Self-Portrait 7 -- a digital artwork (2018) by Eoin Dunford
NEOSURREALIST ENDEAVOURS
Beef eyelash soup!
We will devour it:
Work is due to commence
At midnight...
In vain will we try
To savage down the meal.
When one has the time one has the liberty:
The unimaginable promises of these unreal liberties;
Some are slaves of love
As others are slaves of freedom...
I awake with a start from my carnal sleep
Blind to the point where anger rends the flesh.
NEW IRELAND
There will always be an Ireland-within-Ireland
Where Mass is offered at ten o'clock
And Gaelic sprouts
From pleasant flowers.
NIGHT OF CLARITY
A night of clarity
Praising God in the haze
Amid the time-hallowed tedium
Of unreason.
NIGHT OF THE TERRIBLE PRESENCE
There is no channel through the sand, nor a valley wherein to filter the calm sea breeze. (There are no eyes for the night and thus no gold for my heart.) The serpent flails with the shadow, the serpent flails with the shadow! The teeth in the skull are gleaming and thus the singing silk purifies its colours. I can perceive the struggle... of wounded night wrestling in serpent-coils with the hot meridian sun. I have suffered a sunset green with venom, and I have seen the phantom child of thy nudity more resplendent than a time-honoured mosaic. The coolness of your breasts has caused me to moan... the coolness of your breasts has caused me to falter... here I stand yearning, uttering parables, yearning and hoping for a better illusion.
NIGHT SPENT IN A MONASTERY
I turn my hand to the mendicant endeavour:
There is a sacred text to be borrowed
By this boy from the modern world
Solo on retreat in the confines of a cell...
Behold! the text will appear like a phoenix
From the knowledge of the desecrated exterior.
The poem will break into life on notepaper --
The artist huddles gothically under starlight --
Hatching in the lamplit corner of a quiet cell
To escape from the dankness of the cerebral shell.
The reward for my convulsive endeavours,
Rippling outwards as a stone into a pond
Is thrown -- will be the most exclusive sleep.
To awake to the nascent poetry.
NIGHT SPENT IN A MONASTERY II
Tonight, at least, the hand is there...
Simplicity even to borrow a profane text from the tortured surface
And make it whole; the poem will grow like a phoenix,
The words hatching on the blankness that is monastic canvas.
In the most convulsive of intellectual spaces, questioning
The voices that give no answer, the good and departed of the yestersun,
I fall asleep with pen and paper and mirror and desk
And four square walls, beneath a dead autumnal night.
That night I dream of a pebble rippling outwards in a pond,
And when I awake (a prospect of heaven makes waking easy),
Like a wanderer white with the dew, it is shining, the poem,
Hatched, escaped, it is permanently and mysteriously omnipresent.
NOBODY KNOWS ME
Nobody knows me
Better than you know me
Thine eyes in which we sleep
Thine eyes the twain
Are to me a kind of light
Better than the nights of the world
Thine eyes in which I travel
Have given me directions
To detach myself from the world
In your eyes which reveal the pair of us
And our infinite solitude
I see the heavens and the sun and the planets
Nobody knows me
Better than you know me
NOISES FROM ABOVE
Noises from above
Infiltrate the peace
Of my mind half-asleep
And I awake with a start:
There is no need to go checking,
Or rambling, or stumbling:
To the tender mercies of God
I entrust the music of the stars.
NOTHING
I see a woman
Fleeing,
Now becoming a tree,
Now becoming a bird,
Never the same woman
And never another,
With always no face,
Always escaping,
Escaping.
I see my life
Fleeing,
Now becoming a dream,
Now becoming a cloud,
Never the same life
And never another,
With always no face,
Always escaping,
Escaping.
NOTHING IMPORTANT
I have nothing important to say.
There is a poem to be made
About the bird that only has one wing:
Eternal voyage of discovery and surprises.
ODE
Thy hand permeates the universe. There may be a multiverse -- parallel universes -- or there may be one universe; but Thy Son gave His all for all. Thy hand, which flows throughout all things, is fashioned of many colours and Thy dread eye appeareth transparent, incandescent and opalescent. Stones, mute wooden things and the flaring joys of all our interweavings each and every one owe their coming into being to Thee. Every living thing, human and animal, not forgetting stones and the dumbest inanimate objects stand and rise touched by the love which floweth from Thy hand. Would that I could forget myself for a space and temporarily be absorbed into the nature of Thy Godhead. I see Thy voice fluttering in the words of my friend and dancing in the stones in the sunlight. I wish... I wish... that I will soon enter Thy fiery presence and remain united to Thee now and forever! To make this transition from intermittent sunlight to the frequency of the archangels we must luminously move from one room to another. Then we too will stand with Thee respendent and fearsomely opalescent.
We live in dream. We walk and see and breathe at the lowest imaginable frequency. When we make the marvellous heavenly transition we will remain with Thee and Thou with us and entering into joy and life we will abide (as one) forever and ever.
ODE TO A VASE
There is nothing so immortal as this famous urn.
Immortal pottery! Time-honoured shard! Holy scarab! I extol thee.
Your maker is dead but his thoughts we learn,
In the burning sea at the end of the world, behold! the beginning of the Word.
We creatures of clay and dust,
Moulded by time and each other's hands,
Misconstrue mediums,
And fear to speak outside the door.
Immortal pottery! Time-honoured shard! Holy scarab! I extol thee.
We must enter the heart with God-given humility;
Poetry should be natural
As the genius of the first dawn.
When I was slightly crazy I saw ideas
Sliding from universe to universe
Through the realities of time and reason.
There were angels in the architecture,
Medieval battles in angles and curves,
Dreams within and without decades,
However, eventually things came to a head and Sol imploded.
Sacred vessel! I extol thy praises! Timeless medium of the purest uisge!*
*uisge (Scottish Gaelic): water.
ODE TO AN URN
Famous poet that I am...
Not as famous as this time-honoured urn!
I place it on the Alpine pinnacle,
Resting like a (divine) messenger -- known to many as an angel --
Beneath pure, shivering, cosmic, and unadulterated starlight.
I compose a (literal!) tonne of poetry.
Each poem has its own page,
There are hundreds, if not even hundreds of thousands,
And the words' weight makes me Rip Van Winkle, or the Old Man of the Sea,
And so I allow them (the words, weighty and sacred) to sing me to sleep
And not noticing the cold I dream of log cabins on the face
Of another mountain, this in the Holy Land, from one of which
A philosopher emerges to calm the gathering storm with his words
Weighty and numinous.
In the aftermath of these visions
I take the pages (the poems) out of my tattered satchel
And place them, like burnt presentations, in the hallowed direction
Of the time-honoured bosom of this precious and beauteous urn.
I run for cover.
Harrying down the mountainside, the scree too glad to serve my stumble,
I hear the urn go off with a bang -- that living scarab
Loath to put up with the accumulated pressure!
The most elevated heaven of our universe is, with a shout, permeated
By the mind-forged contents of that vessel, itself mind-forged, and in touch with the Unnameable.
O wondrous urn! I extol your praises! Timeless medium of modern
Media: you are the giver, you are the carrier, you are the multitudinous motion
Of a thousand worlds imploding, worlds travelled the whole journey,
North of power, south of desire, both east and west of reason,
Far beyond normality and, everything that can be called ordinary slipping from universe to universe,
Far beyond time itself and into the rejuvenating fire.
ODE TO FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA
The song
I'll never speak,
On the tip of my tongue
It fell asleep.
On the honeysuckle
A firefly blinked
And the sun was taunting
The lakeshore with a beam.
Song burst out on my lips,
Flowing through the ages.
Song filled up the hours
Whiled away in the shade.
I dream.
I dream.
I dream.
I dream.
Songs of the stars alive! O stars
In perpetual blinding skies!
OGHAM
The ogham stone
Stands unworn,
Lovingly inscribed
By poets,
Made to make sense
In a chaotic world,
A piece of raw Nature
Tamed by Logos.
ON THE OPEN SEAS
I remember sailing on the sea,
My daddy and me,
When I was six or maybe seven.
We caught ten or twelve mackerel.
I made up a funny little song
About my dad. Dad is still here
But those days
Are long gone.
ONE
We are all one:
When your brother insults you
We are one,
When confronted with the abomination of desolation
And annihilating regards
We are one,
The universe
Is one.
ONE NIGHT
One night God was suffering from loneliness.
So God decided to create a race of angels.
But a third of the angels rebelled.
And a third of the angels fell to hell.
So God decided to create some human beings.
But the problem with the human beings was that
God couldn't create them all the same,
Because then they'd be like gods,
And because they were destined to pass away.
So God created them all different.
And some human beings fell to hell.
But most just suffered from loneliness.
One night God had a dream.
ONE OF THE BRIGHTEST STARS
Harry my hero was one of the brightest stars
And he didn't like the concrete sprawl
And he even wrote about that
Because he was of rustic roots
And it is fair to say
That he was a gentleman
(A rural gentleman
A lover and a poet too.)
ORBIT
Let us lie back on the grass
Our backs to the earth
Looking at the stars
Around each one of which
There revolve many earths
Other earths
For me and you
Let us reach up together
And touch the stars
Our backs hugging the molten earth
Which heaves and thrusts
Which spills in void
Which washes in waves
And I'll put my arms about you
Your words hammering gently in my ears
As the world goes round the sun
And the stars wink down upon us
And let the birds of the air
And all that is foul and false
Pass high above our heads
In the space that makes the stars
For the bullet shirks the ground
But Love hugs close the earth
ORIENTAL STREETS
Release me from this gilded cage
To fly through frosted glass
Riding in the burnished chariot
So that I can wash in the holy fountain
And hear the singing leaves
On Oriental streets.
On Oriental streets
Let me bathe in the rivers of forgetfulness
And finally say goodbye
To lion and woman and the Lord knows what!
OUR SECOND TRIP TO FRANCE IN 2019
I'd like to thank my father Michael Dunford
For taking me to France! and for
Bringing me into Chartres
And for showing me the "sights and sounds"
As I relax with Mum and Dad here in the Loire
And go for glorious nature walks and keep up with friends
Old and new: thanks
For everything Dad.
PALACE GILDENHALL
I will be happy here
With Aoife
Forever surrounded
By God and gardens
In the midst of the Loire
With children bedecking
Each tree and herbaceous border,
The trees fully equipped
With singing leaves,
The leaves whispering
Into
Eternity.
PARTICLES IN A POND
If you close your eyes with me
At the same time that I do
As I lie thinking of you
In the dark of my room
Then you will see the same things
That I do
You will hear the same sounds
That I do
Can you see them, sweetheart
Can you hear them
Turn off your music
And draw fast your blinds
And quench all those thoughts
That parch you from the day
And cherish the night
And imagine with me
I can see me in a field
A great open field
Surrounded by trees
Beneath a vast sky
Can you see it
Can you see me there
And I can see you running
From an edge of the field
Smiling
To catch me
I can see us in a boat
On a great lake
In Sweden
My hand trailing in the water
Smiling
Together
Can you see us, sweetheart
Can you see us too
Imagine
Lie back and
Imagine
As we lie there
In warmth
I can hear the leaves
Falling
I can hear the leaves
Do you hear the same things that I hear, sweetheart
Do you see the same things that I see
Now
I can hear water falling
I can see rocks
And there is water
Can you see it
The water falling
Drifting
Drifting
Imagine us
Drifting
Do you see the water
Now there is more water
But there is no you
I am alone
Much smaller now
Floating
Among particles
In murky slowness
And then I realise
That you and I
Are particles
In a pond
PATRICK KAVANAGH
Adapted from Patrick Kavanagh
Not black or blue,
Grey or red or tan
The skies I travel under --
Oriental vision and thunder.
I dream with silvery gull
Transmuting mysteries.
A thing that is beautiful
I can know.
He and I are brothers when
The wind that shakes the barley
Enraptures my humble soul
To starlight!
A newborn baby's laughter --
A precious eyelid's tear --
The numinous colours of a sunset
Or the intricacy of a leaf...
For this, for this,
Am I labelled Beelzebub --
And do I daily climb
The unending stair
To my apotheosis. After this
Crucifixion and resurrection
I will emerge with hands outstretched --
To Elohim.
PET
She was rubbing her hands with glee
As she came out with a happy announcement
And I was hoping she would never ever falter
And wondering, Could you be loved.
POEM OF THE TRIBULATION
My friend beyond the distant seas:
How the cold of this poem made me shiver --
Once at sunset Jesus and his disciples
Came across a white line that might signify dawn's emergence.
This line became a white cloud of the moths going mad:
The landscape masterpiece of modern terror.
These are not the blue mountains anymore,
The rain like grey stalks, ashen pouring.
At night during wind and rain
The earth spurts blood and terror:
At all times I see this.
Sometimes I'll come and see you in your sleep.
PRIMROSE HILL
On a map in my office
I spied Primrose Hill.
It lies just without a seaside town,
Oppressively encroached on by the stinking sprawl.
If, turning back Time's pages
By half a millennium --
Slowly descending on the wings of a prayer,
Blissfully aware of each feature beneath --
We could mystically zoom in on the hill
To find below a medieval idyll
Of birds and flowers and trees
And the saints of the soil
Singing free.
To wander home.
PURPLE HAIR
Purple hair limits the cries of the wild ones
Golden machine guns buffet legends
I like liberty which veils the hypocrites
Harp of silver chords rains down the music
The invisible enemy inserts silver in the sun
The secret future subtly eludes us
Listen! the birth of the Word subtle fish
Towns tower by tower become golden keys
The blue mask where God puts his sky
The Metaphysical Wanderer eludes the war
Child with hands cut among the transparent roses.
READING GIBRAN
Lying among shadows
We read The Storm
And glean virtue from the (sacred) words
As winds howl without. I go up
The convoluted stairwell towards the psychedelic attic
Where I stumble across a mirror -- the mystery of light
Plays out on the glass; and, squatting there,
I see the various tenses of the everlasting soul.
REFLECTION
Pylons guide
invisible hands
across the countryside,
into town and out.
RESSUSCITÉ D'ENTRE LES MORTS
Charon pays me
29 pieces of silver
To deliver me back
To the land of the living
The water agitated
The oars splash
The hand of the wind
The calm the calm
RÓISÍN DUBH
Translated from the Irish
O Róisín don't be sorry for what has befallen thee --
the friars go abroad on the crest of the sea,
pardon cometh from the Pope in Rome
and Spanish wine will not be squandered on my Róisín Dubh.*
For she has travelled and I from the yestersun till today,
cross mountains did I go with her and a-sail on the sea;
the Erne I have cleared though great is its course,
and as string music all around her was my Róisín Dubh.
