empathy part2. (a cul de sac of poems )

WHAT PATRICK KAVANAGH SEEN (or a disused house in county Louth)

Just up Duffy’s lane

Over the fields towards

Mucker, Kavanagh land

Just a mile from

Hack-balls- cross.

Through his poplars

Over his wooden-

Gate and I was lost

In an old abandoned

Cottage.

It was as if the people

Had just walked

Out the door, like

A film set of Patrick

Kavanaghs catholic

Ireland.

Lost in a world

Of sacred hearts

Blood from thorns

And sepia-toned

Pictures of Jesus.

Bloody icons

Littered every step

I took.  It seems as

If  I had walked

Into his poems

in memory

Of his mother

And father.

I didn’t even know

What a poem was then

All I knew was he had

The jack of a car

And I had the branch

Of a tree and we were

Out on manoeuvres, playing.

I picked up an ebony

And ivory walking stick

That I was going to use

As a gun.  Don’t- said

My brother who was two

Years older and wiser.

That’s the devils plaything

After all he was a smart guy

He could count to ten

In German and watch

Match of the day

At the same time.

I threw it away as if

The plague was carved

Into it, I went upstairs

Looked out the window

And saw what Kavanagh

Seen. 

I considered the grass growing

Growing cool about

My ankles on a July day

Running home through

The fields with my brother

A one eyed three legged

Dog holding onto the branch

Of a tree.                                                        








                                    the dodder

A SONNET AND A HALF FOR MUM

Autumn rusts upon the day,
the decay of another   year
seasoned like a mulled
wine, rich. As the days roll
into one and overcast grey
eclipses blue. You can al-
most hear the rustling foot
step of harsh winds catch up.

Just like memory meandering
almost tripping you to fall
and stumble but you steady
time, rhyme and form and it be-
comes your walk-
in stick.

The sound of summer spilt
Through my door. The wind
Choreographed the leaves
The long run - thanx mum
You made me a man that
took the harshness and spun
it into this web of words.                                                        




THE CAVE

for Janice

The rains ripple

And the people

Pass-by.  Looking

Out beyond from

This goldfish bowl.

Focusing the kailido-

Scope from inside

Out. The glass con-

Caves the pane,

the wind-screen

and reading

glasses, looking

Thru a magnifying

Glass of thought.

You have to go

Deep into the in-

Ferno to see this

concaved light.

Trembling dis-

Tortions that see what

You cant see.  The pure

Water rippling imperfections

Seen thru different colour eyes.

the gene geney

paralysed

he lives on his back

here in the con-cave.