ALL TAFFETA & TULLE

frightened by the storm
he crawls under
his mother’s skirts

all taffeta & tulle
clinging to her
ankles

before falling
asleep
upon her feet

she continues playing
her cards right
winning all before her

as the candles
gutter
and almost go out

she remembers her body
wrapped about him
her flesh

protecting his innocence
as now her dress
encloses his sleeping

unconsciously stroking
his hair
with her left foot

his dreams
now
pooled at her feet

LITTLE RED PLANET

Like a perfect little planet
the tiniest strawberry of ever & ever

sat in the universe
of your palm

us two
nothing but specks
(you in a blue dress)  

in the middle of the hugest field
in the world

green as
Forever is.

“Eat it..! ”
you laugh
“...in one bite! ”

Offering me the little red planet
in the universe of your open hand.

I lap at it
licking up the taste of it

intense as
the taste

of ever & ever is

the deliciousness
of your laughter

but the money
in the meter of memory

runs out

and the loveliness
of your laughter

delicious as
a little red planet

(the salty tang of your hand)  

hides
once again

in the mystery of Time.

LEACHT CUIMHNEACHÁIN
( Memorial Monument )

Oh if only I
had an ounce

of your laughter
an iota of a smile

but you are where
all measurement falls away

and time itself
tatters and tears

fades

memory both
blessing and curse

the ghost
of the mind.

I make you a cairn
adding word upon word.

I call your name
to make you real again

"Brian...Brian. . .Brian!"



Yet another anniversary of my little brother's death who was taken from us so early. Sadness stains everything and loneliness bites to the bone.

The best thing I can say about myself is that I am. . .
BRIAN DEMPSEY'S BROTHER


He was chopping wood and I was gathering turf when I had to remark on a little heap of stones: "Ha look at that Bud...ya would swear blind someone had built them up!" And he said: "Yeah...I did!" It looked both natural and at the same time had an arrangement ya wouldn't find in nature. Bud said: "Ya know when ya told me that there is always a little collection of stones placed in some pattern on French graves....well, when I am working I just take a stone from here and there over a period of time and let it build into whatever shape it wants to be. I call it a monument to the moment and I build them ever since Mam died. I take bits and bobs from the landscape and build them to touch the sky in their own little way to talk to herl...to somehow reach her in this little simple act. People either notice or they don't...or walk through them and I just build another  and another in time time after time.

I do this now for him...my little brother and for my Da. But I also build a cairn of words placing one on top of another and let them find their own way and their own balance. So if you are ever passing Dempesys and see a little clump of stones stolen from the landscape to talk to the sky then ya know who they are talking to.

With such little things does one try to fight off the immense sorrow and loneliness.

Words and stones...stones and words...both are never enough...never enough.

TIME PASSES

the tick tick of the bike
a dog barks
letter on a Welcome mat

the midnight tick of time
the house sighs
Dad's whistle

ambushed by the smell
of honeysuckle
I fall into the Past

red barn
blue sky
a summer to last forever

Caruso 78
I listen to the scratches
like Time trying to sing along

I kiss the whorl
of a fingertip then
the all of you

your body
drifting away from me
on a tide of hurt

"I don't like the way
your eyes
touch me!"

starlings fly up
I walk upon close bitten grass
a sheep laughs

a car rusts on the beach
the roofless house
looks out to sea

the sea is sleeping
I watch it breathing
wonder what it's dreaming

the house hunkers down
its window eyes
gaze upon the coming storm

crouching under a cloud
a mountain
frightened by the storm

walking upon
the meniscus of sleep
unable to dive in

& here you are
years later looking like
an out of focus photo of your self

THE WORLD STANDS STILL
( for Ray Pool )

here a flash
of horse

( was it
brown or black? )

there leaping lambs
here leaping lambs

trees finding it im-
possible to keep up

a river giving it a good go: but
...falling behind also

a cow...acowandanothercow: now
all run to-get-her

the 3.33
snorting at the station

pawing at the platform
in a huff

an iron horse
hooting like a mechanical owl

hoooOOOOOOOOOO
ahhhhh at last

the world stands
still.

*

And when ya stick yer head out the window 'cos ya just can't help it and ya know ya have to...you come back in covered in soot and cinders all in yer hair. Ahhh the sheer physicality of it all!

THE HUMANS IN THE ROOM
( for Harry Owen )

"Well..?" said the elephant
"Yeah..." said the dragon
"...it was just as you said!

there I stood
in the middle of the room
huffin' 'n' a puffin'

and nobody
I mean nobody
paid any attention to me."

"See..." trumppted the elephant
I told ya and ya just
didn't believe me...did ya!"

I mean what is it ..."" dragon growled
with humans
it was like I was invisible"

so elephant & dragon
had a party of their own
invited hall the zoo

and any mythical creatures
that they knew
or ones they could imagine

"Humans can go...(hic)
to hell for all
I ****** well care!"

"You can say that again!"
whinnied a half drunk unicorn
dragon lighting its cigarette


"Humans can go...(hic)
to hell...." roared the elephant
getting very very(hic)sick

THE KIND OF THINGS POETS THINK/DO

all its little life
the triangle longed to be
a circle

"I want to get around!"
it piped up
in its little Isosceles voice

"It's...it's preposterous!"
screamed his mother Scalenely
"...whoever heard of such a thing!"

"You should be proud of your lines!"
scolded its grandpa
Equilaterally

"A triangle can not be..."
said his Papa in a right angled kind of way
"...anything other than a triangle!"

"I always felt I was a circle
trapped inside
a triangle's body!"

one day a passing poet
eavesdropped in an idle moment
on what the lines were saying

"Why ever not...why
ever not" said the poet
poet chaps tend to think like that

so he erased the brave
little Isosceles
drew him again as a circle

"Wheee!"
laughed the former Isosceles triangle
delighting in its circle-ness

this is the kind of things
poets think of
poets do


*


Ahhhh this wasn't Maths...this was play...teaching Tilly her triangles as a bedtime story. and the technical terms didn't phase her as they were just luscious sounds and she went marching about the house the next day proclaiming isosceles in a a loud declamatory tone with lots and lots of spit....scalene was also a delight to say with barred teeth which she used to frightened the cat...equal...lat...or real was her brave attempt at the other...so she knew her shapes and what was what and had a lot of fun doing it...she was only 5....and a little tomboy....someone had told her that girls can't do that...so as well as teaching her her triangles....she was also being told that hey....you think it...you can do it...she was only 5....and a little tomboy....someone had told her that girls can't do that...so as well as teaching her her triangles....she was also being told that hey....you think it...you can do it...

This was Tilly's TELL ME A STORY! one night in the long long ago-ness of her girlhood. Little did I know I would be still telling it all these years later..wonders will never cease.