The crimson streaks of morning
stretch low across the skies:
the sun sent his red riders
to tell us he will rise.

Then get your spirit ready
to share, to take and give,
and shed a thought to those ones
who aren’t allowed to live.

Little friend behind the door,
as you strut across the floor,
gently measuring your pace,
I admire your pride and grace.

With a twinkle in your eyes
you take care of midges, flies
and our other tiny friends
whom a weird creator sends.

On your endless legs you sneak
up to them to take a peek;
as your patient playmate waits,
you approach him on all eights.

Furry pal, as soft as wool
and bizarrely beautiful,
you are such a pretty sight,
I could watch you day and night.

When you’re where you shouldn’t be,
on my hand I’ll gingerly
put you where you were before,
little friend behind the door.

See how it glitters in the sun
after all rain and thunder:
a skilful architect has done
his best to shape this wonder.

The cobweb is a dainty thing,
yet tough and indurating,
and creatures travelling on wing
may find it captivating.

Those trapped resist their hidden lord
with rage and apprehension,
tighten the net and pull the cord
to catch their host’s attention.

The struggling insects lose their nerve
and soon accept they’re beaten;
once paralysed, they will observe
themselves being wrapped and eaten.

This is the web of life for you,
and as you fight and languish,
each move just brings you closer to
the eight-legged god of anguish.

Mountain:
My bidding must be done, tree!
I’m ancient, large and tall;
I dominate the country
while you are weak and small.

Birch:
It seems that you’re not thinking
ahead; it won’t stay so,
for you’re forever shrinking,
and I’ll forever grow!

When the bustle and noise of the city around
pierce my mind with their beat and monotonous sound
and the voice in my head sings her ominous tunes
I retire from the town to the peace of the dunes.

Where the buttercups melt in the sun, where the skies
and the bluebells that silently ring in my eyes
spread the sound of a higher serenity
I lie down to the song of our lady the sea.

For pacific souls in Atlantic domains
this gate to the other realm still remains:
in the sun’s gentle light and at night the pale moon’s,
there is nothing on Earth like the peace of the dunes.

When the birches turn red in November
and the salmon are ceasing to leap
and the streams fill with rain from the mountains
it is time for all creatures to sleep.

To escape both the cold and the darkness
man and beast close their eyes to the world,
for the world now is dreaming and waiting
for the craturs that Nature has furled.

And when colour returns to the forests
and the salmon are seen in the lake
and the daffodils herald Life’s triumph
we should think about whether to wake.

Potato blight in Ireland – we all know what that spells:
not just the spuds are blighted since we have nothing else!
Who still has strength to labour, if just for bed and board,
is tending well-fed cattle to feed his British Lord.
But do not feel disheartened to know our fate is sealed,
for soon we shall be resting in Widow Touhy’s Field.

All those who can afford it sail to the Promised Land
or the invader’s country to feed their people, and
will anxiously be waiting for news with bated breath,
grateful for all his children who didn’t starve to death.
But you and I are going where walls of earth will shield
us from the coming turmoil in Widow Touhy’s Field.

The fancy folk are buried amongst the gulls and swans:
the Catholics in the Abbey, the others in St John’s,
where monumental coffins protrude from shallow ground
and ancient skulls and bodies lie scattered all around.
But we shall hear sweet music when harvesting our yield,
and crows will be our consort in Widow Touhy’s Field.

Where herons stalk the playful fish
in the waters of Lough Gill,
there sleeps a densely wooded isle
of calm where time stands still.

They’ve called it Beezie’s Island since
the aging widow came
to live here, and not many folk
recall its proper name.

To get her pension, she would row
to town, and afterwards
you’d find her in the kitchen where
she’d sit and feed the birds.

The robins, squirrels, crows and swans
who ate out of her hand
and every animal around
considered her their friend.

All visitors were welcome who
respected Beezie’s pets,
and only one of them got barred
for throwing stones at rats.

When blizzards raged throughout the spring
of forty-seven, she
stayed on her island though she knew
how risky it would be.

The frozen lake had cut her off;
the smoke soon ceased to rise
from Beezie’s chimney, and her friends
sought ways to bring supplies.

Guardai and locals hired a truck
to haul a boat and fill
it with some firewood, coal and food
at the shoreline of Lough Gill.

A dozen men carefully pushed
the boat across the lake,
ready to jump aboard in case
the fragile ice should break.

