I keep my monkey
In a vice;
The jaws are tight,
The pessure's right,
To keep my monkey
Close in sight.

If you have a monkey
That will not go away,
Put your monkey
In a vice,
Tight enough to stay.

Like me, become **** erectus,
Have ***** as big as T-Rex's,
Standing, drooling,
Above the vice.

So, the tabernacle curtain ripped
Over the pallor of your eyes;
The wall of reliance has a crack,
Every level has it's fault,
Cement gives it strength.
The foundation's well-worth building on.
Leave the tools on site,
Tomorrow make it right.
An abandoned house,
Whomever lived there,
Collapses on itself.

So, is this what the owner wanted?
Brush on a new coat,
Hang floor length drapes,
Sweep away the refuse.
Bestow a second chance
On the sinner,
Not the sin;
On the wrong,
Not the doer.
Climb the steps again,
And knock,
Someone's in.

Wherever you go;
Whatever you do;
Whomever you choose;
Whenever you leave,
I'll not question Why.
But allow me a How.
How can I help
On this trip you must travel,
Climbing up hills,
Then viewing the valleys
On this quest
Of a questionable life.

Wiping clean
The bathroom mirror,
Didn't absolve
The inner sinner.
Two eyes bore through
A remorseful soul,
Like silver pissholes
In the snow.
Then the blood
Ran while shaving,
Red droplets
Not worth saving,
Found design on my neck,
Like the thornless rose
From the tarot deck,
Looking at a lost soul-mate,
Red-faced and forlorn.
Fierce and piercing
Love and hate;
The paradox
Of the repentant's fate.

Brigid was born on a flax mill farm,
Near the Cavan border, in Monaghan,
At Lough Egish on the Carrick Road,
The last child of the Sheridans.
The sluice still runs near the water wheel,
With thistles thriving on rusted steel.

Little's known of Nellie's early years;
Da died before she knew grieving tears,
They'd turn her eyes in later years.

She's eleven posing with her class,
This photo shows an Irish lass.
Her look is distant,
Her face is blurred,
But recognizable
In an instant.

She was schooled six years
To last a life,
Some math, the Irish,
To read and write.

Her Mammy grew ill,
She lost a leg,
And bit by bit,
By age sixteen,
Nellie buried her first dead.
Too young to be alone,
Sisters and brother had left the home.
The cloistered convent took her in,
She taught urchins and orphans
About God and Grace and sin.
There were no vows for Nellie then.

At nineteen she met a Creamery man,
Jim Lynch of the Cavan clan;
He delivered dairy from his lorry,
Married Nellie,
Relieved their worry.

War flared, men were few,
There was work in Coventry.
Ireland's thistles were left to bloom.

Nellie soon was Michael's Mammy,
Then Maura, Sheila and Kevin followed,
When war floundered to its end,
They shipped back to Monaghan,
And brought the mill to life again.

The thistles and weeds
That surrounded the mill,
Were scythed and scattered
By Daddy's zeal.
He built himself
A generator,
Providing power
To lights and wheel.

Sean was born,
Gerald soon followed;
Then Michael died.
A nine year old,
His Daddy's angel.
Is this what turns
A father strange?

Francie arrived,
Then Eucheria,
But ten months later
Bold death took her.
Grief knows no borders
For brothers and sisters.

We left for Canada.

Mammy brought six kids along,
Leaving her dead behind,
Buried with Ireland.

Daddy was waiting for family,
Six months before Mammy got free
From death's inhumanity.
Her tears and griefs weren't yet over,
She birthed another son and daughter;
Jimmy and Marlene left us too,
Death is sure,
Death is cruel.

Grandchildren came, she was Granny,
Bridget, Nellie, but still our Mammy.
She lived this life eduring pain
That mothers bear,
Mothers sustain.
And yet, in times of personal strain,
I'll sometimes whisper her one name,
Mammy.

