The nurse hoisted him into the car,
shoved the wheelchair into the boot,
pecked him and said goodbye and meant it.
He was a shell, not full of years but emptied of them.
As his daughter drove past the gagged
windows of the old tobacco factory
towards the bright ribs of the new stadium
he spotted a girl walking, eighteen or nineteen,
white trousers stretched tight.
Great big arse, he thought.
He managed a twitch. His daughter said,
What you thinking about Dad? He said,
That's it, great big arse.
That was it all right. She did not ask again.
Published, 2003, in Ambit, Issue 172.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Chatting her up
A boy and girl drag themselves to the back of the bus.
He mumbles the slurred syllables of methadone.
He intends to impress his dark haired, dark eyed girl
who folds her hands like a nun and contemplates the windscreen wipers
while he displays for her admiration
the tapestry of his suicide attempts.
He took the sharpest kitchen knife to bed
mother in an oooh of horror found him too soon.
On the empty stairs of the flats at two a.m.
he slung a rope across a bannister and would have launched himself
but for a man from God-knows-where hunting down a deal.
I would jump from the balcony he says but with my luck
they'd have built a fucking swimming pool there before I hit the street.
She giggles, then sits in silence
watching the rain smack against the windows
thinking perhaps of sipping multicoloured cocktails
by hot Spanish poolsides in the healing sun.
Published, 2003, in Ambit, Issue 172.
He mumbles the slurred syllables of methadone.
He intends to impress his dark haired, dark eyed girl
who folds her hands like a nun and contemplates the windscreen wipers
while he displays for her admiration
the tapestry of his suicide attempts.
He took the sharpest kitchen knife to bed
mother in an oooh of horror found him too soon.
On the empty stairs of the flats at two a.m.
he slung a rope across a bannister and would have launched himself
but for a man from God-knows-where hunting down a deal.
I would jump from the balcony he says but with my luck
they'd have built a fucking swimming pool there before I hit the street.
She giggles, then sits in silence
watching the rain smack against the windows
thinking perhaps of sipping multicoloured cocktails
by hot Spanish poolsides in the healing sun.
Published, 2003, in Ambit, Issue 172.
The undertaker's assistant
The undertaker's assistant puts her finger
to the tip of a tilted coffin
to guide the inexperienced pallbearers.
She stands at the ready in black livery,
perky buttocks in clinging trousers,
jacket pushed out by cocky breasts.
But what makes me stare is that black ribbon
looped around her saucy pigtail.
Published, 2002, in ROPES (Review of Postgraduate Studies), Issue 10, NUI Galway. (ROPES does not have its own website).
to the tip of a tilted coffin
to guide the inexperienced pallbearers.
She stands at the ready in black livery,
perky buttocks in clinging trousers,
jacket pushed out by cocky breasts.
But what makes me stare is that black ribbon
looped around her saucy pigtail.
Published, 2002, in ROPES (Review of Postgraduate Studies), Issue 10, NUI Galway. (ROPES does not have its own website).
Another dreamer
The grocer sits and smokes behind his counter
- pock-marked lino top with tobacco burns -
explains to any listening idler
how to get rich, run a country, rear children.
As he speaks he flicks
tiny tobacco flakes off his lips.
Customers seldom come in:
there is little to want on his hungry shelves.
He addresses the few with certainty.
His yellowed fingers weave the air.
His navy suit, thin as tissue paper,
dances on his shoulders.
He confounds his listeners
with big-money cant
conned from the business pages
which turn yellow
while the light dulls
to the cold of three decades
and the dark moves in
thick as the walls of Fort Knox
with all America's gold
locked up behind them.
Published, 2001, in ROPES (Review of Postgraduate Studies), Issue 9, NUI Galway. (ROPES does not have its own website).
- pock-marked lino top with tobacco burns -
explains to any listening idler
how to get rich, run a country, rear children.
As he speaks he flicks
tiny tobacco flakes off his lips.
Customers seldom come in:
there is little to want on his hungry shelves.
He addresses the few with certainty.
His yellowed fingers weave the air.
His navy suit, thin as tissue paper,
dances on his shoulders.
He confounds his listeners
with big-money cant
conned from the business pages
which turn yellow
while the light dulls
to the cold of three decades
and the dark moves in
thick as the walls of Fort Knox
with all America's gold
locked up behind them.
Published, 2001, in ROPES (Review of Postgraduate Studies), Issue 9, NUI Galway. (ROPES does not have its own website).
Chinese painting: Young lady with butterflies
See how the butterflies quiver round the shoulders:
it's a delicate little piece, isn't it?
Yes, I mean the painting, not the girl, you scoundrel!