You have spoilt me, petty one, and may it well ruin you,
and by God my heart inside is in love with thee and not since today.
You have left me weak wan in aspect and form;
don't betray me and I in love with you, Róisín Dubh.
Myself I would go with you through desert and fen
in hope I should hear from thee or that which thou grantest;
sweet little branch, you swore you did love me,
oh the finest flower of Munster is my Róisín Dubh.
Had I a set of horses I would plough agen the hills
and a gospel I'd make in centre Mass of Róisín Dubh;
I'd bear a kiss to the cailín that would bear me her purity
and I'd lie behind the lios with my Róisín Dubh.
The Erne it shall flood and hills will be rent;
the sea shall be red blood and the sky also blood,
every Irish mountain glen and bogland shall quake,
before the passing away of my Róisín Dubh.
*Dark Róisín.
RUSSET LEAVES
My pet please come to my side
And abet my ailing spirit...
There's a poem in the offing
And it's you...
SAME MISTAKE
Poetically and I flail.
I'm not very good at writing poetry
(Only on the odd occasion)
And I'd really like to improve.
I hope that someone teaches me to improve my poetic attempts
And I'd also really really love to improve my lot
Romantically and haply
The two are connected.
SCROLL
Resting in my father's tent
With my brother who is sleeping between the brightening and the gloom
On the side of a rock in Andorra:
Evacuating his container
My father rolls open the sliding door
And wanders in the darkness
Before I hear him reentering. The door
Slams shut and I restless drift to sleep.
The next time I awake the birds have started,
Though all is still in darkness.
My thoughts are broken by another roar;
The door:
But this time it is the heavens scrolling,
As thunder rolls down the rockside.
SECOND BIRTH
I will dive from the wall
Into my bed,
And my bed sinking
Into the floor
Will disappear,
And from the sea-green carpet
I will rise again;
Dry, and new.
SECRET GARDEN (FRAGMENT)
Into your eyes forever more
I'd stare, if that did not you bore:
[...]
You are unlike all those I've seen
Whose makeup gives to them their sheen --
Your beauty is as that of earth,
Enduring, having not a birth.
All Nature lies within your eyes,
The place where Adam Eve espies;
Yet not that Garden of the crime,
Except the garden of all Time.
[...]
There are three places in your eyes,
Three different soils, three diverse skies;
I see both hell and heaven there,
The Garden and the hell I'd share
If you went home, O flower of France,
And we had danced our last sad dance.
It would be hell untold for me
If someone else your love did see.
In your dark eyes I see my hell
Unfolding should you break your spell.
SEVEN MAIDENS
1
Seven pets like Mary most Precious
Sing in blissful harmony.
Behold! Across the sky in a bow,
A choice of numinous sunsets.
There is but one Soul
With seven voices -- the seven sweethearts.
In the white air there follow on the tails
Of one another... seven shining gulls.
The seven maidens are never destined
To die or to be lost.
(Why weren't there nine?
Why weren't there 20?)
The river meets them -- and greets them. No one
Can see them; they are transparent.
2
Behold and falter! The numinous
Qualities of the rainbow...
SEVEN WORLDS WILL COLLIDE
If an extraordinary word recurs
In the grammar of the day
It is supernatural
Coincidence:
But when your name reappeared
Just inside my door
On the day that we spoke,
Stars collided all over town.
SHARDS OF THE FORGOTTEN DREAM
Shards of the forgotten dream
Come glinting back
Across the River Styx
And up from the stinking underground.
The surreal
And the real
Merge,
Coalescing into a hard reality.
SHE
In the ebullient grandeur of the sun
Like a life spirit she virtuously comes
Striking melodiously the drums
With the precision of her words.
SHE FEEDS THE CATS
In the churchyard she feeds the cats,
Urging bits of bread through the high wire fence,
Into the dense thicket of greenery:
Saintlike, hovering, on the boundary of existence.
SHE'S A WHITE FLOWER
Translated from the Irish
She's a white flower among brambles,
She's the finest flower in a garden.
She's my best and brightest clothes,
She's the Sunday of the week.
She's a face that's always smiling,
A bell that's always ringing,
She's the flower of best breeding
One's eyes could e'er behold.
She's my baby and my pet,
The flower of fragrant apples,
She is the music
That soothes me to sleep.
She is the bridge
That carries me over,
She's summer in the cold
Between Christmas and Easter.
SHE'S MY KIND OF GIRL
I love you Aoife
As I lie (pondering) prone on the cross of changes
Pondering and wandering
Through the impoverished, and impoverishing, miles
SHINE ON
She.
She.
She she she
Shine on
And never fade away
But radiate
With abandon
In the breath of future sun.
SKY LANTERN
Skyhook, someone? Give it to me there.
Let us latch on like an assassin, now, from Jericho
To the planet Venus -- isn't she bright and very beautiful --
And drag her down. Pluto
Is not a planet (it has been revealed).
She who keeps us from the heat of Mercury (Venus)
Shall be scaled tonight by my nonexistent telescope (LOL!).
Who has been lousy enough to insist skyhooks don't exist (?).
SONG
Life moving on
Like traffic in the haze:
It's only a song,
I try to tell myself;
As I rise up my smoke...
She's only a girl:
It was only a song;
She's only a woman, you know;
SONG
Lord of the worlds,
God of the elements.
King of strength,
Root of victory.
Son of Mary,
Lily of the valley.
Physician of the soul,
Chief of each saint.
Lighter of the stars,
Maker of wondrous works.
Lord of creation,
Bright and morning Star.
Son of David,
Who is like Thee?
Unbidden Hand,
You turn the narrative!
SOUNDS OF SILENCE
From the vast and varied
expanses of my mind come
sounds of
silence.
SQUINT
squint
and imagine
the leaves overhead
the roof of leaves
and the shafts of sky
squint and see
barely the film
of surface
o'er the army of lilies
and the chinks of blue
STAR
You will not come to me
And I cut off limbs for you
(Anything to have you)
And I hate you like the sun
STONE
It seemed to be a crystal stone
But it was a black stone
With the rain
Glistening upon.
STRANGE POEM
"Come to my arms or not." I cannot come
To you, she said. --Why not? Riddle me that, my rapparee (!).
Is this an RPG because
I don't wish our friendship to be smashed by a rock.
I cannot even watch the magic box, she said.
She continued, will you be my luminary (?).
It depends what day of the week, I replied.
Today is Sunday. Thus (stop in the name of the Lord!) let us sup and Sabbath
Together. It's the depression, my friend then announced.
I am in very low spirits indeed. A wave of pity overcame me then
As I tuned into the frequency of the archangels somewhere
Out there in the beauty that exists simply between Pluto and Charon.
STYGIAN SKIES
Beneath a sunless sky
I wend my weary way,
Across the twilit bridge
To heaven far away.
Until that shining shore
I seek Him in the clay.
SUBCONSCIOUS COMMUNION
I don't know
What during the day
Keeps your smile forced
And your eyes sad, sometimes defeated.
But your spirit tells me that you're one of the chosen.
One night in a dream
Your subconscious appeared to mine,
Your mouth beaming, your face golden.
Your eyes were shining,
One for my salvation, and one for yours.
Your oft-wearied aspect was beautiful for once.
It was the transfiguration of a body,
The soul's defiance of its trap.
SUBLIMATION
Into the pot
I daily put
Blood, sweat, and tears
And (when watched
And simmered)
From out are poured
Beads
Of poetry.
SUBMIT TO THE LORD'S CONTROL
No matter what your creed
You should submit to the LORD's control
Because He will be your generous benefactor
And the provider of all worthwhile things.
Praise Him.
Amen and amen.
SVERIGE
I love neither roads nor bridges:
Unencumbered by mountains,
Forests and lakes;
And at the treey shore
An idea-clad
Cabin.
TÉMOIN DES RETOURS
Father driving
And mother reading the map
A connection of roundabouts
From Catalonia to Ireland
The winding roads
The Pyrenees
The trees
The cornfields and the towns
Below us
And all freedom
TEMPER
crazy masochist
wielding blood
hammer
death sparkle
TÉNÈBRES
Beyond the dark glass
Of the twilit sitting room
The moon's gloaming
Burnishes the flowers of the walkway.
THAT THE PEN IS MIGHTIER
Poets and writers
Huddled upstairs,
Relating world news,
And talking philosophy
Over roasted ground coffee
And later
On their own,
Hushed under darkness
By ebbing candlelight,
As starlight beckons
Through frosted glass,
Inscribing on parchment
Epitaphs to the system,
Living under the dream
That only they have escaped
The machinations of the wheels
That crush on the streets below,
Whispering to themselves,
"We can change things, we can change things,"
Labouring under the delusion
That the pen is mightier
Than the sword.
THE BALANCING OF THE TWAIN
The devil fails with recurrent hindsight
To ferment monstrous plans to eradicate the Church:
But God exceeds with omniscient foresight
To bequeath visions, warnings and hallowed every-
day experiences
In order, for the good, to harmonise the lot.
THE BENEVOLENCE OF YOU (Ireland, 18 October 2014)
I have messed up massively
And still God forgives
And showers me
With positive blessings.
I have still to see herself
Coming from among the madding throng:
She is the positive consummation
Of my life's dejection.
Still to this day, God has holpen,
And God has given, and God has granted,
And he will reveal Her Softness
Like a jewel worn around the heart.
THE BOUNDLESS OCEAN OF YOUR LOVE
I watch the tide disappear around the headland. The tide
Stretches beyond the headland into other seas, far other seas, beyond comprehension.
As much as there is water on the earth's tremendous surface
There is mercy in the boundless ocean of Your love.
THE CAVE
My dark room shut is like a cave,
Where holding you I don't feel brave;
For courage is a coat one wears
When round about one's foes lay snares.
But as we here in darkness lie,
There are no foes from whom to fly,
Or fight, for how can one fight love,
Around which force the world does move.
In darkness pure we goodly lie,
And though of course we see no sky
We could be any place on earth,
As I hold you in gentle mirth.
My tent were this, upon the hill,
As beasts prowl low but we lie still;
Or in a palace grand we were,
Hung over by a golden star.
But of all places I can see
(My mind's eye wanders, hugging thee)
Wherein to love, it is my cave,
Which Nature to this pair has gave.
And this is it, my room so small,
That holds in me, and you, my all,
For you are fare enough for man
To share alone whene'er he can.
No beasts are here to worry you,
I've shut the door, without they do
Hug close the ground, as I hug thee,
At morsels pick, and sing as free.
And, in this cave, our happy lair,
There is a fire, whose heat we share:
Its fuel is love, and that its source,
A ceaseless stream that takes its course.
Our cave is dry, warmed by our love,
No damp remains, but from above
Such water falls, in gathered dots
That beat the walls like arrow shots,
The window too, they charge non stop,
Like men from o'er a mountain top
All pouring down to fill the plain
With gunshots, flags, and shouts of gain.
But there is one above the rest,
That drowns them all, e'en at their best:
The sound of this recurrent drop
Is like a cannonball to mop
The senses; otherwise a clock
That drums within me, causing shock!
It strikes me then that time does pass,
That flowers fall, that withers grass.
And so I see that day will break,
And winter of this love-cave make:
For with the light we must take flight,
All day to work, that rest we might;
So I shall on these walls inscribe
The names -- that's two -- of all the tribe
That once here loved, to show the world
That Summer here her robe unfurled.
THE CROWDED RIVER
Blue is the colour:
My jumper is blue;
The electric kettle is blue.
The Beautiful South (band) and the Feeling.
Blue is my favourite colour
And I wonder what floats in the river
Beneath the surface
(The crowded river).
THE DANCING FLOOR
Let me take you out
On the dancing floor.
Round and round
We go.
I am smiling now because I do have a SOH
And to tell the truth
I couldn't take a light bulb
From the darkest place in the universe. Thanks, Muse.
THE DAY
The day of joy, the day of dread,
The day the living will see the dead,
The day of all.
The day when all will be rent in twain,
And the King will walk the ground again,
Descended in light astounding:
Stones will turn and brooks will speak,
The chasm will part its sides and reek;
And all at once the sea aghast
Will render up its dead at last.
The day of death, but more of life:
When the King will take in His arms His bride;
The day of the Lamb slain by our hands,
Robed in our blood, on our own land.
Incense and smoke will fill the air,
And the dread Lord God will set up His chair.
From His throne ablaze He will judge all flesh;
All life will tremble beneath the steadfast gaze
Of the Most High Omniscience.
The earth itself will move:
He it is who has returned,
He who has known all
Since before the beginning of the world!
And the sheep will be parted
From those who wouldn't hear;
And the sheep will be heard to cry,
"Worthy is the Lamb That was slain!"
But woe to the one who heareth not,
The one who denieth the King Himself,
The King of Kings, the Lord of Lords,
The Rock of Rocks, now and evermore.
THE DREAMTIME
I wonder if
In the dreamtime tonight
(To the feathered ounce)
I will have the same dreams
(The same weight, the same colour)
As I felt
Last night
In the dreamtime.
THE EARTH IS BLUE LIKE AN ORANGE
Translation from Paul Éluard
The earth is blue like an orange
Never a mistake words do not lie
They are letting you sing no more
To the wheel of reciprocal kisses
Fools and lovers
She her wedding-ring mouth
All the secrets all the smiles
And what exorbitant clothes
To believe her quite naked
The wasps are flowering green
The dawn is worn around the neck
A necklace of windows
There are wings covering the leaves
Thou hast all the solar joys
All the sunlight on the earth
On the paths of your beauty.
THE FATES
We shared the same birthday
But not the same destiny.
Beached in the same net together,
We were soon parted by events.
