The meeter and greeter
whose patter gets sweeter
whilst extending a sheltering arm,
to the nubile doe-eyed self incompleter
he’s like daddy minus the charm.
The halfwitted trojan horse clown
scribbles recklessly getting it down,
and though the words in his head
have already been said
he’s convinced he’s the new Ezra Pound.
The political ranters
finger their chanters
while reeling the dancers a tune,
the revellers will tap and skip to their crap
as if tides to a dictating moon.
The front line reporter the dutiful scribe
no opinion his own behind others he’ll hide,
he’ll travel the length and breadth of the land
making notes on events
he can’t understand.
The crab like page crawler
safe under his rock
awaiting the low hanging fruit,
skitters cross pages in clumsy veiled rages
his default much less than astute.
The cast out outsider
scrawls drunkenly silent
his passivity strangled, choked into violence,
he’s lost all his rhythm he’s radicalised
Joyfully driven to be so despised.
The shadowed trench half lit by a shredded moon slowly swallows the remains of men. What hasn’t been tossed to the rear vanishes in mud disappearing for decades, awaiting some distant spring.
Somewhere in the middle of nowhere rats are eating something indefinable, elsewhere far behind the slaughter a stonemason crafts a memorial for an empty grave, his chisel the cruel liar to a hollow casket.
The draw of a cigarette reddens a pale face which glows but doesn’t live, cupped in a clawed hand the burning leaf warms a palm that will never cross a new born brow. Exhaled breathless smoke abandons hope with a sigh.
And yet from this desolation comes the future of men, in words and clay and from the colour of all things living, and love, from this black night comes love and light and wisdom from the learning. For in all things there are seeds that will not die.
Shoots
What nourishes the dormant seed?
Nothing is permitted until the time of natures choosing. Lying in the coffined earth an expanse of life and time gestates, a burst of blooming summers restrained. The cycle of seasons waits patiently for its moment to crack the husk, to reveal itself to the beckoning light.
This then, like the recovery of men from war cannot be predicted or governed. For each man in his contradictory polarity tumbles through his inner space, oblivious to the balance he must attract that will repel him just enough to stabilise the falling. Equilibrium must exist in all things for all things to exist with meaning.
And then slowly reaching, forcing itself toward light and warmth, even the warmth of rain a shoot might break the ground. It will make a sound and hear a sound and know it is alive, other things will act on it and it on other things until there is recognition between them, a balance.
The nourishment can begin.
Photosynthesis
Before the desire for knowledge is ever realised there is the necessity for it, the need for basic exchanges between the building blocks of life. The tentacles of will to survive reach toward the Sun, this like a form of automated worship never requiring Priests or Pulpits.
Not a call to Prayer but a call to live, a call to live free from the corruptions of false Gods and false prophets, to live pure and clean under the one all powerful entity which gives life to every living thing, without prejudice.
Does this creator demand our obedience? Every embryonic tide releases echoes endlessly washing through all that lives. We take its power and turn it against itself, unknowingly recycling entropy like vengeful angels smashing altars with bolts of lightening. And so we burn our flightless imaginations and tether ourselves to conformity.
As the unrelenting power moves our planet ever onward it cares not whether things live or die, are good or bad, it promises nothing and asks nothing. This is the one true source of everything we know and it demands nothing because it is everything.
With what little power we have we emanate destruction.
We make spaces in the ground to lay our used up carcasses in, the earth takes us back. We are recyclable, ungrateful particles of ancient stars that no longer shed light, instead we rage with resentments only known by those who have forgotten where they came from, an unanchored chaos engulfing everything within its orbit.
On roads between the tribal territories we would stop to hide amongst the green of things, some lads would smoke and some be silent.
We talked to horses and forgot our lives, most often the stillness would calm us. From hidden hillsides we’d watch our enemies move.
We gave the horses names and fed them apples, they became our friends they listened to our confessions. They were not aligned to flags or kerbstone colours.
The radio static broke the spell like lightening strikes, the rains would wash us back to streets where our calmness would evaporate to hate.
On the Derriaghy Road between the hell of sink estates we harassed joyriders and freedom fighters, terrorists and lovers too, the green and gold, red white and blue.
We gave them names and labels from folklore, rhymes and fables just like the horses in the stables we gave them names.
We fed their hungry bitter souls with reason and with cause, we never thought we might be wrong when kicking down their doors.
We gave them names in a language laced with spite we cursed our enemies so, to make our cause seem right We gave them names.
And when I hear those names again, spoken, spat and screamed I think of friendly horses and wish the rest was just a dream
Notes from life 