Huddled in sheets between her cat
and dog they found the old
lady; her pets had died before
of hunger and of cold.

Taken to Sligo General,
she soon became a star:
to meet the Lady of the Lake
folk came from near and far.

One evening, just outside the door,
as Beezie fetched her comb,
she heard a nurse suggesting they
should put her in a home.

Beezie discharged herself that night
and rowed back to her isle
where she had breakfast with the friends
she’d missed for quite a while.

Though over ninety, she was full
of vigour and of wit;
she did not suffer from old age,
nor did she die of it:

One Christmas season, as so oft,
some of her friends from town
came to cut wood for Beezie’s fire
and found her house burnt down.

No one has dwelt upon the lake
since the old lady’s gone,
but in all things that crawl and fly
her spirit still lives on.

Being a lighthouse keeper
is all one needs to be:
to live in peace and quiet
while keeping an eye on the sea,

To watch the changing colours
of the ocean and the sky,
the undecisive tide as
the world of blue rolls by,

To sit there in the evenings,
having a pipe, a drink,
and to decide at leisure
who’ll live and who will sink.

Two score two years ago, the summer I
was born, not e’en a little pool
remained where, out of turn, a lake went dry:
they’d pulled the plug on Lough Nasool.

One score one year ago, the summer I
first came to Sligo was quite cool,
yet, out of turn, the mystic lake went dry:
they’d pulled the plug on Lough Nasool.

This summer I keep wondering about
the coming lesson in Life’s school,
for something’s up, of this I have no doubt:
they pulled the plug on Lough Nasool.

The First Revival was the first
I saw of him; I waited long.
Of all regrets it is the worst
that I was born too late – his song
was still the same, but I recall
the Fifties had a better sound,
yet I am grateful after all
I met him while he was around:
the world was music and romance
when Rock’n’Roll and I were friends.

His ballroom was the place to be
where time went backwards and stood still:
I rocked with Chuck and Jerry Lee
and walked with Fats on Blueberry Hill.
The legends lived; they’d never die
as long as we kept rocking on!
We danced in the Hall of Fame, and I
felt cherished by the Pantheon
when Johnny Cash and I shook hands
and Rock’n’Roll and I were friends.

Those were the days, and far too few,
when red-haired Gina stroked my hair
at Rockabilly Ballyhoo
and led me to the dance floor where
we danced so wild, so fast, so tight;
I think I never danced that much!
She left with someone else that night,
but I still feel her body’s touch,
the magic sparkles of that dance
when Rock’n’Roll and I were friends.

He has retired, but I still see
him every now and then in town;
we’d share a joke or pleasantry,
and as I’d listen with a frown
he’d tell me of his plans to go
back into business very soon,
some night when all the lights are low
and lovers worship the Blue Moon.
‘When’s that?’, I’d ask. – ‘Well, that depends...’
Yes, Rock’n’Roll and I were friends!

When we don’t feel complete, and we’re cracking
up because we are lost, we can find
the essential parts we are lacking
on the Scrapyard of Mankind.

Many come to this secret location
who for their relief find a valve,
or some wings for their imagination,
or a door to their innermost self.

Some buy leads to ignite their numb spirit
or a pipe for a quiet smoke,
or a wheel if they like to stir it,
or, just for the laugh, a choke.

Some have come to obtain a spare tyre,
for their soul a mirror to see,
give their partner a brake or acquire
a bonnet for their bee.

I myself got a headlight that searches
for my way, but I now understand
that, just like you can’t trust a new purchase,
you can’t trust something bought second-hand.

Teach me how to watch and talk
so that I may speak my mind,
show me where it’s safe to walk
till the time that I will find
my own way with watchful eye:
take my hand and let me fly!

And I’ll take you up with me
to the sky, and while we soar
high above the world, you’ll see
things you’ve never seen before
as the clouds are rolling by:
take my hand and let me fly!

Pro-Life is usually associated
with people who subscribe to a religion
such as Christianity, and who are taught
to think that way and who may think or not.
And I don’t talk about those hypocrites
who justify, decree or execute
post-natal murders for their own religion,
be it that of a god or race or nation,
I talk about the few ones who believe
in equal rights for all of their God’s creatures.

And yet, though they oppose the selfish slaughter
of human beings, their belief still renders
hope for the child in some unspecified
time in the future when, as they believe,
he or she will be rising from the dead.
We atheists don’t share that faith and therefore
have one more motive to defend their lives;
the reason to be pro-life shouldn’t be
religion or the deep disgust at lefties
but a profound respect for human life!