THE FUTURE
dragging our hunger through the sky
of our skulls: whole worlds of sky and earth
stooping with fingers of compassion
to endorse each town with its dust
mocked, tortured and made nothing of
save till the instigation of the dispensation
THE GARDEN
garden --
the sound of winter
and breathing --
there is no pretending, pretending,
pretending
for once
it is a tropical garden.
we are lost in the doldrums
without compass or map
but with...
but with...
but with...
the stars above
to guide us
home-
wards
THE HALCYON DAYS
Looking back now on the halcyon days
Or so I thought they would turn out to be
Days of drink-fuelled madness
Living as if there was no tomorrow
They brought me to the psychiatric wards
Where I thought I met the devil
I met him there in my mind
And so I met him for my mind is what is important and real
I think that he is out to get me
It is all very real to me
My mind snapped just shattered
God must be able to grant me a way out of this illusion
When he comes back to make war upon me
I hope the good God will step out in front of him in his way
And so I pray day by day
And so day by day I pray
p.s. God answered my prayers on 25 April 2014 beginning what is now a total healing. Praise Him!
THE HEAVENLY DISPENSATION
My Precious is standing at the gate of the garden
On Sunday.
There is a blue archway that He breezes through,
Everything is blue, and from His resplendent countenance
Also comes the blue aureate light. Sea and shore,
Everything is blue and numinous, every end
Has been accomplished -- each goal is finally open.
Our affections are together bound, no longer stammering, resplendent in a transparent blaze.
THE IDEA
I do not want to write about
Myself
Now
So I shall write about
The oneness
Of the journey
Shared
Between the common
Billion
Idea.
THE IMPOSSIBLE HAND
Give me the impossible hand.
Let it be wounded on the bush of many thorns.
Give me the impossible hand.
Each night I sleep on a bed of rushes.
Let it be a beautiful fleur de lis,
A dove tethered fast to my heart.
Let it be the policeman who, at the height of evil,
Will block entrance entirely to the malefactor.
Let me have nothing but the impossible hand,
So that my mind will be an unideaed sheet before me.
Let me have nothing but the impossible hand,
To carry me heavenwards on a wing and a prayer.
Everything else -- all -- passes away.
The impossible hand -- perpetual sun!
Everything else is substance and accidents,
While the leaves flee as before a magician.
THE IMPOVERISHED YOUNG DRUNK
The impoverished young drunk thinks he can breeze in and out
Of the street cafe where he quickly grabs a table.
Trying to hide his drunken drawl he mumbles nonsense
That appears to himself to be sacred words of prophecy.
Not having any regard for the sober enjoyment of others
He unwittingly causes a scene.
Then scraping pennies from a dirty little pocket
He obstreperously orders one more shandy.
He asks for a shandy but he'd rather be dead
Because that is where his life is secretly heading.
He causes such a scene
And vomits a little
To people's unrestrained laughter.
THE INIMITABLE FRUIT OF THE LIGHT
He asked the audience, one and all, moving as a cloud, to turn on their cellphones...
With a shout the thirst-quenching citrus fruit of the light shone forth
And magnified the dusty arena. Milano, I love you!
Bono who has done this tremendous country proud exchanges the gift
Of his golden voice for the worshipful fruit of the light,
The beautiful, wonderful, inimitable fruit of the light
That stirs the universe and unites us all, hurt and crying out for understanding:
He brings to bear the wholehearted voice that permeates, not decades, but millennia.
THE INVISIBLE DREAM
The wind savages trees with the touch of its cruel and uncaring hand.
The invisible dream leaves -- to you, to me and to us all -- its (translucent) splinters of life
Which hints at life eternal, when there will be no yesterday, no today and no tomorrow
But existence will be rolled up in an opaline, multicolour crystal.
THE LEARNING CURVE
Four confused years ago
I trawled the city centre
In the evenings, at night
Looking for conversations
And gleaming things
To transmute into poetry:
Surrounded by people and incidents
I sat in cafes
And composed drunken poetry;
Now after the learning curve
I ride out the loneliness till the midnight hour
And the poetry I make
In the musical silence of my room
Runs rings around what came before.
THE LIGHT OF FOREKNOWLEDGE
Poets! Poets!
Poets! Creeping out of the clockwork!
Everyone is a poet nowadays.
We are nice people.
Strange and interesting individuals!
Especially mysticism Ireland ones!
THE LUMINOUS BRIDGE
Walking into the mist
And there's someone else in front
And voices calling from the park
Unknowable and unknown
The valley shrouded in mist
And it is I who am alone
And then the well lit bridge
A symbol in the darkness
Bearing us over the river
That flows to nowhere below
Following Him into the mist
As He leads me to the luminous bridge
THE MAGIC BOX
Adapted from Kit Wright
I will put in the box
the mermaid of Copenhagen,
a singing bird
and a flying fish.
I will put in the box
the Great Wall of China,
a cat's eye glowing in the dark
and an elevator to the Great Beyond.
I will put in the box
the Great Library of Alexandria,
a waterfall of crystal light
and the mind of time alone.
I will put in the box
Leonardo's workshop,
a television glowing in the night
and a string of words unpoemed.
My box is fashioned from paper, water, stone,
with fire on the lid and wishes in the wings.
In its deepest recess
is the heart of love alone.
I will fly in my box
on the astral planes of the seventh heaven,
then wash ashore in a golden sun
the colour of the rose.
THE MAGIC FOREST
There was a fork in the track
In the magic forest,
And I took the left-hand path:
A mile ahead
It was guarded by a troll,
And I paid him dearly;
There is no way back,
And this track leads to the blue mountains.
All along
The left-hand track
I have written poetry.
The right-hand track
Could have led to anywhere.
What if I had followed
The right-hand track?
Then
I would have written
What wonderful poetry?
THE MYSTERY OF LIGHT
Even the filaments of phosphorus shine,
Behold the light as it tucks into darkness.
Peering through a death mask is the blue aureate light,
A death mask fashioned of letters and of ivory.
The steady, blue, aureate, light is incapable of being decayed
By the duskiness, nor obscured for the most tremendous space.
The phosphorus filaments shine forth, and the aureate precious light
Coalesces with grace at its opaline boundary and slowly eddies homewards.
THE NICEST PEOPLE EVERYWHERE
The sun flails
Through the stratosphere --
A thousand stars
Glimmer; shimmer; shatter;
THE NUMINOUS QUALITIES OF THE RAINBOW
Mary most Precious sings in blissful harmony with the holy angels.
Behold! Across the heavens in a bow... a plethora of numinous sunsets.
All these sunsets, all these angels, all the appearances of Our Lady:
There is but one Soul, one Voice and one Giver of good things.
In the present dispensation we are unable to apprehend the faces of the holy ones.
However! Falter! Falter and greet the numinous qualities of the rainbow.
THE OCEAN'S CYCLE
The ocean goes round and round
And round as does every sea.
Power is in the simplicity,
Yea, even to write. What comes natur-
ally; what comes like the dawn?
That is a rhetorical question
And I am not drunk on my own facetiousness
But the Muse, I believe, is already at work.
THE ORANGE FLOWERS OF DAIRBHRE
The orange flowers of Dairbhre
Burn amid this darkened world
As earthquakes smash and eruptions lash.
And yet my heart is more devoted to Dairbhre
And its brightly glowing orange flowers
Than to the unseen things of space and time
Folded or unfolded.
As empires rise and tumble, they will remain,
As religions flutter and splutter,
As tyrants clash and crash,
The orange flowers of Dairbhre,
Blooming and reblooming.
THE PARACHUTE OF CHRIST
This Chute would open
If only we thought It worked,
The string in our hand.
THE PERSECUTION OF THE INTELLECTUALS
Occupied France.
"Young poet of the French Republic that I am. Tobacco used to be my most sizeable nightmare but now the National Socialists are rounding up the Jews and the Catholics and the Protestants and the communists and the surrealists and anybody who is different and the poets. The lame, the old, the handicapped, all fall prey to the same devices. They want to throw me into a psychiatric hospital where they will torture me with sleep deprivation and cigarette burns and kill me, possibly making use of electroconvulsive therapy. So I have taken to the goat's path -- high beneath starlight in the Alps -- harrying and fleeing from forest to thicket. Pray, whosoever you may be, that I will be able to navigate this scree, these rocks and stones serve my stumble, and I fear falling prone and withering in the flower of my youth to slowly decay with the carcasses of sheep and their worthless innards. I have sacrificed my all for love and poetry and yet my greatest fear is that one day in the future a shepherd will drink from the stream at the foot of these high white mountains and that the water to enter his mortal frame will have been adulterated from passing through my corrupt skull and the protruding ribs of my torso. Beneath pure, shivering, unadulterated starlight I pray to Jehovah that I may safely stumble through the sign to separate my sighs from the sanctuary that is Switzerland."
THE PROUD GIRL OF THE NICE AND SMOOTH CURLS
Translated from the Irish
The stars are standing out on the sky,
The sun and the moon are lying down;
The sea has ebbed without leaving a drop
And the swan has no sway as she used.
The cuckoo at the top of the branches
Is constantly saying that she escaped me,
The proud girl of the nice and smooth curls
Who left Ireland under cruel duress.
Three things I see relating to love,
Sin, death, and pain,
And my mind do be telling me every day
That she tortured my thoughts with gloom.
It's my sharp regret I gave her love
And I wish I had never ever seen her --
Maiden! you destroyed me in my centre;
May you obtain graces from God.
THE RITUAL
There was a ritual
Amongst the ruffians
(I want the one I can't have)
And that's exactly what she said.
THE ROBE OF THINGS
The robe of things flows throughout the universe. Stones, wooden things and the flaring human joys of all our interweavings are embedded in this robe of things, this glorious robe. The robe belongs to God -- fashioned out of every frequency and colour it permeates every living thing and stones and broken inanimate objects. Would that I could clothe myself in the fullness of this robe! I see the robe fluttering in the words of my friend and dancing in the stones in the sunlight. But to apprehend the robe of things once and for all we will have to make the transition from intermittent sunlight to the frequency of the archangels. There in the heavenly choirs the resplendent robe will fly like a flag transparent, incandescent and opalescent.
THE QUEST
I have "everything"
And still I'm not happy:
So I will deny myself everything
And in solemn sanguine abnegation
Ascend
(Two steps forward though one step back)
To the nirvana
Of the summit.
THE SEAR OF EVERY METAMORPHOSIS
In the throes of coffee-induced psychosis I ponder
Whether is meant by the mystery of light
The sear of every metamorphosis or --
Would I were! an unbroken chain of mornings.
What better place to contemplate light
And its mystery than the library
Which others call the universe. It is the bullseye of civilisation and it is here
That the great bulls of yesteryear trample honest shadows, the mind and heart still flailing.
I will not sow my salt seed in this synagogue to mourn
The majesty and burning of the little boy's death.
Thump! A body appearing plonks a glass before me,
And though, for now, I do not sup
Behold the light in the multitudinous crystal, oh, the clarity of that glass,
Notice the splendour and the wreckage in that crystal,
What a tonic, witness!
Demons harrying in crystal.
Deep with the first dead lies Little Boy Blue;
The light is blue and aureate,
He is resting once for all --
He is not to taste of the second death.
THE SEASONS
Spring
In the forest
The sound of rain
And broken boughs.
Summer
On the road
Going with no one
Wondering.
Autumn
By the river
Breaking the silence...
Autumn tears.
Winter
In the garden
The sound of winter
And breathing.
THE SHELL
scratching at the surface
of this unbroken shell
in the convulsive space
of this stifling being
at this uneasy womb
encasing these
tremulous moments
pulling at the earth
of this roasting grave
asking how much more
but knowing full well
while clawing at the top
of this deadly shell
that someday it will break
THE SHINING
the shine
the shine
the shine before
the storm
all the turmoil
of the waterfall
cascade
to the pit
of unknowing
THE STORM
Lying among shadows
We read The Storm
And glean virtue from the sacred words
As winds howl without.
I read to her, she reads to me.
The starlight feeds our hut;
In warmth and learning
A rickety palace.
THE STRAY
There must have been a strand of barbed wire fixed around his waist, piercing his body at every turn. It must have been an appendage such as this that drained his blood, depriving him of having a healthy life like all the other creatures.
But this burden must have been merely the symptom of another malady: he must have also been afflicted with a nail through the skull, congenital perhaps, quite possibly installed at the same time as the flesh-eating wire, a long thin nail which cut through the brain, altering its customary dimensions and characteristics and causing him to act differently: irresponsibly and irrelevantly.
When I looked into his eyes, this wild beast captured while left free, by the world and its inhabitants, stunned by them while already paralysed, never worshipped but long ignored, ever associated on sight with the wire and the nail, and studiedly shunned as if these supposedly congenital parasites could be capable of spreading, when I looked into his eyes without turning back or without looking through him, his stray and frenzied gaze met my searching apprehension and I beheld, inscribed upon his forehead, the words, "I wrote the characteristics of all my names in hell."
THE STREETS OF BABYLON
On the streets of Babylon
The stones falling
The smoke ascending
The headless horses
The souls dying
The putrid fountains
The burnt torsos
The screaming children
The lost mothers
The cursing fathers
Devoid
Of flesh
Welcome to the underworld
On the streets of Babylon
THE STREETS OF ZION
On the streets of Zion
The gilded glass
The piquant incense
The wingèd horses
The living bodies
The holy fountains
The elevated souls
The laughing children
The carefree mothers
The singing fathers
Free
From desire
In the city of blinding lights
On the streets of Zion
THE SWEETHEART
You are caught between a rock and a hard place:
Intellect has motioned by means of a thousand media.
Nobody knows or notices that your teeth of silk
Have martyred the bird that beats the quickest wings.
My own intellect is feeble and tortured compared with the brilliance
Which bursts from the shell that is your teeming, grandly opalescent subconscious.
Forever, forever, sitting in this flower garden of my soldiering,
Contemplating your ineffable ways and smile forever.
THE TABLES ARE EMPTY
The tables are empty
And a chill wind breezes through
With a myriad of ghosts:
The ghosts of past, present, future;
Seize the grand piano,
Pass me an ashtray,
Strike up an adorable flame
And play me a love song.
THE THREAD OF LOVE
I take the thread of love
And let it lead me out of the picture house,
Following it to where she stands,
Reeling me in like a fisher of man.
I had sat there at the back
Watching greater stories flicker
On the prophetic screen...
I follow it down the stairs,
Past the place where things are bought and sold,
Through the painted doors,
Into the open air.
I stand exposed.
The daylight blinds me.
THE VALLEY
Rows of windows
All bearing down on me
Across the twilit
Fields
As starlight
Shivers
In the aeons
While here
In the valley
I shudder.
THE WAYS OF LOVE
O teach to me the ways of love,
And ground my passing lust;
Alight on me a tender dove,
Before my heart goes bust.
