CIVIL WRONG

Humans are losing humanity.

Shell-shocked by the first

The second and civil war

That makes us a civil wrong.

Our society builds a big bonfire

To celebrate war, what a sick

Sad society.

We’re going back to the good

Ould days. Its times like these

I’m glad to be locked-in, all alone

In my solitary joy.

THE DEAD FORM

The dead live in a pome.

Their voices merge with-

Out rhyme or reason.

Unsung songs

Of the grave.

Through the grey ashen

Morning splashing along

The river road, I hear bird-

Song dawning.

I can almost smell the shape
Of sleep, soiled trans-parent-see.
I kick the pile of strong empty
Beer cans, did I leave them there
Or you?

I see him coming down un-singing
‘its your party, you can cry if you
Want to’, ‘You don’t have to be
A baaaby to cry’ carrying that
Bastard life. ‘You would cry to if
It happened to you’.

My pomes aren’t read by metre
Rhyme, punctuation, grammar
Or spelling. Their read by feeling
You can’t semi-colon emotion.

My words stop start. She turned 
to me and smiled that con-
fused smile and said, ono-
matopoeia, my life is

my death.  

CHILD'S PLAY

A swing, a slide and a trike

Hurtle us through space

And time but the branch

Of a tree is a gun and stops

Us, nature is nurtured to kill.

We can’t stop this, I know.

That’s how we won the west.

We have to un-cycle violence.

Back pedal back to humanity

Slide back up the slide in our

Minds, swing back on the swing

To go forward into a non-

Violent day, way.

We are now on nuclear termin-

Ology, how did we ever get here?

We have to change a mindset for

The sake of man-kind.  We are going

Through life at a ballistic rate.

and held like a legend, and understood.

then the knowing comes:  I can open to 

another life wide and timeless.

                                                  RILKE

A MOMENT US POME

1.

The moment changes from this

To that in an instant.

One second you’re a published poet

In love with life and love.

Next, you’re a mumbling paralyzed fool

Who can’t walk or talk

And in a wheelchair.

Alive again in time, looking out

A window trying to find form

But form finds you.

Form is out there in nature, it

Turns life around again.

The moment only stays un-

Till the moment spins around again.

Life is like a pitch ‘n’ toss coins landing

heads and tails in the wet clay.

You go from this to that, form

Finding form.

2.

I have seen darkness and it is dark.

I have seen light and it is light, in-

Between there is only

This grey matter switching

Off and on.  Words catch up

In and out of sight, were playing

Catch up.  Every moment is

You’re first and last.  Life is re-

Pet-ative but it’s mine.

THE DAY I DIED

This is all I have ever since

April 2005, during a stroke

My memory was erased or

So I thought, whether this

Is true or false I’m compelled

To write this into my memory

Bank.  The mind recovers

Moments you write back into

Time.  I stood there just a boy

On the hill of Holy Cross church.

Holding a plastic prayer book on

My way to a mock confirmation

Mass, my Father in the Crum, my

Mother in Armagh jail, both doing

Time for Ireland.  I stood there looking

Down at a man spraying a hail of bullets

At three people dead on the ground.

He raised his gun into the air screaming

This is for god and ulster, I looked at

The great doors and threw away my prayer

Book and ran home crying.  A ricochet re-

Bounding moment like bullets of the ground.

I think I remember it well.

SKYWALK

This is the season of jet streams

lines shoot right out of the blue.

I can sit down here finding hope

in humanities hope.  This is my

blaze of trail, I don’t need to leave

behind a vapor of pomes, words

that just go up in smoke.  Re-

member where you came from

to get where your going to and i can

sky-walk your lines balancing my

hope and my truth, give something

back to humanity and you can

sky-walk to.  I’ve been all over

this world and met some wonderful

people who have sky walked these

words with you, words vaporize

in hope I hope and leave behind

a line or two.  Just as I write this

there’s another two and the lines

shore in my heart,  making me feel

that I'm not alone lost, lonely a-part.

There’s a line somewhere up there

that leads right back to the start.

            Poetry is like sunshine it's free

                        'It is human to look down 

on things that have fallen'

                          Alden Nowlan

FLAW

While they raided a house down

The street for guns, I searched my

Mind for these words of light.  Seems

Conflict is passed through gen-

Orations like the error of memory.

‘Do you know we haven’t had one?

Day’s peace on this earth ever:  A fact.

