I am not a King, like Henry,
But I've princes and princesses.

I am not a Neruda,
But I'm read.

I am not a Lewis,
Yet others laugh with me.

I am not a Palmer,
Though I've aced a few.

I am no Lennon,
However, I'm asked to sing.

I am far from being a Casanova,
And yet, I'm not alone.

I am no Graham,
Though the spirit moves me.

I am no Saarinen,
But my children sleep in beds I made.

Don't call me an Einstein
Because I've understood.

I am not a Child,
But you are welcome at my table.

I am none but myself.
If they spoke,
They'd envy me.

The majority consensus is,
We are average.
Eyes behold beauty in tabloids,
But the Elephant Man was on the screen,
The exception.
We are not ugly or stunning,
Spending paper dreams on blemishes
That are all too human.
We are the common denominator
With assets and detractions,
Additions and subtractions,
Sharing invisible property lines,
Crossing borders, unnoticed.
On the scale, Einstein was above average,
With a handful of others.
We can read, that's what the average needs.
If Darwin is correct,
We'll all end up on the cover of The Enquirer.
In the meantime,
I'm comfortable with average.

Average health is above average,
Anything less is unacceptable,
Like living without an epiglottis,
Yet doable.
We spend less than we earn,
Yet the average person wins the lottery,
Then blows it all.
Isn't that true, Joe? Jane?
We're in the middle class.

When I close my eyes
I've an IMAX silver screen;
My projection room is stacked
With reels of a re-run dream.

I'm typecast as leading man,
You're the starlet, so it seems.
Today I'm screening tragedy,
That I played like comedy.

Two reels have played,
I'll need three,
To disuade me playing a parody.

I'll need to re-write,
And a location set;
I haven't run
The credits yet.

You protested the direction;
The hero fades out with rejection.
It's a cliff-hanger.
Will the girl return
A fallen damsel?
A chastised angel?
A spiteful devil?
I'm lying waiting
To dream the sequel.

My search
For a higher power
Eluded me;
Thank God
I found our
Poetry.

I hear myself talk
In parenthetical echos
From your downward eyes
While you text
Someone absent,
Yet closer than I;
I hear myself grow silent
As you smile,
Then look up,
Surprised I'm here.

My original spring was wound,
Tight as a Swiss watch.
The fore-finger and thumb
Of the nun turned the crown *****,
As only the Sisters could do.
Any subject could be converted
Into a lesson of the life of Jesus.
A plus sign becomes a cross.

     Even Jesus knew the angles
     To be a carpenter and Savior,

Grace and Faith kept time.

The Sacrements were frequent topics.
How many would we receive
Between Baptism and Extreme Unction?
After Confessions, I once asked,
Is it possible to sin between Penance and the curb?

     All things are possible with God.

You didn't want to die with a blemished soul;
Being responsible for more thorns and nails
Pounded into the emaciated, pitiful flesh
Of the one to emulate,
With Grace and Faith.

I was fervent in prayer.
I wanted to carry the Holy Eucharist
To the housebound or hospitalized;
Through the throng of thugs
Ready to defile the wafer.
I was ready to die a martyr,
With a benevolent, sober Jesus,
Guarding from the clouds,
Right hand raised like a Judo chop,
Blessing me, preparing me,
Protecting me with a corporeal force field.
Grace and Faith kept time.

I pined to wear the Altar Boy's Cassock,
Soutane-like, long and black,
Topped with the surplice;
To ring the bell, light the incense,
Hold the Communion Plate
Under Mammy's chin
As she knelt in supplication,
Before the Madonna,
My blessed Mother.

Did she envision me as a Jesuit,
Tending to the lame lepers
In the jungles of Peru and Africa.
Me, who issued forth from her.
Faith kept time.

The dark hour was closing in.
The spring was loosening,
Unwinding as I relaxed.
Marian sat beside me,
Thinking of our orders
At the drive through.
The Nehru-collared clerk
Slid the glass window,
Listening to our wants.
I offered her a napkin
To keep the crumbs
Of her little black dress.

A friend asked if my mother had a brogue.
She was forty when she landed here,
She probably did. She must have.
What does a child hear?
I was accustomed to it.
I only heard her voice.
Others no doubt did. Liked the lilt.
I  heard the voice,
Not the accent.

