NO PAIN, NO GAIN For the kids I paid the price of footplate highway I felt every bump and scar on my one and only, one way. But It was great to be out among w onderful people. My back was w ell and truly broke when I got back. Was I in a dingy dungeon in days of old? Were these the last words written in a cell? A cell of disability to show not tell or the other way around, who knows. I write this, for all the lovely people. I don’t get out much you can tell e very twinge was felt in closed eye Reaction but it was worth it To dip into the well, give me the ink- Well if nothing else, the gallows Were right in front of me, my past Is somewhere else, but I’m in the Moment I was found, on new ground.
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PLACEBO EFFECT I believe that Patrick Kavanagh and Raymond Carver gave me a poetic energy. In nineteen seventy-four my father was released from nine months detainment in Crumlin road jail and the maze prison. The longest detainee in Ireland, he went on the run and we lived in a little cottage with no electricity or running water seven miles from Dundalk, Hackballscross, just a mile from Kavanagh country, Mucker. He truly was my mucker, I ran in the fields he walked in with my trusted Companion Muttley the dog, we, he chased cattle like he used to chase British soldiers. With only one eye and three legs, beaten by the butts of British army rifles. It was the first time in my life that I felt that all the world was not at war, before that day I felt this war was a part of me and I a part of it. Now we have peace and all those gun running days are over. Years later a friend lent me a book by Raymond Carver and it blew my mind and stirred my active imagination and turn
THE SITTER For Vincent Blue and golden, red and brown your flesh color shines through. Translucent like those piercing eyes that look from you. Vincent this is for you, my painted words. I hope this shows you in a light That you are used to, Van Gogh Van Goff how we pronounce is Nothing to do with you, the light Encircles your eyes like Pools of water you seen through A spyrol of existence, shining you. I want to paint your picture but In words. I hope I can do you justice Like the pleasure you gave to me. Tone and tone on shadow like you Used to portray, this is not a canvas Just a clean white space filled with Strokes from a brush stroked blue. I have no memory of my own so You will have to do, dead I hope You don’t mind being the sitter.
BURN YOUR BONES I’m looking at the trees because That’s all there is to look at Existence non-existence, beauty Is beautiful although their bare. The sun shines through the naked Branch and lights up my day. It and I keep reaching higher like A bud does in blue/grey sky. I hear the blackbirds out there Cawing nurturing nature’s way. I can see the bottom/top today. Nature has its way of showing it all It throws a coin, nearest to the wall. It shows me I have won just like The blackbirds caw, there’s food on That their soil, nourishment for Another day to feast not to toil. Roots they make me stronger reach down ever higher, you can burn your bones on this funeral pyre.
MISALLIANCE Structures sacred in stroke time- Now, why are they no good to me. I want to make something when Recalled not imagined but memory Eludes me? I hear the mumble Of my own tongue. The painters Vision is a lens, it trembles to caress my sight. Everything I write is the bare- thread art of eye. Shot-snap, grouped life on high, un-balanced paralyzed fact misalliance. ‘yet why not say what happened’, Robert Lowell said. Pray for the accuracy of grace. Giving rise to the suns illumination Yearning, stealing like a tide Across a map, solid, passing poor Facts. To give each figure in the photo A living name. #191 on top 500 poets
THE DAY GOD DIED ON HOLY CROSS HILL I only remember now because I writ it down It was nineteen seventy or seventy-one I climbed the steps like a good Christian boy Armed with a missal and all of my joy. Gunfire burst behind me on the Crumlin Road For god and ulster, the sky was told. I looked up to the great doors threw my missal away And ran home crying, I cried all the way To this day, I still can’t fathom why he done that Three people lay dead at his feet, flat. All for green and orange on holy cross hill. I can’t live with that god within my shoes That day you burst my bubble, gave me the blues. Now I give it back to you, in bleeding words God, you are a bastard who lives dies by the sword. I want nothing to do with you, ill follow the way The way is true and tender, beauty is a beautiful day. Death is part of life I know but this was for your cause You have torn us all to shreds for this peaceful pause. The English and the Irish are at
MAGNIFIED I struggle with my pipe each-day With a paralyzed hand, one To hold and one to light it. I want To get down to the nitty gritty What’s missing from my life? It’s not intellect or imagination. It’s just the stuff of life, the stuff That gets us through the day. The surreal glue that bonds Reality to mythology, the cold Hate prize. I live to shite an- Other day that’s my hate prize. I want to under-stand stroke To give me a fix. You understand My frustration, I fed you every line. Now it’s poetic stuffs turn to blow My mind. I don’t want fire works Displays or anything like that, just Plain speech, words magnified by Water, step forward to step back Read write withdraw, then every- Thing is clear. SIMPLY BE, TRANSLATED TAO BY LAO TZU TO HELP ME UNDERSTAND Part one 1. The way that can be crushed is not the way. All in the world know beauty is beautiful Be clear and kind and true, be true to yourself. W
CAN-NOT I was trying to reach beyond my stroke But I don’t think I can, my memory was Shot to bits like torn photos can- Not bring my memory back. No detail comes to mind, stroke is like My birth, the day date and time. These words are my memory In a deep vein thermal image man. I can’t go to another level, be- Cause there isn’t any. I sit here All alone of many, many a day I done this and that without clarity. It’s clear that I can’t find a way through So, I’ll just have to settle for, I haven’t Got a clue?
