the cat will see you now

the cat glides under my shadow 

a cadaver-cold-nosed ankle balm

her woollen tail sliding dark-ward 

beckoning down

or 

statue still upon a hare’s breath

head tilted in question to my answer

she looks straight through me 

to where the truth is

or 

as a storm ferris wheel

and wound up tight 

she ricochets off the quarrel walls 

and 

  then

as puppet-master 

she unstrings the swan-lake day

and curls to sleep and sleep

to purr the night away

70

then a sea breeze lays

its bated teenage breath,

upon the awning 

of the morning rays;

and to those yearning days,

so bleared in joy,

that sea of tears;

so minded in the eyes

that look down the ways, 

to the golden days,

beckoning even now,

and even now, 

so irresistible.

they’re abroad!

they’re abroad! 

the moon boys, cold in the blue dusk flare,

  sledging wide-eyed down the brazier nights,

and, wrapped in that primordial exhilaration, share

  the once and only, the might be mights.

and when the hearth home fades

  into the monochrome,

and when the gossamer threads

 stretch as thin as thin from home;

the boys unchained sledge down their nights,

  wild-minded under the zeitgeist moon;

and tobogganing down from their haughty heights, 

  they crash out, the great fun ended, albeit too soon.

isn’t it

yesterday 

is just behind the ridge behind you

tomorrow 

is just in front of the ridge in front of you

spin around

but

you’ll never catch sight of them

you know the past 

you guess the future 

but you’ll never see them

today is 

well

it just is

isn’t it

tell me tomorrow when today is past 

and if it did in gentle’s lightening hours

and if it did in gentle’s lightening hours,

  chance upon the dewed bird’s early worm,

and daisying with the dawn-eyed flowers,

  another summer’s day confirm.

and then they play the old songs, the summer list,

  from the days when we met our chance,

and my tears, thin as upon this morning mist,

  fall sweetly now upon your enquiring glance.

and all our knowing, twirls around that look,

  that held-breath upon the lake of time;

and love that started as a brook,

 now combines the tributaries of you are mine.

and in the darkling down slow hours

  that bat across the flitting moon,

and at these bookend days of ours,

  that came all but too soon,

we’ll fade together, day to night, 

  so hold my hand as i hold yours,

and we’ll kiss goodnight to night.

on the edge of sleep

there’s a park

between sleep and hark

where the serpent guile 

is upon the surf of dreams 

and sometimes dark

and sometimes light

and sometimes day

and sometimes night 

roundabout the park

empty swings play

and demand we cling on tight

ere we dive in

and dream the while away 

sound the alarm

sound the alarm

the colour of sand

he wanted it the colour of sand

over and over

he said he wanted it the colour of sand

as he walked past with his dog

but you have to eat i said

i don’t know why i thought that 

but i kept on telling him

over and over

you have to eat

from 6 am until 7 am

or the colour will not be real

but he was not listening 

it was as if he wasn’t there

dread

we crept into the graveyard,

through the twisted rusty fence,

through the rustling russet bushes,

to see the blackbird on her nest;

but she was dead.

dead and sitting there,

dead upon her nest.

turning, the dread ran out with us

through the twisted rusty fence.

god i hate everyone

god i hate everyone

the ones who drop litter,

leave it there, let’s drown in it,

  i say!

the ones who park on the pavement

in their hierarchical metal boxes,

coded, badged, and booted.

warrior, animal, and vegetable too.

the sod you generation,

the era of the sod you, sod you,

sod you;

   sniff.

the noisy ones, and the daft ones,

and the ones around the back;

in their nowheres, with

their barbecues, 

barbarising their mistakes.

the fag parents of the fag brains,

in their fag brain obese-mobiles.

  i sodding hate ‘em all.

the blue-rinsers oozing down the scent

of the perfumed hoi polloi, 

their powder layered thick as thieves

of time when time’s run out.

and the squeaky, speaky girls, with their

alabaster faces plastered brown;

oh do make up your bloody mind,

all i see are painted clowns;

but do you think

you looking good? or are

you good for looking at?

  oh for god’s sake!

all that’s fashion is out of fashion,

they are fashioned to be plebeians;

imbecile and infantile.

your mundane conversations, 

the same on tuesday, wednesday,

all week through;

not one fundamental question

follows your how do you do you do

  what?

the promenading doggy dumpers,

with their little bags of doggy poo,

nattering about their doggy dos,

and did they do, and do they do?

  ah sod you, sod you,

    sod you all.

       i hate you all.

