HAUNTING MY OWN GHOST

My ghost hung around
waiting for me to kick

the bucket so it could
take my place.

I shouted: "Now, just hold on
a moment I am

not dead...gasp....gasp
-  yet."

"Oh hurry up and get on
with it!"

it screamed back.

Well...I never.

"It's hard being here but
not all there

if you know what I
mean...a ghost's gotta do

what a ghost's gotta do!"

Anytime anyone
came into the sickroom

my ghost crawled
up the wall or

hid behind the curtains
blending un-successfully into

the dreadful wallpaper.

But somehow
the kicked bucket

stabilised itself and
regained an equilibrium.

My ghost
assuming the worst

had now being
caught out

of its comfort zone
and had to pretend

to be my shadow
or my reflection

and learn to smile
at me through gritted teeth.

Me now the picture
of health.

I haunting my own ghost
with my continued living.

"I'ill get you for this!"
it snarls from the mirror.

"Oh go rattle your chains!"
I yell and flounce out of the room.

It hopes I die
...soonish.

HAVING HIS SHOES SHINED

Outside, it is
:1835.

A man is having
his shoes shined

at the last tree
before the corner of

Rue de Temple.

He's there at least
a good 15 minutes.

He can see his face
reflected in the toe tip

of his right foot
looking back up at him.

All the other humans
have vanished into smoke

become ghosts
of ghosts.

Anything that moves is lost
in the long exposure.

Daguerre holds
his breath.

Time has a habit of
disappearing.

Daguerre seizes the light
arrests it in its flight.

Nearly 200 years later
the man is still

having his shoes shined.

HAVING MISTAKEN YOU PERHAPS FOR YESTERDAY?

"Am I supposed to be dying. . ?"

Death
that person from Porlock

answers
quietly ". . .yes."

"gently gently gentleness ...
...the dark was talking to the dead"

Louis I loved
your "drunkenness

of things being
various"

you so "incorrigibly plural"

with your rather curious
Englished Irishness.

Me when I was
the me of 12 and a day

walking 30 miles
home from Dublin

with the record
of your voice

clutched in my hand

not noticing the miles
"Time was away

...and somewhere else."

"..HAVING NEW EYES..."

here, it appeared
the house paused
upon the mountain top

as if to gaze
upon a sunset
and then: move on again

startled to be caught
on the move
or emerging out of mist

as if revealing
the secret that
houses walked

we always laughed
called it
"the ghost that walks"

or the trees
running down the mountain side
to greet us

warmly welcoming us
with outstretched branches
speaking with the wind's voice

a tiny flower curved around
the toe of my boot
a gentle reminder to look...really look

a bell melted into the air
becoming the silence
it had broken

"..HAVING NEW EYES..."

here, it appeared
the house paused
upon the mountain top

as if to gaze
upon a sunset
and then: move on again

startled to be caught
on the move
or emerging out of mist

as if revealing
the secret that
houses walked

we always laughed
called it
"the ghost that walks"

or the trees
running down the mountain side
to greet us

warmly welcoming us
with outstretched branches
speaking with the wind's voice

a tiny flower curved around
the toe of my boot
a gentle reminder to look...really look

a bell melted into the air
becoming the silence
it had broken

"..HAVING NEW EYES..."

here, it appeared
the house paused
upon the mountain top

as if to gaze
upon a sunset
and then: move on again

startled to be caught
on the move
or emerging out of mist

as if revealing
the secret that
houses walked

we always laughed
called it
"the ghost that walks"

or the trees
running down the mountain side
to greet us

warmly welcoming us
with outstretched branches
speaking with the wind's voice

a tiny flower curved around
the toe of my boot
a gentle reminder to look...really look

a bell melted into the air
becoming the silence
it had broken

HAVING THE TIME

my first Dutch disco
clinging to the wall
your cliched wallflower

a beautiful blonde
enquires of me
"Have you got the time?"

"Yes it's just about
midnight"
she looks nonplused

"No no!" she smiles
you have the time
...yes?"

only realise
she's asking
me to dance

we hit the floor
she a whirling dervish
a tornado on legs

"What..!" she yells
above Blondie's
"Rip her to shreds!"

"...is your name please?"
"Donall!" I yell back
she looks aghast

slaps me hard
across the face
storms off

just then JE T'AIME
is spun by the DJ
just for fun

"Oh, my love
Like the undecided wave
You’re the wave, me the naked island"

couples clinch
and smooch
I do the walk of shame

her had imprinted
on my burning cheek
cling to the wall

trying to disappear
into its pattern
of flowers


"Come, let me sing into your ear;
Those dancing days are gone,"
Yeats whispers in my ear

"Leave it out, W.B."
I snap at the dead
poet's ghost

Yeats laughs dances off
"I carry the sun in a golden cup,
The moon in a silver bag."

for ever after
I ask Dutch friends
"Now don't get mad but..."

I take a step back
"What does Donall
mean in Dutch?"

"Why...nothing?" they answer
"Nothing!" I say
"Yes...nothing!" they affirm

and so the mystery remains
I still feel the sting of her
slap all these years after

!HEART GALLERY!

You step forth
from your bath

as if you were
a Bonard

come alive

spread yourself
across crisp cool sheets

as sensationally
sensuous

as a Modigliani
****

or a Noguchi
sculpture.

Here, you
Matisse

if only
for a brief

moment now so
Ernst!