It dawned on me, the strong spring sun

Shot through the flaw of glass reflecting

Colour of the door handle like the words

Of Lou Reed came alive, ‘Different colours

Made of tears’.  A hologram of light,

A mixture of memory in a rainbow of pomes.

The colours of everything I’d ever seen reflected

Of a door handle.  Shot through like a glance

Of every pome I ever wrote shining for me

And for you, if you look?  Grief will always

Catch up with you so let humanity flow.

o.c.

I don’t dream much these days

But writing my memories keeps

Me sane. My Fathers plot of weeds

And wild grass cries out for order.

The fallen wooden cross bears no name

Just like the seed markers he planted

To say which is which, the plot he turned

In an acre and a half of land to plant

Lettuce, cabbage and carrots from

A packet of seeds.

I was left in charge to see them grow.

Forgotten little shoots that nurtured

Into grief, un-weeded neglected was

Your theory of living of the land.  City

Dwellers trying to be country-folk.

Now you lay beneath the land you fought for

without a flag to wrap around your bones. 

We don’t even know where your plot is?

So how can we weed a plot we do not know

from what is what.

UN-POLLUTED JOY

‘Loving them all the way back to the source,
Loving everything that increases me’.
Raymond Carver

The mind creates a form like
Shadow goes into light.
The form becomes a memory
Of what I done yesterday.
A childhood I thought was erased
Almost like an anagram my mind
Is raised to remember yesterday
Today. Words have a healing prop-
Erty if you let them form, only like
They know to flow. Words find
A way to journey through the mind
To feel the tremble of light in un-
Polluted joy, to wake up on another
Shore with Raymond Carvers sight, might.

i was talking to a housing inspector about a dis-

abled door and this came like that.

THE GLAD STREAM

The spittle from my pen leaves

Its mark upon the page, a heart

Pierced by a sword.   My Father used

a gun to find peace, I used a pen.

‘ The glad stream’, metal and plastic power’.

I’m reading Coleridge while the young couple

on the far bank are moving. I’ll miss them

at the backdoor coming out for a smoke even

If they never say hello, it felt like some-

one was there.  The cot and toys are being

shifted into a van, the white door through

the fence has closed a chapter.  The sky

is blue and the river of cars flow by.

BLOOM

The world goes on and on and on

But I’m here and here and here.

A plastic urinal looks up and blooms

Between the wheelchair and the dis-

Abled toilet.  I’ve been reading poets

And poems and poetry but can’t find

A link to my home. Poetry is out there

in the meadows and trees but I’m

Locked-in alone.  I put a search into

Google for poets who took a stroke

Nothing came up.  I turned away

In my wheelchair to see my leg-

Lifter and my grabber catching rays

Of sun on my profile bed so I suppose

The only link is the sun coming in

And this pome going out.  A pome

From a un-romantic, un-academic

Spineless confessional poet, there

I said it that word poet but I’m just

A shadow of my former self living

A stanza in me.

SPRING SHADOWS

Spring shadows, thick and black
They make a tree look like a tree
Within a tree. A lazy lonely mid-
Day as if the shadow was painted
By Edward Hopper. The shadows
Fall in this sun against the cloud-
Less blue like it didn’t need any
More to be today. The shades
Of yesterday are with us, cele-
Brating this glorious sunshine
Falling upon contrasting light,
Being.

A COLD FRONT

I have to dig in deep

to find a purpose

to find a stanza that

translates my soul.

My purpose is to be-

come a silent poet

a screaming din with-

in a noiseless state.

A person that is way be-

yond a person a human that

seeks to find humanity

a searcher of the truth within

the search, a man that has

touched his own black hole.

A POEM INSIDE A POEM

A poem inside a poem

revealed it-self to me

showing a slant of ages

like an image within

an image.

Coming out of dark

a bi focal trick in the eye

of concentration to go

deeper and deeper into

grey matter.

LIFE 

We feel death in the numb-

ness we cry, grieved tears

are felt unlike sentimental joy.

Tears of loss are full of empathy

and truth, death is passed on like

life, it's so natural we forget.

Death isn't talked about it's felt!

Numbness seeps into our bones

we feel in our flesh.  Death is 

  

A living thing, grieve life.

GUTTERS OF SKY

The birds that rule the roost drink in gutters of sky.

We only think were fat cats

living the fat cat lie but really

the Avenue is an alley with

the stink of the filthy rich.

When will the world give to

humanity without investing

a soul.  All we want is a yacht

car and home, the birds will

always drink in the gutters be-

cause they have a home

and they can fly.

We will build them ever higher

and higher but we will never be

able to fly.  When will we ever

come down to earth and drink

from the earth of time?

