I am reminded that the women before me also had their bodies turned into sinking ships.
Captained by reckless men
who abandoned deck,
When their words could no longer be used as anchors.

The insurance company billboard sign
That lords above my head
As I walk past the flats
Proudly sings of

    "NO FEAR
     NO SHOCK TACTICS
     NO SCARY ADS"

Yet last night the pretty lady
On Yesterday's six O'Clock news
Told me how Putin is plotting World War Three

Under the Dartline
The supermarket corporation
Urges Dublin to

"LOOK OUT FOR SOME LOCAL GOODNESS"

While across the road
A man was car-rammed and then shot
Outside Luigi's takeaway
While we slept nearby

The world is an unpredictable
And ever more lonely place
No one pays to disperse that knowledge
Thus earned is rarely desired

I'm done with lullabies
I'm finished of singing you to sleep

Because your dreams
Won't provide you with the same solace

We are the ones who paint with words
thoughts and feelings soaring like birds,
horrors, dreams and things of the night
indelibly scribed for your delight

furrowed brows are forced to think
in pastel shades and jet black ink
scrawled in haste in an hour of need
raw nerves scraped until they bleed,

there is no cure or magic pill
we lost our freedom to the quill  
slicing our souls down to the bone
to leave a legacy carved in stone.