Now so
playfully Picasso...ish!

I smile
as you Vermeer!

"Come here
& kiss me!"

You my Magritte!

You my Dali!

You my laughing walking talking
'art gallery!

HEART GALLERY

You step forth
from your bath

as if you were
a Bonard

come alive

spread yourself
across crisp cool sheets

as sensationally
sensuous

as a Modigliani
****

or a Noguchi
sculpture.

Here, you
Matisse

if only
for a brief

moment now so
Ernst!

Now so
playfully Picasso...ish!

I smile
as you Vermeer!

"Come here
& kiss me!"

You my Magritte!

You my Dali!

You my laughing walking talking
'art gallery!

HEART GALLERY

you step forth
from your bath
as if

you were
a Bonnard
come alive

spread yourself
across crisp cool sheets
as sensationally

sensuous
as a Modigliani ****
or a Noguchi sculpture

here you
Matisse
if only

for a brief
moment now so
Ernst

now so
playfully
Picasso...ish

I smile
as you
Vermeer

"Come here & kiss me!"
you my Magritte
you my Dali

You my laughing
walking talking
'art gallery

HEART GALLERY

You step forth
from your bath

as if you were
a Bonard

come alive

spread yourself
across crisp cool sheets

as sensationally
sensuous

as a Modigliani
****

or a Noguchi
sculpture.

Here, you
Matisse

if only
for a brief

moment now so
Ernst!

Now so
playfully Picasso...ish!

I smile
as you Vermeer!

"Come here
& kiss me!"

You my Magritte!

You my Dali!

You my laughing walking talking
'art gallery!

HE DO THAT TED HUGHES IN DIFFERENT VOICES

Nothing but
- a waste land.

Crow is bored

perched upon a branch
like a haiku

waiting to happen
but where

is a haiku
poet when

one really needs one.

Crows agree to play
Charades.

One falls to the forest floor
clutching its chest shouting

"Aghhhhh ya...got me
I'm  a gonner!"

Then another and another
with a more cornier

one-liner than
the one before

looking more like spilled ink
than the last.

Crows having a blast
laughing their feathers off.

All big Film
Noir fans.

"Yeah, yeah...I got it
a ****** of crows!"

Across a hillside
a human stands

as if he had just sprouted
out of the land.

An Easter Island
of a man.

The sneer of cold command
upon those chiseled lips.

An Ozymandias!
"Look upon my mighty words and despair!"

Or more like
a granite gryphon

glaring at the crows' play
turning them over in his mind

until they
become words.

"Oh not that ******
Ted Huges again!"

Crow mutters
to itself.

The poet unaware
that human thought

hangs frozen on the air
on such days as these.

The giant Hughes man
a poet made of iron

by some process of
emotional osmosis

absorbs their world and words
making it up as he goes along

for he great poet though he be
never learned to speak Crow.

The great man glares
at the sun

willing it into submission
the sun falters on a hillside.

He disappears into the snow
his fragile footprints

vanishing in a trice
lost to time

as if he has
never been born.

Crow does his best
impression

mocks and mimics
the human's thought.

"Nailing Heaven and earth together -

So man cried, but with God's voice.
And God bled, but with man's blood. "

A bell breaks
the sky's silence

crows scatter to
the heavens.

"Oh that Charlie
Crow...he is a one!"

One crow smirks to another.

"He do that Ted Hughes
to a tee!"    

*

T.S. Eliot’s 1922 masterpiece “The Waste Land” was originally titled “He Do the Police in Different Voices,” a quote from Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend.

I went to see Ted Hughes at the Royal Festival Hall after an extensive day and night shiftwork in mental health for about four days as staff went sick or simply didn't turn up.. Couldn't remember if I was to meet my ******* Thursday in Friday street or not or wot. I was right under his lectern and he looked immense ;and a lot like Sam the Eagle in the Muppet Show in looks and manner. I kept falling asleep between syllables and would **** myself awake and every time I did so I would get that fierce Hughesian glare!

HE DO THAT TED HUGHES IN DIFFERENT VOICES

Nothing but
- a waste land.

Crow is bored

perched upon a branch
like a haiku

waiting to happen
but where

is a haiku
poet when

one really needs one.

Crows agree to play
Charades.

One falls to the forest floor
clutching its chest shouting

"Aghhhhh ya...got me
I'm  a gonner!"

Then another and another
with a more cornier

one-liner than
the one before

looking more like spilled ink
than the last.

Crows having a blast
laughing their feathers off.

All big Film
Noir fans.

"Yeah, yeah...I got it
a ****** of crows!"

Across a hillside
a human stands

as if he had just sprouted
out of the land.

An Easter Island
of a man.

The sneer of cold command
upon those chiselled lips.

An Ozymandias!
"Look upon my mighty words and despair!"

Or more like
a granite gryphon

glaring at the crows' play
turning them over in his mind

until they
become words.

"Oh not that ******
Ted Hughes again!"

Crow mutters
to itself.

The poet unaware
that human thought

hangs frozen on the air
on such days as these.

The giant Hughes man
a poet made of iron

by some process of
emotional osmosis

absorbs their world and words
making it up as he goes along

for he great poet though he be
never learned to speak Crow.

The great man glares
at the sun

willing it into submission
the sun falters on a hillside.

He disappears into the snow
his fragile footprints

vanishing in a trice
lost to time

as if he has
never been born.

Crow does his best
impression

mocks and mimics
the human's thought.

