AS THIS MOMENT THOU ART

The wood shavings curl &
curl to my father's voice

as he sings to the wood
releasing its scent

wave upon wave
of pine

crashing upon
this shore of summer

its morning long
forgotten.

This wood will shape shift
into a chair leg

dovetailing into
the song he sings

as the wood listens
to every syllable

as if his singing
coaxed into being

chair leg...window frame
stool or saddle.

"Oh believe me if al those
endearing young charms..."

and the wood swoons
to his planing

'''...that I gaze at so
fondly today."

Moore's melodies and pine
reaches back in time

to grasp
the moment

lost to my mind
but now returning

to its rightful place
as wood becomes chair leg

to my father's
singing



BELIEVE ME IF ALL THOSE ENDEARING YOUNG CHARMS

Air—My Lodging is on the cold Ground

I.
Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,
    Which I gaze on so fondly to-day,
Were to change by to-morrow, and fleet in my arms,
    Like fairy-gifts fading away,—
Thou wouldst still be ador'd as this moment thou art,
    Let thy loveliness fade as it will;
And, around the dear ruin each wish of my heart
    Would entwine itself verdantly still!

II.
It is not while beauty and youth are thine own,
    And thy cheeks unprofan'd by a tear,
That the fervour and faith of a soul can be known,
    To which time will but make thee more dear!
Oh! the heart, that has truly lov'd, never forgets,
    But as truly loves on to the close;
As the sun-flower turns on her god, when he sets,
    The same look which she turn'd when he rose!

PÚCA ULCHABHÁN( GHOST OWL)

"So, it's afraid of the dark y'are?"
Uncle Mikey squints at me.

I give a nod hoping
the dark doesn't hear me.

This is not just dark
but country dark.

Unable to even catch sight of
my own hand in front of my face.

As if the darkness
had solidified around me.

My body melted away
and I only a tangle of thoughts

floating through the air
being both there and not there.

"Sure don't ya know
your grandfather was born a ghost!"

Uncle Mikey attempts to
comfort my six year old self

"And sure wasn't your grandmother
a banshee for over a century or more!"

Granny in her chair
turns up her eyes.

I sit stunned at
all these revelations.

"And your grandfather
had a terrible habit of

turning into
an owl!"

I can hardly believe
what I am hearing.

"So if the dark
ever comes after ya..."

"Yes...yes...!"
I wait with baited breath.

"Then your grandfather
will give a hoot and

no one not even the dark will argue
with a  a natural born ghost!"

Outside an owl hoots.
Uncle smiles to himself.

After that the dark can't
lay a finger on me.

*

Nyctophobia struck deep into the heart of my six year old self. I was a townie and the dark never touched me until I experienced Cork country dark which was terrifying...you simply vanished into it as if it had consumed you and you were in the belly of the beast. Uncle Mikey had a unique way of dissolving the dark for me and did a good impression of an owl as well.

It was a strange sort of comforting but it worked...after that I always thought the dark was afraid of me and didn't want to argue with a natural born ghost!

MANY CHILDREN AGO

an old broken doll
remembers her first Christmas
many children ago

now,
only the rain
plays with her hair

*

Whilst "helping" me in the garden...sifting sand like flour...Tilly discovered an eye looking up at her..."The ground is looking at me!" It turned out to be a broken Victorian doll who was glad to see us after all this time and adopted us at once. To my little one this old thing was a living being just like her self and she cried and cried and cried. She slept that night with dreams pouring out of her porcelain skull with a Tilly cuddled up beside her.

I was teaching my little 8 year olds how to write a haiku so I wrote this on the blackboard...it just emerged from the chalk! I had started to show them how with the extra two lines we could extend it into a tanka and was working on it when the bell went and so...it just remained as it was...work in progress..

TALKING TO THE FOLKS

I was talking to the folks
back in oh

I don't know
1904?

They didn't know me and
I didn't know them

from Adam
but what the heck

folks is folks.

They were my folks
living their 1904 lives

unaware of a me
they didn't exist

as yet.

My Granda hadn't as yet
got around to making

my Da and my Da
hadn't yet invented me.

Not even a photo exists
of who they used to be.

No black&white or sepia people
to ponder upon and wonder.

Hey he's wearing my ear
and she's got my smile

plastered all over
her face.

And so I go
back to the past

walk the roads
they walked

see the skies
they lived under

listen to them talk
the things they may have said

lean against a wall
they would have leant against

solid brick against my back
soaking up the sun

of 1904.

"Howdy folks!"
I'd say

leaping out of my time
machine of words.

And the folks would say:
"So, you're Donall, eh?"

in their kind Dempsey way
smile their 1904 smiles.

"Delighted to meet you at
. . .last."

they'd laugh
in their Corkonian way.

"Them words are a mighty fine
time machine!"

nodding their heads
in time.

"What's it run on?"
they'd ask

in their 1904 way.

"Oh...!" I'd say
in my 21st Century voice

"Thought,
just
pure thought!"

LOVE CHARM

I kiss your philtrum
and you moan.

I lick a tiny trickle
of sweat

from it.

I know
it has no

apparent function
& survives

between your delightful nose
& your delicious upper lip.

But what
of it?

A kiss
fits

so
neatly

into
it.

And leads to lips
& lips upon lips

ending in an ******
ellipsis . . .

I love to look
upon it

as the indent left
by the finger of God

or where an angel
shushes the yet-to-be-born

teaching it to forget
all it has learned

in the world
of the womb.

I kiss again
your philtrum

a kiss
fits

so
neatly

into
it.

NOW, WE IS: 60!

A Year 8 child
enquires how old I be?

"I be
just...60!"

He gasps.

"My God...you're very active
for 60!"

60 for him is
a distant planet

in a galaxy far far
from here.

Yea...another
dimension.

I smile my 60 year old smile
perfected by now.

I am starlight
that will only reach him

when he is
60 himself

if he ever
remembers what he has

long ago
forgotten.

*

"For today is part of yesterday. And yesterday and today are parts of being alive. And being alive is not just an affair of the days going clonk-clonk like the pendulum of a grandfather clock:being alive is something continuous, that does not repeat; something that one should be aware of all the time, sleeping and waking. . .
it may not last much longer."

John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Benyon Harris aka
JOHN WYNDHAM

"Wild Flower" from THE SEEDS OF TIME.

LE RÊVE DE LA CHAMBRE

the room
so much

wanted
to get outside

of itself
always its dream

its windows were
constantly telling

of the world
they looked upon

but this was just
a story to the room

it envied the furniture
which came and went

telling of adventures
and other lives

that they had lived
almost as interesting

as the room's humans
who also came and went

with great regularity
as if there were a constant

crop of them
face after face

tomorrow was
demolition day

maybe there was
a new life to be had

*

One day the room was beside itself it was so eager to get outside itself but then the next day it had no self and was no longer a room just empty space with only the memory of itself standing in the air. I hope it is enjoying itself in its new occupation as a a breeze and a piece of sky.