The broken dreams of my past life
All wait for you, my dear,
Too often have I sat in strife
And shed a bitter tear.
O give to me your precious gift,
Before my heart decays;
Confer it with a sacred lift
Of Love's sweet smiling rays.
THE WEATHERED OLD DRUNK
thrown carelessly at the polished table
the weathered old drunk glances bewilderedly
at the widescreen telly of deafening volume
showing recent clips of live Bon Jovi
not knowing the worth of those songs about change
he whines contempt for all that screechin'
then scraping pennies from a torn soiled pocket
he cries out loud for a small bag of French fries
he asks for French fries but he'd rather be drinking
in an intoxicating overcoat he stands pondering
at the hungry counter he counts his hopefulness
on a withered hand of blackened fingers
not... good... enough
THE YEAR OF PURIFICATION
I will plunge into the blue
From the crescendo of craving
To the nadir of nothingness
I will humbly soar
My spirit rising
I will climb the mountain
I will sail the boat out
To a distant shore
THE YEAR OF PURIFICATION 2008
I will plunge into the blue from the crescendo of craving.
To the nadir of nothingness I will humbly soar.
My spirit rising I will climb the mountain,
Sailing the boat out to a distant shore.
Behold my Everest! God abides in a book I have not read.
Rows of houses, all bearing down on me...
Rows of houses, all bearing down on me...
Pastpresent is an afterglow and present shakes hands with future
Becoming swallowed up in her own devices,
As the weight of the Parousia crashes back through history
Like the "big bang" at the worldwide lowering of curtains.
I pray thee Jesus. I pray thee. Give me the liberty to wander safely out from the dysfunction of my times.
THERE IS FREEDOM WITHIN
In the throes of coffee-instigated psychosis
I stumble bleeding from the psychedelic wilderness
To the perpetual sacrifice... up the convoluted stairwell
Finishing with a full stop in the attic of humility.
I kindly smile at those gathered before me
In the "gallery" that overlooks the precious altar.
The mind still flailing, the inner soul is at a standstill.
Like a stone cast into water, I fall to my knees,
And outstretch my existence to the King of Mysteries.
Take the substance, the nature, the innards to cleanse
Of this godforsaken creature of clay and dust.
I present, on my knees, exuberant on my knees,
The existence in turmoil of this unimportant...
Joyful sorrowful glorious luminous.
Healing rays emanate freely from the altar
Throughout the people, up the time-touched stairwell
And in my personal direction diagonally roofwards.
The Mass-house overflows like the very first stable
And demons fly conquered in terrified directions.
In a burning blaze of resplendent whiteness
The precious people gather before the God of the Old Testament,
Fleeing wounded from the tortured surface.
THIS IS NOT A LOVE SONG
Saturday standing
At the gate of the garden.
Sunday grey. Every
Day is like this day.
Saturday.
Blue archway.
Me and my sweetie
Breezing down the street.
Sunday. Lamplight.
Sea and shore. Goals
More or less
Open.
Saturday the seed is being sown. As we
Know the man reapeth and so forth.
Sunday. Our love dies. Trans-
parent in a stammering blaze.
TIME BOMB TICKING
time bomb
totally
submerged
time bomb
ticking
quiet
peace
peace
peace and
quiet
apart
hand
submerged
legs
apart
TO KEEP ON MOVING
I am moving forward in the Lord.
I am, actually, waiting for a pizza to cook
And moving forward in the love of Jesus;
And I do not mean to undermine an element of sarcasm.
For ages upon ages -- aeons upon eternity --
It was one step forwards; two steps backwards.
I was adrift in a sea of unknowing, the kitchen sink,
Turning the paddles backwards in a treacherous gorge.
The mind is nevertheless still flailing
But I find (a calm) my soul to be at a standstill.
I am grounded in the truth, the truth cannot be hid,
God is good -- and I hereby hide myself in him.
Niggardly things unadorned still worry me...
Tobacco my most sizeable nightmare.
Nevertheless, it is better than being locked away,
Or the victim of seven worlds suddenly imploding.
I will sum this up in two more verses and I am
Sorry if this has tended to be overly self-conscious.
The pizza is nearly grilled and I have a poem to show for same!
To keep on moving, Samuel Beckett wrote, "Not in the Rock..." and yet...
The love of Jesus is in itself a sea when you come to know it; to feel it; to understand it.
Make another world -- the tears of my future wife fall in the shade of every one of the American states.
Parasol paradox parasite umbrella. Our destiny is with the Lord.
He comes -- quickly! -- with the violence of a hundred million sea winds.
TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH
If the truth be told
I am very bold
To write in such a way
But this is my staal.
The sweet new style
And loops of love
In the view
Of the mew.
TRAGIC LIGHT
She will not have me
And the blood-red sun
Casts its sharp glow
Diagonally across the glass.
Beautiful glare!
I see me in thee.
TRIBUTE TO E.K.
The bell bangs out
Its empty speech.
It strikes through acres
Of time-hallowed silence
Through the hollowed darkness
Of the valley.
Pealing, coursing,
Setting off moos and howls.
Till Castlequarter is sounded,
Sent reeling in sensible directions.
An upturned bell!
The song of centuries:
Buried half in animal and in earth,
Answering;
Fluorescently alive,
Alive and echoing on.
TRIBUTE TO T.D.
I am a mere vassal
And I put myself before your service
And I will get my hands dirty for you
Ploughing against the grain if necessary
And I will plough your topsoil
And I will even rewrite "Finishing Touches."
"Anthony is a gentleman"
And we all serve a great God.
TRIBUTE TO T.R.
Into the air
And forever out through time,
Passing through where boundaries would be,
Moving with stillness, in all directions,
In all colours, in all musics
With grace and infinity
Touching the heart of eternity.
You are the life, you are the giver, you are the carrier,
You are the motion and the medium,
Beyond death and beyond reason,
Travelled the whole journey,
Beyond "normality" and into the fire of feeling.
UNTITLED
Sit by the harbour's edge
With a bellyful of stars
A heart full of tears
And wait for them to tumble
And diffuse
In the splendid water
VISTA PANORAMICA
The "blurb" or text on my churning-in-the-corner laptop's wallpaper reads:
"To leave the house every morning, then find oneself...
...Anywhere. Avalon; Kathmandu; Shangri-La; Timbuktu."
I ought -- when making this wallpaper -- to have admixed Xanadu; another "exotic" placename.
When making this wallpaper I was inspired by an episode of Star Trek where the protagonist walks through the same "portal" or door (essentially) every day but each and every day... day in, day out... finds himself in a differing location.
Wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to leave your house every morning and find yourself somewhere different and exotic?
Like a "sheaf of leaves" stretched across the wallpaper in question is a vista panoramica... a plethora of subtly changing/metamorphosing/transforming locations -- fading in-out, bleeding into each other by dint of a multitudinous furious array of rich and subtle hues.
W.H.T.W.W.T.M.
Three-and-a-half years ago (it doesn't matter when)
His soul died (it doesn't matter how)
And that was his apotheosis. Within him there was waged total malevolence.
On another day (it matters when, it matters how) we will follow his footsteps along the curve.
WARTIME HAIKU
My stereo pours
Wartime ballads in the dark:
Listening to ghosts.
WE STUMBLED ACROSS A MAGICAL RIVER
We (me and my family) stumbled across a magical river. It was only a stream, but it was deep enough in which to plunge and to swim.
The ethereal and sublimely dazzling little river could be found at the campsite's edge, at the outcome of a beautiful pathway both carpeted and thicketed with leaves. When I first left the holiday van and wended my innocent and wondering way to the river, ethereal, mystery-outpouring, I slid and slipped on the pleasant path's double-dealing downturn, and almost wound up in a broken impoverished bundle: a microcosmic pathos-pulling trinity of halves. I held on to the camera which I carried across the glad and gleeful shingle -- carelessly consenting to serve my sore and sullen stumble.
Getting there I abandoned the digital camera and the iPod -- on which I had placed some camera-taken videos of that magic-overflowing surrounding -- on a select and suitable towel just next to the pair of deckchairs on which my father and mother had already sat down to rest. Kicking off my homelessly conspicuous runners I forded the river at a shallow bend, at a point in its journey where there swam a myriad of wildly inchoate trout.
Having crossed to the other side, I left my sleazy and pebble-bungling footwear on the time-shattered sandstone and possibly lava edifice which, in its eroded sharpness and complacent rejection, resembled the worst and most callous kind of human visage. I lowered my body into the water and, as I slithered down the nervous face of the rock, I joyfully and wistfully learned myself getting more and more watery as the drenching nanoseconds rolled into seconds.
Finally I comprehended that I had descended with ease into the smashing water, both gurgling tidily and fantastic in its deviation. I suddenly stood upright and, looking down at my sun-mangled reflection in the glossy scintillating waters, I observed the world-marvelling and aforementioned plethora of breezy and barely Nature-nurtured trout swimming in each and every music, direction: strewn like a fine selection of confetti, or bold outstanding ribbons, at my feet; the latter nude and hobbit-like, refracted, water-betrayed. What a magnificent time we all had in that teeming rejuvenating place!
What a wonder-filled life-spewing undulating and rock-cloistered engine were we lucky enough to stumble across... what a smashing and naturally terrific neat little river, replete with fish and full of life and music and colour; what a tremendously magnificent space that turned out to be in which to immerse the time-tedious self on a brilliant summer's day... the river, the giver, buried and hardly discovered amid the time-touched time-hallowed country of France, drowned in the glorious sun, a sun that was, on that day at least, singing and overspilling at the meridian of his sacred shining apotheosis.
WHAT ARE YOU BECOMING
Translation from Paul Éluard
What are you becoming why this blonde and pink hair
Why this front those heartbreaking torn eyes
The great misunderstanding of the atomic weddings
Solitude pursues me with its poison.
WHAT DIFFERENCE
What difference does it make
Because it was really nothing important after all
(These things take time to accomplish)
In relation to this charming man.
WHEN I GO MOUNTAINEERING
In an open space
It's just me and God,
It's just me and the stars,
It's just me and freedom itself.
WHEN I WAS A YOUNGER MAN I LEFT A SCAR
I made an awful mistake
When I was a younger man.
It looks like an old knife scar
As the band Blondie might say!
I fell when I was a younger man
And cut my forehead
But I went at it with my hands
And wouldn't leave it alone
And it left a scar...
It's only visible in certain lights
(Light from light)
And I wish I had a new forehead.
WILLOW ISLAND
I was abandoned
In 1795
On an isle in the tropical doldrums --
A restless place of weeping willows.
I bled that flora and foliage for its coconuts.
I bled them senselessly dry because I could see no avenue of escape.
1795 turned into 1796 and "yet" I was abandoned --
But at least I had Caleb Williams to read. Caleb Williams -- OR, Things As They Are (!).
WISH I WAS IN ENGLAND
Translated from the Irish
I wish I was in England
With one other person from here,
Or out in the middle of the sea
In the place where ships get lost,
The wind and the rain
Driving me from wave to wave --
King of the heavens! Drive me, I pray,
To the place where resteth my love.
WISHING WELL
I wish I was
In a boat
On a lake
In Sweden
Or somewhere
Lying back
On the shell of my back
With my hand trailing in the water.
WORKING-CLASS HERO
Behind the words
Falling
The cloth of iron
Wrought
WRITING POETRY (FRAGMENT)
time breeds necessity
and we mould to suit our forms
[...]
ignoring slights
concentrating on the mights
of the poetic monument
in the midnight hour
we wound and scar
the hands of time
WRITING POETRY II
Focusing on the brilliant numinous might
Of the soon-to-be poetic monument
We wound and scar in our human endeavours
From everlasting to everlasting
The hands
Of Time.
YOU ARE NOT IN YOUR BURNT GRAVE
You are not in Your burnt grave, or invisible on high:
You are currently reblooming, waiting to appear.
It is You Who are there. Your breast is so blazing with light
That I nearly forgot myself as I beheld Thee.
You are waiting to appear, like a water flower
That is taking the time to rebloom. When You appear
I will suddenly remember myself
And You and I will be as one forever.
YOUNGSTER OF THE TIED-BACK HAIR
Translated from the Irish
Youngster of the tied-back hair,
with whom I spent a while in company,
you went this way last night
and you didn't come to see me.
I thought it wouldn't harm you
if you came and I waiting,
and that your kiss would bear me kindness
if I was awash in fever.
If I had wealth
and money in my bag,
I'd cause a short cut
to the door of his house;
hoping to God I'd hear him
and his soft footfall,
'tis far the day that I slept
but I waiting to taste his kiss.
And I thought, young fellow,
that you were the moon and the sun,
and I thought after that
that you were snow on the hillside,
and I thought to myself then
that you be a lantern sent from God,
or that you were the star of knowledge
going before me and going after me.
You swore to me silk and lace to me,
high shoes and ornate raiment,
and you vowed to me after that
that you'd follow me through the storm.
I am not like that, thus,
but a bush in a broken ditch
each noon and each unveiling
in the care of the house of my mother.
YOUR KINDLY SMILE
Drink loosened my tongue
And the words flowed out of me --
Like French pouring out of me --
And for a while I won your kindly smile.
YOURSELF AND MYSELF
Translated from the Irish
If ever you come
don't come but at night,
and walk softly
and don't affright me:
you'll receive the key
'neath the step of the door,
and I by myself
and don't affright me.
Pots in the way
or a stool or a jar,
or a grass-twined rope,
there be not:
the dog he is quiet
a truly dumb beast --
it is no shame to him:
goodly I've trained him.
My mum is asleep
and Dad is with her,
kissing mouth,
kissing mouth;
ain't it fine for her
and don't you feel for me
lying by myself
on the down of birds.
YOUTH
Translated from the Irish
I am losing my beauty and you can see it in my cheeks,
I lost my sight and unclear to me are the sun and the moon,
I lost those characteristics I had bestowed of God,
and I lost my own self in the race to adore you.
It is my deepest regret that I couldn't have been born blind
before I saw your handsomeness and ruined from it was:
what I am like is like a lying leper
that does be drinking from sight, while unable to reach a drop.
Handsome young fellow, handsome and sweet are your cheeks,
and I don't tell, of course, that too nice is the set of your eyes;
there's not in Great Europe a jewel more precious than you,
whose cheek is like the rose -- a kiss, and a-walking we'll go.
