Snowfalls

Snowfalls
like swans feathers
from a sky of grey.
Footprints lead me on my way,
Birds skip and lift like notes
across the page of canvass white,
all is crisp and new.
Hand in glove
I walk with you.
Fresh the look
Its new clothes on
Pianissimo strings
it’s plaintive song.
The dog runs, plays and rolls
Can we too renew our souls
Cover them snug in blanket white
Let them kiss and play
By winking candle light.

Snows they melt and turn to slush
I tried to tell you, but you said hush
You showed me a snowdrop
Its white flower head bent
and whispered “look what
God has sent”
For each everyday a new surprise
a miracle if we only open eyes
To see the wonder all around
With treasured messages
to be found.

T'was the night before christmas

Twas the night before christmas
and all through the house
not a creature moved not even a mouse.
No decorations hung no tree illuminated
A father desparate for news of his daughter,
Like a bombs ticking clock waited.
Gone now over a silly thing, a misplaced word.
Five christmas’s since have past
His wife died broken hearted
from a grief that couldn’t last.

Drugged ,dead, or gone
to find his daughter lost,
he searches on and on
No mater what the cost
He knocks and looks in guttered lanes
he peers his eyes through window panes.
His fingers frozen blue and cold
his heart more frozen anxious still
but he will not quench the fire of love
Nor swallow the bitter, give up pill.

He searches everyday
in every crowd her face he scans
wishing for a sacred miricle
or magicians magic weaving wands.
He asked a beggar, he asked a fool
he asked the headmaster of the school.
He showed a picture of her smiling face
to a redlight lady dressed in lace,
she told him of an girl called Angel
with wings of blue upon her back
who had a face like his daughter face
Although its smile it somehow lacked.

She brought him to a seedy place
where painted faces sell their flesh
For Dollar or by the Pound.
If he was lucky ‘tis there,
plying a rough trade she’ll be found.
He climbed up a riggity, shadowy
creaking, winding, stairs
with every step repeating prayers.
A man with tweed and trilby hat
finished buisness scampered down
His wrinkles on his forehead
grew in furrowed frown.

The dark, the smells,
the klennex in the cubicles
He closed the door to the world he new
Slipped the coins into the slot
liked roman soldiers he gambled
For Gods garment with his lot
He bent and peeked the visor opened
it’s hazy aperture he saw through
A mane of black A naked back
and the red and blue tattoo
With angels wings
of a bird
whose voice was choked
and no longer sings
his eyes
began to burn with tears
As time up bell it rings.
Her eyes of blue were
were not fresh, he saw
Glazed stale fish kind
looked red and raw
but he had found her at last
and so he didnt mind
He knocked, as a father knocks
He called her name but she couldnt hear
His face was wet with happiness
From warm loving tear.
He asked for a private time
and the door lady thought
she knew his mind
but he had always understood
that love was real and kind.
So they met in a darked room
with a bed, red light, and a dirty wall
and he put his arms around her
and she answered to his call
and put his coat around her wings
and flew her out the door
they left that day and had a christmas
Like they never had before.
For her lips tasted true fathers love
And he forgot the years they lost
They both never looked behind
and they never counted up the cost.
For true love never gives up
Like a river that runs to the sea of blue
Read this story and rememeber hope
For that father, Mother, girl
Just might be you.

Grace o Malley (Pirate Queen) Granuaile

Fair-well for now my Grainuile

I must Hoist again the canvas sail

And the harbour I leave

May it safe thee keep

May it rock you in it’s arms a sleep.

My black haired raven

My pirate queen

The brightest jewel

I’ve ever seen

My beacon of light on the stormy sea

Sail safely home again to me.

Spanish ships bring Spanish wine

Jewels and silkes and spices fine

And slaves as black as kilkenny stone

And yellow birds that sing alone

To you their cheerful merry note

To blush your cheeks

Like the poems I wrote

Of my undying love of thee

Of your smiles and songs that

captured me.

You’ve gained great fortune

From the Armada’s stricken fleet

I’ve laid them down before your feet

Gold and silver and precious Jewels

Armor undressed from the Sásanacht fools

But I’ve no time for wealth like this

For wealth me is in your kiss.

I’ll take the helm

And sail my boat

And waves they pound

Like the words I wrote

To explain the constant

Thumping pain

‘til buried in your arms

I’am yet again

The sky is blue

And land is near

And on my cheek a silver tear

Or maybe just some salt sea brine

To remind That 

once you were mine.