Boots were all we had in winter,
Wellingtons made of a slice of rubber;
Turned down to show initials,
That bled upon the snow.
Between skin and cold,
Coarse wollen socks,
Sometimes they matched,
They'd criss and cross.

In from the boys' yard,
The slide and frost,
The boots were heaped
In backroom closets.
The sting of chilblains
On sock-soaked feet,
The line of footprints
Led to our seats.
We had one pair at school,
No other cover
Sliding across the oaken floors.
Drying on the radiators,
Our pungent odor,
A synaptic recall,
The unschooled smell
Of winter schoolyards.

For us,
The Super Bowl
Is poetry
In legal motion.

He has a thing
That hangs on him;
Keeps it with him
At night, asleep,
In light of day,
He keeps his thing
At work or play.
It's craddled and cuddled,
It seems to double;
He's kept it all these years.
He hides it from fam and friends,
He'll keep his thing
From now til then,
Never knowing how or when
This thing will be no more.
It's not a ribbon,
It's not a bow,
How he got it
He doesn't know.
A keepsake that he never shows,
Unless you visit him,
But you're not invited in.
He's dogged by his thing,
His private, personal sin,
Thirsting from within.
Although his cup's filled to the brim,
It's not enough for him,
And his thing.

He held some Romantic notion
His years of love and devotion,
The exposition of emotion
Could overcome the troubles.

He tried to be meta-physical,
Raised his crucible to the celestial,
Prayed to move the unchangeable
To overcome the troubles.

For years he toiled in his realism,
The jobs, debts and persistent requiems,
The slugging burdens of their tediums,
To overcome the troubles.

He was Dada, then Grand-dada.
She was Mama, then Grand-mama.
Once an in-law, now an outlaw,
Yet always there was trouble.

Now he's lost his generation,
Learned the cost of retribution;
Still sourcing out his frustration,
Considering the final solution
For dealing with his troubles.

I've never cried at funerals
Beside the bowed heads
Looking past the markers
In this gated community.

I've never cried at weddings,
Those blissful, blessed tears of joy.
Seeing the children settled and content
For the years they've yet to live.

I've never cried at birthings,
Though tears are warranted
For years of trouble and ecstasy
They will surely cry.

I've never cried before the courts
Pleading for leniency,
Or alone in a cell.

I've never cried for lost innocence,
Those tears that only come with experience.
The loss of a love.

I've cried for myself,
And I carry a hankie
To marvel at the wet spots.

It's wonderful to look
With wonder at our winter nights.
I don't know the constellations,
Glistening like my cold, wet eyes,
Deep in the sockets of sky.
I wonder,
Do they blink
As we crawl out our days.
O, stars, cast a shadow for me,
A midnight companion to whisper.
Let me cool
In your piercing,
Firey eyes.

Tempus fugit!
I say **** it.
Carpe momentum.
Carpe diem.
Carpe sabbati.
Carpe vita.

Does it really matter
What color you are;
Where you're born,
That you've come far,
What belief you hold on the afterlife.
Did you live in luxury,
Where you steeled in strife.
Our babies grasp onto our backs,
Stroke their cheeks,
See them react.
Tap my knee,
My leg will kick;
Show your teeth,
I'll snarl back.
That's how I survive.
I like to stay alive.
I have many tribes.
I plan tomorrow,
Should it not arrive,
I'll leave life knowing,
I stayed alive.

I kept a screen
Before my mind,
To re-run clips
Of your fine lines.
Glad for new-age technology,
The IMAX use of 3D;
I'll use the big screen monolith
To screen the edit
Of your breadth and width.

Honey I'm drunk,
Don't come by,
But if you do
Bring Canadian Rye;
I've two feet planted
Six feet high,
And I ain't right ready
To lay down to die.
But the sun is sinking,
And my body's stinking,
Honey will you come,
Please bring that Rye.

Honey, I drink,
We both know why,
Let's not pretend,
Let's not lie.

