RAINDROP I hold on by day, but in the night when lonely shepherds tend their flocks bending low from arching lights under an iron sky, the blackness criss-crossed with prayers, laced with phosphorous tracer and laden with soldiers metal, I listen to mosquitoes choosing their moment. The sirens begin to wail but I am dead […]
BAD DAYS The mist peels back for the rainfall, I feel the craziness once more. In the wild eyes of an old man’s face I see his mirrored thoughts fouled by the bad days just gone, still trapped here in this place. The sky is falling, lingering mist slowly revealing pain as it […]
MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE Iconic sleeve art for Pink Floyd Displays a triangular chunk of glass Alone on a black background, Dramatically separating a thin straight beam Into its constituent colours. The rainbow spectrum. Inert matter sawed, releasing More inside than meets the eye. A sacred structure built in Rome, B.C., Was named The […]
HILL 880 (Irish UN position South Lebanon) Tonight, senses steeled against the black sky, we listen for the warring shadows. The storm is almost upon us. Bursts of coloured tracer attack the hill, bouncing over lost horizons. Phosphorous lights explode, illuminating battered landscapes of death. Below the thunder they cower in the dancing veil […]
Fred Astaire When I was nineteen I laughed At what I heard people call your “Art”. Art! Like Joyce or Jean Paul Sarte? No. I had you firmly in a bracket. Somewhere between Elvis Presley And Bob Cratchet. But when I was thirty-eight And it was a wet Sunday afternoon And the pubs were shut. […]
TREAD SOFTLY It’s raining, always is, that sticky hazy rain that gets down your neck, behind your ears and saturates your face, your hair as soon as you step from the vehicle even though the uniform is multilayered, your boots get soggy straight away and the pistol grip on the rifle resting in your arms […]
Sarah was late, but that wasn’t her fault, that was the fault of the British rail system. Still, she could sense the anger in the way he held the steering wheel, in the way he changed gears. She was learning to drive too, it would make getting to jobs like this much easier. The road […]
KEEPER OF THE GROOVES For P.McL. It crept up out of the blue Long after I first listened To the affable bluff and ardour That wafted in spurts on air. An above-par package Between hand-picked tracks. Whatever. Then we were introduced In a not-as-we-know-it Academy Assembled to watch a retro Androgynous doll or two Dance […]
SKELETON HEAD Kosovo minefields Out there in the black field a metal skeleton with a helmet on its head studies me – anticipates my every step, tallies my birthdays. Its grave is tracked with stakes like candles on a cake corralled by barbed-wire lace and yellow tape, waiting for the balloon to go up. […]
Just Another False Alarm When the Mayan Long Count Calendar Dating centuries beetles to a close, Rumours run rife over earth That the end of the world is upon us. Apocalyptic forecasts spring up, old hat; Nostradamus freely dangled his doomsdays, And lesser renowned local seers year after year Deign to persuade with revelations of […]
