My war paint runs like dogs in heat
and stains a thousand bathroom floors
while yobs downstairs down bright-blue drinks
and make mock their place on earth.
All Ive ever owned is locked upstairs
but your messy make-up streaks
tell us all it's time to leave
which seems to me to be the
way my nights all end these days.
'Cause we don't like eardrums bursting at the seams,
libations for the sake of drunkenness
- because I hold my self in high esteem
But hide behind a mask so cool it's frozen solid.
Because I prefer a quiet pint with paper
Or just because we were born too late
to these debasing days
Monday, April 19, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
An Irish Summer
Half-tans skulk in shadows
As flaking skin snows the air
And then men with whippy vans
And the life guards on the strand
Thank Christ it’s come again.
Tomorrow will be agony
But today was made for lovers,
both As red as one another
both too blind to care
But oh for those few hours
When everyone was young,
We hang arms nonchalantly
From cars with ice-cold air,
We don the shorts, the shirts
Come off we are as pasty
As the next man who
Drove ten miles to see the beach
- And its only fifteen degrees.
For once we are content.
For once we won’t complain.
Give us sand by the bucket-load
And sangidges wrapped in foil,
Give us a lack of modesty and
Care free fun that comes
But once a year.
I think we miss the point
And get things slightly skewed
For after all we’re not
Designed to sun.
As flaking skin snows the air
And then men with whippy vans
And the life guards on the strand
Thank Christ it’s come again.
Tomorrow will be agony
But today was made for lovers,
both As red as one another
both too blind to care
But oh for those few hours
When everyone was young,
We hang arms nonchalantly
From cars with ice-cold air,
We don the shorts, the shirts
Come off we are as pasty
As the next man who
Drove ten miles to see the beach
- And its only fifteen degrees.
For once we are content.
For once we won’t complain.
Give us sand by the bucket-load
And sangidges wrapped in foil,
Give us a lack of modesty and
Care free fun that comes
But once a year.
I think we miss the point
And get things slightly skewed
For after all we’re not
Designed to sun.
Monday, April 12, 2010
On Leaving
While leaving looking back upon thee
I pause to ponder what thee meant.
Were you just a short, sweet spree?
Or forever will you stay with me.
Such companions I have never found
Than Those that walk these hallowed grounds
And such a feeling never felt
By king, nor calf nor mighty Celt
Could ever hold a candle to
the life I knew with you.
I pause to ponder what thee meant.
Were you just a short, sweet spree?
Or forever will you stay with me.
Such companions I have never found
Than Those that walk these hallowed grounds
And such a feeling never felt
By king, nor calf nor mighty Celt
Could ever hold a candle to
the life I knew with you.
Monday, March 15, 2010
I am an Ancient Soul
An Ancient Soul I am.
Keys were heavy as I approached the house
I held them in my hand, poised, ready to attack
Each step closer my heart would pound.
One beat the louder one step the safer.
Trace-talks like tides inside as i
Ran my story through and polished details.
Then I was in the porch. Life going
On as normal outside my addled brain.
One. Two. Three. Deep breaths and
A slap for colour if I felt worse for wear.
I’d hold the key and hover for a moment,
Just to line it up and the smell of gum
And vodka would travel like smog that
Everyone ignored until it affected each in turn.
‘Y’alright ma?’ It was 10 o’clock.
‘How was the film?’
But now they think me old enough
- an ancient soul as some might say
And the scolding subsides to be
Replaced by empty threats of hunger
And stories of olden days.
So now I work and win the bread,
And take my sup in private.
An ancient soul I am.
I know when I am old and
My hand will hurt to pour my
Amber-lover, born-deceiver
Will be my gift in parting
But if perchance my faith eludes me
I will brave the pain, make it short
And drift away innocuous.
Keys were heavy as I approached the house
I held them in my hand, poised, ready to attack
Each step closer my heart would pound.
One beat the louder one step the safer.
Trace-talks like tides inside as i
Ran my story through and polished details.
Then I was in the porch. Life going
On as normal outside my addled brain.
One. Two. Three. Deep breaths and
A slap for colour if I felt worse for wear.
I’d hold the key and hover for a moment,
Just to line it up and the smell of gum
And vodka would travel like smog that
Everyone ignored until it affected each in turn.
‘Y’alright ma?’ It was 10 o’clock.
‘How was the film?’
But now they think me old enough
- an ancient soul as some might say
And the scolding subsides to be
Replaced by empty threats of hunger
And stories of olden days.