Honey I'm dry,
I'm gonna die,
I've six feet planted
Two feet high.
I ain't quite steady,
I could use a high.
The sun's in the east,
My demon's a beast,
So Honey drop by,
Please bring that Rye.

Consider the couplets
Cohen sings,
And the rhyming lyrics
Rappers bring;
And tell me
That ain't poetry.

I'll never make you smile again,
Not as your lover,
Not as your friend;
Not like it was
Way back when.
What is now, is not then.
I can smile
When I recall
The laugh you gave
When we were all.
Each day our oyster,
Each night we'd cloister
From the day's travails.
But memory pales,
And your smile fades
Into the mists of recall.

There's something surely burning
When I get the yearning
To be better than I am.

There's a flicker of contrition
That spreads from my ambition
To be better than I am.

My temperature increases,
My spirit gets heat blisters;
I will concoct a balm.

I'll fan the flames with sorrow,
Add the worries of tomorrow,
To burn away the waste.

When purged
I'll have the embers,
To ensure that I remember
What first ignited me
To be better than I am.

They thought she'd be Sassy,
You'll read she's no Lassie;
So they chose an Isle,
For kin and kith,
Meaning more than breadth and width;
Henceforth she's called Skye.

She's a dimunitive terrier,
She'll not be a harrier;
She'd fall down the holes
Chasing rabbits and voles,
And never be heard of again.

Too quiet for a guard dog,
In the pack, she's no lead dog;
If she tried herding sheep,
They'd bleat in their sleep,
And the sheep would lay down
For the wolves.

She's no sledder like Buck,
She can't carry a duck,
And certainly no fighter like Fang.
She's no Rin Tin Tin,
Can't run fast like him,
And she's not sleek like Roy Rogers' Bullet.

She won't find a body
Buried under the snow,
And she won't win blue ribbons
At any dog show.
But I'm convinced
By her snuffles
She's well worth the trouuble,
I'll take her out hunting
In the woods
For my truffles.

When I was tagged
As a child,
That meant I was IT.
And that's all-inclusive.
Being tagged as an adult
Means I'm profiled,
And that's a game changer.
It's childish.

When down and lonely,
We have an upper.
When unhappy,
We leave a smiley.
When isolated and alienated,
We have fraternity.
If you fear, find peace in readership.
If poor, there's free verse.
If under-appreciated,
We click like.
If under-valued,
We've no price.
If destitute, there's richness in language.
If thirsty, drink.
If hungry, devour.
When you're at loose ends,
We have tight compositions.
When conflicted, find resolutions.
And if you're disenfranchised,
We have a home.

It's difficult to tell
When something as big as this started.
He was witnessed holding my little brother
As though he were a fawn drinking milk
From a snub-nosed brown bottle.
He was indifferent with a cuff,
It could've been a hug.
His aquaintances used his talents
For personal gain;
They sat at our table,
Enjoying chops and fried onions.
He was never in the audience,
Never in the stands beaming;
He was as dysfunctional as Claudius
Among melancholy princesses and princes
Who clasped palms to foreheads.
If I'd known Alas and Woe,
That's when I'd voice them.
One night, I considered pouring poison
In his ear.

Be real about hallways
Lined with windows, or mirrors.
Be real about dreams in stanza form,
Which aren't real - stanzas I mean.
Write about flowers and rain,
If you must, throw in some stars;
Moons always read well,
Or seaside waves lapping.
Call it a poem,
A free verse or well-crafted couplet,
Matters not, unless it comes from the heart,
Whole or broken; wise or foolish.
Temper it with lovers, friends and family,
Bake it in the soul,
Then release.
Dump your lover,
Start another.

So many cars lined up
Along my avenue,
Like ants carrying on
For a feast.
The queen is in state,
Her penant prounouces presense;
The flag promoting reign.
We peons, serfs and minions
Stare vaguely at the floor,
Afraid to look for more.
She rises, head above her throne,
Face on the coinage,
Proclaiming lineage
With treason and conspiracy.
Please don't glance my way.
I've given sacrifices
Of doves and relatives,
All tethered to the rituals.
There is pack position.
Vats of red wine and room for dissent.
We've drowned our children.
You can see the palor in their eyes.

