Beating heart blush out my blood
Then rest then rest then rest then rest

Cresting waves crash on my shore
Recede recede recede recede

Howling gale you lash at me
Then breathe then breathe then breathe then breathe

Universe you stream away
Return return return return

In life we fill then die away
In darkness our constricted iris widens

Our life , like a time-lapse nature film plays out:
We grow, we wilt
We bolt and quiver to life
Then stagger back to earth
Eaten up to live again

Everywhere this motif
As humble as the bloat in the frog's throat
Systole, diastole
Our beating hearts our gasping breaths
Onwards, always, our lives lived outwards
Filled at rest

Before, I couldn’t see you
I would write about your eyes
Your smile
Your hair
All cliche, all flat
I couldn’t write
How I tried
Now I see you...

I see a green mantis
I see your freckled patina in that photo with the perfect light
I see you engaging the waiter in conversation
I see your long limbs loosely crossed
Cradling your herbal tea and segmenting your orange
I see you

The soft nape of your neck is in my dreams

I see you swimming ahead in the river,
I see your joy in that, and remember me needing to turn back
I see us crouched on the railway sleeper,
The last of the sun crossing us
While the washing up waits
The beer dries on our lips
We sit looking back at your home

I see the young and sexless person you told me about
Your nose in a book on the family holiday

I see the flicker of self-doubt
the slow rising tear that doesn’t spill over
being all things,
mother, worker, friend, lover

I see all the things you are not
that I projected onto you
Now I see you

Your bird-spine curves to the roof of my mouth, confetti-skull sticks to the back of my teeth. Your wet heart beats on my tongue, small lungs press in for sleep.

In silence, I carry you. In words, I carry you. I hear you breathe. Feel your dreams furl and unfurl, fern-like to term - and I miss you. I miss you. I miss you.

In pieces, I carry you. In love, I carry you. I feel shame. Not for letting you go - for letting it in. I know what happens to children like you, with fathers like him.

We built a little night
but you emptied it.

Your Dublin beachhead
is all undertow.

Dead menus blow from
one gutter to the next.

Westward parks
fill with fever.

A gibbeted sun
hangs ignored.

O darling...
I'm not this way,

I'm not this way -
remember what I am.

I wake reciting lines
mouthing syllables
I thought were gone

Coldly raging
at the same hollow loss
on the edge of my dreams
you are turning away

How does it feel?

It feels like my child-dreams
the soundless screaming descent
into bottle-green dark
as the light recedes to a halo
I know I am dying

I wake drenched in this
my thoughts turn you over
and over and I ask
Could I ever have read you?

I leafed through you, yes
then put you aside
left your pages
fluttering


27/12/20

Rhythmic
Tearing
Cow on grass
Settling rooks
Cross sky
All around
Sound playing
Scent
On wind
Descending
Sun
Gold leafing
The horizon
Obscuration
Veiling arc
And furrow
Crop
And shadow
Poplar lined
Fields below
Quiet here
Above
A moment
Passes
Contrast sharpens
Trees recede
Into darkness
Sun bleeds
Into Earth

When I ate with you
in Merrion Square,

flicking rain
from my eyes

as it wandered down
from the jailing trees,

had you already decided
to leave me?

There I sat, thinking
I was Orpheus,

come to Dublin
to return my lover

to my world,
not looking back

at what she did,
not ever looking back.

There you sat, knowing
I was Eurydice -

to be given one last longing look
before I was pulled

from Merrion Square,
from Dublin, raked over

the sea changes,
until all I had was the dark,

the jilted dark
of the bedroom

that doubled
as a hell.