We don’t believe that there’s a second chance,
a second life for those who die in wombs,
we don’t believe in that divine accountant
who, with one stroke, will set the balance straight:
we don’t think there’s a possibility
of justice or of reconciliation
in the spiritual word, and that is why
we should feel even stronger when it comes to
the right to live on Earth, because we know:
we only live once - that’s if we live at all!

White man, the million trees that fed
a people for a thousand years,
the forest of their life is dead
since you have claimed it for your peers;
you have completed your grand theft,
chopped the last tree for lumber, not
forgetting its last fruit and left
a desert in its place. This spot
will feed its people nevermore;
now they come knocking at your door
for help to get them back on track:
don’t give them alms! Just pay them back.

Not only did you take their few
resources like their food and trees,
you even took their people, too!
Abducted from their families,
the slaves were forced to work and breed
like cattle to create your vast
fortunes, and once these men were freed,
you left them penniless. The past,
you claim, once dealt with, counts no more;
now they come knocking at your door
for help to get them back on track:
don’t give them alms! Just pay them back.

You rob the land, the gold, the oil,
the coal, all goods of any worth
from every place your hands can soil,
from every country on this Earth,
then point at those that you deprive
of wealth and dignity and say:
I’ll loan you what I robbed, but strive
to pay your interest every day!
With nothing left, they pay no more,
and now they’re knocking at your door
for help to get them back on track:
don’t give them alms! Just pay them back.

And you who owe the white man naught
except the finger, when at last
all debts are settled (what a thought!),
you’ll live in comfort, and the past
will seem an unrelenting trial
rewarded by eternal bliss,
by growing wealth and fortune while
the white man thirsts and starves since his
‘developed countries’ are no more;
he will come knocking at your door
for help to get him back on track:
don’t give him alms! Don’t let him back!

Who are these that ride in the shadows
with the sign we all know in their palms,
those whose eyes and whose bodies are hollow,
with the ten-horned child in their arms?

Who the horses that leave not a hoof print
in the snow or the sand or the mud,
who don’t even slow down in their gallop
when up to the bridle in blood?

And, pray tell, who are these that are watching
and conclude this occurrence must mean
it’s the end of the world; what, I wonder,
would they think if they’d see what I’ve seen?

He silently watches her boarding the train
with all of the others, with whom she’ll remain
throughout the whole journey they’re ready to start,
the haute école rider who burns up his heart,
who’s vainly amused at the way he must feel
whose laughter is fake but whose tears are real.

The pitiful clown, the director’s young wife:
the queen and the pauper of circus life -
she deems him unworthy of shaking her hand.
He goes with the animals - they understand
his woes and vexations on which he’d discourse:
he sits on a box, and he talks to her horse.

A gentle voice answers – he pricks up his ears,
and out of the shadows the rider appears;
she leans on her horse as the siren-in-chief
and tenderly smiles as she shares in his grief.
Her words of compassion seem kind and sincere
and mellow his heart to a meadow of cheer.

She lowers her voice so they cannot be heard.
There’s no need to tell him to breathe not a word;
the others would laugh, and the girl would deny
there ever was more than her passing him by.
She looks in his eyes and she sees that he knows:
their grand conversation is under the rose.

              - 

He sits in the silence his goddess has left;
the morrow will see him of friendship bereft
when she will not grant him as much as a glance.
But still he will cherish – forever, perchance -
this moment of joy he can never disclose:
this grand conversation was under the rose.

Inspired by the Jack B. Yeats painting
This Grand Conversation was under the Rose

There is someone lies dead in the bushes,
left with naught save his body and soul;
someone else arms it down to the Liffey
with the loot of the night in his bowl.
One can still hear the rusty wheels screeching
as his silhouette rolls out of sight,
and the corpse of his victim grows colder
as he vanishes into the night.

He was born on the wrong side of Dublin
without legs, which made him stand out;
a compassionate blacksmith provided
a wheeled bowl so he could move about.
He was liked and renowned as a beggar,
but since begging does not pay a bill,
he exploited alternative incomes,
not depending on people’s good will.

All those silver-spooned folk in their coaches
did not know of a mendicant’s strife,
and as life had been tough with young Billy,
young Billy got tough with life.
Every night he would down a few whiskeys,
then the legless vagrant would lie
in the thicket and wait for a lady
or a nobleman to pass by.

