For C.K. 

Here I sit

with feelings

no one could possibly want

waiting, waiting for the time.

That time does not separate us

yet miles do

makes this an astronomer's truism.

For he does not have to see the moon dust

of my misery, the shuttle landing

of children's voices… Read full post »

I hurt myself today

to see if I still can feel the pain

some use a needle or the bottle recklessly

to burn the rhubarb or the rain

for me it's rage that assuages the reported act

Africa assaulted by France in Hotel New York

Such a common nightmare

what he… Read full post »

For my Kerry Boy

Not everywoman has rose bushes

in a parched May

no rain, only tears

stomped on fleurs, my garden

months passed since I kissed

love's face

his radiance

caressed his farmer's hands

wisps of a his low culchie musings

For the love of God, I would… Read full post »

To the End of Time

If all of this soon will be ash

A dread pot of colour

Brine not sparkling

The deepest thoughts come at the last

And then we're lost

To be alone

Truly alone

In the phantom city

This to me is truth

The stranger's city… Read full post »

FOR THE LOVE OF OSCAR WILDE

 "This ain't fair." said the referee

"He don't even know the Queensberry Rules."

But the proud man accepted the challenge

a clobbered red rose

amongst a flurry of  dripping fists

Once a body lost,

wilding this here isle

It now contains him.

The valiant… Read full post »

Kilmainham

 I supped with a man last night

Moon fasting on full-bodies

The road of the condemned

racing racing together

skulls pulsing in the smoke

preparations for the redolence

of chrysanthemum blues in tune

I know I love this man and he me

His vermillion paints

Eyes torn chaste

"Who are… Read full post »

HEY EL JEFE

Why don't you

trip the switch

to Limerick

changelings beamed into gold

jewel your chameleons like idolatry

in some monastery

I drank the truth always

the cup of another tribe

 not yours

for yours are clover coals

Mine are furlongs

corn and bayous

Hurricanes and sweetmeat

Afar still… Read full post »

MANDRAKE IN OXFORD

I dropped the cup

of your silence

The spoon of unspoken snapped

Any gift wind-dark in its token

snatched because the incongruence

Oh the incongruence of this us

We are diffused as algorithms

I don't know you

and you can never know me

sweet verses too brutal to… Read full post »

Exile

 I mounted the spangled ivory stairs

for her want of spires never attained

with the constance of Ruth.

She said you are a slender dark shelter of coppiced cedar

a coral forest of lovers lost in the deluge

colonial beacons lavender pens

and… Read full post »