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.