In that country
They played Red Rover.
We know who
Was called over.

In that country
The played Red Light, Green Light.
That tanked.

In that country
They played Mother May I?
Not yet.

In my country
We play *Blind Man's Bluff.

I've scorned and derided,
Needled and spited,
Those, who are closest to me.

I've cheated and lied,
Vilified and decried,
Those, who are closest to me.

I've toasted many glasses
With strangers in places
Where I shouldn't have been.

I've smoked and laughed,
Admired strange ***
In lands where I cannot be seen.

But mention your name,
And all seems so vain,
Those promises I failed to keep;
The losses that haunt me in sleep.

Despite confessed sins,
My transgressional whims,
I know I've always been true;
And when I bow out,
My whisper will shout,
*Above all, I've always loved you.

Whew!
Glad I live here,
And not there.

The cancer is told to no one.
We latently recognize noble reticence;
Are inspired by the selflessness:
He hid the pain and loss so well.
The addict,
The same lie,
And we say,
Loser!
One inspires;
The other,
Despised.
Two suffer too.

That first Christmas,
We cut four branches,
Under the clouds,
From the three pines
On the other side
Of the backyard hedge.
If I went there today,
I'd see the nubs.
The pail full of sand
Came from Daddy's
Circle of cement making.
We firmly planted
The four branches
And wrapped them
With newspaper chains,
Made with the extra edition
From the morning's route.
That night, the moon streamed
Through the bay window,
Spotlighting our tree.
In later years,
We bought trees from the Farmer's Market,
Roping them with twinkling lights
We plugged in.
Daddy never bought a gift or a card
For any special day;
But he annually re-gifted Canada.
This Christmas, the full moon
Will stream again,
And I will tell
His great grand-daughter
The story about the tenacity
Of paper chains,

She's raised high
On the podium;
Pool water drips
With sodium;
She clearly sees
From lofty height,
Her training
And her sacrifice.
Our shining Penny
We behold,
Won Bronze, then Silver,
And now struck Gold.

If you've a writer's block,
Keep chiselling.
You'll get relief
When you release the piece.

Ever hold a razor blade
That you couldn't use;
Find a six foot piece of rope
That couldn't be abused?
Ever buy a vial of pills
That couldn't do the ****?
Ever enter office buildings
Looking for a ledge;
Or walk across a span of water
Without stopping on the bridge?
Ever wade into a pond
Breathing like the fishes?
Anyway you think on
It,
You've delusional
Death wishes.

The **** on the steeple
Proclaimed and denied to
Four corners, looked down,
And twisted.
Old men in green suits with crow's eyes
And alabaster covered bones push open doors
With wooden feet.
The postman, empty-kneed, rides his Deere
Over green fields with rabbits,
Laughing to himself.
Rentals in drives plan the day's jaunts
To ****** or Kenmare.
Shops carry faded signs:
Donovan, O'Sullivan, Finnegan.

The crow drops on the roof of Holy Cross
Which doubles as a retirement home;
Its clients plaint palms skyward with the wind.

Five hundred leave each week:
          "Ireland's best... so fresh it's famous."

The laggers serve tea and scones,
Or ply in shops they may someday own.
There are no slow boats here.
The green suits leave naturally,
Others by air.
This is no country for the young
With their hillside tilting windmills of power.

Below, a young woman eats, holding
Her knife like her father, eating,
Silent, staring.
Crow and rabbit inhabit,
Stones tumble and lay for a hundred years.

Each day a new apocalypse offering
One opening. No wrappings,
No ointments, no fresh water.
No throne to approach, no voice calling
Them home.
No seventh son to dip his finger in the well
And soothe.

Which day brings unique
Unexpectedness,
Momentous  at the outset.
The day that adds a dimension.
With expectations
That fall short, meet or excede
Yesterday's forethoughts.
Start with mother's gift.
The warmth and excitement
Of  home after the first day.
A birth,  a funeral,
Excites different
Sounding bands.
Today was such a one.

A Good-bye Day.

Until her return
My days are numbered
Until  
That Momentous Day.

Between brain and skull
Lies the cream of memory,
Distilled love,
Cheese-clothed infatuation.
Between brain and skull
Rises the O-Zone, internal cloud
Of pin-heads with choirs and hosts.
The pulp beneath the skin.
It's not in my heart,
So fragile
You could be passed by,
Where a dead man's loves lived.
You don't keep shop there,
But between brain and skin
In chronological flashbacks
Like real time re-runs
And infitismal longings
For beliefs.
You are infused there.
Squeezed as grapes,
Rightly aging,
But not to be tasted
Again.