"Nailing Heaven and earth together -

So man cried, but with God's voice.
And God bled, but with man's blood. "

A bell breaks
the sky's silence

crows scatter to
the heavens.

"Oh that Charlie
Crow...he is a one!"

One crow smirks to another.

"He do that Ted Hughes
to a tee!"

HE DO THAT TED HUGHES IN DIFFERENT VOICES

Nothing but
- a waste land.

Crow is bored

perched upon a branch
like a haiku

waiting to happen
but where

is a haiku
poet when

one really needs one.

Crows agree to play
Charades.

One falls to the forest floor
clutching its chest shouting

"Aghhhhh ya...got me
I'm  a gonner!"

Then another and another
with a more cornier

one-liner than
the one before

looking more like spilled ink
than the last.

Crows having a blast
laughing their feathers off.

All big Film
Noir fans.

"Yeah, yeah...I got it
a ****** of crows!"

Across a hillside
a human stands

as if he had just sprouted
out of the land.

An Easter Island
of a man.

The sneer of cold command
upon those chiseled lips.

An Ozymandias!
"Look upon my mighty words and despair!"

Or more like
a granite gryphon

glaring at the crows' play
turning them over in his mind

until they
become words.

"Oh not that ******
Ted Hughes again!"

Crow mutters
to itself.

The poet unaware
that human thought

hangs frozen on the air
on such days as these.

The giant Hughes man
a poet made of iron

by some process of
emotional osmosis

absorbs their world and words
making it up as he goes along

for he great poet though he be
never learned to speak Crow.

The great man glares
at the sun

willing it into submission
the sun falters on a hillside.

He disappears into the snow
his fragile footprints

vanishing in a trice
lost to time

as if he has
never been born.

Crow does his best
impression

mocks and mimics
the human's thought.

"Nailing Heaven and earth together -

So man cried, but with God's voice.
And God bled, but with man's blood. "

A bell breaks
the sky's silence

crows scatter to
the heavens.

"Oh that Charlie
Crow...he is a one!"

One crow smirks to another.

"He do that Ted Hughes
to a tee!"

*

T.S. Eliot’s 1922 masterpiece “The Waste Land” was originally titled “He Do the Police in Different Voices,” a quote from Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend.


I went to see Ted Hughes at the Royal Festival Hall after an extensive day and night shift work in mental health for about four days as staff went sick or simply didn't turn up.. Couldn't remember if I was to meet my ******* Thursday in Friday street or not or wot. I was right under his lectern and he looked immense  and a lot like Sam the Eagle in the Muppet Show in looks and manner. I kept falling asleep between syllables and would **** myself awake and every time I did so I would get that fierce Hughesian glare!

HE DO THAT TED HUGHES IN DIFFERENT VOICES

Nothing but
- a waste land.

Crow is bored

perched upon a branch
like a haiku

waiting to happen
but where

is a haiku
poet when

one really needs one.

Crows agree to play
Charades.

One falls to the forest floor
clutching its chest shouting

"Aghhhhh ya...got me
I'm  a gonner!"

Then another and another
with a more cornier

one-liner than
the one before

looking more like spilled ink
than the last.

Crows having a blast
laughing their feathers off.

All big Film
Noir fans.

"Yeah, yeah...I got it
a ****** of crows!"

Across a hillside
a human stands

as if he had just sprouted
out of the land.

An Easter Island
of a man.

The sneer of cold command
upon those chiseled lips.

An Ozymandias!
"Look upon my mighty words and despair!"

Or more like
a granite gryphon

glaring at the crows' play
turning them over in his mind

until they
become words.

"Oh not that ******
Ted Hughes again!"

Crow mutters
to itself.

The poet unaware
that human thought

hangs frozen on the air
on such days as these.

The giant Hughes man
a poet made of iron

by some process of
emotional osmosis

absorbs their world and words
making it up as he goes along

for he great poet though he be
never learned to speak Crow.

The great man glares
at the sun

willing it into submission
the sun falters on a hillside.

He disappears into the snow
his fragile footprints

vanishing in a trice
lost to time

as if he has
never been born.

Crow does his best
impression

mocks and mimics
the human's thought.

"Nailing Heaven and earth together -

So man cried, but with God's voice.
And God bled, but with man's blood. "

A bell breaks
the sky's silence

crows scatter to
the heavens.

"Oh that Charlie
Crow...he is a one!"

One crow smirks to another.

"He do that Ted Hughes
to a tee!"

HE DO THAT TED HUGHES IN DIFFERENT VOICES

Nothing but
- a waste land.

Crow is bored

perched upon a branch
like a haiku

waiting to happen
but where

is a haiku
poet when

one really needs one.

Crows agree to play
Charades.

One falls to the forest floor
clutching its chest shouting

"Aghhhhh ya...got me
I'm  a gonner!"

Then another and another
with a more cornier

one-liner than
the one before

looking more like spilled ink
than the last.

Crows having a blast
laughing their feathers off.

All big Film
Noir fans.

"Yeah, yeah...I got it
a ****** of crows!"

Across a hillside
a human stands

as if he had just sprouted
out of the land.

An Easter Island
of a man.

The sneer of cold command
upon those chiseled lips.

An Ozymandias!
"Look upon my mighty words and despair!"

Or more like
a granite gryphon

glaring at the crows' play
turning them over in his mind

until they
become words.