Beef eyelash soup!
We will devour it:
Work is due to commence
At midnight...
In vain will we try
To savage down the meal.
When one has the time one has the liberty:
The unimaginable promises of these unreal liberties;
Some are slaves of love
As others are slaves of freedom...
I awake with a start from my carnal sleep
Blind to the point where anger rends the flesh.
NEW IRELAND
There will always be an Ireland-within-Ireland
Where Mass is offered at ten o'clock
And Gaelic sprouts
From pleasant flowers.
NIGHT OF CLARITY
A night of clarity
Praising God in the haze
Amid the time-hallowed tedium
Of unreason.
NIGHT OF THE TERRIBLE PRESENCE
There is no channel through the sand, nor a valley wherein to filter the calm sea breeze. (There are no eyes for the night and thus no gold for my heart.) The serpent flails with the shadow, the serpent flails with the shadow! The teeth in the skull are gleaming and thus the singing silk purifies its colours. I can perceive the struggle... of wounded night wrestling in serpent-coils with the hot meridian sun. I have suffered a sunset green with venom, and I have seen the phantom child of thy nudity more resplendent than a time-honoured mosaic. The coolness of your breasts has caused me to moan... the coolness of your breasts has caused me to falter... here I stand yearning, uttering parables, yearning and hoping for a better illusion.
NIGHT SPENT IN A MONASTERY
I turn my hand to the mendicant endeavour:
There is a sacred text to be borrowed
By this boy from the modern world
Solo on retreat in the confines of a cell...
Behold! the text will appear like a phoenix
From the knowledge of the desecrated exterior.
The poem will break into life on notepaper --
The artist huddles gothically under starlight --
Hatching in the lamplit corner of a quiet cell
To escape from the dankness of the cerebral shell.
The reward for my convulsive endeavours,
Rippling outwards as a stone into a pond
Is thrown -- will be the most exclusive sleep.
To awake to the nascent poetry.
NIGHT SPENT IN A MONASTERY II
Tonight, at least, the hand is there...
Simplicity even to borrow a profane text from the tortured surface
And make it whole; the poem will grow like a phoenix,
The words hatching on the blankness that is monastic canvas.
In the most convulsive of intellectual spaces, questioning
The voices that give no answer, the good and departed of the yestersun,
I fall asleep with pen and paper and mirror and desk
And four square walls, beneath a dead autumnal night.
That night I dream of a pebble rippling outwards in a pond,
And when I awake (a prospect of heaven makes waking easy),
Like a wanderer white with the dew, it is shining, the poem,
Hatched, escaped, it is permanently and mysteriously omnipresent.
NOBODY KNOWS ME
Nobody knows me
Better than you know me
Thine eyes in which we sleep
Thine eyes the twain
Are to me a kind of light
Better than the nights of the world
Thine eyes in which I travel
Have given me directions
To detach myself from the world
In your eyes which reveal the pair of us
And our infinite solitude
I see the heavens and the sun and the planets
Nobody knows me
Better than you know me
NOISES FROM ABOVE
Noises from above
Infiltrate the peace
Of my mind half-asleep
And I awake with a start:
There is no need to go checking,
Or rambling, or stumbling:
To the tender mercies of God
I entrust the music of the stars.
NOTHING
I see a woman
Fleeing,
Now becoming a tree,
Now becoming a bird,
Never the same woman
And never another,
With always no face,
Always escaping,
Escaping.
I see my life
Fleeing,
Now becoming a dream,
Now becoming a cloud,
Never the same life
And never another,
With always no face,
Always escaping,
Escaping.
NOTHING IMPORTANT
I have nothing important to say.
There is a poem to be made
About the bird that only has one wing:
Eternal voyage of discovery and surprises.
ODE
Thy hand permeates the universe. There may be a multiverse -- parallel universes -- or there may be one universe; but Thy Son gave His all for all. Thy hand, which flows throughout all things, is fashioned of many colours and Thy dread eye appeareth transparent, incandescent and opalescent. Stones, mute wooden things and the flaring joys of all our interweavings each and every one owe their coming into being to Thee. Every living thing, human and animal, not forgetting stones and the dumbest inanimate objects stand and rise touched by the love which floweth from Thy hand. Would that I could forget myself for a space and temporarily be absorbed into the nature of Thy Godhead. I see Thy voice fluttering in the words of my friend and dancing in the stones in the sunlight. I wish... I wish... that I will soon enter Thy fiery presence and remain united to Thee now and forever! To make this transition from intermittent sunlight to the frequency of the archangels we must luminously move from one room to another. Then we too will stand with Thee respendent and fearsomely opalescent.
We live in dream. We walk and see and breathe at the lowest imaginable frequency. When we make the marvellous heavenly transition we will remain with Thee and Thou with us and entering into joy and life we will abide (as one) forever and ever.
ODE TO A VASE
There is nothing so immortal as this famous urn.
Immortal pottery! Time-honoured shard! Holy scarab! I extol thee.
Your maker is dead but his thoughts we learn,
In the burning sea at the end of the world, behold! the beginning of the Word.
We creatures of clay and dust,
Moulded by time and each other's hands,
Misconstrue mediums,
And fear to speak outside the door.
Immortal pottery! Time-honoured shard! Holy scarab! I extol thee.
We must enter the heart with God-given humility;
Poetry should be natural
As the genius of the first dawn.
When I was slightly crazy I saw ideas
Sliding from universe to universe
Through the realities of time and reason.
There were angels in the architecture,
Medieval battles in angles and curves,
Dreams within and without decades,
However, eventually things came to a head and Sol imploded.
Sacred vessel! I extol thy praises! Timeless medium of the purest uisge!*
*uisge (Scottish Gaelic): water.
ODE TO AN URN
Famous poet that I am...
Not as famous as this time-honoured urn!
I place it on the Alpine pinnacle,
Resting like a (divine) messenger -- known to many as an angel --
Beneath pure, shivering, cosmic, and unadulterated starlight.
I compose a (literal!) tonne of poetry.
Each poem has its own page,
There are hundreds, if not even hundreds of thousands,
And the words' weight makes me Rip Van Winkle, or the Old Man of the Sea,
And so I allow them (the words, weighty and sacred) to sing me to sleep
And not noticing the cold I dream of log cabins on the face
Of another mountain, this in the Holy Land, from one of which
A philosopher emerges to calm the gathering storm with his words
Weighty and numinous.
In the aftermath of these visions
I take the pages (the poems) out of my tattered satchel
And place them, like burnt presentations, in the hallowed direction
Of the time-honoured bosom of this precious and beauteous urn.
I run for cover.
Harrying down the mountainside, the scree too glad to serve my stumble,
I hear the urn go off with a bang -- that living scarab
Loath to put up with the accumulated pressure!
The most elevated heaven of our universe is, with a shout, permeated
By the mind-forged contents of that vessel, itself mind-forged, and in touch with the Unnameable.
O wondrous urn! I extol your praises! Timeless medium of modern
Media: you are the giver, you are the carrier, you are the multitudinous motion
Of a thousand worlds imploding, worlds travelled the whole journey,
North of power, south of desire, both east and west of reason,
Far beyond normality and, everything that can be called ordinary slipping from universe to universe,
Far beyond time itself and into the rejuvenating fire.
ODE TO FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA
The song
I'll never speak,
On the tip of my tongue
It fell asleep.
On the honeysuckle
A firefly blinked
And the sun was taunting
The lakeshore with a beam.
Song burst out on my lips,
Flowing through the ages.
Song filled up the hours
Whiled away in the shade.
I dream.
I dream.
I dream.
I dream.
Songs of the stars alive! O stars
In perpetual blinding skies!
OGHAM
The ogham stone
Stands unworn,
Lovingly inscribed
By poets,
Made to make sense
In a chaotic world,
A piece of raw Nature
Tamed by Logos.
ON THE OPEN SEAS
I remember sailing on the sea,
My daddy and me,
When I was six or maybe seven.
We caught ten or twelve mackerel.
I made up a funny little song
About my dad. Dad is still here
But those days
Are long gone.
ONE
We are all one:
When your brother insults you
We are one,
When confronted with the abomination of desolation
And annihilating regards
We are one,
The universe
Is one.
ONE NIGHT
One night God was suffering from loneliness.
So God decided to create a race of angels.
But a third of the angels rebelled.
And a third of the angels fell to hell.
So God decided to create some human beings.
But the problem with the human beings was that
God couldn't create them all the same,
Because then they'd be like gods,
And because they were destined to pass away.
So God created them all different.
And some human beings fell to hell.
But most just suffered from loneliness.
One night God had a dream.
ONE OF THE BRIGHTEST STARS
Harry my hero was one of the brightest stars
And he didn't like the concrete sprawl
And he even wrote about that
Because he was of rustic roots
And it is fair to say
That he was a gentleman
(A rural gentleman
A lover and a poet too.)
ORBIT
Let us lie back on the grass
Our backs to the earth
Looking at the stars
Around each one of which
There revolve many earths
Other earths
For me and you
Let us reach up together
And touch the stars
Our backs hugging the molten earth
Which heaves and thrusts
Which spills in void
Which washes in waves
And I'll put my arms about you
Your words hammering gently in my ears
As the world goes round the sun
And the stars wink down upon us
And let the birds of the air
And all that is foul and false
Pass high above our heads
In the space that makes the stars
For the bullet shirks the ground
But Love hugs close the earth
ORIENTAL STREETS
Release me from this gilded cage
To fly through frosted glass
Riding in the burnished chariot
So that I can wash in the holy fountain
And hear the singing leaves
On Oriental streets.
On Oriental streets
Let me bathe in the rivers of forgetfulness
And finally say goodbye
To lion and woman and the Lord knows what!
OUR SECOND TRIP TO FRANCE IN 2019
I'd like to thank my father Michael Dunford
For taking me to France! and for
Bringing me into Chartres
And for showing me the "sights and sounds"
As I relax with Mum and Dad here in the Loire
And go for glorious nature walks and keep up with friends
Old and new: thanks
For everything Dad.
PALACE GILDENHALL
I will be happy here
With Aoife
Forever surrounded
By God and gardens
In the midst of the Loire
With children bedecking
Each tree and herbaceous border,
The trees fully equipped
With singing leaves,
The leaves whispering
Into
Eternity.
PARTICLES IN A POND
If you close your eyes with me
At the same time that I do
As I lie thinking of you
In the dark of my room
Then you will see the same things
That I do
You will hear the same sounds
That I do
Can you see them, sweetheart
Can you hear them
Turn off your music
And draw fast your blinds
And quench all those thoughts
That parch you from the day
And cherish the night
And imagine with me
I can see me in a field
A great open field
Surrounded by trees
Beneath a vast sky
Can you see it
Can you see me there
And I can see you running
From an edge of the field
Smiling
To catch me
I can see us in a boat
On a great lake
In Sweden
My hand trailing in the water
Smiling
Together
Can you see us, sweetheart
Can you see us too
Imagine
Lie back and
Imagine
As we lie there
In warmth
I can hear the leaves
Falling
I can hear the leaves
Do you hear the same things that I hear, sweetheart
Do you see the same things that I see
Now
I can hear water falling
I can see rocks
And there is water
Can you see it
The water falling
Drifting
Drifting
Imagine us
Drifting
Do you see the water
Now there is more water
But there is no you
I am alone
Much smaller now
Floating
Among particles
In murky slowness
And then I realise
That you and I
Are particles
In a pond
PATRICK KAVANAGH
Adapted from Patrick Kavanagh
Not black or blue,
Grey or red or tan
The skies I travel under --
Oriental vision and thunder.
I dream with silvery gull
Transmuting mysteries.
A thing that is beautiful
I can know.
He and I are brothers when
The wind that shakes the barley
Enraptures my humble soul
To starlight!
A newborn baby's laughter --
A precious eyelid's tear --
The numinous colours of a sunset
Or the intricacy of a leaf...
For this, for this,
Am I labelled Beelzebub --
And do I daily climb
The unending stair
To my apotheosis. After this
Crucifixion and resurrection
I will emerge with hands outstretched --
To Elohim.
PET
She was rubbing her hands with glee
As she came out with a happy announcement
And I was hoping she would never ever falter
And wondering, Could you be loved.
POEM OF THE TRIBULATION
My friend beyond the distant seas:
How the cold of this poem made me shiver --
Once at sunset Jesus and his disciples
Came across a white line that might signify dawn's emergence.
This line became a white cloud of the moths going mad:
The landscape masterpiece of modern terror.
These are not the blue mountains anymore,
The rain like grey stalks, ashen pouring.
At night during wind and rain
The earth spurts blood and terror:
At all times I see this.
Sometimes I'll come and see you in your sleep.
PRIMROSE HILL
On a map in my office
I spied Primrose Hill.
It lies just without a seaside town,
Oppressively encroached on by the stinking sprawl.
If, turning back Time's pages
By half a millennium --
Slowly descending on the wings of a prayer,
Blissfully aware of each feature beneath --
We could mystically zoom in on the hill
To find below a medieval idyll
Of birds and flowers and trees
And the saints of the soil
Singing free.
To wander home.
PURPLE HAIR
Purple hair limits the cries of the wild ones
Golden machine guns buffet legends
I like liberty which veils the hypocrites
Harp of silver chords rains down the music
The invisible enemy inserts silver in the sun
The secret future subtly eludes us
Listen! the birth of the Word subtle fish
Towns tower by tower become golden keys
The blue mask where God puts his sky
The Metaphysical Wanderer eludes the war
Child with hands cut among the transparent roses.
READING GIBRAN
Lying among shadows
We read The Storm
And glean virtue from the (sacred) words
As winds howl without. I go up
The convoluted stairwell towards the psychedelic attic
Where I stumble across a mirror -- the mystery of light
Plays out on the glass; and, squatting there,
I see the various tenses of the everlasting soul.
REFLECTION
Pylons guide
invisible hands
across the countryside,
into town and out.
RESSUSCITÉ D'ENTRE LES MORTS
Charon pays me
29 pieces of silver
To deliver me back
To the land of the living
The water agitated
The oars splash
The hand of the wind
The calm the calm
RÓISÍN DUBH
Translated from the Irish
O Róisín don't be sorry for what has befallen thee --
the friars go abroad on the crest of the sea,
pardon cometh from the Pope in Rome
and Spanish wine will not be squandered on my Róisín Dubh.*
For she has travelled and I from the yestersun till today,
cross mountains did I go with her and a-sail on the sea;
the Erne I have cleared though great is its course,
and as string music all around her was my Róisín Dubh.