With his plaintive voice he’d be calling
out for help to get out of the ditch;
when a victim bent down to assist him,
he’d be grabbing their throat and hitch
their head in his bowl where he’d strangle
them till all signs of life had ceased,
take their money and other possessions
and return to the bottle, well pleased.

Before leaving the scene, as his trademark
he’d roll over their head once or twice,
and then swiftly return to the shelter
to indulge in his gambling vice.
So whenever you hear someone calling
in distress when you’re out on a stroll,
run away, don’t look back, and remember:
none escaped who met Billy the Bowl!

In 1786, Billy the Bowl was convicted of (a rather crude case of) attempted robbery. However, many people believed that this was not his first time; some suspected that his previous victims had been too embarrassed to come forward, others supported the more morbid theory that they didn’t live to tell the tale, creating the legend of the mass-murdering invalid.

‘Twas Christmas Eve for the guys from An Post
who’d returned from their rounds to the store,
full of chocolate and cake and the Christmas drinks
they were served at many a door.

John, too, stumbled out of his van; on all fours
he crawled to the office, but when
he was told he forgot a delivery,
he had to crawl back to the van.

He climbed in and headed for Ballintogher
where even the wind makes no sound,
where there’s only dark woods and no living soul
for dozens of miles around.

The woods of Ballintogher
are treacherous and deep,
and no one dares examine
the secrets they may keep.

He turned at a corner, a song on his lips,
looking forward to biscuits and tea,
when a magical force changed the course of the van
and wrapped it around a tree.

The Gards soon arrived, and, testing his breath,
grew as pale as the wintery sky:
‘Dear God, you’re as drunk as a sailor’, they screamed,
‘you may kiss your licence goodbye!’

‘I swear that I had not a drop while I drove,
but after the accident
a lady appeared from among the trees
and approached me, a glass in her hand.

‘She was stately and young, with flowing red hair,
and she wore a transparent gown,
and she helped me up, and she told me: “You need
a brandy to calm yourself down.”

‘I emptied the glass in one go, and she filled
it up once more, combed her hair
and vanished into the woods again,
like she was never there!’

The woods of Ballintogher
are treacherous and deep,
and no one dares examine
the secrets they may keep.

Since then drivers stop there on Christmas Eve,
and they wait, as the sun slowly sinks,
for the Mystical Lady of Hennessy’s Corner
to bring them their Christmas drinks.

The tanks have gone, the walls remain.
It’s been too long; I did refrain
from coming here, I have to tell,
the town that I have loved so well,
not for the people I did meet,
but armoured cars in every street.

The friendliest people worked their charms
and welcomed me with open arms
to this quaint place when first I came;
yet I would never say its name,
and that’s because I never knew
which party I was talking to.

The one thing that I could not bear
was seeing soldiers everywhere.
At every corner of the town
they held their guns, marched up and down;
I feared, as I walked down the road,
they’d shoot or something might explode.

Those days are gone; for good, we hope,
since people now have learnt to cope -
one listens to the other side,
and hands are crossing the divide:
I took the bus, just like before,
to see the friendly folk once more.

And when the place and time was right,
I went into that magic night
of pleasures I’d enjoyed before
that the Republic knows no more:
a crowded pub, a pint, a smoke,
a live band and the casual joke.

A group of youngsters joined me there
and asked me who I was, from where,
and what I do; they got my stout
but spurned me when it was my shout,
saying: ‘We all want you to feel
welcome in Derry, that’s the deal!‘

Hungover I returned again
from my best weekend since the ban,
but I’ll be back there, I can tell,
before they ban the fun as well
and make us smoke on yard or lane:
the tanks have gone, the walls remain.

Where all greeting is competing
while the old and wise are messing,
in the middle of that riddle
lies the truth in blue cheese dressing.

They barter their oath at the market
for that wind chime they urgently need,
then they’re selling the bricks of their houses
the mouths of their children to feed.

As we smirk at every kirkhead
in the playground of the grown-ups
we can witness all the witless
adults bowing to their blown-ups.

They celebrate Death as their saviour,
they put their balm where it hurts,
they took the L out of Christmas
and dressed it in polka-dot skirts.

They’re forgetful, not regretful,
just like little Hip-Lun-Mivvin;
as they sell you they will tell you
it’s the real world that they live in.

