I HAD NO PERSONALITY

                           Lou Reed

UNSONNET 2

These are only pomements, watching daggers cut sky.

Birds are branching out into wild, true, blue, grey

Winter, wintering out. This could never be winter night. 

I put in a search for Hungarian poet Atilla Joseph and got 

Atilla the frog, we are in a sad consumerist state.

His poetry was swineherd poverty, real pigsty blues. 

Even I would have walked those tracks waiting for a train. 

These lines stretch out to greet you, to give you pomes back

thundering down the track, suicide like it was meant to be. 

You taught me one thing, ‘poverty is good for the soul’ but 

you middle class poets wouldn’t under-stand that.

Fly away, branch off into an in-

tense stern stare, eyeing truth 

from the catacombs 

of your heart.

IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE

For Riley

This pome is for my grandson

The lights are on and the water

Flows out your autistic rhyme.

Riley these are words that you can’t

Say but I will say them for you.  I know

you want to look me in the eye and say

grand-dad I love you.  I hope these words will chance and give you a good will glance.  This is but a blinking eye

that catches words of hope.

I know that you can’t see them

but my door is always open

you switch my light on.

JUST A POLITICAL BLAME GAME

I know I’ve said it all before but

I can’t get my damaged head

round this, do we just accept

That were left out in the lurch

This is the price of peace.

The I.R.A. of nineteen sixteen

Only fought the British because

Their main force was fighting in

World war one.  Did the Provo’s think

They were supermen? 

I was steeped in republicanism, a day out

Was to visit Bowden town or the G.P.O

Oliver Plunket’s grave there were no pic-

Nics by the sea.  Is this the peace that?

I get, being alone locked in without

A good Friday agreement.

So, I lost my home, was dragged from bed

During dawn raids, beaten with rubber

Hoses behind sandbags on the way to school.

I come from a family of alcoholics and I’m in

a wheelchair my father and sister are dead

and it was all just a political game.

 I can almost see myself scampering those back-

Alleys, throwing petrol bombs at brits, running

for my life.  Like a rat burrowing dark, not

much has changed.

UNSONNNET

I am the tock tick of Robert Lowells clock
I go to the toilet every hour on the hour.
I can’t even arrange to go out to a reading 
or the dentist, they have to come to me
dentist/fire-stick. How can I find the right
Words for this pome to flow in and out
of my life, all I can do is just sit here trying
to remember what little I know of the past.
I used to think I was between the earth
and the sky but now I can’t find myself?
You can time me like stroke, tock tick.

BARCODE OF LIGHT

The sun shoots in then blinks behind cloud
The day begins like summer mornings do.
I don’t know where this poem is coming from?
the reservoir of survival, a spiritual source?
No one knows all I just know its magic.

It gives me a purpose and just as I say purpose
The sun pierces my sight and the light shines
on my wheelchair and it becomes my throne.

I am the king of this un-adopted castle
Nature throws its light and I label it Buddhist
Christian or Pagan. You can see why civilisations
have worshipped it. It has the power of an Adidas top
or a 60-inch plasma screen T.V. an I-pod or Nike
brand but this trademark is free.

MILK THISTLE

There are no flower beds
In my garden, mostly
Grasses and thistles
As tall as a man.

It’s sea-men spread from the

mediterranean (silly-bum-
marianum).

Used to cure liver disorders
I wonder will it cure my dis-
Order, maybe it’s spunk
Will seed this pome.

Afterall I’m like a human
weed growing through new-
city cracks between
The slabs.

A BALANCED WRONG

A balanced wrong wont

Make a right but its

The closest I’ll ever

Get. I have lost all

Capability so I live

Here all alone
within negativity.

I aim towards, a goal

Mindset, pomes hold

My treasure trove.

I’ve turned this muck

To gold without living

Snobbery.

STROKE GENE-D

Poetry searches out your

ying and yang

The male and female part

apart, naming the name-

less one

Dis-ability.  

It turned my life up-

side down but 

I turned it around 

 to find-

Stability.

MUM AND STEPHANIES ROOM

I do not think of you lying in Lylo soil

You are just off my Bluestone road

With my sister Stephanie.

Going through your stuff today

Five stroke moments, I found a picture

Drew in your innocent flow and a story-

Book of Stephanie’s. Sad a woman who

Lived in Dublin growing up to be a nation

London through the troubles of Belfast.

All I have is a brown suit case of moments

Realizing I have been doing the same with 

Pomes repeating myself over and over 

Trying to capture a moment of time.