You have spoilt me, petty one, and may it well ruin you,
and by God my heart inside is in love with thee and not since today.
You have left me weak wan in aspect and form;
don't betray me and I in love with you, Róisín Dubh.
Myself I would go with you through desert and fen
in hope I should hear from thee or that which thou grantest;
sweet little branch, you swore you did love me,
oh the finest flower of Munster is my Róisín Dubh.
Had I a set of horses I would plough agen the hills
and a gospel I'd make in centre Mass of Róisín Dubh;
I'd bear a kiss to the cailín that would bear me her purity
and I'd lie behind the lios with my Róisín Dubh.
The Erne it shall flood and hills will be rent;
the sea shall be red blood and the sky also blood,
every Irish mountain glen and bogland shall quake,
before the passing away of my Róisín Dubh.
*Dark Róisín.
RUSSET LEAVES
My pet please come to my side
And abet my ailing spirit...
There's a poem in the offing
And it's you...
SAME MISTAKE
Poetically and I flail.
I'm not very good at writing poetry
(Only on the odd occasion)
And I'd really like to improve.
I hope that someone teaches me to improve my poetic attempts
And I'd also really really love to improve my lot
Romantically and haply
The two are connected.
SCROLL
Resting in my father's tent
With my brother who is sleeping between the brightening and the gloom
On the side of a rock in Andorra:
Evacuating his container
My father rolls open the sliding door
And wanders in the darkness
Before I hear him reentering. The door
Slams shut and I restless drift to sleep.
The next time I awake the birds have started,
Though all is still in darkness.
My thoughts are broken by another roar;
The door:
But this time it is the heavens scrolling,
As thunder rolls down the rockside.
SECOND BIRTH
I will dive from the wall
Into my bed,
And my bed sinking
Into the floor
Will disappear,
And from the sea-green carpet
I will rise again;
Dry, and new.
SECRET GARDEN (FRAGMENT)
Into your eyes forever more
I'd stare, if that did not you bore:
[...]
You are unlike all those I've seen
Whose makeup gives to them their sheen --
Your beauty is as that of earth,
Enduring, having not a birth.
All Nature lies within your eyes,
The place where Adam Eve espies;
Yet not that Garden of the crime,
Except the garden of all Time.
[...]
There are three places in your eyes,
Three different soils, three diverse skies;
I see both hell and heaven there,
The Garden and the hell I'd share
If you went home, O flower of France,
And we had danced our last sad dance.
It would be hell untold for me
If someone else your love did see.
In your dark eyes I see my hell
Unfolding should you break your spell.
SEVEN MAIDENS
1
Seven pets like Mary most Precious
Sing in blissful harmony.
Behold! Across the sky in a bow,
A choice of numinous sunsets.
There is but one Soul
With seven voices -- the seven sweethearts.
In the white air there follow on the tails
Of one another... seven shining gulls.
The seven maidens are never destined
To die or to be lost.
(Why weren't there nine?
Why weren't there 20?)
The river meets them -- and greets them. No one
Can see them; they are transparent.
2
Behold and falter! The numinous
Qualities of the rainbow...
SEVEN WORLDS WILL COLLIDE
If an extraordinary word recurs
In the grammar of the day
It is supernatural
Coincidence:
But when your name reappeared
Just inside my door
On the day that we spoke,
Stars collided all over town.
SHARDS OF THE FORGOTTEN DREAM
Shards of the forgotten dream
Come glinting back
Across the River Styx
And up from the stinking underground.
The surreal
And the real
Merge,
Coalescing into a hard reality.
SHE
In the ebullient grandeur of the sun
Like a life spirit she virtuously comes
Striking melodiously the drums
With the precision of her words.
SHE FEEDS THE CATS
In the churchyard she feeds the cats,
Urging bits of bread through the high wire fence,
Into the dense thicket of greenery:
Saintlike, hovering, on the boundary of existence.
SHE'S A WHITE FLOWER
Translated from the Irish
She's a white flower among brambles,
She's the finest flower in a garden.
She's my best and brightest clothes,
She's the Sunday of the week.
She's a face that's always smiling,
A bell that's always ringing,
She's the flower of best breeding
One's eyes could e'er behold.
She's my baby and my pet,
The flower of fragrant apples,
She is the music
That soothes me to sleep.
She is the bridge
That carries me over,
She's summer in the cold
Between Christmas and Easter.
SHE'S MY KIND OF GIRL
I love you Aoife
As I lie (pondering) prone on the cross of changes
Pondering and wandering
Through the impoverished, and impoverishing, miles
SHINE ON
She.
She.
She she she
Shine on
And never fade away
But radiate
With abandon
In the breath of future sun.
SKY LANTERN
Skyhook, someone? Give it to me there.
Let us latch on like an assassin, now, from Jericho
To the planet Venus -- isn't she bright and very beautiful --
And drag her down. Pluto
Is not a planet (it has been revealed).
She who keeps us from the heat of Mercury (Venus)
Shall be scaled tonight by my nonexistent telescope (LOL!).
Who has been lousy enough to insist skyhooks don't exist (?).
SONG
Life moving on
Like traffic in the haze:
It's only a song,
I try to tell myself;
As I rise up my smoke...
She's only a girl:
It was only a song;
She's only a woman, you know;
SONG
Lord of the worlds,
God of the elements.
King of strength,
Root of victory.
Son of Mary,
Lily of the valley.
Physician of the soul,
Chief of each saint.
Lighter of the stars,
Maker of wondrous works.
Lord of creation,
Bright and morning Star.
Son of David,
Who is like Thee?
Unbidden Hand,
You turn the narrative!
SOUNDS OF SILENCE
From the vast and varied
expanses of my mind come
sounds of
silence.
SQUINT
squint
and imagine
the leaves overhead
the roof of leaves
and the shafts of sky
squint and see
barely the film
of surface
o'er the army of lilies
and the chinks of blue
STAR
You will not come to me
And I cut off limbs for you
(Anything to have you)
And I hate you like the sun
STONE
It seemed to be a crystal stone
But it was a black stone
With the rain
Glistening upon.
STRANGE POEM
"Come to my arms or not." I cannot come
To you, she said. --Why not? Riddle me that, my rapparee (!).
Is this an RPG because
I don't wish our friendship to be smashed by a rock.
I cannot even watch the magic box, she said.
She continued, will you be my luminary (?).
It depends what day of the week, I replied.
Today is Sunday. Thus (stop in the name of the Lord!) let us sup and Sabbath
Together. It's the depression, my friend then announced.
I am in very low spirits indeed. A wave of pity overcame me then
As I tuned into the frequency of the archangels somewhere
Out there in the beauty that exists simply between Pluto and Charon.
STYGIAN SKIES
Beneath a sunless sky
I wend my weary way,
Across the twilit bridge
To heaven far away.
Until that shining shore
I seek Him in the clay.
SUBCONSCIOUS COMMUNION
I don't know
What during the day
Keeps your smile forced
And your eyes sad, sometimes defeated.
But your spirit tells me that you're one of the chosen.
One night in a dream
Your subconscious appeared to mine,
Your mouth beaming, your face golden.
Your eyes were shining,
One for my salvation, and one for yours.
Your oft-wearied aspect was beautiful for once.
It was the transfiguration of a body,
The soul's defiance of its trap.
SUBLIMATION
Into the pot
I daily put
Blood, sweat, and tears
And (when watched
And simmered)
From out are poured
Beads
Of poetry.
SUBMIT TO THE LORD'S CONTROL
No matter what your creed
You should submit to the LORD's control
Because He will be your generous benefactor
And the provider of all worthwhile things.
Praise Him.
Amen and amen.
SVERIGE
I love neither roads nor bridges:
Unencumbered by mountains,
Forests and lakes;
And at the treey shore
An idea-clad
Cabin.
TÉMOIN DES RETOURS
Father driving
And mother reading the map
A connection of roundabouts
From Catalonia to Ireland
The winding roads
The Pyrenees
The trees
The cornfields and the towns
Below us
And all freedom
TEMPER
crazy masochist
wielding blood
hammer
death sparkle
TÉNÈBRES
Beyond the dark glass
Of the twilit sitting room
The moon's gloaming
Burnishes the flowers of the walkway.
THAT THE PEN IS MIGHTIER
Poets and writers
Huddled upstairs,
Relating world news,
And talking philosophy
Over roasted ground coffee
And later
On their own,
Hushed under darkness
By ebbing candlelight,
As starlight beckons
Through frosted glass,
Inscribing on parchment
Epitaphs to the system,
Living under the dream
That only they have escaped
The machinations of the wheels
That crush on the streets below,
Whispering to themselves,
"We can change things, we can change things,"
Labouring under the delusion
That the pen is mightier
Than the sword.
THE BALANCING OF THE TWAIN
The devil fails with recurrent hindsight
To ferment monstrous plans to eradicate the Church:
But God exceeds with omniscient foresight
To bequeath visions, warnings and hallowed every-
day experiences
In order, for the good, to harmonise the lot.
THE BENEVOLENCE OF YOU (Ireland, 18 October 2014)
I have messed up massively
And still God forgives
And showers me
With positive blessings.
I have still to see herself
Coming from among the madding throng:
She is the positive consummation
Of my life's dejection.
Still to this day, God has holpen,
And God has given, and God has granted,
And he will reveal Her Softness
Like a jewel worn around the heart.
THE BOUNDLESS OCEAN OF YOUR LOVE
I watch the tide disappear around the headland. The tide
Stretches beyond the headland into other seas, far other seas, beyond comprehension.
As much as there is water on the earth's tremendous surface
There is mercy in the boundless ocean of Your love.
THE CAVE
My dark room shut is like a cave,
Where holding you I don't feel brave;
For courage is a coat one wears
When round about one's foes lay snares.
But as we here in darkness lie,
There are no foes from whom to fly,
Or fight, for how can one fight love,
Around which force the world does move.
In darkness pure we goodly lie,
And though of course we see no sky
We could be any place on earth,
As I hold you in gentle mirth.
My tent were this, upon the hill,
As beasts prowl low but we lie still;
Or in a palace grand we were,
Hung over by a golden star.
But of all places I can see
(My mind's eye wanders, hugging thee)
Wherein to love, it is my cave,
Which Nature to this pair has gave.
And this is it, my room so small,
That holds in me, and you, my all,
For you are fare enough for man
To share alone whene'er he can.
No beasts are here to worry you,
I've shut the door, without they do
Hug close the ground, as I hug thee,
At morsels pick, and sing as free.
And, in this cave, our happy lair,
There is a fire, whose heat we share:
Its fuel is love, and that its source,
A ceaseless stream that takes its course.
Our cave is dry, warmed by our love,
No damp remains, but from above
Such water falls, in gathered dots
That beat the walls like arrow shots,
The window too, they charge non stop,
Like men from o'er a mountain top
All pouring down to fill the plain
With gunshots, flags, and shouts of gain.
But there is one above the rest,
That drowns them all, e'en at their best:
The sound of this recurrent drop
Is like a cannonball to mop
The senses; otherwise a clock
That drums within me, causing shock!
It strikes me then that time does pass,
That flowers fall, that withers grass.
And so I see that day will break,
And winter of this love-cave make:
For with the light we must take flight,
All day to work, that rest we might;
So I shall on these walls inscribe
The names -- that's two -- of all the tribe
That once here loved, to show the world
That Summer here her robe unfurled.
THE CROWDED RIVER
Blue is the colour:
My jumper is blue;
The electric kettle is blue.
The Beautiful South (band) and the Feeling.
Blue is my favourite colour
And I wonder what floats in the river
Beneath the surface
(The crowded river).
THE DANCING FLOOR
Let me take you out
On the dancing floor.
Round and round
We go.
I am smiling now because I do have a SOH
And to tell the truth
I couldn't take a light bulb
From the darkest place in the universe. Thanks, Muse.
THE DAY
The day of joy, the day of dread,
The day the living will see the dead,
The day of all.
The day when all will be rent in twain,
And the King will walk the ground again,
Descended in light astounding:
Stones will turn and brooks will speak,
The chasm will part its sides and reek;
And all at once the sea aghast
Will render up its dead at last.
The day of death, but more of life:
When the King will take in His arms His bride;
The day of the Lamb slain by our hands,
Robed in our blood, on our own land.
Incense and smoke will fill the air,
And the dread Lord God will set up His chair.
From His throne ablaze He will judge all flesh;
All life will tremble beneath the steadfast gaze
Of the Most High Omniscience.
The earth itself will move:
He it is who has returned,
He who has known all
Since before the beginning of the world!
And the sheep will be parted
From those who wouldn't hear;
And the sheep will be heard to cry,
"Worthy is the Lamb That was slain!"
But woe to the one who heareth not,
The one who denieth the King Himself,
The King of Kings, the Lord of Lords,
The Rock of Rocks, now and evermore.
THE DREAMTIME
I wonder if
In the dreamtime tonight
(To the feathered ounce)
I will have the same dreams
(The same weight, the same colour)
As I felt
Last night
In the dreamtime.
THE EARTH IS BLUE LIKE AN ORANGE
Translation from Paul Éluard
The earth is blue like an orange
Never a mistake words do not lie
They are letting you sing no more
To the wheel of reciprocal kisses
Fools and lovers
She her wedding-ring mouth
All the secrets all the smiles
And what exorbitant clothes
To believe her quite naked
The wasps are flowering green
The dawn is worn around the neck
A necklace of windows
There are wings covering the leaves
Thou hast all the solar joys
All the sunlight on the earth
On the paths of your beauty.
THE FATES
We shared the same birthday
But not the same destiny.
Beached in the same net together,
We were soon parted by events.