"Oh not that ******
Ted Huges again!"

Crow mutters
to itself.

The poet unaware
that human thought

hangs frozen on the air
on such days as these.

The giant Hughes man
a poet made of iron

by some process of
emotional osmosis

absorbs their world and words
making it up as he goes along

for he great poet though he be
never learned to speak Crow.

The great man glares
at the sun

willing it into submission
the sun falters on a hillside.

He disappears into the snow
his fragile footprints

vanishing in a trice
lost to time

as if he has
never been born.

Crow does his best
impression

mocks and mimics
the human's thought.

"Nailing Heaven and earth together -

So man cried, but with God's voice.
And God bled, but with man's blood. "

A bell breaks
the sky's silence

crows scatter to
the heavens.

"Oh that Charlie
Crow...he is a one!"

One crow smirks to another.

"He do that Ted Hughes
to a tee!"

"HELLO AND WELCOME TO NAME THAT ANIMAL WITH YOUR USUAL HOST - GOD!"

All the animals
trundle by

on a conveyor belt.

Adam feels
like a contestant

on a T.V.
Quiz Show.

Can get to keep
the things he names

there’s heaps & heaps.

God beams
like he’s Noel Edmonds.

Adam’s nervous
sweats under the T.V. lights.

‘Eh…bog…cog…eh…log
no.. .doy…yes…dog! ‘

‘Yes…that’s it! ‘

And so we barely get
man’s best friend.

‘That! ‘ Adam points at cat
and God(being hard of hearing)
gives him that.

Adam really messes up
when it gets to Pegasus, centaur,
unicorn and dragon.

Adam laughs
when he sees his first giraffe.

Couldn’t think
of a proper name

for
it.

‘Go on…come on! ‘
God prods and prompts.

But all Adam
can do

is laugh…&…laugh.

So between them

they name it
Gir affe

meaning that
which makes one

laugh.

"Seriously Adam..." God scolds
"Ya gotta take this more seriously!"

"HELLO MR. DEATH AND HOW ARE YOU?"

I felt like a fog
in the shape of a man

a dream walking
a shadow come alive

never more
alive now

I was
dying

this moment
the most precious thing

I had ever
owned

unable to believe
I was leaving

the sunlight of this
morning behind

me forever

time lay scattered
on the ground

my reflection trapped
in broken bits of mirror

strange that I
would never be

me ever
again

a cuckoo
( the clock )not( the bird )

had the last word
I had to

smile...

"HELLO MR. DEATH AND HOW ARE YOU?"

I felt like a fog
in the shape of a man
a dream walking

a shadow
come alive
never more

alive now
I was
dying

this moment
the most precious thing
I had ever owned

unable
to believe
I was leaving

the sunlight of this
morning behind
me forever

time lay scattered
on the ground
my reflection trapped

in broken bits of mirror
strange that I
would never be

me
ever
again

a cuckoo
( the clock )
not( the bird )

had the last word
I had to
smile...

*

Felt good to cheat my own heart attack..you kinda attack it back with nothing but words and the need to capture it and make it talk.But it's impossible to grasp and poem after poem tries to hold it only for to flow like water between your fingers....like trying to grab hold of a piece of sky and wrestle it to the ground.

Alas my little brother didn't manage to cheat his and the words keep trying to explain this unexplainable fact to my self. I look at the typewriter and it looks back at me...both of us at a loss for words.

"Бог правду видит, да не скоро скажет", as they say in Russian.

Spring had arrived in that Dublin morning...just snuk in when we weren't looking. We were having breakfast and after we would cycle to Eccles Street to see a real house that was lived in by a fictional character. The house was a mere ruin and would soon be knocked down to make way for a new hospital wing.
Time, as it happens, stops when one is dying or rather that particular moment lengthens forever and a second is a century. Mr. L. Bloom's house was in my mind and my hat would later blow off into its basement and I would be as one with the man himself as I lowered myself down to retrieve it...thus entering a chapter in Ulysses. And the fiction was made real.

I had just read Huxley's TIME MUST HAVE A STOP and afterwards thought how ha ha...apt!

I had also come across a 1664 phrase about  buds that "explain into leaves"  which I thought delightful.

I had also came upon a battered copy of Bacon's SYLVA SYLVARUM (  A natural history, in ten centuries. Whereunto is newly added the History natural and experimental of life and death, or of the prolongation of life) which alas would go inexplicably missing and which I would never read to this day.

These are the things that were running through my head when I was going to be dead but...just as suddenly wasn't.

Oh and Tolstoy's GOD SEES THE TRUTH BUT WAITS was ratting about in my mind somewhere so it was going to be a very literary( literally )death!

Each Spring I go back and revisit my death( that wasn't )feeling glad to be just....alive and...in the moment.

HELLO YOU

He screams at me
but I don't hear him.

His mouth moves.
saying.

Same old words.
Same old blame.

The thunderclap
obscures him.

His voice hard rain
against the pane

as if the rain could explain
his rage.

I answer him sharply
in a

lightning flash.

How's that
for theatre?

We all lit up
the actors of our breakup.

Outside leaves
fall from trees

unseen
an empty nest

falls to the ground.

No sound.
Now too much sound.

Our cat watches
our arguments.

Licks its privates.

Only Mother Nature's
laying it on a bit thick.

Such fallacy?
Pathetic!

Yes yes we
get the jist.

She is us
writ large.

All sturm and drang.

