early work for scribd

8/9/2019 EARLY WORK for Scribd

1/21

EARLY WORK


2/21

A MOMENT OF DOUBT

andhere I am.

I imagine myself fallingfor the third time.Crowds will always spit and hissonly this timethe whip wont move me.Ill lie in the dustand hopefor it all to pass by.No stringing up.No chance to believe


3/21

MAGPIE

Solitude does not become mein many eyes. Alone I am

a target for stoning,the muttering of oathsbeneath the breathor a cross curledaround ones fingers.

Headline of the sky,my feathers allow forno ambiguities.Either light reflects or

it is absorbed completely.


4/21

FLURRY

Snowflakes burn like tracersfalling heavily against the dark,

as if charged with some heavenlymission, hell-bent on failure.


5/21

CROAN LODGE

On August 30th 2001 in Croan Lodge, Clonmel, Deirdre Crowleywas shot dead by her father, Christopher, before he turned the

gun on himself.

On arrival there was no thaw.No obvious reason to withdrawfrom sight. No questions asked(she was seen once or twice).Last Novembers ice remainedon the doorstep.

It wasnt easy to keep to yourself.

She was too youngfor the school a hundred yardsdown the road: the Loretos red jumper,white blouse, green pinafore not skirt.It must have hurt to keep the curtains closedbut no one was allowed pose a threat.A false name was billed for milk;groceries paid for by cash not cheque.She may have asked for a satellite dish her Christmas wish, your something

to muffle her cries, to keep herfrom outside.

Swallows are still here.Summer beats the Comeraghs drums.

Two years on the runslip between someones teeth.

Theres a knock on the doorand the grief a few words can impart.One minute more before

departure creaks and you kissher forehead, chin and cheekswith your stubble.


6/21


7/21

JUDGE THESE BOOKS

In 1732 bookbinder Richard Smith had fallen into debt. He andhis wife, Bridget, killed their two-year old daughter before

hanging themselves.

Povertys rags are pitiful as our tables fareof stale bread and turnips, soup of water.We watch the flesh melt from our daughter.Needles that bound vellum darn clotheswhile this towns dirty looks judgethese books by their covers.

Theres nowhere to play in a one-roomed house

corners for a dog and cat, the mouse holewe call a back door. Nothing falls on this floorbut mud from the soles of our boots.

Nearby, merchants order lawsuitswhose stitches are gold; their needles eyesare run through and through by liesyet I believe in the books I sew:the suns free gold, the smell of baking dough,the rains sweet music writ upon a fence.

The love of God is here,a sense beyond our frail ken.He knows how the wind blows and when.Last night they hung three thieves on Gallows Hill.

The cries of our child mixd with sparrowsshrieks as they fled scaffold and trap to the mill.

Mine ink runs short.

We have nothing left to sell.If thee have charity, wish us wellas our souls heave in untimely flightfrom this world to Gods Grace and Light.


8/21

LOVE LETTERS

Burning love letters never deliversthe longed-for release from smoky affairs.

They flare in an absence of light.Feeble ashes, charred and cheapas their galvanised incinerator,their promises crumble if touched for relief.

I feel like a thief creeping through timesconsumptive curtain of smoke,its envelope of perfumed pleas racyas Catullus Latin, fanciful as Regency lace;and slip on the past tense, the future

imperfect sheets of black satin,things that should have been forgottenthat I used to have and now have not:theatre tickets and best wishes, a lockof blond hair, invitations of a spider to its lair.

Mementoes realise the poverty of writinglie after lie, wriggling smoke signalssmall in an expanse of plain. Remindersthat I am free and alone, unlettered in pain,

to count my blessings one by one they burn tonight. Watch them go.Once it was they that led me home.


9/21

NOT FOR YOU

Not for you my darlingthe form filling five months

before you hear of it.

Not for you the littleentries in a blue bankbooksaving your life away.

Not for you the slow accretionof experience, the mouldon food that puts you off eating

but the taste of ice-creamsavoured in bed when workcalls in its insistent tone,

the scent of perfumebought in Bootswhen were in debt,

the feeling of a footdrunk on a dance floor

not knowing where it falls next.


10/21

LOVE

After the gentlest love-makingand ritual cigarette you whisper,

Weve never seen a sunrise together.

Theres more than an hour to goand I know a lot can happenbetween now and then.

What? You ask, as I murmura poem or two. Not much, exceptfor the pillows dip, the inevitable tilt

as your eyelids are first to slip into sleepand dreams of sunshine breaking the deepwhere balls of twine unravel and bounce

between a kittens claws and teethand the buds outside unfurl to leaf.


11/21

PIERCING

Pity, please, for these momentswe touch sideways at times:

your perfumes sudden change,the December sun isolatingeach barren aspenin crystal loneliness,the still chill of my hand.It has strayed too far.


12/21

DRAWING THE LINE

I try to sleep with my unshaven faceto the other, empty side of the bed.

It used to have your shape and warmth; that place.Since then, there are two pillows for one head.I miss my arm muffled beneath your neckand hairs like spider webs stuck in my nose.I wonder what cards we pulled from the deckto make that happen? No more tickling toes;red wine and cheese we shared by candlelight.Blades were drawn, nine swords ablaze with furytore us apart. What judgment would a jurymake if they drank a vicious brew, our fight?

Let punishment fit the crime, they may swear.I have mine and know it well: youre not there.


13/21

THE PARANOID RAMBLINGS OF BEING

Three years hes been at it,

a few bottles sunk but one morebag of plaster and the jobs over

this house will be in order.At night, when the shuttersare open, his ceiling reminds him

of a moonlit ocean choppy with breakingwaves of uninvited guestswho tend to be problems in bed.