The ages of man

From 20 to 30 if a man lives right
It’s once in the morning
and twice in the night
From 30 to 40
If he’s still lives right
He misses the morning
and sometimes the night
From 40 to 50
It’s just now and then
From 50 to 60
its’s Gods know when
from 60 to 70
if he’s still inclined
It begins to get erratic
but it’s still in his mind
His sporting days are over
His light is nearly out
What used to be his sex appeal
Is now his water spout
It used to be embarrassing
To make the thing behave
For nearly every morning
It stood and watched him shave
But now that it’s getting older
It sure gives him the blues
To have it dangling down his leg
And watch him clean his shoes.

When Your Blue and Bear Your Soul

When you’re blue and bear you soul
And all your worries take their toll
When the path you walk is fog and ice
Oh would’nt it be nice, so nice
To have someone to hold your hand
Not give advice but understand
Remember time will be, when his time will come
You’ll hold his hand when he can’t walk or run
And you will be his guiding star
When clouds obscure it from a far
And times will be when blind lead blind
But hand in hand you two don’t mind
So if some time your feeling blue
Reach out to a friend you once knew
And together some how the fog will clear
Cause friendship will cut in half the fear
And soon again you’ll laugh and smile
But be patient It’ll take a while.

I Light My Candles

I’ll Light my candles
You fight with your gun
When the war is over
Lets see who has won.
Squeeze the trigger
Whizz bang the bullets fly
You can cup your ears for ever
But you can still hear the cry.
Of pain and of torture
As bombs and bullets explode
As the horsemen of the apocalypse
Into the jungle rode.

You say you fight for freedom
But your caged within your crimes
When your fighting someone else’s war
In these troubled times.
Your haunted with the memories
The skeletons you’ve maimed
The children you left orphans
And all the lives you claimed.

Now your back into the city
Still searching for Vietcong
Cause your mind has just gone brittle
From things you did wrong
They sedate you now for breakfast
For Diner and for tea
If thats what you call freedom
It’s not the thing for me.

The fiddlers of Sliabh Luachra

Music flowed
Like water
From the bow
The resin dust
Shaken talc
Beneath the bridge
Notes danced like May fly
On the lake
Caught in the suns rays
For that single day
They were given life.
You played natures
Pure clean sounds
Fiddling a pulse
That grows amongst
The rushes
And the gorse
Yellow bushes
The birds song
The lichened stones
The brown bog’s banks
And the lone
Hawthorn
Shaped by the wind
Your music
Is like a poem
Standing like oghams
Holding a rusty gate
To a passing way
I hope I am wrong
Thats it’s melody
Dance and song
Will not disappear
For it has been dug out
Of this barren landscape
Filled with Myth and legend
Taken from the wind
That holds a hawk’s
Fluttering stillness
Before it plunges
Deep to rescue
Our melancholic
Hearts.

Lament to the Sevillian Matador

In a Spanish Bullfight
Outside of old Seville
We went to see the pageantry
The spectacle the thrill
We paid up in the turnstiles
And quickly got a seat
Grabbed the ice cream man
For something cool to eat
The crowd waited eagerly
And started to chant and roar
JUAN DEL ORO, JUAN DEL ORA
The Sevillian matador.

Like a Gladiator
Dressed for opera
He listened to the roar
Waited for the bull of black
To walk from behind the door
The bull charged out confused
He too listened to the crowd roar
As he eyed the rustling cape
Of the Sevillian Matador.

Two horsemen then arrived
With a dagger and a lance
Stabbing sinew in his neck
So he didn’t have a chance
With thirst he tore the dusty ground
Snorted and cried in pain
And swore to “Juan Del Oro”
He’d never fight again
The daggers swung like pendulums
As his blood dripped on the floor
As he cast a tempered look upon
The Sevillian Matador.

The red cape waved like a baton
To the roar around the ring
And the bull raced like a thunderbolt
At the seduction of it’s swing
The daggers tickled at his bone
When his head dropped down to low
And another vein burst it’s banks
Scarlets trickles scarlet flows
His body drained of energy
His eyes now red and sore
He studied for the final charge
At the Sevillian matador.