All I got was a darning needle lodged
Beneath my mother’s mothers skin.
Spraying parts of black cabs in London
Working in a fashion house, doing a little
Modeling for the firm and being a skivvy
For no one. Not one derogatory term
She was a true human being and I am
proud to be her son. Beneath all those
papers I found her ashes, she had been
there all along in Stephanie’s little room.

A POEM FROM STEPHANIES STORYBOOK

MY OWN BEDROOM

In my bedroom, I have

A dressing table, writing-

Desk, a bed, wardrobe

And a doll carry cot.

My bedroom is very big.

The Lino is green with gold

And silver leaves. Beside

My bed there is a mat, the mat
Is green to. On my shelf
I have some statues, in front
Of my dressing table, there
Is a little stool.

MELANCHOLY-GO-ROUND

FOR MARK EITZEL

I can’t think beyond myself

This is the singed state, me.

They say I lost all memory

And I dream low on emotion.

So, I can’t project a thought

Not out of my black-whole.

No dream, no memory of

The past, stroke conditions

Me, negativity is my positivity.

Paralyzed, un-walking reflection

The shadow is where the love is.

I know all this I see it every-day

I am locked into dark and your

locked into light, when will you

see me, this is my way up there

is no easy way down, shadow?

For ten years now I’ve killed time

Put it in twelve-hour verse.  This

Morning I unblocked two blobs

Of blackness from my ears.

Hopefully they were the darkness

That I have seen behind my eyes.

I hope that they have found

Their way out of my un-

Balanced lot.

For all those years, I’ve been writing

Dark but I want to find a way, Tao.

Tied to this melancholy-go-round

Writing darkness, headstone ground.
Please-let me find my source!

They say ear nose and throat are linked

Maybe this has found its way, may-

Be these words can find a way

Out of this syndrome.

SHADOW TIME

Her grieving eyes cry of of her face like sun-

dials shadow time.  Her tears fall implode

the folded hand-

Kerchief unfolds.

The future

present, past. 

The moment her hand

fell on her face.

Mother of all time, weeping

Woman, she sheds the tears

Of ten or more world wars.

When will we ever learn

Giving life is torn.

Isn't it sad that I live in others gladness, reading Adonis 

by Percy Bysse Shelly these words jumped at me.

THINE OWN SORROW

Mourn great men, weep not for John Keats

I died with him that day, broken blooms on

The thorny way.  His words thawed not

The frost but he lies in ode to psyche.

His poetry touches hearts and souls

Weep not for John Keats-read

the words that Shelly wrote.  

I can never do them justice, I'm just a boy 

from the Craigavon school of poetry.

Roundabout city by the balancing lakes

Trying to balance my life within greater

Men than me, who am I to eat their words

Just a lover of the moment. 

Seeking shelter from the shadow of his living tomb.

Melancholy mother earth, tremble

In your burning bed, molten mountain

Movement.  He lives, he wakes- ‘tis death

Is dead, not he.  He is a presence

To be felt and known in dark light

From herb and stone.

Death feeds on his mute words and laughs at our despair.

He gazed at natures naked Loveliness.  Plastic stress

Sweeps through the dull dense world.  Shadow

Of white death, a lucid urn of starry dew.

Wilde

At least Wilde Oscar had a little

Bit of sky to go on, I have got

Fuck all!  Like a man locked

in a prison cell without parole

or a good Friday agreement. 

I am empty inside, I don’t even

have the urge to give this

The worthiness of my lone-

someness.

POETRY LIKE SUNSHINE IS FREE

Without memory and imagination

I cant do very much, I don’t even re-

Member if this scene is true?

Three people were shot dead in

Front of me all in the name of god

On the steps of holy cross church

Aged just fourteen years old.

Something is dead inside of me!

I carry this dead image and a whole

lot more.  I don’t have much in life

infants are even afraid of me, did

that really happen or is life just

a lie?  I want to get right up

your goat, to show you

in-here-i-tense!

Stop lying to yourselves, stop

Giving away the world resources

Pretending that they are yours.

We are all born on this level playing-

Field, give humanity a chance

Poverty is good for the soul!

SEXAGENERIAN

Writ I994-I shave this man

In the mirror, grey ashen sullen.

I sweep dyed hair from nape

To cover skin without growth.

In this house, that once was

Filled with life, I turn my mind

And see them, playing in

The bath bathed by her

Kneeling to play.

The razor glides through dead-

Skin, abrasions of the past.

The smell of myself lingers

As blood runs down my chest.

I lost them loved, I am the loser

but so afraid to tell her, but

so afraid to let them know

a bastard so afraid to receive.