You know the one,
One who blathers on... and on;
The one we'd rather not.

One prattles like a rattle,
Tattles and gabbles,
Babbles and jabbers,
Chatters til we frazzle,
Twaddles til we drop.
One never seems to stop.

One brags
One talks
Bark off trees,
One argues
With a knot.
One can't stop.

One drops names
Like cloud bursts;
One day
One will
Be caught.

One has diarrhetic run-on.
One's opinion's seldom sought.

Finally, at the end of bray,
One has only nought to say.

Lovlee ladeebug, ye'll nae be flien hame,
Ye're a fine wee red beedel
Tha nipp'd me fleshee arm.
Ye've nae hame afire,
Ye've nae wee ones alane;
Ye bit me lovelee ladeebug,
'nd ye'll nae be flien hame.

From baby
to sitter
in sixty flat;
Ozymandais,
Try speaking to that.
But I am here,
And He?

Her smile,
And drip
On my knee:
And then,
She looks up
At me.

She went from squating
To standing,
Three million years
Ascending;
And then,
She started dancing.
I had a three second vision
Of time-lapse evolution.

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.

They've gathered at his daughter's house,
I passed cars pulling to the curb;
The patriarch has been replaced,
His chair now sits usurped.

Will someone raise a glass to toast him,
Recount some craic to roast him?
Praise his assets,
Shush his regrets,
Strum his unplayed guitar.

They'll share feasts on his bench,
Conceive on handmade beds,
Take down a book from his many shelves,
And talk as though he's there,
Sleeping, unaware.

     What was it that he said?
     He talked of love a lot.
     Did he get it right?
     He shared what he got.
     Did well for a sot.
     He could turn a *****,
     Write a verse,
     Right a wrong,
     Could dialogue with who knows what,
     And if he couldn't fix it,
     We knew we were *******.

They just might go to sleep tonight,
And dream as though he's there,
Still sitting in his chair.

If love's in the air,
Why do we wear masks?

When we met
You were yet
A Princess.
Snow melted
On your younge tongue.
Winter seasons
Kept the secrets
Of your cold cacoon.
When you emerged
It was obscene,
You morphed into
The Ice Queen.

The white expanse
Of glacial thighs
Led to an ice-cave.
******* that once
Snared and trapped,
Have melted like
Polar ice-caps.

Your icicle eys
Stay frozen
In summer sun.
And all about
Your condition
Smells stale as
Franklin's Expedition.
Like Midas,
Minus the gold,
All you touch
Turns cold.

I'm not here
To lampoon
How winter's blubber
Made you baloon;
But on a walk
In Arctic noon,
Wear whale grey
And get harpooned.

There's a large white canopy
In the cemetary;
The guests are in their best.
The vows averred
So long ago
Are proved
And laid to rest.

The effigies once
On the cake,
Immortalized,
At the wake.

Inside the gated community,
Dead and wed,
A surety,
Now silent
For eternity.

Our shelves are stacked
With novels
Retelling the journey.
Before novels,
There was poetry.

Our textbooks
Bind essays
Explaining and outlining
The thoughts
Of great thinkers.
Before essays,
There was poetry.

Our stage,
Our world,
Are replete
With dramas
Mirroring our plight.
Before drama,
There was poetry.

Before poetry,
There was
The Great Boom,
Expanding into
The vacuum;
Making the universe
Our metaphor.

The training has been a dry run
For three years,
And I'm up for the challenge.
My corner is ready and supportive.
I volunteered to meet my Goliath.

I mirror spar with him.
Shadows,
Boxing me.
His shadow is long.
His reach is longer.
Has a knock-out punch.

We were besties during
My Philistine years.

My camp has removed the bucket and stool;
They mix with the spectators,
Clenching fists, cheering,
Teeth gritting their resolutions,
Heads shaking in surety.

I have accepted my shortcomings
And the power of this giant.

As I enter
Familiars will cheer;
The litter bearers tip their hats
In recognition,
Waiting patiently to get to work.

I belly-up for the bell.
Ding.