He pierced him in his heart
Prodded him on the floor
Whipped him like some dusty mat
You beat outside the door
The bones they cracked
And could be heard
As loud as the silenced ground
As people hung there face in shame
And whispered not a sound
They wondered why they had came
and said they’d come no more
To see the black “EL GORO” bull
And the SEVILLIAN MATADOR.

Me and my Muse

The purple foxglove flowers fished
For bumble and honey bee
I stood on the bank of words
And cast thoughts hopefully
Trying hard to catch a phrase
Or word, to shake my muse awake
But nothing nibbled my baited hooks
In that stagnant pool-green-lake
Weary trying I made for home
Satchel empty of verse and poem
No minnow word or sprat of prose
No line or verse or idea grows

Where have all the fishes gone
What’s polluted my inspiration?
Nothing,nothing could ease
My mind and sense of desperation.

Then I found your note
Written with spider weaving hand
“I am leaving you my darling
It’s hard to understand
My heart is not for another
I find it hard to say
I am not from your tribe or creed
But I loved you anyway.
Your parents never loved me
They made me feel
Unworthy of your care
Should have read the book of love
Said let the buyer beware.
Pretend it doesn’t hurt you say
I dont want to live a lie
And I dont want to hear you say
“Just give it another try”
Cos I’ve tried to make them like me
But its their silence that says it all
Please dont try to ring me
Chase me or even call
Forget, if you can forget
Cherish the memories
That we made
But they were sandcastles
Made with bucket and a spade
And so the tide will come
And wash those things away
And soon they will be hurled
Inside the silver ocean’s spray.
But we will live and love again
perhaps in a different way.

My hand was shaking
My head was in a spin
In The lake of learning
Fish were jumpin’ and
I felt like jumpin’ in
I scribbled words of pleading
Wrote down words of loss
I gambled all the words I had
In this poetic pitch and toss
I kissed your lips a thousand times
“leave me not alone”
for in the dying embers
Our love alone it shone.

I begged you in a 100 rhymes
Built with cadence rhythm care
But you didn’t like them much
And said they were a snare
I sung a ballad to you
With a romantic legato line
and wrapped the words around you
Like a garland of woodbine
In sonnet verse I set your beauty
In a Jewel of an amber glow
and if you left my heart would freeze
From cold loveless winds and snow
let my words wrap arms around you
In sonnet verse and poem
Come back my darling love
Dont leave me caged inside my home.

Oh the muse is wide awake
I wish it didn’t come this way
But may be the dragons words
Of love will call you back to stay
You’ll forget to shut taxi door
You’ll forget you never paid
Run up stairs to Kiss me
Say forget the things I said
And I will squeak like a children’s toy
My joy, my love, my muse
And ask you then to marry me
And hope you’ll not refuse.

So all you poets with broken hearts
With loves that refuse to mend
Whisper words into loving notes
It may not be the end.

My Love Is A Tree

My love is a tree
I’ve trained
Along a wall
She’s like one
I married
She doesn’t come
When I call
But when I come
To visit her
We have a sweet affair
I tidy her up in a bed
And she puts petals in my hair
In spring she brings me flowers
A soft blushing pink
And the dew drops
That fall from her eyes
Make me want to wink
And whisper her loving thoughts
As she sprays me with perfume
Lily of the valley, bergamot
And persian galbanum.
She Etherizes my senses
As she brings me to her embrace
To feel along her branching limbs
To feel her strength and grace
To feel how the wind moves within her
And the seasons change her dresses
Oh how she purrs like a putty cat
At my amorous caresses
But she has many suitors
That climb in beside her bed
The moth and caterpillar
And fungi her greatest dread
During day I am a jealous lover
And pick off what I can
And whisper softly to her
I am her only man
And wait until near summers end
When she’ll repay me full and all
For that is when the fruits she bears
Will ripen soft and fall
I’ll fondle under her dress of leaves
And gently touch her velvet fruit
And feel if the peachy fig is ripe
The moment now of truth
Wet lips will slowly kiss, its
Soft suede hairs on my tongue
Oh I ve waited long and hard for this
To harvest it from where it’s hung
She been there every day for me
And never once complained
Even when the frost was cold
Or when it rained and rained
But now she want me to taste her
And I’ve be patient all along
So I play some Leonard Coen
Or some romantic Ella song
I close my eyes and savor
The textures and her taste
And the sweet smell of nectar
Doesn’t go to waste
As quietly she opens and yields to me
I put her to my nose
And I peel away some skin
Just like a piece of clothes
Oh her inner beauty
Is a fig surprise to me
And I’am lost, I’am lost
At last I’am lost
In blissful
Ecstasy.