So now I work and win the bread,
And take my sup in private.
An ancient soul I am.
I know when I am old and
My hand will hurt to pour my
Amber-lover, born-deceiver
Will be my gift in parting
But if perchance my faith eludes me
I will brave the pain, make it short
And drift away innocuous.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Good evening all my friends of old
I'm glad to find you well.
Please pull a chair and pour a drink
and listen while i list
The common ways I've come to know
for man to lose the mind.
To the bottle where the sun is sought
but all too seldom found.
To the pipe that burns a milky white
in a land where man's forgot.
To the whore who lives
a life so empty
or to a life of
pure monotony.
To the shining lights
of soulless cities
and a lucid leather-bound
prophet in disguise.
They read like gospel
when we're young
When the world is but
a playground to enchant.
But now the ticks have
caught the tocks.
The moon has raped night,
and the withered walk alone
into everlasting light.
Listen now and listen well,
I'll say this only once.
I lost my mind to nothing then,
now there i seek it once again.
In a deed undone
and words ne'er heard.
In a city unseen and life half-lived.
On the plains where mans forgot,
amidst the bottles and the fog,
my search for something ever-lasting
has become a prophet's blessing.
I'm glad to find you well.
Please pull a chair and pour a drink
and listen while i list
The common ways I've come to know
for man to lose the mind.
To the bottle where the sun is sought
but all too seldom found.
To the pipe that burns a milky white
in a land where man's forgot.
To the whore who lives
a life so empty
or to a life of
pure monotony.
To the shining lights
of soulless cities
and a lucid leather-bound
prophet in disguise.
They read like gospel
when we're young
When the world is but
a playground to enchant.
But now the ticks have
caught the tocks.
The moon has raped night,
and the withered walk alone
into everlasting light.
Listen now and listen well,
I'll say this only once.
I lost my mind to nothing then,
now there i seek it once again.
In a deed undone
and words ne'er heard.
In a city unseen and life half-lived.
On the plains where mans forgot,
amidst the bottles and the fog,
my search for something ever-lasting
has become a prophet's blessing.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
A Hero Dies Tonight
T’was the night before Christmas, or the morning after maybe mid-June for all its worth. My memory no longer serves me, it comes and goes with sobriety. I am master of nothing but my mind. Time and place is unimportant, the details even more-so. You need not concern yourself with my comings and goings, ignore me in life and shun me death.
I was born in to a broken home – an unlit tenement. I was a chain smoker by twelve and a n amorous alcoholic before I had blown out sixteen. I spent my eighteenth birthday under lock and key and twenty-first with the fairies. I was and to this day remain alone in my world of dreams, where I am Judge, Juror and Executioner.
The night it all began, be it Christmas Eve or the twelfth of Never I was in the pub with a family i never truly belonged to - a tradition if ever I knew one. And as you very well know alcohol, “That liquor sweet and most divine”, loosens tongues and hardens nerves. One thing led to another. Dreaming demons of the past arose from out the drunken haze and i was left alone. Here. Darkened underpass.
My so-called story maybe one of many moons, it may be life on repeat. My memories are borrowed and reek of pity like the overcoat that conceals the hollow shell of a body I call my own.
Bodies are weak and deceiving a mere compendium of muscles and bones could never do justice to the soul trapped therein. My body is as old and feeble as the next drunken louts but my mind powerful. I live in my mind. In here I can be whatever I want; I am the behemoth of the booming transport trade, the savior of the soulless subway stations. I am a Herculean hero whose incomprehensible histrionics save the world daily.
I shall not spend eternity in a pauper’s grave with worms as my chambermaids where they gnaw my already mangled frame. My death will not be one of desperation and hopelessness like so many I have seen before. It will be one of martyrdom and people will celebrate my life as the great redeemer of humanity long after I am gone.
The divil may be dead but tonight i rise from out the shadows of my heroes, i laugh at the crowd clawing at my feet. I join the martyrs, and i am free. Tonight in the infinite darkness a desolate tube station a hero dies. In his own words, by his own hand. It is my will. It is done.
I was born in to a broken home – an unlit tenement. I was a chain smoker by twelve and a n amorous alcoholic before I had blown out sixteen. I spent my eighteenth birthday under lock and key and twenty-first with the fairies. I was and to this day remain alone in my world of dreams, where I am Judge, Juror and Executioner.