Our foes,
Some of whom we can surely name,
Pray to the same God.
A rose is a rose is a rose.
The rain and sun
Cover the same game site;
There's no referee calling foul,
Illegal procedure or out of bounds.
This is more like Gaelic Football,
No perceptible rules for finger pointing
From the spectators in a very large stadium.
But, make no mistake,
Every game has a timer,
And his thumb is poised
On the stopwatch.

There is no Santa.
Your school called.
Your nose is big.
The police are here.
You failed your driver's test.
You weren't home.
You left the door open.
You're pregnant.
This won't hurt.
You're mother's gone.
I'm leaving you.
Abstinence is best.
We have to re-schedule your appointment.
Loser
Whatever!
You're grounded.
I have none.
Press one for English.
We have to interrupt regular programming for an important...
She's too young for you.
Good-bye.
They also got the bomb.
There's a call for you. (it's 2 a.m.)
You'll move on.
We're out of that... just now.
It's on back order.
Please hold the line while I switch you to...
There's a priest at the door.
The doctor called.
It's the thermocoupler or the bearings or the bushing or...
This is not a test of the Early Warning System.
You've a letter from the CRA.
The trees are turning colour.
It's over.
There is no God.

They said Frank was lying in his field,
While the milk cows lowed,
The hungry sows squealed.
The midday sun and absorbent dew
Aroused the bachelor close to noon.

They said Frank was lying in a ditch,
His bike was bent, he'd need a stitch,
But there he lay in the early morning,
The lorries roared by,
Frank moaned and snored..

They said Frank was lying in a bed,
When two p.m. was still too soon.
He has missing teeth and window panes,
Lay on a mattress of mortal stains.
His papered walls like sun-burnt skin,
Peeling away and blistering.
His blankets are like stable covers,
Shared his thunder mug with his mother.
Starlings nest inside his house,
Blow flies light where his mother lies.

I slept in a red cot
On the SS Columbia.
In the middle of the cabin,
Brothers and sisters
Bunked vertically
On either side.
Seven in all.
We disembarked at Montreal,
Where my sister
Unclenched my white-knuckled hold
On the mahogany rails.
That moment was synapsed
And impermeable.

My third love
Taught me everything about love.
Miss DeGurse, Grade One.
She was taken by the dimples
And the brogue, but smart me,
I passed, we parted;
She to her farmer fiance,
Me to Grade Two
And Sister Hildegarde.
I learned valuable lessons,
But love was already learned
For a life-time outside family.

The soutane didn't fit anymore,
And the incense left me distracted.
The flickering shadows over the folds
Of Joseph's and Mary's statues
Have fewer outlines
Under the light of less candles.
Books replaced Church,
Then illuminated religion
In gold-leafed pages.
Women went well with books
And still enrich my every day.

Loss is all around.
No eulogies or memorials, please.
But remember me
When you splash in July,
Observe nature prepare for winter,
Blink flakes off your lashes,
Or bloom up and down your street;
Then gather,
Read something I wrote,
And Remember
I used to notice such things.

I'll spin your yarn
With no embellishments
On the twilled roles you've spun;
I won't tink your knitted history.
I'll needle for pearls of wisdom,
And wear you as the fabric of my life.
You fit like a woolen hoodie.

The  smile on the moon
Seems a frown,
Since our world
Flipped
Up-side-down.

The one-legged runner
In a three-legged race
Smiled,
Cause his bi-pedded
Partner
Can't keep
Up the pace.

The one-eyed
Astronomer
Studied starry skies;
Discovered all the
Black holes
When he closed
His only eye.

It's only one's perspective
Making one selective;
I'll be more receptive
To those so soon rejected.

Two wrens, a couple of birds with intent,
Lit on my new magnolia tree;
The blossoms are full,
There's ants on the leafs.
It's mutualistic, and communalistic;
All thrive so well.
I wish the world could bear witness
To this simple tree.

What have you sold?
Was it worth its weight in gold?
A votive lit for fifty cents,
A flame announcing you repent;
To beg your saint to intercede
To provide your worldly needs.

Was that your body up for sale;
What would you trade for the Holy Grail?
Sell a kidney or a lung,
Sell your lap top and your phone.
Sell the home, enslave the kids,
Offer all to the highest bid.