He all Blitzkreig.
I all Kamikaze.

I of course - a *****.
He of course - a *******.

You couldn't
write this stuff.

Two
so-called-humans who

cling and claw

bent on destroying
the other.

Did I say
the phone rang

when he
hit me?

The phone rang
...unanswered...

Did I neglect to say
my nails are long and

I drew blood.

I look up the number later.
Wrong number.

Now like the storm
we are spent.

Can find no other ways
to hurt each other.

We go our separate ways
after the absurd drama.

I sleep alone.
A new day dawns.

Amazed at my self.

A self I
now own

rescued from the wreck
of my marriage.

Feels so good
to be me again.

"Hello you?"
I say.

"Hello you!
I answer.

". . .here
Buckle! AND. . ."



I have( somehow )
escaped( don't ask me how )

the ritual of the head
plunged down the toilet bowl

this the welcome to
secondary school

and flushed
their laughter and their power.

They have bidden their time
well

and although I believe
I have outfoxed them

....they have outfoxed me.

I tremble on my spindly
12 year old legs

surrounded by the sneering
pack.

They hang me from
a coat peg

laughing with great glee
as I try to free

myself
but can't.

I like a living coat
refusing to be clothes.

Then they tear
page by page

my poetry book
to pieces.

Pages like paper bees
crushedcrumpled at my feet.

They make me eat
Hopkins.

I spit him out
gasp for breath.

My tongue rebels AND
I fling Father Hopkins at them.

They recoil in astonished
amazement.

" I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding. . ."

The words sting them
into stunned silence.

This is not
how it should be.

My jacket tears
I fall at their feet

my voice soaring
now above them.

They run from the beauty of the words.

I pick, one by one, up
the fallen pages.

". . . and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and **** gold-vermillion. . ."

The bell rings
for Maths.


*


I was a sickly kid and pretty lousy at school. Told I was not good enough to do the English Higher paper but that didn't stop me reading the stuff. There was a great TV schools programme on that I would tune into and out of this the great Brendan Keneally would walk forth from its tubes and proclaim THE WINDHOVER.
  
With his voice and passion for the poem I was entranced and made a fan of all things Hopkins. Years later I meet him casually at a bar where we happened to be having a pint together. I told him this story and all those years later I had the pleasure of him recite it to me once again in the flesh! It was a magical moment. We batted the lines back and forth to each other and plunged into the beauty of the lines.

The last time before that I had met him and his wife at the Grapevine Arts Centre in Dublin. I was a mere sapling then and just beginning to read poetry aloud. I was a country bumpkin and had to run for a bus and as I ran and as they waved goodbye to me I turned the corner of North Great Georges Street AND....fell on my ****! Oh the shame of it!

I used to belong to a poetry collective that hawked a broadsheet around pubs. My poem CRAZY LONELINESS HIJACKS MEMORY OF A BEAUTIFUL GIRL was the hit of the day and Brendan liked this very much. But my one moment of glory was reciting Hopkins with him in a crowed noisy Dublin poem...I had come full circle.

HERE, HERE &: HERE.

Weather
kept following him around

like he was a map
with all that isobar & stuff he

could never
understand.

Emotional weather.

Pain:
Here, here &. . .here.

Windshield wipers
kept sloshing the world

back&forthback&forth

the town dissolving
in a bluered neon.

The moments felt like
boring ads

between the boring TV programmes
that had become his life.

His life
a stagnant sitcom.

A rather theatrical
lightning bolt

tore the dark in
two.

The ghost
in the answering machine

her voice still so
alive:

"I'm not here
right now. . ."

HERE, HERE &: HERE.

Weather
kept following him around

like he was a map
with all that isobar & stuff he

could never
understand.

Emotional weather.

Pain:
Here, here &. . .here.

Windshield wipers
kept sloshing the world

back&forthback;&fort;;

the town dissolving
in a bluered neon.

The moments felt like
boring ads

between the boring TV programmes
that had become his life.

His life
a stagnant sitcom.

A rather theatrical
lightning bolt

tore the dark in
two.

The ghost
in the answering machine

her voice still so
alive:

"I'm not here
right now. . ."

South of the buzzing
of a hairy bumble bee

North of the big dog’s bark

West of the breeze
tickling  cherry blossom trees

East of the sunlight
stealing over the fields

that’s where

you will
find me.

*

!ESSERE QUI!


Sud del ronzio
di un peloso Bumble Bee

A nord del grande cane abbaia

A ovest della brezza
il solletico alberi di ciliegio in fiore

Est della luce del sole
rubare i campi

ecco dove

troverete me.

HERE I BE!

South
of the buzzing
of a hairy bumble bee

North
of the big dog’s
bark

West
of the breeze
tickling cherry blossom trees

East
of the sunlight
stealing over the fields

that’s where
you will
find me

*

My little girl's sense of where she was...as if it were written in the sky and the world was simply there to do her bidding. She used her own personal co-ordinates to bring in a thought to land.

"Where were you Tilly?" I asked innocently. "I was by the big cloud pretending to be a tiger beside the worm...look!" And with that she produced the worm she had been hiding behind her back. So she had gone to the bottom of the garden...hopefully not to eat 'em.

So I thought I also would get my bearings the three year old Tilly way! I was singing Ariel's "Where the bee ***** there **** I..." so I guess this got cross-pollinated with where and who I was. It takes a little girl to teach one how to live in the world in the rightest of ways.

