like the grinding of a mouth full of loose teeth; but, around the bay,

 a billion stones rolled thunderously with each beached wave;

and the  breeding terns came at us like boomerangs.

Nights: we were  unlit stars perhaps, but at one with the universe, free and alive

 in the unbroken expanse of shore, sea and sky; we had  space

 to be colossal, to exhilarate; and moonlight, our spotlight to roar songs into the cosmos,

to take the universe’s light into our eyes and exult in it.

Came the day of migration: wings outstretched, muscles fluid, necks craned to our separate
destinations; we, without backward glances, took to the air

with eyes big enough to countenance the curve of the earth, greedy enough to fly it;

and left our peninsula, a finger  pointing to somewhere .

As a chaos

1.

As a chaos of jagged girders,

black against the sky,

looks like pain;

yet it makes a beautiful ugliness.

2.

That day’s electrodes, bare and unprotected,

were waiting for me. From the moment I awoke,

nothing was ever going to halt

their run to me from that future.

3.

I met my moment on the street;

it made jazz in my bones;

lifted me

oh, much higher than I can ever sing.

4.

Sir, I said, these particles vibrate,

you hear them on a still night

and after that, you will always hear them.

They smash glass if you do not control it.

Self-creating Fluidity in Nature

When dense enough,

murmuration or shoal,

a flow becomes a fluid,

self-created;  

all parts align, cluster and stream

according to physical  laws.

Living parts, starling or herring,

generate intra-forces  that govern

the whole, the system,

effecting dynamics  recognizable

throughout nature.