See the way they sweep and swoop, hover and peep,
see how she skips in fright, look, she's terrified!
And the dress, the way it swirls, look at those folds, that silk!
It will add to your home should you decide to buy.
Yes, terrified! She flings her small hands in the air
but as she hops away she keeps her poise
and - yes! - the butterflies seem to flirt with her!
And she seems to frolic with the flirting wings
- a man of your discernment would appreciate such grace -
and as they dance around the shoulders, as they soar and drift,
see how she sheds her formality -
(as I'm sure you know that was no small thing
for a Chinese girl in the court in those days)
- in dismay
yet keeps her gracefulness despite her fear.
She skips so daintily because the feet are bandaged,
the toes bent back, it would hurt too much to flee.
They say that inside the bandages the feet went bad
but a man of your learning would know that already.
Wonderful how art can transform such material
into something you would pay to put on your wall.
Published, 1997, in Snakeskin, August issue
it's a delicate little piece, isn't it?
Yes, I mean the painting, not the girl, you scoundrel!
See the way they sweep and swoop, hover and peep,
see how she skips in fright, look, she's terrified!
And the dress, the way it swirls, look at those folds, that silk!
It will add to your home should you decide to buy.
Yes, terrified! She flings her small hands in the air
but as she hops away she keeps her poise
and - yes! - the butterflies seem to flirt with her!
And she seems to frolic with the flirting wings
- a man of your discernment would appreciate such grace -
and as they dance around the shoulders, as they soar and drift,
see how she sheds her formality -
(as I'm sure you know that was no small thing
for a Chinese girl in the court in those days)
- in dismay
yet keeps her gracefulness despite her fear.
She skips so daintily because the feet are bandaged,
the toes bent back, it would hurt too much to flee.
They say that inside the bandages the feet went bad
but a man of your learning would know that already.
Wonderful how art can transform such material
into something you would pay to put on your wall.
Published, 1997, in Snakeskin, August issue
Dancing with the Germans
At the start, our women itched for exotic Germans
who stuttered with empty tanks from neutral skies,
London, Bristol, Liverpool, crackling behind them,
and drifted onto soft, Irish grass among bored cattle;
where we arrested them, rattled them swiftly to camp
to plot impossible escape, brood on Fatherland,
wait for triumph or shame, finality, a new start.
We were not hard on them (we got no thanks),
paroled them to public houses, dance halls, our girls.
When they stepped out to Jimmy Dunny's Orchestra
they tantalized the Newbridge women
for they were novelties, starched, stiff,
every man an officer, or as good as!
Then on a chilly Saturday night at war's end,
shrivelled faces framed in barbed wire fences
stared awkwardly from a newsreel at our women;
who learned new names: Belsen, Dachau, Treblinka;
innocence shuffled away. Bands tuned up in dance halls;
later in Lawlor's Ballroom Jimmy Dunny played
smartly polkas, old time waltzes, two-steps, but no-one wanted
to dance with the Germans, in the shocked silence.
Published, 1999, in Snakeskin, September issue
who stuttered with empty tanks from neutral skies,
London, Bristol, Liverpool, crackling behind them,
and drifted onto soft, Irish grass among bored cattle;
where we arrested them, rattled them swiftly to camp
to plot impossible escape, brood on Fatherland,
wait for triumph or shame, finality, a new start.
We were not hard on them (we got no thanks),
paroled them to public houses, dance halls, our girls.
When they stepped out to Jimmy Dunny's Orchestra
they tantalized the Newbridge women
for they were novelties, starched, stiff,
every man an officer, or as good as!
Then on a chilly Saturday night at war's end,
shrivelled faces framed in barbed wire fences
stared awkwardly from a newsreel at our women;
who learned new names: Belsen, Dachau, Treblinka;
innocence shuffled away. Bands tuned up in dance halls;
later in Lawlor's Ballroom Jimmy Dunny played
smartly polkas, old time waltzes, two-steps, but no-one wanted
to dance with the Germans, in the shocked silence.
Published, 1999, in Snakeskin, September issue
Exile
His childhood died in a nightmare.
He was in the front garden
of a country cottage
like a cottage in a story;
his father was there too, digging:
everything was perfect.
Then the child looked across the fields
to the small hills, like hills
out of a children's book,
and a mushroom cloud loomed up
from behind the small hills,
sombre and monstrous,
as colossal as a mountain.
The child knew the world was dead.
A cloud of grief and despair
unfolded in him.
His father noticed nothing
and kept on digging through the death.
The child woke up but it was true:
the cloud was there, the world was dead.
He still wants to return.
