COPING

I attempt to empty my vocabulary,

In writing these letters signed for to be sent.

All the way to Dublin to the house you live in,

Unless I’m mistaken,

And got the wrong door.

I approach the counter like I am a hunter,

Even though I am prey for the landlord’s purse.

Thinking how I’ll get home, walking away from home,

It could be a girl’s home (If it snowed in hell).

The contents of my stomach spread across the ditches,

Poking up from under the road home.

Coping

I can feel this one’s eyes all the way from outside,

If I met her gaze I’d surely fall in love.

“What’s up with you today?”, I can feel my brain say,

I can hear him slivering against my skull.

I was made to believe this life thing was easy,

When I first began it as a very young child.

BIG HOUSE

The devil is in this place

And her face is full of flowers.

A man has been escorted outside,

There is blood on his body and wine in his mouth.

Hassled at the door as our troupe snuck under,

It has proved easier than thought

To smuggle spirits in.

Now my appearance has altered, I’m ready for to begin

Big house.

I’m afraid of nothing, 

I could square up to death herself.

In mouths I leave the smell of flowers,

Even though I hawked up supper on myself.

All these roaming fists, just fingers and hands

To my fingertips, curled up in my palms.

Did you ever grasp a man’s arm with your jaws?

Feeling his pain go up through your face -

Your neck shaking like a dog’s,

Blood on your body - cider in your mouth.

Druids and a naggin, forever lodged in your blood,

Slinging from wall to wall;

Pestering no one, enlightening all.

THE BACK OF HER

No.

There are other times the day seems glad to see me,

Revealing his bare underarms.

Watching the moon, from a lake reflection ruined by swans,

Settling their movement, then gone

For better views of the bins.

This feeling reminds me of the back of her,

This feeling reminds me of the back of her.

Sing to the click of her quickening heels,

Sure nobody can take a fella’s company

From himself.

Surely?

I came back from the wars last week, happy on returning,

Turned again first sight of home.

I have courage, but I know there’s a pit in me as well,

It’s the scared soldier has his own trench dug.

FULL OF WINE

Having ventured miles beyond the parish ditches,

I soon lose the familiar scent of shit on wheat.

And now will these pockets be filled or will they fill me

Full of wine?

These anecdotes (echoed 

From pub snugs, steel jugs,

Old lads roaring the youth out of their faces)

Twist my ears and pull my legs,

From the street through the main door,

‘Til I’m the ear they echo for.

Fed with talk, I gulp and sup,

Another for one is never enough.

Fed with talk I gulp and sup, and onward unaware.

Swimming in the stout,

Watching the cream from below,

The head above it sinks slowly, to where I wade,

And I can’t hear the din about me;

Have to sit here, at the bottom,

Before my mouth will swallow me

In.

YOU WILL KNOW MY NAME

“There is a word for the way you have treated me and my family”

Then cover your young one’s ears,

Blessed as they are with no fears.

Walking away like a true deserter,

Deserving of deserter’s luck.

Approach the open door, as your father has before.

I was like you, I was ashamed too,

Cast out and made a thief;

Then the Princess Porter come to sweeten my relief.

There is no way I could convey the things my eyes have seen;

The necks my fingers curled around, the life from throats I’ve wheezed.

Riding to the West now, a rural road in rural weather,

The Devil as my guide, Death at my horse’s side.

Your teeth grind and tremble at the stories of your shame,

Once you feel these twisting fingers, you will know my name.

Look away, you with no fear -

Make tracks for the East!

Run while I distract the guards, run while I distract.

Your teeth grind and tremble at the stories of your shame,

Once you feel these twisting fingers, you will know my name,

Be silent and look away.

Look,

Look

……………….. Make for the East.

PURPLE CIRCLE

I will eat, when I am fed.

I will leave, when I am led.

And when I’m dying, and whisper over the room,

I’m going to curse you.