The slip is on.
It's slippery,
But not like a floor,
A bit of paper with X's and O's,
Offering promises,
Gears and clutches needing oil;
Not like memory of your speghetti straps,
Or an announcement of a slipped lip
Revealing dumbfoundery.
They are temporal and physical.
This slip goes to the soul,
Dispiriting and lying low;
Not discernable to public scrutiny.
I tripped on a rabbit hole
That changes the world,
And makes me late
For a very important date.

With Asia and Africa,
And all the A's between;
Try Ireland and Israel
And the centuries,
And the screams.
Why not America and the ancient Picts,
Or Adam standing naked,
(Now there's a neuron thought).
Let's share a neuron or two
Before the world is lost.

It's cold, **** cold,
I blame the north wind.
It pushes the ice on Huron
Against the shore
Making great dunes of frozen water,
Cooling the wind passing over.
It penetrates my outer layer,
Warming itself between inner clothes.
Dampening my cheek;
Cold whispers in my ears;
A cruel embrace,
Girdling me,
Seductive as the dead.
It wraps my house
Like it knows my address;
An unannounced visitor,
Reluctant to leave.
It's mid-January;
Glad the sun's casting
Longer shadows,
Before the wind retires.

The best irony ever,
Is not that the Prizes
Grew out of dynamite
And cannon fodder,
No,
The greatest irony
Is that no religious founder:
Not Abraham, Jesus, Mohamed
Or any number of Swamis,
Received a posthumous
Peace Prize.
And with good reason.
Religion has never been
A peace broker.

Hello Poetry is our bohemian site
For the new counterculture
Of the contemporary beat.
The works are here.
Ginsberg's long gone.
Kerouac took to the road
Not taken yet by us.
This is our Greenwich Village,
And I can stay at home.
Now, and some years ahead,
I'll say I met and read
The likes of you,
Here,
On Hello Greenwich.

Hawking's told me
My universe is contracting;
Then he changed his mind,
It's now expanding.
Sounds like a new wave diet.

I'm of two minds
These days.
This is a sobering thought.
One fraught with yesterdays,
The other with tomorrows.
Today,
I'll give my duality a rest.

My sleep is crowded
With recurring nightmares
Of failing Grade 12 French;
Standing naked and exposed;
Seeing the one you love
Love someone else;
The anxiety of an empty back pocket;
Swerving cars,
Crap falling from planes;
The inevitable chase and stumbling
Just ahead of the apocolypse.
The morning daymare news
Is definitely more frightening,
The end times more certain.

The perfect verse,
The one that would resonate,
Cannot be written.
Not by Chaucer, or you,
Not by the rood or sickle,
Not by notes or dances,
Or brush and ink,
Clay or marble,
Any substance, any tool.
But it's there, inside,
Giving us a splitting headache,
Trying to get through the crack.

You don't need to wear a wristwatch
To give me the time of day.

My reincarnation theory's fraught
With personal reasons to come back;
So many battles to be fought,
One lifetime's just not enough.
Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jews,
Have tried to tell us what to choose;
But on my own,
If truth be known,
I've decided to return,
If you'll come back with me,
We could do it all again.

Each year we lose
One heart beat;
That's less blood
To our heads and feet.
This means my breath
Is fading too;
But I'll keep beating,
And I'll keep breathing,
Yes, I'll keep living
Just to bury you.

My car is in the bat cave,
The lower chamber's lit;
All the doors are locked,
The drapes don't leave a slit.
I'm in here all alone,
Haven't shaved for days;
My fingers need attention,
My bed is like my grave.
There's dishes in the kitchen sink,
The refuse starts to stink.
I'm underground.
No calls, no texts, no tweets.
I have my bread and butter,
If only I could eat.
I have a need to peek outside
Where the living own the streets.
I'm better off than dead,
I'll rise up from this sleep;
Don't call my name
To call me forth,
At present I'm too deep.
When time is ready,
And I'm steady,
I'll push aside the lid,
Walk from this crypt,
Abandon ship,
And bask in light above.

