Morning Thought

what flies behind my written words
are songs not just of little birds
there is too the deep scarred prose
from the fractured calls of crows,
but whether these words be dark or light
each one upon true wings takes flight.

For Günter Grass

“only Nixon could go to China”
                old Vulcan proverb

slowly wrote the snail
aware of his past misdeeds
and the weight of them
yet we may take his wisdom
from the  madness he survived

Three Halves

it’s often said
this land has three halves
one spears the wild sea
and from there takes its tears
to temper the rugged coves
and tormented rocks;
a second bows
in rolling hills
to ghosts of ancient princes
whose songs
still echo through the blackthorn
lulling e’en the wildest
to calm;
the third half hides itself
from the sun
to be revealed only
in the drunken poetry
of dark crowded saloons
where sleep never comes
and all are immortal

Clifftop

the gorse sighs
in coarse curses
at the coming westerly
and the pain of salt
rubbed into its wounds
by uncaring tides

she turns her back
to face the lash
of an oblivious ocean
shoring her face to the land
in utter defiance

The Forgotten Poet

half a life as a promising boy
and half a life as a ne’er-do-well
lines no one dare attain
do from full flagons swell
blessed in his sobriety
yet drunk passions draw in hell
thus is defined the poet
or so his tombstone tells.

Islands

where ends the sea
into the skies
is there my other soul
does lie
on lonely islands
revealed as ghosts
from clouds which curtain
ancient coasts

Bodhrán

beat my goatskin heart
six notes ring through the bar room
the rhythm of life

Ruins.

as centuries bereft
of Franciscan prayer
demand heaven be held here
it is the crows which call the Terce hour
descend upon black angel wings
from these broken towers.

Mainistir an Rois : May ’24

Dunamase

among the rooks that roost these heights
above the cracked and crooked trees
my darker thoughts like them take flight
as seraphims of purgatory
for here the dreams of long gone hearts
have turned to ruined stone’s unheard
above the cursed calls imparted
by these ill sacred blackened birds.

Cabinet

snipes, sandpipers and godwits
ravens, woodpeckers and crows
each carefully labeled, and dusted
preserved and forever on show
but that which constitutes beauty
this  artifice only denies
for eternity bereft of fluttering wings
is travesty to endless skies.