      

every single one of you.

remember?

remember?

they are gone now

and i cannot remember them.

how they fitted together so well,

and how i spoke through them.

i never said goodbye, or tartar. 

each extraction was brutal,

a last love-bite and they were gone.

and my curly hair, in sepia;

i can no longer feel the coiled springs,

or the henna of the sunlight.

now in the twilight of my life

i cannot remember them.

every toe nail and finger nail that

i had grown up with and without,

where are they now?

composted where i point; over there.

gone their sublime scratching of the itch

of a flaky skin. i cannot remember.

that exfoliating epithelial rejuvenation,

the snow falling from the buds.

scratched note fading from the hands of time.

i cannot tell if the wardrobe dust is mine,

or yours. so how can i remember.

the red blood cells and their ruddy recycling.

the zillions of gametes that will never meet.

the bone swimming in a mineral sea.

the tears that have flowed.

with the peristalsis to the drain,

its microbiome in full reign.

all gone from my memory.

as the moisture on my breath

condescends to fade,

so do my memories sublimate,

until nothing of substance can be left.

so who am i now?

what is left me now?

an everlasting brush that had

numerous new handles and heads?

now upon the pyre of goodbye. 

however much you drink of the past,

you will piss it away in time.

regard the reflection of your mind,

always one step out-of-step

with the neural ion flux,

that the eons have prescribed.

chip away at the temporal pole and

the tent of thought will collapse upon you;

as your fly-sheet soul in fleeing flies

refusing the evening’s last goodbyes.

i do not recognise the memories,

still ...

the ache

there is an ache that is so small 

that it cannot be felt, that grows

so slowly that it seems 

to have always been there.

there is a closeness

that is entangled across

the thinness of space,

that however far apart we are

we are not.

but the ache of being apart

can be as heavy as the light years

are to understand, with

the distance is as incalculable 

as the bite is deep.

the flip over to closeness

can come as a shock;

when the ache is inverted to a joy 

that is as high as the mountains of the moon.

come back soon

and let the elasticity of love

sting in the twang,

and we’ll hug again.

je ne regrette rien

but no regrets 

then came the song, and

i was back there in an instant,

on the scent of a memory,

bleared in the tears,

in that blink of an instant 

in time, back then,

when, when; o when ...

it could have been, that

we could have been;

goodbye my joie de vivre,

c'est la vie,

je ne regrette rien.

dotage?

dotage?

to walk the handrails of convention,

  to inhabit habit, and never turn away,

wonder not that the days speed past,

  when you say there is no other way.

when the dues to living are paid,

 and dark days from your temples gone,

when your head soars in the clouds,

  when a light upon the abyss is shone.

  take what’s left of life and say,

this hair’s breadth intoxicates;

  so i will; i will live it my way;

and sleep upon a sun dream.

as down the wooded lanes i fall,

  down to the seas of my beach each day,

and when i return i will simply sit and write

this poem, to tell of the might,

 of how to do it, and why i did it,

and why i did it my way.