Once I saw him look in winter
over the city's snow capped roofs
and past the icy suburbs
and across the white fields
to the hills behind the city,
and I saw him shake his head
and flick his cigarette
into the slushy street,
where it hissed and died.
Published, 1999, in Snakeskin, October issue
He was in the front garden
of a country cottage
like a cottage in a story;
his father was there too, digging:
everything was perfect.
Then the child looked across the fields
to the small hills, like hills
out of a children's book,
and a mushroom cloud loomed up
from behind the small hills,
sombre and monstrous,
as colossal as a mountain.
The child knew the world was dead.
A cloud of grief and despair
unfolded in him.
His father noticed nothing
and kept on digging through the death.
The child woke up but it was true:
the cloud was there, the world was dead.
He still wants to return.
Once I saw him look in winter
over the city's snow capped roofs
and past the icy suburbs
and across the white fields
to the hills behind the city,
and I saw him shake his head
and flick his cigarette
into the slushy street,
where it hissed and died.
Published, 1999, in Snakeskin, October issue
No sanctuary
Doesn't it sound like peace in this chapel?
Stooped old men in a dark choir, girded with rosaries
peer from monks' hoods with wrinkled faces,
raise voices to god in harmony,
swelling and soaring, the stained glass windows seem to listen:
you'd think humanity had surpassed humanity.
One of these men will walk from this church in anger,
one will leave with a sly smile twisting his lips,
one will plot and plan and pretend
and one will strike a bitter blow to fix
one who played a bitter trick on him. Yet
the faithful visit here for peace and for goodness
and these men's hands make miracles of stone and earth
and miracles of ink and paper, lives and voices;
every patch of grass, every field and corner
speaks of peace and of work and of goodness.
But here too men speak spitefully of other men
and here men thwart other men for bitter decades,
detestation and dislike make friends
and men who whisper ill of other men are praised;
men plot to deny their brothers' advancement
and go to the grave with curses for prayers.
Peace visits this place no more often
than cities that glare with neon,
than streets where good things are done and hearts broken,
than streets where hearts are mended and bad things done;
and there is no refuge from the world in the end
in this place there is no refuge,
there is only the world in the end.
Published, 1999, in Snakeskin, September issue
Stooped old men in a dark choir, girded with rosaries
peer from monks' hoods with wrinkled faces,
raise voices to god in harmony,
swelling and soaring, the stained glass windows seem to listen:
you'd think humanity had surpassed humanity.
One of these men will walk from this church in anger,
one will leave with a sly smile twisting his lips,
one will plot and plan and pretend
and one will strike a bitter blow to fix
one who played a bitter trick on him. Yet
the faithful visit here for peace and for goodness
and these men's hands make miracles of stone and earth
and miracles of ink and paper, lives and voices;
every patch of grass, every field and corner
speaks of peace and of work and of goodness.
But here too men speak spitefully of other men
and here men thwart other men for bitter decades,
detestation and dislike make friends
and men who whisper ill of other men are praised;
men plot to deny their brothers' advancement
and go to the grave with curses for prayers.
Peace visits this place no more often
than cities that glare with neon,
than streets where good things are done and hearts broken,
than streets where hearts are mended and bad things done;
and there is no refuge from the world in the end
in this place there is no refuge,
there is only the world in the end.
Published, 1999, in Snakeskin, September issue
The greatest teacher in Western Europe
I am the Greatest Teacher in Western Europe, Larigy said.
Under the taut skin the skull grinned. The glasses glinted
when it was time to beat the boys - his favourite time of day.
Brother Larigy never hit us straight away for our incompetence
but loved a feast of beating at the break, so he saved us up.
Once he let us off, we thought, to play in the first snow of winter
but when our frozen hands started to thaw and began to hurt
he took the leather out - a slim leather, nine inches long, and stiff -
and lined us up and slapped us, doubling our pain and his pleasure.
He liked to threaten to pull boys' trousers down and watch them squirm
but once a boy whose house Larigy used to visit turned and hissed
'I'll tell' and Larigy let him go and flinched as if he had been hit.
One day we were sent up to the water tower to see the dentist
when we came back a Higgins twin couldn't say the prayers for bleeding
- Our Lady of this pray for us, Our Lady of That, pray for us -
Larigy slapped his face until the blood poured out. We resumed praying
with blood streaming out of Higgins' mouth at each Our Lady.
The greatest teacher in Western Europe? As far as we could see,
better had he been a bachelor scratching a living up
a mountain, spending his nights muttering in the pub.
Published, 1998, in Snakeskin, February issue
Under the taut skin the skull grinned. The glasses glinted
when it was time to beat the boys - his favourite time of day.