Simonize your sale tonight,
In the sun it shines bright;
Let the buyer drive the fraud,
After all, you're a demigod.

Have you sold your secret soul,
Your joie de vivre,
The living truth
For make-believe?

Sell it all in a sidewalk sale,
Sell your house, sell every nail;
Every brick and piece of wood,
The price you get is understood,
To get as much as one could.

We make the deal for personal gain,
Trangress against the light;
Stand in the shadow of the shadow
Of the master of the mill.

Add to coffers, sell off principles,
Buy a judge, sell a nation,
It's a photo-op donation.

Betray an ally, sell a friend,
Exploit the lonely til their end.
Abuse your office, hire a niece,
Family fortunes will increase.
Pander to hypocrisy - here it's called democracy.

These are not our personal sins,
But crimes against society,
Crimes against life.

Look upon our deadly works,
Ozymandias warned we should.

Snakes have skinny shins.
Birds have wiry fingers.
Fish have fat necks.
Horses have moustaches.
Monkeys wear shoes.
Cats preen feathers.
Turtles soar on airy drafts.
I get confused about most things,
Except One.

Forever isn't really long,
We call it Love in a two minute song.
I've witnessed it in my cat's jaws,
Saw a dove impaled on eagle's claws.
It's a moment in grasslands and water,
A flash of colour, then the slaughter.
It's a nanosecond at conception,
It's a blitzgried in insurrection.
It has no width, length or depth,
It continues the second of our last breath.

Growing to manhood is a slippery *****
Of razor blades and bones that grow.
****** screen shots of angel wings,
Red carpet slits, eye popping lips,
Miss Pageants and tutus on skates.
Britney shaking, Jennifer quaking,
No Old Spice to take young spice's place.
The X comes before the Y,
Yet Toxicity is the hue and cry.
I'm a man in a mixed-up world,
But girls still like boys,
And boys adore girls

The pain wasn't evident
When you queued;
Nor discernible
When you extended a hand.
Your frayed coat needed attention,
Your legs bowed in the wrong direction
As you moved, frog-like.
I never recognized the shame
Behind ribbons you wore;
An imperceptible guilt
For lack of control.
But your eyes,
Downcast or averted,
Tried hiding the despondency
I once witnessed
In a naked girl,
Running,
On fire.

We do our best,
Use varying syntax,
Rhythm, rhyme and meter.
Our words are picked
From the garden variety,
But the themes are from
The Prodigal Son.
Is there nothing new
Under the sun?
I'm writing the same poem
Over and over:
Variations on the same themes:
Love, Life, Death, Family,
Power, Wealth, Nature,
Fatted Calves, etc.

I could invent new words,
But the meaning would
Convey the same:
I widdle you.
Your soft sortesches condestort in mine.
It all sounds too familiar
In any language.
We need a new world
Where arms reach from our heads
To bypass the thoughts transferred
To our sortesches holding folences
That pen our work.

Some writers are like comets,
A flash, and soon gone;
Some that burned brightest,
Are rocks that don't burn long.

Some writers are like meteors,
Burning hot through spheres;
As meteorites they stay with us,
Though brighter in younger years.

One writer, Leonard Cohen,
No brighter light revealed;
Still yearning for the fire,
Still burning all these years.

One hundred years ago
My Mammy was just three,
The exact same age as me,
When she sailed us across the sea,
All those years ago.

Just lately,  just now,
I said Mammy's Mammy's name out loud.
What was that, I asked.
For sure her name's not been said
For many, many years.
Margaret Duffy
A dog barked.
So I said my mother's:
Mammy
A breeze furled the window sheers.

The dog continued to yelp,
So I said her other names louder:
Brigid...........Nellie

I will keep the wind inside me,
And allow the dogs their day;
Your names will still be called upon,
In stress or tranquility.

Be secure with some peace.
There's no cause for your fear;
History assures us,
Bad will fail.

Weeks from now,
Today's terrors are gone,
Predictions confirm
Goodness prevails.

The bad can't escape.

Cold comfort, I hear,
But what of today?
The nows conflict
With our joys, you say.

This too will pass.
Fade like lover's breath;
So seldom brought up,
Soon laid to rest.

Good lives on,
The bad's with past sorrows,
For Goodness sake,
Let's get on with tomorrow.

Those red-hat doffers
Are the blood-thinning vermin.
Stop.