a visitor

the past paid a visit

to where i had paid no attention

and he had not changed a bit

my wandering inattention had

not erased one aspect of the past

and it was so nice at last

to relive the memories

that crinkled around our eyes

and along the smiles between us

now upon the pillow of my childhood

now upon the pillow of my childhood

that seducer of thoughts

although many a tear

was shed in secret there

many a fear

was caressed to sleep 

down the corrugated black lanes 

where every boy and girl is blended

into our childhood pal 

gilded of grime

slicing the sunshine into the ways

of the days that ran

tumbling wings-on-heels

eyes screaming laugh-wide

and nostrils full of the pollen 

from corners around corners

the high jumps or the hands and knees 

down amongst the clod turned bugs

and bitten by the webs of breath

that rasped in the stitch of beating

the boundaries of our growing domain

every ruin reborn in a fantasy 

bartered and battled between friends 

in dreams upon the warm-handed stones

and clawed close beneath fingernails

of hands that clapped in gingham chases 

or seated tight in conversation 

not on the ruins 

of the grownup’s somewhere else 

but here on our seats 

with the sun’s breath hot upon our necks

that promised this day is yours

those were the seats

so is this is why I push my face

deep into the pillow of my childhood

where my clenched eyes are dry of the tears

that flowed so readily back then

upon grazed knees that beg to go back 

but the castles of summer have fallen

and yet the gold dust is

and no chirrup chirrup

two sparrows perched up close

like two bleat-eyed beggar’s dogs

are listening to a blackbird singing

with not even a chirrup chirrup

to coin a phrase

May day, May day, mun

there’s a spider on a moon thread,
that is glistening in the gloom,
drifting in the dewey mist
that must be lifting soon.

and then it will sleep,
up there, in the pear blossom,
that will be snowing in the sun,
of a morning playing possum,
on a typical May day, May day, mun

the pear blossom is falling

all the snows of winter are falling in the pear blossom
a blizzard is dowered of the dearth 
and is melting to juice the fruit
of a summer long overdue
over the dews of May
steaming away on
this hot and
sunny
day
oh
o

mammy said

mammy said

mammy said so many times, so many things,

that i often said "mammy said", when

I should have said grownup things;

but mammy said.

mammy said 
"no" to another comic; i think it was

because we didn’t have much money,

but "mammy, mammy, please, please"

usually sliced the bread;

mammy said.

mammy said 
"there are rats under the sink again",

in the scullery where she boiled my shirts in a saucepan,

on the gas ring, where she poked them with a stick 

that sogged shorter and shorter.

dad set a trap and sealed the hole.

"good" 

mammy said.

mammy said

 "he thinks his shit is chocolate",

the acerbic husband of the lady who ran the post office,

next door, where mammy helped out.

she was a gentle woman so the "chocolate" melted my heart. 

tough what? and

"he thinks his shit don’t smell". 
that’s what

mammy said. 

mammy said "he’s fast asleep";

me, that is, wrapped in a course Welsh shawl 

around her pale blue sequinned dress 

that smelled of valderma.

it frightened me when she said

 "you’re not my little boy".

yes! that’s what 

mammy said!

mammy said 

"you’ll never be half the man that your father is";

"you are like a string of diseased meat".

boy, i must have really upset her that day.

I cannot remember why, but i was a naughty boy.

but, it hurt, that did, but, honestly, that’s what 

mammy said.

mammy said 
"neatness counts",

what did she know of school?

neatness counts for little if the sums are wrong.

in her dark moments, she said 

"laughing leads to crying",

that’s what

mammy said.

mammy said

"don’t swear", "talk when you are spoken to", 

"little boys should be seen and not heard",

"cat got your tongue?", "you’ve got worms you have".

lots and lots of things like that,

mammy said.

mammy said 

she had just "lain out"

mr this or mrs that.

she did that in the village.

the softest of women could be hard.

"someone has do it",

mammy said.

‘it’s the living you have to fear"

daddy said.

"take no notice of your father",

mammy said

mammy said 

"look at them all in their Sunday church best,

come an look with me, here on the bed".

fox stoles and lucky rabbits feet in silver clasps;

passing by our window.

"they’re all airs and graces",

mammy said.

"she’s a nice girl" mammy said,

and we were wed.

"they are good boys" grandpa said,

as mammy did the ironing. 

"ah! cachy" my nana used to say.

"she only had one lung, you know",

that’s what

mammy said.

mammy said 

"who is making the sandwiches?".

she always howled unconsolably at funerals;

all her sisters did.

it could be a bit unsettling

until the tea was served.

"nice sandwiches",

mammy said.

"i’m dying" mammy said.

"it’s going right through me;

they’ve taken my clothes away

and these don’t fit",

mammy said.

we said "no, no" ever so gently;

but she was dead;

she was dead.

and all i could think of was:

"what would mammy say now?"

"what would mammy have said?"