HERE I BE!

South of the buzzing
of a hairy bumble bee

North of the big dog’s bark

West of the breeze
tickling  cherry blossom trees

East of the sunlight
stealing over the fields

that’s where

you will
find me.

*

I ESSERE QUI!

Sud del ronzio
di un peloso bombò

A nord del grande cane abbaia

A ovest della brezza
il solletico alberi di ciliegio in fiore

Est della luce del sole
rubare i campi

ecco dove
troverete me.

*

"Where were you Tilly?" I asked innocently. "I was by the big cloud pretending to be a tiger beside the worm...look!" And with that she produced the worm she had been hiding behind her back. So she had gone to the bottom of the garden...hopefully not to eat 'em.

So I thought I also would get my bearings the three year old Tilly way! I was singing Ariel's "Where the bee ***** there **** I..." so I guess this got cross-pollinated with where and who I was. It takes a little girl to teach one how to live in the world in the rightest of ways.

My little girl's sense of where she was...as if it were written in the sky and the world was simply there to do her bidding. She used her own personal co-ordinates to bring in a thought to land.

HERE I BE!

South of the buzzing
of a hairy bumble bee

North of the big dog’s bark

West of the breeze
tickling  cherry blossom trees

East of the sunlight
stealing over the fields

that’s where

you will
find me.

*

I ESSERE QUI!

Sud del ronzio
di un peloso bombò

A nord del grande cane abbaia

A ovest della brezza
il solletico alberi di ciliegio in fiore

Est della luce del sole
rubare i campi

ecco dove

troverete me.

HERE I BE!

South of the buzzing
of a hairy bumble bee

North of the big dog’s bark

West of the breeze
tickling  cherry blossom trees

East of the sunlight
stealing over the fields

that’s where

you will
find me.

*

I ESSERE QUI!

Sud del ronzio
di un peloso Bumble Bee

A nord del grande cane abbaia

A ovest della brezza
il solletico alberi di ciliegio in fiore

Est della luce del sole
rubare i campi

ecco dove

troverete me.

HERE I BE!

South of the buzzing
of a hairy bumble bee

North of the big dog’s bark

West of the breeze
tickling  cherry blossom trees

East of the sunlight
stealing over the fields

that’s where

you will
find me.

*

My little girl's sense of where she was...as if it were written in the sky and the world was simply there to do her bidding. She used her own personal co-ordinates to bring in a thought to land.

"Where were you Tilly?" I asked innocently. "I was by the big cloud pretending to be a tiger beside the worm...look!" And with that she produced the worm she had been hiding behind her back. So she had gone to the bottom of the garden...hopefully not to eat 'em.

So I thought I also would get my bearings the three year old Tilly way! I was singing Ariel's "Where the bee ***** there **** I..." so I guess this got cross-pollinated with where and who I was. It takes a little girl to teach one how to live in the world in the rightest of ways.

HERE I BE!

South of the buzzing
of a hairy bumble bee

North of the big dog’s bark

West of the breeze
tickling  cherry blossom trees

East of the sunlight
stealing over the fields

that’s where

you will
find me.

*

I ESSERE QUI!

Sud del ronzio
di un peloso bombò

A nord del grande cane abbaia

A ovest della brezza
il solletico alberi di ciliegio in fiore

Est della luce del sole
rubare i campi

ecco dove

troverete me.

*

My little girl's sense of where she was...as if it were written in the sky and the world was simply there to do her bidding. She used her own personal co-ordinates to bring in a thought to land.

"Where were you Tilly?" I asked innocently. "I was by the big cloud pretending to be a tiger beside the worm...look!" And with that she produced the worm she had been hiding behind her back. So she had gone to the bottom of the garden...hopefully not to eat 'em.

So I thought I also would get my bearings the three year old Tilly way! I was singing Ariel's "Where the bee ***** there **** I..." so I guess this got cross-pollinated with where and who I was. It takes a little girl to teach one how to live in the world in the rightest of ways.

She gave me
the map of

her
self.

It was exact &
up to the moment

but changed
as we moved

through the landscape
of the future.

Now with heartbreak
it is

out of date with
a section missing.


Where we should meet
is a crease

so worn and torn
we can see right through

to the reality
of defeat.

I look to the stars
for guidance

to orientate me
through all the hate

but it is too late
the map

no longer
exist.

HERE NOW I HOLD YOU

Here now
I hold you

astonished at
your newness.

One hand
cups your ***

the other
cradles your head

you **** into my palm.

You smile
your smile

still unused to it
and its magic

wave a tiny lazy hand
as if you were royal

& I an adoring
subject.

The music of you
plays

in my mind
as if I were

a mechanical piano
notes played by invisible hands.

Your skull
has yet to get it together

the fontanelle pulsing
as if each thought could be seen

beating like a bird
against my hushed fingertips.

Years later
my hands so much older now

I cradle your crying
stroke your punk goth hair

as you weep
over your first 'real' boyfriend

(he obviously a ****)  

your constant wailing: 'Why...
... didn't it work! '

My fingertips
caressing where thought once pulsed

your sweet secret self
hidden from me now

in your growing up.

HERE NOW I HOLD YOU

I hold you
astonished at your newness.  

One hand cups your ***
the other cradles your head

you **** into my palm.  

You smile your smile
still unused to it

and its magic  

wave a tiny lazy hand
as if you were royal  

& I an adoring subject.  