He remembers crumbs in the butter,lights left on and the paranoid ramblingsof being, only to fall back to the woodlice

who run away like those August daysand a long gravel path of shadeto a redhead whos fey, who calls him in,

Move closer, lower down, in the corner. Sleep.

Woodlice have all night to creep.


14/21

CATERPILLAR

Black and amber

striped, stringof traffic lights,

quiz whetherto speed up or

slow down.

Tawny and fairhaired, I watch

you ooze

sinuous moves;humps ripplefrom the tip

of your tailto whiskey snout.What blades can

evade your mouth?

Guzzle your waythrough the green!

Irresistiblebefore yourcoat moults

you curl inshapes I cantput my finger

or tongue on. Let metry at least some:

crooked finger

egging me on,fuzzy heart, question

mark, double-u

watching, waitingto take wing.


15/21

You are so

many beautifulthings. Must askwhy, on this first

day of October,youre hugging the bed,

quilt-snug, all legs?


16/21

DAISY

i.m. Lucy Partington

Sleep in shadowof yew and gorse,in earth turned

by worms and spades,in foxgloves reachbeneath windmill blades.

You share the sunand wake with dawn.

Your petals echo

through churchyards,the tumbling vergeand square-cut lawn.


17/21

THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA

i.m. F.B.

Dunmores cliffs are dangerous.All it takes is one blasted gustto snap your sunny cliff-top walkthe way Novembers frostyfingers crack the brittle stalk.

The southeast wind whistles in your earsand drowns the Buddhist drone of bees.It whips the verge of furze and briar,whips them to lift their maces higher

and plunge their spikes into your knees.

Grass springs beside the path up top.Blood-red stone runs down the dropand Heaven is only a lonely footstepaway. This is a haven of a place:the blackened boulders do not waste

as they shatter hulls of wood and steeland whisper Leave this beaten earth

Far better to live among sealsfor the vast openness of oceanis theirs by right and birth

Theirs the empty flapping handsTheirs the eyes scratched by sandTheirs the unmarked gravesTheirs the pebbles and stonesground and worn by the busy waves


18/21

NO LONGER NEW

Weather-beaten, cheap & shoddy,scored by teeth, tea-stained,

the lip of a cup, half-bodied,smothered by sand, lies framedby winter weather; the pale hue

of something no longer new.Flung from fishing boats sidesbroken dishes beyond repairflew through the simmering air.

There they turned and dived

across distant waters and landsto end as pieces in my hands.

Their designs never stray too farfrom where their owners hearts are:seedpods burst over blue streams

by houses built with blue beams.We see the familiar in trees,sycamore and beech, a repriseof ivy choking a blue bough

now the hand at tiller or plough

as it weaves garlands of bowsto fit the breath of a blue rosecarried on an angels wings,and the blue patterned crossas a bird flies to paradise lost,

the lost and found of things.


19/21

STREETWALKER

Through accident the shoe of an Athenian streetwalker hasbeen preserved. On the sole, nails form the words Follow Me,

as she walked along in the soft dusty streets of the city.Fernando Henrique, Prostitution and Society

Shes in the scuffed-up dust of soles,the thrust and stamp of soldiers bootswhore weighed upon by victorys loot,in the teeming ruts of peasant cartsthat tumble-bump their wares to mart,by beggars broken, threadbare sandals.

Shes in the breeze, a scent of straw,crisp, unpressed by bodies or sweat.I stare at windows above my head,consider how she may be dressedor undressed, looking at me, alone,at home, or in another mans bed.

I know not the sound of her voice,the arch of her brow, whethershes a slave or does this by choice;

just the size of her foot, her in dust.Its likely she lifts each stepunconscious as breath after breath.

Her trail turns cold when I least expect:Im led once again to a cobblers doorwhere he claims to forget her hairand shoulders, the length of her limbs.Sandman, you know your job back to front,you see the reverse side of things:

what seems to be undisguised lust mustin your eyes be unrequited love that sings.It must be love for a message so simplethe messenger need not be seenfor when I wake and rub my eyes cleanI find grains of her in forgotten dreams.


20/21

ODEVERYDAY

The neat blue smoke of my cigaretteswirls into then blends

with the relaxed white of my exhales.

Various waves roll up to and breakagainst the matt black beachof my midi system.

Up and down, to both sides and all around,these flimsy, ephemeral roller coastersare blown away

by the merest fresh breath.Billowing, my cloudy zephyrs lovethe air as they fondle and caress

an otherwise intangible substance;following and tracing the flowof its ethereal contours and curves

in a way we clumsy creatures are incapable of.Two of Leclairs violin concertos

paint the backdrop to my tobacco composition,

to the calming influence of a smoke.Just watch and listen to the softsound of a cigarette

as its sweet music slidesfrom my mouth and fills the airwith a sophists melody.


21/21

DEAR WHOEVER

You may recall we wrote to you some time agoregarding our Accident Insurance Plan?

No one likes to dwell on possibilities,but what would happen if something did?Whod pay all the bills?

How could you take the chanceof leaving your family expensesand running debts like bedsoresif you were hooked up by a lineto a life support machine?

We know its not likelyto happen, but were bankingon your feelings for your family;to make sure theyre adequatelyprotected from the worst.

We hate to burst your bubblebut wouldnt your loved onesbe out on a limb if you lost one?

Your leg maybe or your arm?

Whod cut the turkey at Christmas?

We know you want to keep themfed, and safe from harm.

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