After sixty one years I have nothing

The air has long since stank, the car

Engine oil sump seeps on the floor

Enveloping everything in my past time.

Please death stay away a while

While I clear up this mess and wash

The blood from my chest.

GOOD MANNERS DON’T MATTER

I was reading through old poems

And thought I no longer have that

Emotional edge. 

Writing pomes without substance

like a child in a vast lonely play-

ground wanting to be bullied

at least that’s an emotional touch.

At least that can help me

Write it down but this state

of essential lonelyness has

killed me inside.

                                               This photograph is the real me

                                              It hurts me when you lie to your-

                                              selves.  I can stomach the truth

                                                      

                                                      do we just live a lie!

I have been around and round on this un-

Merry go round.  I’ve got to stop writing

This non-sense but I don’t know what

Else to do, I woke from this ejaculation

Surge like a pyroclastic flow, these words are

Like snowflakes the magic is in the moment

And I can’t ever know, all I have is my truth

That you must hear each day.

Can you take anymore, I can’t!

I am truly lost without memory, imagination.

I am not writing this to piss you off, please stop

This ethical medical non-sense, give man life

Death not this shadowy grey matter.

I give you all of me, these words don’t skip

Along I know but this is my shallow mojo

And it isn’t fucking working.  All I hope is

That your humane, maybe humanity

is beyond you, we move within

this moment of molten

mountain rock.

You should be ashamed of yourselves.

My mind has passed through another

Moment but it doesn’t even know

And I’ve got to hear that silent night

Shite all over again.

2.

Why have I been left here?

Even my mind can’t find the words

Autumn in me.  Please don’t let

This happen in future, to live

Is to know and I don’t know.

 Please don’t let this happen again.

I know you have your morals

but mine are simple be

Humane.

A BALANCED POME

Woke up this morning thinking

I will write a balanced pome

To get me through the day.

Without any disabled hyphen-

Ated words but then I looked

Around my breakfast table.

A bowl of porridge for these

Cold mornings so my career said

being rolled, washed, wheelchaired.

Hung out beside coffee toast

and poetry, this is not

the tranquil-ized fifties

anymore but every-

day I wake up

In another

decayed.

VAN GOGHISM

‘Clay is the word clay is the flesh’

Patrick Kavanagh’s poetry was raised
from the ground by his brother 
just like a Van Gogh.

I went along the Castleblaney road
For water from a well, I swept aside
The debris and found pure clear water
With the clear vibrancy of paint but 
These are only words painted pure.

Kerbstones like colored flags, painted
Hate like love on the ground.
A world of men and monsters, dungeons
Tanks and barricades, tear gas and rubber
Bullets. Young men with hatred in their hearts.

There are two sides to every tango like
A sunset at dawn, the green so green
And the red so red, blue and gold so blue.
Hate blends into love like night flows into day.
Life is blue and black the color of my way.

Seeing the subtle change of seasons
From the masters of movement.
Captured in the blooms of yesterday 
death in a vase of sparkled brilliance.

The light of nature on the breeze
A birdsong, the color of sky filled with rain
like Anton Chekhov’s foreboding.
The color of light on an eye.

The tree, the sky the oceans detail.

CREEDMORE

I don’t have a personality

                                Lou Reed

Sitting here talking to my-

Self, answering myself.

This is my dark light, void

Of life’s emotion.

Like a chorus of a sad song

A chant of reality, magic and loss.

Free from any dreamscape

to color my dark light, in sight

reverberating blue.  Lou Reed

colored my day because 
memory was taken away.  

What was taken

from us.  He gave to me

to give to you.

This is nothing new!

So fucking sad seen through my tears, my emotional drive.

POETIC THERAPY

I die inside each day

I will not live to be

A snob.  Poetry is

Like sunshine, free.

This is a poetic

Dreamless state.

I live in a state

Black-hole.

My hills cave in

to darkness.

I await a dark 

light pome.

Feel free

Empty me full-

Fiil you.

A PYROCLASTIC FLOW

A Pompeii sub-
stance stone.
Cast from human 
form like a lost wax 
process revealing
Images of death
of you, beaten
By time. Molds 
of you and me.
I see from 
a higher 
perspective 
a mosaic 
of snobbery 
fit in stone.

THE SOURCE

I come from poverty throne

No one like me before 
was ever a poet?

  Raymond Carver gave me

These words writ from a headstone.

Jimmy Simmons 
elegies, polished

Stones seen through 
words of poverty

seen outside academia.

My river flowed from his source

He heard my words, skim

The sea of poetry.