THE FUTURE
dragging our hunger through the sky
of our skulls: whole worlds of sky and earth
stooping with fingers of compassion
to endorse each town with its dust
mocked, tortured and made nothing of
save till the instigation of the dispensation
THE GARDEN
garden --
the sound of winter
and breathing --
there is no pretending, pretending,
pretending
for once
it is a tropical garden.
we are lost in the doldrums
without compass or map
but with...
but with...
but with...
the stars above
to guide us
home-
wards
THE HALCYON DAYS
Looking back now on the halcyon days
Or so I thought they would turn out to be
Days of drink-fuelled madness
Living as if there was no tomorrow
They brought me to the psychiatric wards
Where I thought I met the devil
I met him there in my mind
And so I met him for my mind is what is important and real
I think that he is out to get me
It is all very real to me
My mind snapped just shattered
God must be able to grant me a way out of this illusion
When he comes back to make war upon me
I hope the good God will step out in front of him in his way
And so I pray day by day
And so day by day I pray
p.s. God answered my prayers on 25 April 2014 beginning what is now a total healing. Praise Him!
THE HEAVENLY DISPENSATION
My Precious is standing at the gate of the garden
On Sunday.
There is a blue archway that He breezes through,
Everything is blue, and from His resplendent countenance
Also comes the blue aureate light. Sea and shore,
Everything is blue and numinous, every end
Has been accomplished -- each goal is finally open.
Our affections are together bound, no longer stammering, resplendent in a transparent blaze.
THE IDEA
I do not want to write about
Myself
Now
So I shall write about
The oneness
Of the journey
Shared
Between the common
Billion
Idea.
THE IMPOSSIBLE HAND
Give me the impossible hand.
Let it be wounded on the bush of many thorns.
Give me the impossible hand.
Each night I sleep on a bed of rushes.
Let it be a beautiful fleur de lis,
A dove tethered fast to my heart.
Let it be the policeman who, at the height of evil,
Will block entrance entirely to the malefactor.
Let me have nothing but the impossible hand,
So that my mind will be an unideaed sheet before me.
Let me have nothing but the impossible hand,
To carry me heavenwards on a wing and a prayer.
Everything else -- all -- passes away.
The impossible hand -- perpetual sun!
Everything else is substance and accidents,
While the leaves flee as before a magician.
THE IMPOVERISHED YOUNG DRUNK
The impoverished young drunk thinks he can breeze in and out
Of the street cafe where he quickly grabs a table.
Trying to hide his drunken drawl he mumbles nonsense
That appears to himself to be sacred words of prophecy.
Not having any regard for the sober enjoyment of others
He unwittingly causes a scene.
Then scraping pennies from a dirty little pocket
He obstreperously orders one more shandy.
He asks for a shandy but he'd rather be dead
Because that is where his life is secretly heading.
He causes such a scene
And vomits a little
To people's unrestrained laughter.
THE INIMITABLE FRUIT OF THE LIGHT
He asked the audience, one and all, moving as a cloud, to turn on their cellphones...
With a shout the thirst-quenching citrus fruit of the light shone forth
And magnified the dusty arena. Milano, I love you!
Bono who has done this tremendous country proud exchanges the gift
Of his golden voice for the worshipful fruit of the light,
The beautiful, wonderful, inimitable fruit of the light
That stirs the universe and unites us all, hurt and crying out for understanding:
He brings to bear the wholehearted voice that permeates, not decades, but millennia.
THE INVISIBLE DREAM
The wind savages trees with the touch of its cruel and uncaring hand.
The invisible dream leaves -- to you, to me and to us all -- its (translucent) splinters of life
Which hints at life eternal, when there will be no yesterday, no today and no tomorrow
But existence will be rolled up in an opaline, multicolour crystal.
THE LEARNING CURVE
Four confused years ago
I trawled the city centre
In the evenings, at night
Looking for conversations
And gleaming things
To transmute into poetry:
Surrounded by people and incidents
I sat in cafes
And composed drunken poetry;
Now after the learning curve
I ride out the loneliness till the midnight hour
And the poetry I make
In the musical silence of my room
Runs rings around what came before.
THE LIGHT OF FOREKNOWLEDGE
Poets! Poets!
Poets! Creeping out of the clockwork!
Everyone is a poet nowadays.
We are nice people.
Strange and interesting individuals!
Especially mysticism Ireland ones!
THE LUMINOUS BRIDGE
Walking into the mist
And there's someone else in front
And voices calling from the park
Unknowable and unknown
The valley shrouded in mist
And it is I who am alone
And then the well lit bridge
A symbol in the darkness
Bearing us over the river
That flows to nowhere below
Following Him into the mist
As He leads me to the luminous bridge
THE MAGIC BOX
Adapted from Kit Wright
I will put in the box
the mermaid of Copenhagen,
a singing bird
and a flying fish.
I will put in the box
the Great Wall of China,
a cat's eye glowing in the dark
and an elevator to the Great Beyond.
I will put in the box
the Great Library of Alexandria,
a waterfall of crystal light
and the mind of time alone.
I will put in the box
Leonardo's workshop,
a television glowing in the night
and a string of words unpoemed.
My box is fashioned from paper, water, stone,
with fire on the lid and wishes in the wings.
In its deepest recess
is the heart of love alone.
I will fly in my box
on the astral planes of the seventh heaven,
then wash ashore in a golden sun
the colour of the rose.
THE MAGIC FOREST
There was a fork in the track
In the magic forest,
And I took the left-hand path:
A mile ahead
It was guarded by a troll,
And I paid him dearly;
There is no way back,
And this track leads to the blue mountains.
All along
The left-hand track
I have written poetry.
The right-hand track
Could have led to anywhere.
What if I had followed
The right-hand track?
Then
I would have written
What wonderful poetry?
THE MYSTERY OF LIGHT
Even the filaments of phosphorus shine,
Behold the light as it tucks into darkness.
Peering through a death mask is the blue aureate light,
A death mask fashioned of letters and of ivory.
The steady, blue, aureate, light is incapable of being decayed
By the duskiness, nor obscured for the most tremendous space.
The phosphorus filaments shine forth, and the aureate precious light
Coalesces with grace at its opaline boundary and slowly eddies homewards.
THE NICEST PEOPLE EVERYWHERE
The sun flails
Through the stratosphere --
A thousand stars
Glimmer; shimmer; shatter;
THE NUMINOUS QUALITIES OF THE RAINBOW
Mary most Precious sings in blissful harmony with the holy angels.
Behold! Across the heavens in a bow... a plethora of numinous sunsets.
All these sunsets, all these angels, all the appearances of Our Lady:
There is but one Soul, one Voice and one Giver of good things.
In the present dispensation we are unable to apprehend the faces of the holy ones.
However! Falter! Falter and greet the numinous qualities of the rainbow.
THE OCEAN'S CYCLE
The ocean goes round and round
And round as does every sea.
Power is in the simplicity,
Yea, even to write. What comes natur-
ally; what comes like the dawn?
That is a rhetorical question
And I am not drunk on my own facetiousness
But the Muse, I believe, is already at work.
THE ORANGE FLOWERS OF DAIRBHRE
The orange flowers of Dairbhre
Burn amid this darkened world
As earthquakes smash and eruptions lash.
And yet my heart is more devoted to Dairbhre
And its brightly glowing orange flowers
Than to the unseen things of space and time
Folded or unfolded.
As empires rise and tumble, they will remain,
As religions flutter and splutter,
As tyrants clash and crash,
The orange flowers of Dairbhre,
Blooming and reblooming.
THE PARACHUTE OF CHRIST
This Chute would open
If only we thought It worked,
The string in our hand.
THE PERSECUTION OF THE INTELLECTUALS
Occupied France.
"Young poet of the French Republic that I am. Tobacco used to be my most sizeable nightmare but now the National Socialists are rounding up the Jews and the Catholics and the Protestants and the communists and the surrealists and anybody who is different and the poets. The lame, the old, the handicapped, all fall prey to the same devices. They want to throw me into a psychiatric hospital where they will torture me with sleep deprivation and cigarette burns and kill me, possibly making use of electroconvulsive therapy. So I have taken to the goat's path -- high beneath starlight in the Alps -- harrying and fleeing from forest to thicket. Pray, whosoever you may be, that I will be able to navigate this scree, these rocks and stones serve my stumble, and I fear falling prone and withering in the flower of my youth to slowly decay with the carcasses of sheep and their worthless innards. I have sacrificed my all for love and poetry and yet my greatest fear is that one day in the future a shepherd will drink from the stream at the foot of these high white mountains and that the water to enter his mortal frame will have been adulterated from passing through my corrupt skull and the protruding ribs of my torso. Beneath pure, shivering, unadulterated starlight I pray to Jehovah that I may safely stumble through the sign to separate my sighs from the sanctuary that is Switzerland."
THE PROUD GIRL OF THE NICE AND SMOOTH CURLS
Translated from the Irish
The stars are standing out on the sky,
The sun and the moon are lying down;
The sea has ebbed without leaving a drop
And the swan has no sway as she used.
The cuckoo at the top of the branches
Is constantly saying that she escaped me,
The proud girl of the nice and smooth curls
Who left Ireland under cruel duress.
Three things I see relating to love,
Sin, death, and pain,
And my mind do be telling me every day
That she tortured my thoughts with gloom.
It's my sharp regret I gave her love
And I wish I had never ever seen her --
Maiden! you destroyed me in my centre;
May you obtain graces from God.
THE RITUAL
There was a ritual
Amongst the ruffians
(I want the one I can't have)
And that's exactly what she said.
THE ROBE OF THINGS
The robe of things flows throughout the universe. Stones, wooden things and the flaring human joys of all our interweavings are embedded in this robe of things, this glorious robe. The robe belongs to God -- fashioned out of every frequency and colour it permeates every living thing and stones and broken inanimate objects. Would that I could clothe myself in the fullness of this robe! I see the robe fluttering in the words of my friend and dancing in the stones in the sunlight. But to apprehend the robe of things once and for all we will have to make the transition from intermittent sunlight to the frequency of the archangels. There in the heavenly choirs the resplendent robe will fly like a flag transparent, incandescent and opalescent.
THE QUEST
I have "everything"
And still I'm not happy:
So I will deny myself everything
And in solemn sanguine abnegation
Ascend
(Two steps forward though one step back)
To the nirvana
Of the summit.
THE SEAR OF EVERY METAMORPHOSIS
In the throes of coffee-induced psychosis I ponder
Whether is meant by the mystery of light
The sear of every metamorphosis or --
Would I were! an unbroken chain of mornings.
What better place to contemplate light
And its mystery than the library
Which others call the universe. It is the bullseye of civilisation and it is here
That the great bulls of yesteryear trample honest shadows, the mind and heart still flailing.
I will not sow my salt seed in this synagogue to mourn
The majesty and burning of the little boy's death.
Thump! A body appearing plonks a glass before me,
And though, for now, I do not sup
Behold the light in the multitudinous crystal, oh, the clarity of that glass,
Notice the splendour and the wreckage in that crystal,
What a tonic, witness!
Demons harrying in crystal.
Deep with the first dead lies Little Boy Blue;
The light is blue and aureate,
He is resting once for all --
He is not to taste of the second death.
THE SEASONS
Spring
In the forest
The sound of rain
And broken boughs.
Summer
On the road
Going with no one
Wondering.
Autumn
By the river
Breaking the silence...
Autumn tears.
Winter
In the garden
The sound of winter
And breathing.
THE SHELL
scratching at the surface
of this unbroken shell
in the convulsive space
of this stifling being
at this uneasy womb
encasing these
tremulous moments
pulling at the earth
of this roasting grave
asking how much more
but knowing full well
while clawing at the top
of this deadly shell
that someday it will break
THE SHINING
the shine
the shine
the shine before
the storm
all the turmoil
of the waterfall
cascade
to the pit
of unknowing
THE STORM
Lying among shadows
We read The Storm
And glean virtue from the sacred words
As winds howl without.
I read to her, she reads to me.
The starlight feeds our hut;
In warmth and learning
A rickety palace.
THE STRAY
There must have been a strand of barbed wire fixed around his waist, piercing his body at every turn. It must have been an appendage such as this that drained his blood, depriving him of having a healthy life like all the other creatures.
But this burden must have been merely the symptom of another malady: he must have also been afflicted with a nail through the skull, congenital perhaps, quite possibly installed at the same time as the flesh-eating wire, a long thin nail which cut through the brain, altering its customary dimensions and characteristics and causing him to act differently: irresponsibly and irrelevantly.
When I looked into his eyes, this wild beast captured while left free, by the world and its inhabitants, stunned by them while already paralysed, never worshipped but long ignored, ever associated on sight with the wire and the nail, and studiedly shunned as if these supposedly congenital parasites could be capable of spreading, when I looked into his eyes without turning back or without looking through him, his stray and frenzied gaze met my searching apprehension and I beheld, inscribed upon his forehead, the words, "I wrote the characteristics of all my names in hell."
THE STREETS OF BABYLON
On the streets of Babylon
The stones falling
The smoke ascending
The headless horses
The souls dying
The putrid fountains
The burnt torsos
The screaming children
The lost mothers
The cursing fathers
Devoid
Of flesh
Welcome to the underworld
On the streets of Babylon
THE STREETS OF ZION
On the streets of Zion
The gilded glass
The piquant incense
The wingèd horses
The living bodies
The holy fountains
The elevated souls
The laughing children
The carefree mothers
The singing fathers
Free
From desire
In the city of blinding lights
On the streets of Zion
THE SWEETHEART
You are caught between a rock and a hard place:
Intellect has motioned by means of a thousand media.
Nobody knows or notices that your teeth of silk
Have martyred the bird that beats the quickest wings.
My own intellect is feeble and tortured compared with the brilliance
Which bursts from the shell that is your teeming, grandly opalescent subconscious.
Forever, forever, sitting in this flower garden of my soldiering,
Contemplating your ineffable ways and smile forever.
THE TABLES ARE EMPTY
The tables are empty
And a chill wind breezes through
With a myriad of ghosts:
The ghosts of past, present, future;
Seize the grand piano,
Pass me an ashtray,
Strike up an adorable flame
And play me a love song.
THE THREAD OF LOVE
I take the thread of love
And let it lead me out of the picture house,
Following it to where she stands,
Reeling me in like a fisher of man.
I had sat there at the back
Watching greater stories flicker
On the prophetic screen...
I follow it down the stairs,
Past the place where things are bought and sold,
Through the painted doors,
Into the open air.
I stand exposed.
The daylight blinds me.
THE VALLEY
Rows of windows
All bearing down on me
Across the twilit
Fields
As starlight
Shivers
In the aeons
While here
In the valley
I shudder.
THE WAYS OF LOVE
O teach to me the ways of love,
And ground my passing lust;
Alight on me a tender dove,
Before my heart goes bust.