The night it all began, be it Christmas Eve or the twelfth of Never I was in the pub with a family i never truly belonged to - a tradition if ever I knew one. And as you very well know alcohol, “That liquor sweet and most divine”, loosens tongues and hardens nerves. One thing led to another. Dreaming demons of the past arose from out the drunken haze and i was left alone. Here. Darkened underpass.
My so-called story maybe one of many moons, it may be life on repeat. My memories are borrowed and reek of pity like the overcoat that conceals the hollow shell of a body I call my own.
Bodies are weak and deceiving a mere compendium of muscles and bones could never do justice to the soul trapped therein. My body is as old and feeble as the next drunken louts but my mind powerful. I live in my mind. In here I can be whatever I want; I am the behemoth of the booming transport trade, the savior of the soulless subway stations. I am a Herculean hero whose incomprehensible histrionics save the world daily.
I shall not spend eternity in a pauper’s grave with worms as my chambermaids where they gnaw my already mangled frame. My death will not be one of desperation and hopelessness like so many I have seen before. It will be one of martyrdom and people will celebrate my life as the great redeemer of humanity long after I am gone.
The divil may be dead but tonight i rise from out the shadows of my heroes, i laugh at the crowd clawing at my feet. I join the martyrs, and i am free. Tonight in the infinite darkness a desolate tube station a hero dies. In his own words, by his own hand. It is my will. It is done.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Insomnia's Dreaming
I saw him first by Joyce's tower. He stood alone watching the waves crash and foam over the rocks. Now an then his gaze would lift, he looked back at the tower arching his neck – trying to see what great men had passed before him. Then in a swift roll of his neck he watched on forever at the fast disappearing horizon – concealed by fog.
That was long ago though. Now i see him as he is. Not the miraculous dreamer or struggling writer but as the shallow, shell of a man he is. A dreamer through and through. I wrote a story for him. Not about him as such but about all the dreamers in this world who drink and smoke their talent away. I find it easier to write from point of view, i feel like a spy. I get my rocks off below the radar where no one will care if i fail or fly.
Insomnia's Dreaming.
When i was younger i was far from normal, perhaps i am worse off now. The world has changed, is changing and will constantly change. The lies will flow and the Devil will tempt – such is the way. I do not fear the changes as some do. I know not when or how they may come about but i dream of them day in and day out. I dream of the places i may one day hold, the hands i may shake and the faces i most certainly will forget.
My world of dreams does not disappear when the cock crows and the suits scurry to the station, my world of dreams is not held captive in a sleeping cell. It can be found in dirty side-streets (if you care to look). It is the disbarred bordello and the teenage-mother's toothy smile. It may not be a pretty world to live in, but beauty can be found where ever seldom sought, the bottles and the brawls hold more to me than man. I worry about man. Nine to five, straight and narrow – The Suits. The suits serve only to hide the man and leave the rest of us on the back burner waiting for dole-day.
This harsh mechanized world of today has no place for the meek. “The meek shall inherit the world”, thats what they say isn't it? All the part-time preachers who cling to their faith like a mothers teat. They dream too. They dream of Heaven and Hell, long white robes and flowing beards, they dream of halos and puffy clouds soft enough to put a baby to sleep yet sturdy enough to hold humanity. But these are all dreams. Dreams based on a silvery sliver of hope shining through the clouds and making way for the birds and the bees, the men and women of God's own creation and the lovers enshrined in lust in the new and everlasting forever-night.
My dreams are not powerful, they will not inspire. They will not gather a following of billions. My dreams serve only to entertain, if no one but myself. I dream during the day. I dream of Joyce and Behan. I watch the night fade slowly to the day. I watch the moon rise and the stars fall, the ocean alight in a beauteous glow of hope. They say that the dreams of millions are what make the moon shine, the stars rise and the night what it is.
I dream for the millions, on the hour every hour. I dream of nights I'll never know and the places I'll never see.
They don't see me how i am – the suits that is. They see a madman, a lunatic. My dreams terrify and my dreams deceive. I made a conscious decision long ago to do as i please, dreams included. When i am not dreaming i read. I read Behan and Yeats, Joyce and O'Connor, Kerouac, Kafka, Poe and Vonnegut. Each time i read i am born anew. They spurn my dreams and burn the candle. I don the mask and i belong. I am the lonesome traveler, i am a spastic in time. I am everyman. They inspire me, they come to me when i am alone and hopeless and i take whatever piece i may read and i turn it upside, inside, downside out. Each time i am a different character, each time i act it out differently. Each time i am new. And then i am no longer the stranger to himself, i am no longer a mind warped by the paranoid tendencies of an insomniac. I am and shall always remain; a dreamer who dreams his life away.