EVIL-UTION

'imperfection is the language of art'                                                       

Robert Lowell

We come from the gene pool of evil-

ution and just like the countless of

millions who make up humanity that

take their chances in the pick n mix

gene pool of evil-ution.  

I'm not playing

the blame game, i know it's been a case

of bad luck that i exist in a time of econ-

omic drought and inhumane despair but

I have no one to blame for my despair.

Like everyone else I took my chances

and I'm responsible for the things I say

and do, and I'm governed by the laws

of the place I choose to dwell.  No one

is to blame, not my Mother or father who

took their chances in the gene pool just

like me and you.  

God or the government

is not to blame for my evil-ution and we

can't blame evolution for trying that's

the chance we took and it made the most

of a bad lot and I ended up paralysed in

a wheelchair unable to walk or talk with-

in my own despair but lets not play

the blame game and keep the cycle of war

famine and death going.

We have to break this chain of crus-aide and take it on the chin.  Be big boys in this big society and stand up to sit down for our rights and stop blaming others for our bad luck.  Ok were disabled that's the chances we took but only self determination can give us the right to stand up to sit down for our rights and give us a positive strain to create another positive minute, imperfection is the language of art so lets take that language of art and create a pos-itive evolution that replaces evil-ution.

GREY MATTER

I look around this room and realise my muse

has exhausted the theme of light and dark

but the shadows still fornicate.

I’ve used the bed-rail, the wheelchair

And the stand-by beacons to keep me

from drowning in dark.

My piss-pot is angled like a shooting star

Blazing my trail of hope.

My positivity comes from the well

Of treasure, the source that we call god.

Whether it is or isn’t I think the well

Of human spirit is a vessel of magic

That keeps us whole and I always

Make love with my light in the dark.

These poems and stories are set around the pad.

Monday, 18 November 2013

ONE FOR THE ROAD

PART1.

Adrian Peter Patrick or Patrick Peter didn't matter much to him, one was his English side and the other his Irish side he was just a scruffy little street kid.  Born in England

of Irish catholic parents, his mother from Dublin and his father from Belfast they met and wed in London, having a family of six children all born in different towns.

my father was always running from his past we moved house home and school every six months or so.  life for the children was t-chests in the living room and the mark of

pictures on or off the wall marking time to come or go.  my mother was from rat mines on the south side of Dublin, Dublin was a grim city then growing  into a free

state times were hard for Maggie and her children who decided to make a new start

for her children in London.  they had lost their husband and great father at the early age of twenty seven to tuberculosis, Maggie knew she would never be with another

as her and her children had lost their rock so a fresh start in England was the best thing even if her family disapproved, Ireland at that time was married to the church and made it known that Ireland was no place for a single mother to raise five children.

My father was born somewhere and left on a doorstep in north Belfast, both Sarah and him took any information to the grave so whether my name is Adrian peter fox is un-known and I don't really care as I look at this as the beginning.  my father never gave me jack shit so this is the beginning of my end.  my father was running from the  void

in his soul and he found a soul mate in my mothers good charm.  I'm beginning this series of poems and stories with two short stories based on the beginning and the end of their lives together whether their circumstances are true or false is up to you.

THE NOTEBOOK

Although it was late morning the sun was still warm over the south side of

Dublin draining yet another cold winter from the earth and from the hearts of the

poor.  One didn’t have to see the sun or feel the heat to know that summer had arrived

In Rathmines, the stench of the Grand Canal lingered with the cities grime.

As the church bells rang out the Angelus little Maggie blessed herself and

continued polishing Mrs Mahon’s side board.

Every Saturday she helped her mother clean the houses of the rich to help boost her

measly widows pension from the Ministry of Defence.

Her father died a few years previous, cut down is his prime of twenty seven by

Tuberculosis leaving a gaping wound in the hearts of a devoted wife and five

children.

Maggie worked alone this day, her mother was away bringing a life into the world she

was the unofficial midwife of the area.

The duster glided across the dark wood and she escaped into her Hollywood dreams

dancing and singing songs by Judy Garland with her friends on the lochs of the canal,

the stench of the filthy river forgotten.

She took a small worn notebook from the pocket in her drab tunic and flicked through

the pages of scribbled signatures and stopped at Judy Garland, a sense of pride filled

her cheeks recalling the crowds of screaming fans she battled through for that

autograph.  That little book held her treasures and was as important as her prayer

book and her legion with Mary.