The music of you
plays  in my mind as if

I were  a mechanical piano
notes played by invisible hands.  

Your skull has yet
to get it together  

the fontanelle pulsing
as if each thought could be seen  

beating like a bird
against my hushed fingertips.  

Years later my hands
so much older now

I cradle your crying
stroke your punk goth hair

as you weep
over your first

'real' boyfriend  
(he obviously a ****)

your constant wailing:
'Why... ... didn't it work! '  

My fingertips caressing
where thought once pulsed  

your sweet secret self
hidden from me now

  in your growing up.

HERE'S A HOW-DE-DO!

"Oh!" cries Yum Yum
pinched upon the ***

by that nasty Poo-Bah
who makes her skin crawl.

She madly in love
with Peep-Bo

who having seen this
assault on her lover's posterior

knees Poo-Bah
in the *****...tra la!

The backstage Mikado antics
more interesting than the real thing.

"Keep yer filthy 'ands off my Yum-Yum!"
growls an incensed Peep-Po.

Poo-Bah can only
manage a strangulated howl.

"Ok you guys...one minute to go and
you're on!"

HERE'S LOOKING AT YOU...KID!

for me she always
stepped out of
the screen

and into this
my unreal
real world

celluloid tears
still glistening
in her eyes

I hold her
tell her...
in my bad Bogeyish way

"Listen sweetheart...
you are gonna get...
back into that movie.!"

And somehow she'd see it
as it was.

I watch her
walking back to her
flickering world

as the music swells and
there ain't a dry eye
in my head

"At least..."I tell her
( mist shrouding her figure )
"...we'll always have GUILDFORD!"

For me she always
stepped out of the screen

and into this
my unreal real world.

Celluloid tears
still glistening in her eyes.

I hold her.
Tell her...

in my bad Bogeyish way:

"Listen sweetheart...you are
gonnna get...back into that movie.!"

And somehow she'd see it
as it was.

I watch her walking
back to her flickering world

as the music swells and
there ain't a dry eye

in my head.

"At least..."
I tell her

( mist shrouding her figure )

"...we'll always have
GUILDFORD!"

HER FIRST AUTUMN

I watch her
try to capture
things in words

her first Autumn
her eyes try to accommodate
what her mind sees

"The Autumn
is rusting
the trees!"

HER FIRST CAMPING TRIP


somewhere an owl
gave a hoot
then another


somewhere else a dog
far away barked once
barked twice


a darkness so
dark one could
cut it with a knife


the pop up tent
our only refuge
from this night


it just about
fitted into
the living room


squeezing the telly
into a corner
the **** pile silencing our footsteps

it was her idea
to camp
in the great inside


"Tomorrow we could
try the end of the garden?"
I dared to suggest


"No way!" she was
adamant with all
the authority of a 3 year old


"This is far more
exciting!" and by God
it was

HER ROYAL ISHNESS

A woman
of few words.

She was considered
quite a dish.

So stylish.
A la Lillian Gish

"Are you cold?"
I asked as host.

"...ish!"
she offered

barely moving
her lips.

"When would you like to eat
8 or..?"

"8...ish!"

She could shoehorn her "ish" tidbit
into almost any conversation.

"Yes;.veggie!"
"No...no fish!"

She let her eyes
do all the talking.

She absorbed the room
and all the men and all their mores.

Found them wanting.
Knew what they wanted.
Wanted none of it.
Left them panting.

She left when it was getting
late...ish.

"Tired!"
"...ish!" she ished.

Like a ventriloquist.
Her lips barely parting.

She spoke with a lisp
and a cold.

So that a kiss
became a khiss.

I gave her the goodbye khiss
she wished.

She left and left us
each bereft.

As if a voiceover
or an intercom had announced

her departure.

"Her Royal Ishness
has left the building!"

HER ROYAL ISHNESS

A woman
of few words.

She was considered
quite a dish.

So stylish.
A la Lillian Gish

"Are you cold?"
I asked as host.

"...ish!"
she offered

barely moving
her lips.

"When would you like to eat
8 or..?"

"8...ish!"

She could shoehorn her "ish" tidbit
into almost any conversation.

"Yes;.veggie!"
"No...no fish!"

She let her eyes
do all the talking.

She absorbed the room
and all the men and all their mores.

Found them wanting.
Knew what they wanted.
Wanted none of it.
Left them panting.

She left when it was getting
late...ish.

"Tired!"
"...ish!" she ished.

Like a ventriloquist.
Her lips barely parting.

She spoke with a lisp
and a cold.

So that a kiss
became a khiss.

I gave her the goodbye khiss
she wished.

She left and left us
each bereft.

As if a voiceover
or an intercom had announced

her departure.

"Her Royal Ishness
has left the building!"

HEY WILLIAMSES CUT THE NOISE DOWN WILL YA!

oh William someone's
let the chickens out again
now it's begun to rain

so much depended upon
you not falling asleep
in front of the telly

beer in one hand
bowl of plums in the other
should have listened to mother

and you've gone and
painted the wheelbarrow
purple ****  you

and I've had enough of you
dancing  grotesquely
in the north room

happy genius of my household
ha...only good for
crockery throwing practice

HIC IACET ROBIN, REX QUONDAM REXQUE FUTURUS


I have to admit
I hadn't thought of you
for quite a bit


and that though
we had never met
I thought of you as a friend


who could always
make me laugh despite
the sadnesses in my life


the night that you left
I was doing you
being Bruce Springsteen


being Elmer Fudd
"I'm wving in my karrr..."
and laughing

to my self
even my mirror
was laughing


remembering Mork
manically morphing
into anyone anything



a menagerie of personalities
the so many people you
. . .could be


you so...
singularly...plural
always a becoming...