Brother Larigy never hit us straight away for our incompetence
but loved a feast of beating at the break, so he saved us up.
Once he let us off, we thought, to play in the first snow of winter
but when our frozen hands started to thaw and began to hurt
he took the leather out - a slim leather, nine inches long, and stiff -
and lined us up and slapped us, doubling our pain and his pleasure.
He liked to threaten to pull boys' trousers down and watch them squirm
but once a boy whose house Larigy used to visit turned and hissed
'I'll tell' and Larigy let him go and flinched as if he had been hit.
One day we were sent up to the water tower to see the dentist
when we came back a Higgins twin couldn't say the prayers for bleeding
- Our Lady of this pray for us, Our Lady of That, pray for us -
Larigy slapped his face until the blood poured out. We resumed praying
with blood streaming out of Higgins' mouth at each Our Lady.
The greatest teacher in Western Europe? As far as we could see,
better had he been a bachelor scratching a living up
a mountain, spending his nights muttering in the pub.
Published, 1998, in Snakeskin, February issue
The meat man's rant to the vegetarians
Eating shite out of a plastic box again,
you moaners and whingers who eat to live?
Eat? Greens, beans - and not the beans you get in tins -
roughage, dear God, chewing, mandibles straining.
Eating as an act of public contempt
for gobblers of steak and bacon and chicken,
for scoundrels who want sugar in their tea.
Looking at ye eating would make a man sick,
taking out your plastic - ha! - lunch boxes,
opening them reverentially,
commencing to chew with grim little smiles
whatever sludge is contained inside.
Eating you may reflect on your goodness
compared to those who have not seen the light
or lack the moral - if you can tolerate a pun - fibre.
I would rather be marked down as a sinner
in the book of vegetarian crimes
and sentenced to a hell of roast beef and gravy
than dine in paradise on the likes of that.
Published, 1999, in Books Ireland, May issue.
you moaners and whingers who eat to live?
Eat? Greens, beans - and not the beans you get in tins -
roughage, dear God, chewing, mandibles straining.
Eating as an act of public contempt
for gobblers of steak and bacon and chicken,
for scoundrels who want sugar in their tea.
Looking at ye eating would make a man sick,
taking out your plastic - ha! - lunch boxes,
opening them reverentially,
commencing to chew with grim little smiles
whatever sludge is contained inside.
Eating you may reflect on your goodness
compared to those who have not seen the light
or lack the moral - if you can tolerate a pun - fibre.
I would rather be marked down as a sinner
in the book of vegetarian crimes
and sentenced to a hell of roast beef and gravy
than dine in paradise on the likes of that.
Published, 1999, in Books Ireland, May issue.
Eco-warrior
He crouches
like a leopard
over dials
sniffs out prey.
Like a man who shoots little birds on Sundays
at the edge of the forest
he hunts decibels
on hard margins by motorways;
tracks transgressors in company registration files
studies spoors in county development plans.
He sucks sustenance for his long stalking from environmental impact studies,
perches now and then on trees
daring growling chainsaws,
happy as a child in a garden
absorbed by action who has become the doing itself.
Published, 1999, in Books Ireland, December issue.
like a leopard
over dials
sniffs out prey.
Like a man who shoots little birds on Sundays
at the edge of the forest
he hunts decibels
on hard margins by motorways;
tracks transgressors in company registration files
studies spoors in county development plans.
He sucks sustenance for his long stalking from environmental impact studies,
perches now and then on trees
daring growling chainsaws,
happy as a child in a garden
absorbed by action who has become the doing itself.
Published, 1999, in Books Ireland, December issue.
Unfinished work
The rat trembles on the lawn like a leaf.
Our cats have snapped its back. They look bored.
I pray for them to finish it
and drag it to a neighbour's garden.
Instead they piss off and leave the job to me.
Published, 2000, in ROPES (Review of Postgraduate Studies), Issue 8, NUI Galway. (ROPES does not have its own website).
Our cats have snapped its back. They look bored.
I pray for them to finish it
and drag it to a neighbour's garden.
Instead they piss off and leave the job to me.
Published, 2000, in ROPES (Review of Postgraduate Studies), Issue 8, NUI Galway. (ROPES does not have its own website).
The female geriatric ward
The girls are beached in geriatric beds,
life got fed up and broke their legs and fled,
abandoned them to grim faced nurses' aides
in realms of commodes and walking frames.
Poor Sleeping Beauties, their fun is at an end,
no prince is on his way to rescue them.
Princes have more to think about than this,
than waking up old ravers with a kiss.
Published, 2000, in Books Ireland, September issue
life got fed up and broke their legs and fled,
abandoned them to grim faced nurses' aides
in realms of commodes and walking frames.
