From A Childhood

 

It’s late, the sky’s my screen. Laurence Olivier is fleeing

through a forest, dark fronds clutching, clawing at him;

a gothic tale, full of the drama of black and white.

The forest is vast and he must run blindly through it,

somewhere behind is the story I haven’t seen, and

somewhere ahead is a boundary with a land no one knows.

I am at my window, the land I know is quenched;

above, across the inexplicable expanse of the Heavens, is adventure;

I watch it, take it to my bed, and know tomorrow colour will return.

Happy New Year.

You are

 

Life is a flash,

and loving is its perfect state.

I never looked for sparkle in people,

never quite expected it,

but age has a separate lens,

polished by time,

tempered by experience;

through that,

I see

that you are my bright light.

Being

 It's not quite Christmas but the contentment would be a wish. 

Being.

A sparkling Summer’s afternoon,

not doing, but being.

A solar panel,

bang centre of the back garden,

converting energy to contentment,

while activity is reduced

to fingertips running along the suede

of newly mown grass

and time is suspended,

dissipated into the blue yonder.

Windy Day

 

On a windy day, I, cloud,

trees and grass are one and

heaven, earth and water;

blue of sky trimmed with

cloud white and drizzle grey,

sway of branches, swell of

waves and dresses, flight

of hats and litter down street,

astray, voices from mouths,

birds careering into beyond

and leaves’ mouths lisping

off tune in the brightly breeze

lifting, hues patched and

colours drifting; eyes’ lights

and hearts billowing upward.

Migrants arriving at European borders

How wonderful the European stars must look

strung along the wire strands of border fences

or those butterflies, the endless coils of razor wire.

One might, upon seeing them, be reminded of staves

of music: Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms

or lines of text: Shakespeare, Dante, Cervantes,

or how civilisation was aghast seeing those photographs:

the skeletal faces of the innocent behind Auschwitz fences;

the horror that such could happen in our own time.

A Hand in Water

 

A Hand in Water

for my father

Trailing a hand from a boat:

that morning sluicing through my fingers

was my most perfect with you.

More than fifty years on,

the memory is in my fingers

as I watch a Hollywood hand trawl water.

Fishing for sunlight on a lake is a carefree pursuit,

not so fishing for your smile in memories;

but that flow through my fingers

is the feeling of complete happiness,

though the smile I’ve given you

may well be my own production.

When

When I brush my hair,

it sweeps over your head.

When I button up my coat,

you snuggle inside.

When I exert myself,

you mop your brow.

When I settle myself on the couch,

you tuck your legs up.

When I close my eyes,

you daydream.

When you go,

I will be no more.

Leaves in Sunlight

 

Leaves: music

and colour;

in sunlight

they are.

On a warm

afternoon

icicles of air

play them;

turn white

those green flashes;

so eyes hear

the world.

Squalls

 

I keep myself up to date,

not with what you do

but how you are;

I read the squalls

coming in over the ocean.

Like newspaper print,

they drizzle upward,

and, truth to tell, they hanker

after tragedy;

I find them totally compelling.

So, yes, down to the last comma

(they don’t do stops)

and I know that you know this,

I know how it is with you;

no tragedies, but squalls: how apt, yes.

Autumn Aria

 

The tree,

aria

on a pedestal,

coloratura.

Autumn

performance;

the wind carries

fire.

Wonders

 

The wind in the wires

is making choirs

of conversations

that would have passed

unheard.

The child standing

on the tarred road hums

what the wind strums

and beats a stick

on the ground.

The sound he hears

is the music of the spheres

from somewhere above

but a rustling in the hedge

turns his head

and there’s a mystery

in the darkness of leaves.

To The Slaughter House

 This is a re-edited version of a poem I posted some time back. When asked why I wrote/posted this poem, I was a bit stumped. I am not a vegetarian. I used to see this years ago in my childhood; it was ugly, but we took it as normal life. It's not a scene many are likely to see now. So the answer: I think it tugs at a deeply buried conviction that animals have greater awareness and understanding than we have ever given them credit for; and the only logical upshot to that is that our brutal treatment of them needs to end.

To The Slaughter House

White-filled socket, eye twisted; its contorted,

steaming body straining away from that room.

At the end of a rope taut to the straightness of cane,

haunches working, legs thrashing, sliding in shit;

and men flat out, dragging, pushing the heifer

towards the slaughter-house doorway.

Roaring, terrified as humans are; that same recognition,

same fight, same blood gut muscle response, same horror;

and men, angular to their brutal task: dragging, pushing, hauling.

At the end of the rope, its head straining upward; the tongue,

extended from its mouth, tasting the stench of death,

and the horror of its flagging resistance.

Scale

 

It is mid-afternoon in Dublin;

two boys are hammering the shit out of each other;

no one else is around; they don’t know just yet,

but this is the end of their friendship.

Pull out.

At a city crossroads a motorbike slows;

five shots ring out, two pedestrians collapse,

one is dead, one will be maimed;

the motorbike is now two streets away.

Pull out.

All is suddenly people running

through the streets escaping chaos;

most don’t know what happened;

outside a bookshop bodies scattered like litter.

Pull out.

Two nations are flexing toward war;

there’s ongoing military build-up along the border,

incendiary rhetoric,

and fear is churning the insides of both sets of citizens.

Pull Out.

Europe, all of it, in one eyeful;

the sharp curve of the globe;

blue iris earth;

earth a drop of water; beautiful.

Pull out.

‘There may be intelligent life out there,’

one creature said to another,

looking beyond the moons of its planet;

‘but I doubt it.’

Small Wonders

 

Photograph by Paul Caponigro

What skies beneath our feet,

what immensities we trample;

how much gentler our step would be

if we saw the minute wonders of the world.

Water

 

Far down, a glimmer of light;

down inside the earth, a wonder

to our young eyes.

We lowered the bucket

through the ferns and darkness

to collect magic,

and drew it up,

heavy with water

and mystery.

Pristine; icy; we drank

beautiful water,

and believed it to be purity.