The broken dreams of my past life
All wait for you, my dear,
Too often have I sat in strife
And shed a bitter tear.
O give to me your precious gift,
Before my heart decays;
Confer it with a sacred lift
Of Love's sweet smiling rays.
THE WEATHERED OLD DRUNK
thrown carelessly at the polished table
the weathered old drunk glances bewilderedly
at the widescreen telly of deafening volume
showing recent clips of live Bon Jovi
not knowing the worth of those songs about change
he whines contempt for all that screechin'
then scraping pennies from a torn soiled pocket
he cries out loud for a small bag of French fries
he asks for French fries but he'd rather be drinking
in an intoxicating overcoat he stands pondering
at the hungry counter he counts his hopefulness
on a withered hand of blackened fingers
not... good... enough
THE YEAR OF PURIFICATION
I will plunge into the blue
From the crescendo of craving
To the nadir of nothingness
I will humbly soar
My spirit rising
I will climb the mountain
I will sail the boat out
To a distant shore
THE YEAR OF PURIFICATION 2008
I will plunge into the blue from the crescendo of craving.
To the nadir of nothingness I will humbly soar.
My spirit rising I will climb the mountain,
Sailing the boat out to a distant shore.
Behold my Everest! God abides in a book I have not read.
Rows of houses, all bearing down on me...
Rows of houses, all bearing down on me...
Pastpresent is an afterglow and present shakes hands with future
Becoming swallowed up in her own devices,
As the weight of the Parousia crashes back through history
Like the "big bang" at the worldwide lowering of curtains.
I pray thee Jesus. I pray thee. Give me the liberty to wander safely out from the dysfunction of my times.
THERE IS FREEDOM WITHIN
In the throes of coffee-instigated psychosis
I stumble bleeding from the psychedelic wilderness
To the perpetual sacrifice... up the convoluted stairwell
Finishing with a full stop in the attic of humility.
I kindly smile at those gathered before me
In the "gallery" that overlooks the precious altar.
The mind still flailing, the inner soul is at a standstill.
Like a stone cast into water, I fall to my knees,
And outstretch my existence to the King of Mysteries.
Take the substance, the nature, the innards to cleanse
Of this godforsaken creature of clay and dust.
I present, on my knees, exuberant on my knees,
The existence in turmoil of this unimportant...
Joyful sorrowful glorious luminous.
Healing rays emanate freely from the altar
Throughout the people, up the time-touched stairwell
And in my personal direction diagonally roofwards.
The Mass-house overflows like the very first stable
And demons fly conquered in terrified directions.
In a burning blaze of resplendent whiteness
The precious people gather before the God of the Old Testament,
Fleeing wounded from the tortured surface.
THIS IS NOT A LOVE SONG
Saturday standing
At the gate of the garden.
Sunday grey. Every
Day is like this day.
Saturday.
Blue archway.
Me and my sweetie
Breezing down the street.
Sunday. Lamplight.
Sea and shore. Goals
More or less
Open.
Saturday the seed is being sown. As we
Know the man reapeth and so forth.
Sunday. Our love dies. Trans-
parent in a stammering blaze.
TIME BOMB TICKING
time bomb
totally
submerged
time bomb
ticking
quiet
peace
peace
peace and
quiet
apart
hand
submerged
legs
apart
TO KEEP ON MOVING
I am moving forward in the Lord.
I am, actually, waiting for a pizza to cook
And moving forward in the love of Jesus;
And I do not mean to undermine an element of sarcasm.
For ages upon ages -- aeons upon eternity --
It was one step forwards; two steps backwards.
I was adrift in a sea of unknowing, the kitchen sink,
Turning the paddles backwards in a treacherous gorge.
The mind is nevertheless still flailing
But I find (a calm) my soul to be at a standstill.
I am grounded in the truth, the truth cannot be hid,
God is good -- and I hereby hide myself in him.
Niggardly things unadorned still worry me...
Tobacco my most sizeable nightmare.
Nevertheless, it is better than being locked away,
Or the victim of seven worlds suddenly imploding.
I will sum this up in two more verses and I am
Sorry if this has tended to be overly self-conscious.
The pizza is nearly grilled and I have a poem to show for same!
To keep on moving, Samuel Beckett wrote, "Not in the Rock..." and yet...
The love of Jesus is in itself a sea when you come to know it; to feel it; to understand it.
Make another world -- the tears of my future wife fall in the shade of every one of the American states.
Parasol paradox parasite umbrella. Our destiny is with the Lord.
He comes -- quickly! -- with the violence of a hundred million sea winds.
TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH
If the truth be told
I am very bold
To write in such a way
But this is my staal.
The sweet new style
And loops of love
In the view
Of the mew.
TRAGIC LIGHT
She will not have me
And the blood-red sun
Casts its sharp glow
Diagonally across the glass.
Beautiful glare!
I see me in thee.
TRIBUTE TO E.K.
The bell bangs out
Its empty speech.
It strikes through acres
Of time-hallowed silence
Through the hollowed darkness
Of the valley.
Pealing, coursing,
Setting off moos and howls.
Till Castlequarter is sounded,
Sent reeling in sensible directions.
An upturned bell!
The song of centuries:
Buried half in animal and in earth,
Answering;
Fluorescently alive,
Alive and echoing on.
TRIBUTE TO T.D.
I am a mere vassal
And I put myself before your service
And I will get my hands dirty for you
Ploughing against the grain if necessary
And I will plough your topsoil
And I will even rewrite "Finishing Touches."
"Anthony is a gentleman"
And we all serve a great God.
TRIBUTE TO T.R.
Into the air
And forever out through time,
Passing through where boundaries would be,
Moving with stillness, in all directions,
In all colours, in all musics
With grace and infinity
Touching the heart of eternity.
You are the life, you are the giver, you are the carrier,
You are the motion and the medium,
Beyond death and beyond reason,
Travelled the whole journey,
Beyond "normality" and into the fire of feeling.
UNTITLED
Sit by the harbour's edge
With a bellyful of stars
A heart full of tears
And wait for them to tumble
And diffuse
In the splendid water
VISTA PANORAMICA
The "blurb" or text on my churning-in-the-corner laptop's wallpaper reads:
"To leave the house every morning, then find oneself...
...Anywhere. Avalon; Kathmandu; Shangri-La; Timbuktu."
I ought -- when making this wallpaper -- to have admixed Xanadu; another "exotic" placename.
When making this wallpaper I was inspired by an episode of Star Trek where the protagonist walks through the same "portal" or door (essentially) every day but each and every day... day in, day out... finds himself in a differing location.
Wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to leave your house every morning and find yourself somewhere different and exotic?
Like a "sheaf of leaves" stretched across the wallpaper in question is a vista panoramica... a plethora of subtly changing/metamorphosing/transforming locations -- fading in-out, bleeding into each other by dint of a multitudinous furious array of rich and subtle hues.
W.H.T.W.W.T.M.
Three-and-a-half years ago (it doesn't matter when)
His soul died (it doesn't matter how)
And that was his apotheosis. Within him there was waged total malevolence.
On another day (it matters when, it matters how) we will follow his footsteps along the curve.
WARTIME HAIKU
My stereo pours
Wartime ballads in the dark:
Listening to ghosts.
WE STUMBLED ACROSS A MAGICAL RIVER
We (me and my family) stumbled across a magical river. It was only a stream, but it was deep enough in which to plunge and to swim.
The ethereal and sublimely dazzling little river could be found at the campsite's edge, at the outcome of a beautiful pathway both carpeted and thicketed with leaves. When I first left the holiday van and wended my innocent and wondering way to the river, ethereal, mystery-outpouring, I slid and slipped on the pleasant path's double-dealing downturn, and almost wound up in a broken impoverished bundle: a microcosmic pathos-pulling trinity of halves. I held on to the camera which I carried across the glad and gleeful shingle -- carelessly consenting to serve my sore and sullen stumble.
Getting there I abandoned the digital camera and the iPod -- on which I had placed some camera-taken videos of that magic-overflowing surrounding -- on a select and suitable towel just next to the pair of deckchairs on which my father and mother had already sat down to rest. Kicking off my homelessly conspicuous runners I forded the river at a shallow bend, at a point in its journey where there swam a myriad of wildly inchoate trout.
Having crossed to the other side, I left my sleazy and pebble-bungling footwear on the time-shattered sandstone and possibly lava edifice which, in its eroded sharpness and complacent rejection, resembled the worst and most callous kind of human visage. I lowered my body into the water and, as I slithered down the nervous face of the rock, I joyfully and wistfully learned myself getting more and more watery as the drenching nanoseconds rolled into seconds.
Finally I comprehended that I had descended with ease into the smashing water, both gurgling tidily and fantastic in its deviation. I suddenly stood upright and, looking down at my sun-mangled reflection in the glossy scintillating waters, I observed the world-marvelling and aforementioned plethora of breezy and barely Nature-nurtured trout swimming in each and every music, direction: strewn like a fine selection of confetti, or bold outstanding ribbons, at my feet; the latter nude and hobbit-like, refracted, water-betrayed. What a magnificent time we all had in that teeming rejuvenating place!
What a wonder-filled life-spewing undulating and rock-cloistered engine were we lucky enough to stumble across... what a smashing and naturally terrific neat little river, replete with fish and full of life and music and colour; what a tremendously magnificent space that turned out to be in which to immerse the time-tedious self on a brilliant summer's day... the river, the giver, buried and hardly discovered amid the time-touched time-hallowed country of France, drowned in the glorious sun, a sun that was, on that day at least, singing and overspilling at the meridian of his sacred shining apotheosis.
WHAT ARE YOU BECOMING
Translation from Paul Éluard
What are you becoming why this blonde and pink hair
Why this front those heartbreaking torn eyes
The great misunderstanding of the atomic weddings
Solitude pursues me with its poison.
WHAT DIFFERENCE
What difference does it make
Because it was really nothing important after all
(These things take time to accomplish)
In relation to this charming man.
WHEN I GO MOUNTAINEERING
In an open space
It's just me and God,
It's just me and the stars,
It's just me and freedom itself.
WHEN I WAS A YOUNGER MAN I LEFT A SCAR
I made an awful mistake
When I was a younger man.
It looks like an old knife scar
As the band Blondie might say!
I fell when I was a younger man
And cut my forehead
But I went at it with my hands
And wouldn't leave it alone
And it left a scar...
It's only visible in certain lights
(Light from light)
And I wish I had a new forehead.
WILLOW ISLAND
I was abandoned
In 1795
On an isle in the tropical doldrums --
A restless place of weeping willows.
I bled that flora and foliage for its coconuts.
I bled them senselessly dry because I could see no avenue of escape.
1795 turned into 1796 and "yet" I was abandoned --
But at least I had Caleb Williams to read. Caleb Williams -- OR, Things As They Are (!).
WISH I WAS IN ENGLAND
Translated from the Irish
I wish I was in England
With one other person from here,
Or out in the middle of the sea
In the place where ships get lost,
The wind and the rain
Driving me from wave to wave --
King of the heavens! Drive me, I pray,
To the place where resteth my love.
WISHING WELL
I wish I was
In a boat
On a lake
In Sweden
Or somewhere
Lying back
On the shell of my back
With my hand trailing in the water.
WORKING-CLASS HERO
Behind the words
Falling
The cloth of iron
Wrought
WRITING POETRY (FRAGMENT)
time breeds necessity
and we mould to suit our forms
[...]
ignoring slights
concentrating on the mights
of the poetic monument
in the midnight hour
we wound and scar
the hands of time
WRITING POETRY II
Focusing on the brilliant numinous might
Of the soon-to-be poetic monument
We wound and scar in our human endeavours
From everlasting to everlasting
The hands
Of Time.
YOU ARE NOT IN YOUR BURNT GRAVE
You are not in Your burnt grave, or invisible on high:
You are currently reblooming, waiting to appear.
It is You Who are there. Your breast is so blazing with light
That I nearly forgot myself as I beheld Thee.
You are waiting to appear, like a water flower
That is taking the time to rebloom. When You appear
I will suddenly remember myself
And You and I will be as one forever.
YOUNGSTER OF THE TIED-BACK HAIR
Translated from the Irish
Youngster of the tied-back hair,
with whom I spent a while in company,
you went this way last night
and you didn't come to see me.
I thought it wouldn't harm you
if you came and I waiting,
and that your kiss would bear me kindness
if I was awash in fever.
If I had wealth
and money in my bag,
I'd cause a short cut
to the door of his house;
hoping to God I'd hear him
and his soft footfall,
'tis far the day that I slept
but I waiting to taste his kiss.
And I thought, young fellow,
that you were the moon and the sun,
and I thought after that
that you were snow on the hillside,
and I thought to myself then
that you be a lantern sent from God,
or that you were the star of knowledge
going before me and going after me.
You swore to me silk and lace to me,
high shoes and ornate raiment,
and you vowed to me after that
that you'd follow me through the storm.
I am not like that, thus,
but a bush in a broken ditch
each noon and each unveiling
in the care of the house of my mother.
YOUR KINDLY SMILE
Drink loosened my tongue
And the words flowed out of me --
Like French pouring out of me --
And for a while I won your kindly smile.
YOURSELF AND MYSELF
Translated from the Irish
If ever you come
don't come but at night,
and walk softly
and don't affright me:
you'll receive the key
'neath the step of the door,
and I by myself
and don't affright me.
Pots in the way
or a stool or a jar,
or a grass-twined rope,
there be not:
the dog he is quiet
a truly dumb beast --
it is no shame to him:
goodly I've trained him.
My mum is asleep
and Dad is with her,
kissing mouth,
kissing mouth;
ain't it fine for her
and don't you feel for me
lying by myself
on the down of birds.
YOUTH
Translated from the Irish
I am losing my beauty and you can see it in my cheeks,
I lost my sight and unclear to me are the sun and the moon,
I lost those characteristics I had bestowed of God,
and I lost my own self in the race to adore you.
It is my deepest regret that I couldn't have been born blind
before I saw your handsomeness and ruined from it was:
what I am like is like a lying leper
that does be drinking from sight, while unable to reach a drop.
Handsome young fellow, handsome and sweet are your cheeks,
and I don't tell, of course, that too nice is the set of your eyes;
there's not in Great Europe a jewel more precious than you,
whose cheek is like the rose -- a kiss, and a-walking we'll go.
This lovely sunset came as a wallpaper with my PC.