The timber crackles, and the coal spits,

From the hot belly of the hearth;

But the wind gets to my bones, and this it whispers:

“Purple circles ring your eyes,

Were you standing when you should have been ducking?

Did you feel the bedroom shake?

It can be felt by them who live their lives, trembling.

Stood in line, all the time,

Always late, for what’s mine -

It could make a fella leave himself behind,

It could make a man pure lose the plot.

It could make a man leave himself behind,

It could make a fella lose.”

The weeds are watered, below where she stands.

The crowd can hear the baby cry already.

The pulsating earth,

Housing artefacts in muck.

And a sorry tract, moved the mountains back.

Only soil could hear them shift,

Though the bedroom split and cracked -

Horses groan, fur and bone,

Being lashed by hindsight.

It could make a fella leave himself behind,

It could make a man pure lose the plot.

It could make a fella leave himself behind,

It could make a man pure lose the plot.

It could make a fella leave himself behind,

It could make a man pure lose the plot.

It could make a fella leave himself behind,

It could make a man lose. You could make a man

It could make a man lose.

The bowels of the bedroom, are revealed through the crack.

The ceiling tears, and pours rubble across the gap;

A hole that wide, will keep parting ‘til it’s fed,

So I’ve made my bed

Inside your head.

I TOLD YOU I WOULD LEAVE

I always knew it’d happen. 

I just did not know when.

Hidden mouths are loud and laughing,

At peace within their pen.

Safe with family and friends.

Across an acre of red hay,

I imagine a new road,

Which might cut through it some day,

And cut open our old home,

And cut open our home.

We had our days in the sun,

But I told you I would leave. I told you I would leave.

Call for me, and enjoy the silence,

I told you I would leave. I told you I would leave.

In a dream and a song,

I told you I would leave. I told you that I’d leave.

I told you I would leave, and now I’m gone.

GIRTH & PLAIN

Twisting like a cork, I’ve undone my buttons one by one,

And hurled my outfit over twilight’s girth and plain.

Meanwhile, ocean’s acres curl to land, and speak of seasons

Where sky and water meet, on the trench of its reflection.

Locked into our Farmer’s stream, digging through lost reed boats,

I have seen the other end of who knows what and God knows when;

Eluding and evading, to prime these limbs and stretch them,

I found it while asleep,

I held it in hanging arms.

Listen, to my declaration,

Comes from the bellows of my unstepped spine.

A rattle! A rattle, a movement from within the undergrowth,

Wet, aswell.

Bustling through the Farmer’s Dew, attending to the ghosts I knew,

Afraid to talk to the livestock, amok among the fleece and flock,

Alone until I heard a bell, pealing like the damp of Hell,

Now I’ve caught its tongue I will, Now I’ve caught its tongue I will,

Now I’ve caught its tongue I will,

Now I’ve caught its tongue I’ll knell the news.

I WILL HAVE TO KEEP AN EYE ON YOU AND WIN YOU BACK WHEN YOU ARE FREE AGAIN

Today I came unstuck, by the thought of the next few months.

Pinned like paint to the ceiling, by a strange sort of feeling.

Like a pot robbed of its brim, unable to stop filling,

I need an ear to collect my insides.

There’s a hole in the wall, covered by the cupboard,

Meant to get a man in last May.

I feel so sorry for myself these days, I am in need of such selfish things,

I will have to keep an eye on you and win you back when you are free again.

The swooping of laces as I tie my feet,

The curving of a hull where the timbers meet.

The day he bolts, keep an eye out for a straggler on the shore.

Not words, nor silence, nor a song came forth,

But a bubble of spit which popped and dribbled,

Stretching its arms to the floor, rippling into an ocean of suds,

Rising hourly.

There’s a man in me.

Somewhere in the undergrowth, there’s a big man waiting for to pounce. 

I feel so sorry for myself these days, I am in need of such selfish things,

I will have to keep an eye on you and win you back when you are free again.

I know him well, he’s as good as they come,

But if he disappeared, I’d up and run,

Out from the undergrowth,

In from the port.