After nights stacked high with sleepless-dreams the sun will come. It will banish the fairer moon and conceal the horizon once more. And just as the moon before her she will jolt my weary mind and shake my writing hand. The time for change is coming and i can feel it. The meek have had their chance now the dreamer must step to the plate. As of yet my circumstances are unchanging, i have neither the time nor the effort to break a rut but i dream. I dream of life's odd coincidences, the whistle of a train or a crisp clean shirt. I dream of these and those, this, that, then and there. I dream of keys clicking and toes tapping. I dream of the future and the lovers we have laid to rest. I dream to wake the moon. But most of all i dream for the sake of dreaming. I dream to escape reality.
That was long ago though. Now i see him as he is. Not the miraculous dreamer or struggling writer but as the shallow, shell of a man he is. A dreamer through and through. I wrote a story for him. Not about him as such but about all the dreamers in this world who drink and smoke their talent away. I find it easier to write from point of view, i feel like a spy. I get my rocks off below the radar where no one will care if i fail or fly.
Insomnia's Dreaming.
When i was younger i was far from normal, perhaps i am worse off now. The world has changed, is changing and will constantly change. The lies will flow and the Devil will tempt – such is the way. I do not fear the changes as some do. I know not when or how they may come about but i dream of them day in and day out. I dream of the places i may one day hold, the hands i may shake and the faces i most certainly will forget.
My world of dreams does not disappear when the cock crows and the suits scurry to the station, my world of dreams is not held captive in a sleeping cell. It can be found in dirty side-streets (if you care to look). It is the disbarred bordello and the teenage-mother's toothy smile. It may not be a pretty world to live in, but beauty can be found where ever seldom sought, the bottles and the brawls hold more to me than man. I worry about man. Nine to five, straight and narrow – The Suits. The suits serve only to hide the man and leave the rest of us on the back burner waiting for dole-day.
This harsh mechanized world of today has no place for the meek. “The meek shall inherit the world”, thats what they say isn't it? All the part-time preachers who cling to their faith like a mothers teat. They dream too. They dream of Heaven and Hell, long white robes and flowing beards, they dream of halos and puffy clouds soft enough to put a baby to sleep yet sturdy enough to hold humanity. But these are all dreams. Dreams based on a silvery sliver of hope shining through the clouds and making way for the birds and the bees, the men and women of God's own creation and the lovers enshrined in lust in the new and everlasting forever-night.
My dreams are not powerful, they will not inspire. They will not gather a following of billions. My dreams serve only to entertain, if no one but myself. I dream during the day. I dream of Joyce and Behan. I watch the night fade slowly to the day. I watch the moon rise and the stars fall, the ocean alight in a beauteous glow of hope. They say that the dreams of millions are what make the moon shine, the stars rise and the night what it is.
I dream for the millions, on the hour every hour. I dream of nights I'll never know and the places I'll never see.
They don't see me how i am – the suits that is. They see a madman, a lunatic. My dreams terrify and my dreams deceive. I made a conscious decision long ago to do as i please, dreams included. When i am not dreaming i read. I read Behan and Yeats, Joyce and O'Connor, Kerouac, Kafka, Poe and Vonnegut. Each time i read i am born anew. They spurn my dreams and burn the candle. I don the mask and i belong. I am the lonesome traveler, i am a spastic in time. I am everyman. They inspire me, they come to me when i am alone and hopeless and i take whatever piece i may read and i turn it upside, inside, downside out. Each time i am a different character, each time i act it out differently. Each time i am new. And then i am no longer the stranger to himself, i am no longer a mind warped by the paranoid tendencies of an insomniac. I am and shall always remain; a dreamer who dreams his life away.
After nights stacked high with sleepless-dreams the sun will come. It will banish the fairer moon and conceal the horizon once more. And just as the moon before her she will jolt my weary mind and shake my writing hand. The time for change is coming and i can feel it. The meek have had their chance now the dreamer must step to the plate. As of yet my circumstances are unchanging, i have neither the time nor the effort to break a rut but i dream. I dream of life's odd coincidences, the whistle of a train or a crisp clean shirt. I dream of these and those, this, that, then and there. I dream of keys clicking and toes tapping. I dream of the future and the lovers we have laid to rest. I dream to wake the moon. But most of all i dream for the sake of dreaming. I dream to escape reality.
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