"... but then there you are s
itting around and doin' nuthin'
and death comes up and goes: "Boooo!"


"Shhh. Be vewy vewy quiet,
I will always think of you
as you



being so
very much alive
you wascal you!"

HIDE AND GO SEEK

"You know...
Granny's dead?"

"Yes. . ?"

"How long is she gong to be
dead for?"

"Well. . ?"

I think she
senses I

don't know
the answers.

She walks away
holding her dolly by the hand.

"It's just...Dolly misses her."

She throws the words
casually over her shoulder

then steps away into
a doorway

filled with the morning's
sunlight.

Granny smiles
from her photograph

trapped behind
the glass.

"...99...100. . !"
floats on the summer air.

My daughter's voice
sing-songing

"Here I come..."
( the hide and seek of )

"...ready or not. . . "
(life).

HIDE AND GO SEEK

"You know...
Granny's dead?"

"Yes. . ?"

"How long is she gong to be
dead for?"

"Well. . ?"

I think she
senses I

don't know
the answers.

She walks away
holding dolly by the hand.

"It's just...Dolly misses her."

She throws the words
casually over her shoulder

then steps away into
a doorway

filled with the morning's
sunlight.

Granny smiles
from her photograph

trapped behind
the glass.

"...99...100. . !"
floats on the summer air.

My daughter's voice
sing-songing

"Here I come..."
( the hide and seek of )

"...ready or not. . . "
(of life).

HIDE AND GO SEEK

"You know...
Granny's dead?"

"Yes. . ?"

"How long is she gong to be
dead for?"

"Well. . ?"

I think she
senses I

don't know
the answers.

She walks away
holding her dolly by the hand.

"It's just...Dolly misses her."

She throws the words
casually over her shoulder

then steps away into
a doorway

filled with the morning's
sunlight.

Granny smiles
from her photograph

trapped behind
the glass.

"...99...100. . !"
floats on the summer air.

My daughter's voice
sing-songing

"Here I come..."
( the hide and seek of )

"...ready or not. . . "
(life).

HIDE AND GO SEEK

"You know...
Granny's dead?"

"Yes. . ?"

"How long is she gong to be
dead for?"

"Well. . ?"

I think she
senses I

don't know
the answers.

She walks away
holding her dolly by the hand.

"It's just...Dolly misses her."

She throws the words
casually over her shoulder

then steps away into
a doorway

filled with the morning's
sunlight.

Granny smiles
from her photograph

trapped behind
the glass.

"...99...100. . !"
floats on the summer air.

My daughter's voice
sing-songing

"Here I come..."
( the hide and seek of )

"...ready or not. . . "
(life).

HIDE AND GO SEEK

"You know...
Granny's dead?"

"Yes. . ?"

"How long is she gong to be
dead for?"

"Well. . ?"

I think she
senses I

don't know
the answers.

She walks away
holding her dolly by the hand.

"It's just...Dolly misses her."

She throws the words
casually over her shoulder

then steps away into
a doorway

filled with the morning's
sunlight.

Granny smiles
from her photograph

trapped behind
the glass.

"...99...100. . !"
floats on the summer air.

My daughter's voice
sing-songing

"Here I come..."
( the hide and seek of )

"...ready or not. . . "
(life).

HIDE AND GO SEEK

"You know...
Granny's dead?"

"Yes. . ?"

"How long is she gong to be
dead for?"

"Well. . ?"

I think she
senses I

don't know
the answers.

She walks away
holding her dolly by the hand.

"It's just...Dolly misses her."

She throws the words
casually over her shoulder

then steps away into
a doorway

filled with the morning's
sunlight.

Granny smiles
from her photograph

trapped behind
the glass.

"...99...100. . !"
floats on the summer air.

My daughter's voice
sing-songing

"Here I come..."
( the hide and seek of )

"...ready or not. . . "
(life).

HIDE AND GO SEEK

"You know...
Granny's dead?"

"Yes. . ?"

"How long is she gong to be
dead for?"

"Well. . ?"

I think she
senses I

don't know
the answers.

She walks away
holding her dolly by the hand.

"It's just...Dolly misses her."

She throws the words
casually over her shoulder

then steps away into
a doorway

filled with the morning's
sunlight.

Granny smiles
from her photograph

trapped behind
the glass.

"...99...100. . !"
floats on the summer air.

My daughter's voice
sing-songing

"Here I come..."
( the hide and seek of )

"...ready or not. . . "
(life).

HIDE AND GO SEEK

"You know...
Granny's dead?"

"Yes. . ?"

"How long is she gong to be
dead for?"

"Well. . ?"

I think she
senses I

don't know
the answers.

She walks away
holding her dolly by the hand.

"It's just...Dolly misses her."

She throws the words
casually over her shoulder

then steps away into
a doorway

filled with the morning's
sunlight.

Granny smiles
from her photograph

trapped behind
the glass.

"...99...100. . !"
floats on the summer air.

My daughter's voice
sing-songing

"Here I come..."
( the hide and seek of )

"...ready or not. . . "
(life).