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.