The leaving of Jenny

We stand all alone
By the whispering sea
I take hold of your hand
And you take hold of me
We whisper goodbye
As the ships says hello
And we kiss fo the last time
Before we let go.

Your hair in the wind
It blows like the sail
But the west wind just sighs
While your loves like a gale
My ship its sails further
But it wont take me away
From Jenny lovely Jenny
Grá geal mo chroí

I’ll look for my riches
I’ll dig for the gold
I’ll work much harder
Carry each load
But I’ve already found fortune
When still I have you
When loves like a fire
Burning so true

Now your etched
In my memory
Your still in my mind
I am sorry I left you
So far behind
For I didn’t find fortune
I didn’t find Gold
I found nothing but lies
In the storys they told.

I’am crumpled out lonely man
Slugin’ wine in brown paper bags
Sleepin’ rough in cardboard city
Clothed in a smelly tatty rags
I Lost some of me teeth
and all of me hair
But the memory of m’ Jenny
Makes me never despair

My Life it seems
A wasteland
Now that I am old
But the memories
Shared together
I never have sold
And these failures
And these pains
I carry, are a hell
And the love
Seed we set
Is still unhatched
In it’s shell.

And so when they find me
Like a dead cat on on the street
And the bums search in me pockets
For a rattle, of coin to drink or t’ eat
May the vultures find feck-all
‘cept whats in pocket all of me life
Of her pleading with me
To send her the passage
and make her my wife.

But I never stop thinkin’
Or dreamin’ or tryin’
Never stopped killing the pain
Of leaving you cryin’
And so if by a miracle
Your handed this sad song
Bury it in the country of love
Where we danced and belonged.

When I am broken

When I am Broken.

When I am broken

Do not come to fix me.

Tell me not

About positives

In my life.

Can’t you see

I am blind 

To such thoughts

My ears past hearing

My Logic past understanding

I am broken

And you, 

With your smart suit, 

Big words, meter ticking

Psychology Degree

Will not be the one

To heal me.

I am full of fuzz, 

The television crackles in my head

Behind the dark empty pools 

Of eyes, salt water flows

Un-announced

Behind them a sluice gate

Where I stored all his petty put downs

“Oh! Let me do it”

“Are you good for any-thing”

“Why? can’t you even stop

The baby crying!”

You made me feel like shit

Now I look like shit.

But when I am 

Ready to talk

You’re the mongrel dog

Who has pissed on my alter

Pooed in my souls chalice

And I’am going to catch you

By your scruffy neck

And I am going to stick

Your Fucking muzzle in it.

A strange Affair

A strange affair.

She was not beautiful
In a classical sense
More round than straight
Her pale skin’s
Luminous alabaster
Was strangely different
Almost perfect
Except for freckles
On her aquiline nose.
None of this mattered
Because her laugh
Was contagious,
Like a babies laugh
You could say I heard
Her long before
Our eyes met
In the garden
Where my dog and her dog
Lifted a leg by a Turkish Oak
To sniff and pee.
We laughed as leads
Crossed as a Shih Tzu bitch
And a white Poodle dog
Tried in vain to make
A new breed.
It led from there
And no one wanted
Or meant it to be
But when the flies
Stopped annoying us
And the color of the paths
We walked changed
To the crusty crisp golden browns
To Black and red berried hedges
Our talks shifted from the hellos
To the books we read
And poems we liked.
We drifted quietly
Like a boat through mist
Into friendship.

I gave her a tea stained copy
of “Love In A Time of Cholera.”
She gave me “The Fox” by
D.H. Lawrence.
But most of all we stopped
To stare
At a tree reflected
In a pothole
Or thick moss carpeting
In the wood of the Silver Birch
Or frogged spawned jelly
It’s eyes watching
us in a black pool.
We never held hands
or stared dreamy eyed
Into each other
We never kissed
Or made love
But we always missed
Each other ‘till we’d meet again.
At night when I couldn’t sleep
Her freckles were
The stars I counted
And this was how it was
Until another summer passed.

I never noticed
she didn’t Wear lipstick
Until one day she put it on
And asked me
To her house for diner.
We talked often about food
And she knew
It made my mouth water
And so I said yes.
The food spoke many stories
Journeys taken
But most of all it came back to home
Where fresh baked bread wafted
Meats cooked slow with love
Fell to the fork in
Sauces of rich Burgundy
Pastry bronzed with butter
Apples tart with clove
And yellow thick cream.