A BASTARD INKLING Black hills, black river, black road black- House, Blackstar. This is an inkling of What I make of me? A smudge on so- ciety that one day you will see? Stamp my Black-star my trajectory. I might not be able to walk but I’ll stand up on my own two feet. War and ignorance held me down For years, now it’s time to get off the streets. I don’t need that bastard god to tell me what to do, I’ve got one of my own. It has raped and abused this land, placebo effect my home. The black waters flow under above me And create aurora-bore-A-list I don’t come from a bleeding fucking fist. You can stick your red hand, where It doesn’t belong. We have been living In your shadow of your far of shore For far too fucking long. Dectera delivered An afterbirth and we were slain, its time For reality to feel the pouring rain. The gae-bolg tore his innards like A six-inch nailed hurling stick a punishment attack. We have kill
DISABILITY LIVING ALLOWANCE Ten years living on middle rate, trying to be an independent thing. I don’t know how I survived living with a blackhole ring. She was my only love, when no one else was around. I live in a welfare state, loving a cold grey thing A slab on the soiled ground. Six by three or Three by six Either way It’s me Through life and death she kept me strong, always within but wrong was right there in the ground she was my happy thing. I hate to use the word happy for me it does not sing but I can hear the Ma and her Dublin brogue, singing Molly Malone alive, alive oh!
THE LAST TEN YEARS For Mark Eitzel The last ten years have been rough And ready, almost killed me thrice. Words make me resilient And pulled me through it twice. My balance is broken elastic No sinew, tendon stretch. The last ten years has been a struggle But you saw me through grief and trouble. The last half an hour I’ve seen double Poetry jukebox and glebe house Has given me hope, with your songs Of wild, wild sea I hit the ground running. My ex-girlfriend told you I spent all yesterday Crying, I know we must find our own way out. Your songs give me strength and lots of hope I hope to see you again in Dublin one day. I feel like Mr. Humphries in that room five In a lyrical sway, your way.
THANK YOU The next pome I write will have memory Right in the middle of it. A childhood. Mickey Marley’s merry go round and a big red balloon with Tucker O Neill coming behind, the rag and bone man. I’ll sit here until doomsday, I haven’t motioned A motion in four day’s NOW . Somebody said From my schooldays , ‘you can work it out With a pencil’ but I’m not going there. You can stick memory right up your ass! I’ll just sit here pondering, will I ever rise again. At least this got a good pome if nothing else Inspired by Raymond Carver of course. If only he could see me get back into my wheel- chair he would have been proud. After that I’m having a smoke, oh for a fag! I filled my pipe and wrote the word ‘ WON’ in big letters on my tobacco pouch.
LOU READ ‘Read seeds not twigs’ Ezra Pound Reading W.S. Merwin selected translations,this is my stab in the dark, from the mean streets. Everyone should read Lou Reed over and over and over. I’ll be your mirror, reflect what you are ‘Between thought and expression’, ‘pass thru fire’. Somebody else would have broken both of her arms That’s the difference between wrong and right Shows just how wrong you can be. Lou Reed gave me everything, everything and more Pale blue eyes, that I just don’t know And that’s the long and short of it. There’s nobody but you, inside my thoughts as the rhythmic thoughts subside. Different colour’s made of tears, nobody called In a way you’re the best friend I ever had. The image of the poet is in the breeze Canadian geese are flying over trees A mist is hanging gently on the lake Our house is very beautiful tonight. Wash the razor in the rain I’m waiting for my
AMELIA EARHART Amelia Earhart never went down She crash-landed on the Marshall Islands, held by Japanese military rule And died a prisoner on Saipan. The much-touted new evidence shows A photo found by a federal agent. The U.S. government covered It up But Earhart is clearly seen with The plane in the back ground, ashore. They promised us transparency And this is what we got.
ICONOCLASTIC Why are people so slushy sentimental? The reigns of god are deep in us, a bit Between our teeth. We won’t ever be Able to move on, he or it will kill us. Die a death to evolve, for that day I can’t wait, free to stand on our own Two feet, wow what a day, free-fall. PLACEBO EFFECT PART1. I find it very hard these days to focus on positivity, Alina Feld said in her study of melancholy, “the self knows its light only by knowing its darkness”. My darkness it seems is projected from within, I live within the state of melancholy but I hope this essay shines a little light in the dark. I am not coming to this essay trying to shove something down your throat. I have searched and searched for the answer, but even in my hours of near-death, I found the same answers as you. I believe I have been given a second chance for a reason but I'm not asking you to believe in something that fundamentally contradicts itself. I believe what I believe, it’s jus
WELL BEING I’m at the breakfast, dinner, lunch table With the usual early morning stuff Poetry scrambled egg and coffee. The bench is bolted to the wall For wheelchair access. The trees outside are almost bare but that’s enough of them, I must go in to go out. The piles of books on my radiator Add warmth, act as my comfort blanket its snug and cozy here but it lacks just one thing Memory. An active imagination won’t bring it back but It gives me a sense of artistic meaning And that’s half the battle.