She turned to the last page autographed by Rita Hayward, she remembered her

friends not believing her when she showed them the book.

‘You done that yourself’ they said sitting on a bench that ran along the canal, Pam

 and Mary  squeezed in trying to make some sense of the scribbled line.

‘I cant make head nor tail of it’, said Pam,  ‘if you gave our jimmy a bleeding pen

you’d make more sense of it’ said Mary how did you get it they asked together?

well said Maggie’,  ‘I was in Woolworth’s getting threads for my mother when this

blond lady with sunglasses came in the queue behind holding a little girls hand’.

‘Caught ya na na na na na said Pam said, Rita Hayward  hasn’t got

blond hair, ‘I know said Maggie but I remember Rinty the bell boy at the Gresham

had told me she was visiting Dublin.  ‘I read that in her next role she would be blond,

so there’.

‘I waited at the front and when she came out’ ‘I said’,‘ Miss Hayward could I have

your autograph’ , ‘what makes you think I’m Miss Hayward, , she said removing her

 sunglasses . I told her that I read about her next role as a blond and I knew she had a

little girl.

 She said for knowing so much I will sign and handed me an orange from her bag and

asked my name and shook my hand.

The two girls looked again at the scrawl of ink and knew it was Rita Hayward’s

and skipped off home along the path.

Finishing her chores she fell into the role of a movie queen strolling the highly

polished hall.  As she neared the wide steep staircase her hands raised like a ballet

dancer pirouetting in a beautiful gown in place of her drab tunic that hung around her

like an apron of poverty.

No longer a buck toothed thirteen year old Dublin girl she was the queen of

Hollywood.

She strode the staircase with the strength of Joan Crawford or  Bette  Davis

as she neared the last flight her step lightened and fell with a thud into reality and

Mrs Mahon standing at the foot of the stairs.

She looked forward to the one shilling wage and the home made cakes and tarts made

from apples and pears picked from her garden and the goodness of her heart.

As she reached the bottom step Mrs Mahon said in her soft upper class polite tone

’would you do me a favour Maggie’, the little girl nodded in response.

Go to Dan Dooley’s and get an ounce of tea, half a sugar and quarter butter and keep

the change, and Mrs Mahon handed her a shilling  and she put in her pocket with the

notebook.

 A small thin man she knew as Mrs Mahon’s brother in law stepped out of the

darkened room behind her.  ‘I'm going your way’, he said,' I'll walk with you’.

Patti wanted to rush there and back and get her wage and get home quickly.

She looked  at the little man with greased back dark hair wearing a suit that hung on

him like a hospital gown.

She looked into his eyes and sensed a sadness and thought it would be alright to walk

with him and the  big door closed behind them.

As they walked out he felt the heat of summer reacting to the searing heat in his chest

distorting his view, she smelt the strong scent of summer and said in a rush of

embarrassed utterance, ‘ I  take a short cut over two walls and across’ and before she

had time to finish,  It’s quicker this way’,  he said and grabbed her arm  and held her

scream.  He hauled her fresh young body across the garden past the big window of the

lonely house and down the side towards the back, while the flashes of red bricked

confusion seared through her young mind. 

His greased back hair fell about his thin face like a demon revealing his horns,  her

eyes leered with tear filled muffled silence to the rusting roof of the shed.

She cleared those two walls as if they weren’t there, that evil man had tore her soul

her life and legion with Mary.

She clambered towards the canal feeling a hurt worse than the grief of her dad, the

soiled blood ran down her soft white legs.

The next thing she never knew she was waist deep in the canal delving between her

legs washing away the filth of the devil.

The notebook and the money fell from her pocket and washed away in the cities

grime,  her dreams of innocence washed away with the filthy river.

The river bed of broken glass and rotting metal took blood from her feet but she was

numb to feel it through here well worn plim-soles.

She ran through the great doors of the chapel and settled under one of the worn down

pews and huddled into a ball doing penance on the stone cold floor of loss,  the lonely

lingering stench of stained immaculate conceptions engulfed her.

‘ Come out of there child, I thought you were a flea bitten dog, what’s wrong girl’,

said the voice of the servant of god.  Shivering she got of her hunkers and looked at

him in disbelief, why doesn’t he know what happened she said to herself.

A gibberish flow about losing Mrs Mahon’s money came flowing like the confusion

of pollution in her mind.

‘Go home to your mother’, said the priest, ‘God bless you girl’.

Mrs Mahon’s brother in law died of cancer some months later and Maggie knelt in the

chapel praying as the priest looked on.