The square has left the town and runs
up to the distant hills;
the streets pursue him, shoot their guns
but only scratch the mills.

The town hall watches silently,
the houses cheer the square,
the shops insist without them he
won’t make it anywhere.

It’s on this square’s where autumn holds
her jolly fair each year,
where local merriment unfolds
like it was always here.

The magistrate who owns the town
once won a poker game
against her when the blind was down,
and was the blind to blame?

She had the chance to strip, but though
autumn strips flow’r and tree,
she would not strip herself, and so
they both came to agree:

That he could take what he desired
from her, any place and time;
he took the things she most admired
and didn’t give a dime.

And autumn hung her head in shame
and claimed it wasn’t fair,
but he maintained that in this game
he won them, fair and square.

The streets chase with a roundabout
the square who tries to hide;
a little market place jumps out
and pulls him to the side.

And in a nesting box at ten
he scored with her right there;
she was a born piazza then,
but now they are all square.

There is a limit to inflation,
especially on Friday when
I’ll get my first imagination
and have to seek the vulture’s den.

And I shall then translate a saga
from modern Hybrid into Greek
under the influence of lager,
but there’s a Wednesday in each week.

I am a men who needs a mission,
like braving social etiquette,
but then the lack of malnutrition
will quickly put an end to that.

There’s nothing wrong with being bitter
for one whose bed’s not made of hay:
for those who live in gold and glitter
life has a thousand shades of grey.

And who are they? The animation
of little men, half king, half gnome;
they have their luggage at the station
and leave their overcoats at home.

Their railroad tracks are quite amazing -
jump on my train of thought and find
the hairy demons who are raising
the bushy brow of humankind.

The day after forever beckons
the ancient future as of late,
and with the love that waits and reckons
let us remember how to hate.

When all is dead that has been living,
simply because if failed to please,
we will remain the unforgiving,
we still will have our memories!

We took the last bus to Atlantis
and boarded for Hy-Brazil,
and Ziggy, the praying mantis,
just looked at the sea and got ill.

We set sail in the looming sunset,
we sailed for a day and ten nights;
all that time we were watching the nuns at
the stern who were mending their tights.

And the merchants of doom set the table
for the crew at the end of the trip;
they came down, and they opened the stable,
and we hurried to get off the ship.

And the mist on the island grew denser
as we looked for a place of our own,
but we knew that the vapour dispenser
would be empty before we were grown.

And after two years and a battle
of wits we enjoyed the blue skies,
and Ziggy was minding the cattle
while we were minding the flies.

They eat all things they can get hold of
and know no manners and no shame,
they urinate at every corner
they pass to stake their petty claim.

By making noise to wake a graveyard,
the poor neglected creatures try
to gain attention by annoying
the neighbours and the passers-by.

They jump around like they’ve been bitten
by flees or demons, though they may
prove that they’re clever by retrieving
the things that others throw away.

They stick their nose in all excreta
that others dropped in any place,
then they’re returning to their owner,
sit up and lick his hand and face.

Each one of them has done and tasted
the sickest, vilest thing there is:
as God has made man in his image,
man has created dog in his.

A wise man said that which we call a rose
by any other name would smell as sweet.
What’s in a name? As everybody knows,
it is the thing and not the name that’s sweet.

What if the ancient Romans had been less
romantic in those rustic days of yore,
if they had found it growing where an ass
had left its smelly mark not long before?

They would have called it dungthorn, and today
it would be used on chocolate box designs,
and girls would count and boastfully display
the dungthorns they receive on Valentine’s.

From every corner of the world we know
people would come to Kerry just to see
and celebrate the highlight of the show:
the crowning of the Dungthorn of Tralee.

If a corrupt official was about
to be exposed but sees the telltale die,
the public would remark that he came out
smelling of dungthorns – what a lucky guy!

A poem without dungthorns couldn’t win
a woman’s heart nor instigate her lust,
and I would tell you life has always been
a bed of dungthorns for the upper crust.

Our amorous encounters then would be
under the dungthorn – we must be discreet,
and we would say a dungthorn, naturally,
by any other name would smell as sweet.

Now, my friend, we close the curtain
on the future of the past,
and the die that should ascertain
our envisioned doom is cast.

We have challenged Fate maturely
from our castle in the tree,
but the comets’ lot is surely
not what it’s cracked up to be.

There’s no aspidistra flying,
there’s no smoking at the bar,
and the dreams we had of dying
play at every cinema.