Poor Sleeping Beauties, their fun is at an end,
no prince is on his way to rescue them.
Princes have more to think about than this,
than waking up old ravers with a kiss.
Published, 2000, in Books Ireland, September issue
Treasure
A tide washed her to his solitary island,
left her intact on its wet stones.
Morning uncovered her in first daylight.
He contemplated her from all sides, appraised.
Her eyes were slightly open. He held his breath,
edged icy eyelids back: eyes brown, black-shadowed,
earth-warm amber turned to cold;
red hair - she must have been a whip-tongued scold in life.
She dressed for her final act in a denim jacket,
lumberjack shirt, warm amber to match the eyes,
navy jeans plastered to thighs by sea water;
her skin so cold. Quiet: nothing stirred: wave, wind or bird.
He spent hours with her in night's privacy,
her cold beauty a wonder to his trembling hands,
her cold flanks smooth like sea-worn stones,
her mounds, her hollows, burning marvels.
In morning's indifferent newness he carried her back;
water sidled in, lifted her up, took her out.
He dried her clothes - sour smell of steam from his range -
folded and smoothed them, shoved them under his bed.
That night he drank, remembered mounds, hollows,
fingered her clothes, fumbled inside her jeans,
thought of her appearing out of water, naked,
dripping salt, warm, to perch on his lap.
He packed her clothes into his smouldering range,
cremated them one by one - a night of stoking, poking -
felt in hot ashes for zips, buttons,
stumbled in unforgiving day to his solitary beach
to fling them into suffocating water,
pressed fists against his island's wet stones
to cool a violent pain from her burning zips,
scalding buttons, gold and silver of her estate.
Published, 2000, in Snakeskin, February issue.
left her intact on its wet stones.
Morning uncovered her in first daylight.
He contemplated her from all sides, appraised.
Her eyes were slightly open. He held his breath,
edged icy eyelids back: eyes brown, black-shadowed,
earth-warm amber turned to cold;
red hair - she must have been a whip-tongued scold in life.
She dressed for her final act in a denim jacket,
lumberjack shirt, warm amber to match the eyes,
navy jeans plastered to thighs by sea water;
her skin so cold. Quiet: nothing stirred: wave, wind or bird.
He spent hours with her in night's privacy,
her cold beauty a wonder to his trembling hands,
her cold flanks smooth like sea-worn stones,
her mounds, her hollows, burning marvels.
In morning's indifferent newness he carried her back;
water sidled in, lifted her up, took her out.
He dried her clothes - sour smell of steam from his range -
folded and smoothed them, shoved them under his bed.
That night he drank, remembered mounds, hollows,
fingered her clothes, fumbled inside her jeans,
thought of her appearing out of water, naked,
dripping salt, warm, to perch on his lap.
He packed her clothes into his smouldering range,
cremated them one by one - a night of stoking, poking -
felt in hot ashes for zips, buttons,
stumbled in unforgiving day to his solitary beach
to fling them into suffocating water,
pressed fists against his island's wet stones
to cool a violent pain from her burning zips,
scalding buttons, gold and silver of her estate.
Published, 2000, in Snakeskin, February issue.
A note to Patrick Morrin, deceased
Your grandchild Elizabeth stood on the altar
- you died long before she was born or the church built -
and read verses you wrote forty years ago
about death and rebirth, winter and spring
in front of your son Laurence's coffin,
he dead at seventy four, she stunned with grief
beautiful too as she read your lines
to the congregation. A child
cried, Mammy I want to go home.
Laurence's sons lifted his coffin heavily
onto their shoulders, conveyed him through incense
out of the church, down the hill, under dark skies,
hedges dripping silently, tarmac glistening,
up the wet gravel road to Caragh graveyard.
He lies near his brothers Edward, Arthur, John,
a short stroll from the old graveyard
where you await resurrection
by Robinsons' field.
Published, 2000, in Snakeskin, February issue
- you died long before she was born or the church built -
and read verses you wrote forty years ago
about death and rebirth, winter and spring
in front of your son Laurence's coffin,
he dead at seventy four, she stunned with grief
beautiful too as she read your lines
to the congregation. A child
cried, Mammy I want to go home.
Laurence's sons lifted his coffin heavily
onto their shoulders, conveyed him through incense
out of the church, down the hill, under dark skies,
hedges dripping silently, tarmac glistening,
up the wet gravel road to Caragh graveyard.
He lies near his brothers Edward, Arthur, John,
a short stroll from the old graveyard
where you await resurrection
by Robinsons' field.
Published, 2000, in Snakeskin, February issue
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