The hearth is almost cold now,
My rooms are dimly lit;
The shadow near the firebox
Stirs the ashen pit.
They'll peer through my window,
Point and query why
I sat under my blanket
Wearing such a smile.

For thirty years I lived within you,
For twenty years without;
Still you show up in many rooms
For the living and the dead.
I'm stopped, I stand in awe of you,
Then must turn my head.

You glide by me like deking strangers,
You never glance my way;
I see whispers when you move your lips,
Hear bursts of laughter from my perch.
And even so, what could I say:

     That roads once merged
     Now diverge
     To maneuver through terrain,
     Traversing time's hard memories
     That cannot be reclaimed.

Just once more in a well-lit room,
When all the kids are present,
We would share our stories,
Catch up on years gone by.
Laugh because we can now
At times that made us cry.

I'm on the runway,
Taxiing as they say;
But I can't remember
If I'm coming or going;
Deporting or boarding;
Lifting off or landing.
All runways look alike,
All security checks the same;
I'll know where I'm going
When I reach the baggage claim.

The mother of the one
Claiming to be God-like
Was executed
By her god-like son
Playing his part
In a pagan tragedy.

We convened a conclave
Where the famiglia
Was casting sideways looks,
Keeping secrets from survivors.
Papa had passed,
His mantle drapping the remains.
And a day looms for its passing
To an unelected recipient
From the unresponsive benefactor.
Dirges were played.
Outside I lit a cigarette
And the cloud of smoke rose skyward.
The ballots have been counted.

Sit, fast.
Lie down if you find privacy.
It's a wave, cresting over you,
And you wonder,
Should I continue breathing?
Gulp, and let the wash begin.
Look to the feet first,
And calm your soles:
Work the legs,
Think outside the head,
But stay down -
You'll walk again,
And wait, and forget,
Then forgive yourself.

The air is charged and ominous,
A stench is settling on us,
Like ashes on our skin.
How did this begin?

Bones held in hands
Took foreign lands;
Fires on sticks
Extinquished the magic
That once held us in awe.

Then the sky's truly lit,
They've fired bigger sticks
From beneath the waves,
Into the air,
Or silos hidden
Below the stars,
With candles brighter than before,
That darken skies,
Turn day to night,
And colour our skin
With ashes.

You've always said:
You told me that already.
You're repeating yourself too much.
Have you early stages of dementia?
And yet, you want to hear,
I love you, everyday.

Walking the strip
As though I were a pinball
In a giant arcade game.
Showgirls posing,
Gamblers jostling
With over-sized flasks
Hanging around their necks.
The streets are festooned
With picture cards,
As numerous as confetti,
Advertising all the pleasures
And prices of escorts.
Vegas, Baby?
Keep it there,
Not here.

I read it today.
It reads we both
Got buried.

I crossed the line,
Learned to despise;
It wasn't the plan,
Just my disguise.
I saw the loss grow
Through your eyes.
You looked at me
With such regret;
You thought I'd finished,
But I wasn't yet.
Red flags flapped,
You raised the white;
No more cave-ins,
No more fights.
I found it hard to accept;
You thought I was done,
But I wasn't done yet.
Seasons passed,
Years followed through;
I can't see
What I saw in you.
We're not strangers,
We're not friends,
But should you need me
Near the end,
I'll be standing there.

That's what they call themselves,
They make tea and meals,
Clean up after too;
Use the washer,
And everything else,
Things that guests don't do.
I wouldn't call them house guests,
They're way more than that
To me;
Guests will knock on my front door,
These ones walk right through.
I know each one intimately,
They're family to me.