But this is not important
For in her house
Each and every Thursday
A ceremony of love started.
In silence
She took off my tie
Unbuttoned my shirt.
She put my fingers on her
First button
We worked on from there.
‘til she took me by the hand naked
Leading me to the terrazzo shower.
As if rehersed we took the
The soaps and creams
And lathered bubbly suds
On all our shapes.
Still we never kissed
Or stared or made love
Even though my manliness
Stood to her seductions
And the water on her face
Hid a tear or two.
When she put puffs of talc
On my toweled skin
I was a child again
And I laughed through
White puff clouds
That smelled of damask roses.
Laughed at her even whiter skin
And then I’d dress to leave.
And we never kissed
Or stared
Or made love
And whatever sin
That was committed
Was venial.

This is life somewhere between the heady mix of loneliness, love, commitment, marriage, vows, real love, catholic guilt and sin and the compromises one makes unselfishly to cut a deal with God to tip toe through the maze to make life tolerable while leaving the gates of heaven slightly open. Hepburn and Cagney loved and lived with this unconsummated love this is the every day I was trying to get across.

My Love

Your hair like autumn colors
Burning bright and browned
Your skin is like the winter snow
Laying soft upon the ground
Your eyes like the deep blue sea
Crashing to the shore
Your absence like 
The summer sun
No longer can endure
Your lips are berries from mountain ash
Your laugh a mountain stream
Your thoughts pry the unquestionable
Like a chink of light on a darkened beam
Or a white horse running wild and free
Silver mane by silver sea
Sliver Seeds of dandelion
Crowned starlets in your hair
Shining when the sun
Marry’s and melts
Amongst the veils of showers
Your the prism of color 
That above me towers
The rainbow that spans
The ditch stitched ground
The white swan sailing
On a stream of sound
And among the rushes 
waiting….....
I am found.

The Breeze blows cold
The sun brings heat
The clouds pour with rain
And you filled
Brimmed with love
To Eclipse
My cold moon’s pain.

Sweet child of Innocence

detail from a 1515 Flemish painting (The Adoration of the Christ Child) showing an angel and a shepherd perhaps showing signs of Down's Syndrome

Sweet child of Innocence

You sang a song for me

And in your own but simple way

You set my spirit free

You Caressed away

My hardships

With you’re gaiety and show 

And in your own but simple way

I know you let me know

That your love for me was bottomless

Over 3000 fathoms deep

And no dam could stop that love you have

Laid down for me to reap

Sweet child of innocence 

Sweet child of innocence

Your mind has got one simple tread

Of a pure yet magical weave

That was ment to love and glorify

never ment to deceive

For deception has saddened many

Who refuse what they receive

And look for other answers

For they Just cannot believe

That this child is just a messenger

Of a love thats rich and pure

And it’s we that are too oft’ times sick

Too blind to see the cure.

Sweet child of innocence

Sweet child of innocence,

Anybody that has met Diarmaid o Connell will know how special those born with Downs syndrome can be they give us hugs and love when we need them most, they are unconcerned with social conventions and get to the heart of the matter when words cannot be found. This is a poem/song I wrote celebrating the sun shine they bring to our lives but also lamenting those pre-occupied with a dis-appointment, not opening their hearts to the many blessing that such children bring to a family and those around them.

Homage to Halloween

Homage to Halloween

The Moon is full, the clocks go back
Strange things happen on all souls day
The dead souls creak, lost between
Sin, forgiveness and regret.
Remember now it’s Halloween.

The ivy curtains of their tombs
Are pulled away inside the ruins
Lichen statues turn their way
As their bones put on a flesh of clay
And walk again with unsure feet
Hoping they will somehow meet
The beggar they past on the street
So many moons ago.
Or the child they stole innocence from
Now they want, but the moments gone
To cry in contrite agony,
“Soooooooooooorry”.

So they trundle on in chains
While the darkness still remains
Hoping someone knows their walk
Senses their cold breath like chalk
Scrapping the screeching blackboards
Of dark memories that they hoard.
The victims eyes, with venom baptize
Spewing green phlegm, spat in streams
Absolves them of the unforgivable
Unchaining their sinful dreams
To sleep in peace
Eternally.