---

They sat me down at a typewriter. There were two keys, 0, and 1. I was to compose a 3-piece suite in the key to me nanny’s back garden. My single request was the immediate presence of a choir of spivs, backed by a line of dustmen, whose cymbal lids could more or less approach the known lexicon. As a treat they invited a local magician who dealt poker, from inside the wooden shell of a genuine pub-style electronic poker simulating reliever of wages, as they became known in those early years, among tasteful wastrels. A red-headed buffoon was enlisted to cane my wrists, in the interest of a more Victorian than contemporary feel to the piece. Charles Chaplin passed the set tutting. Red Garland called in the evening to show his support, and appreciation for the avant-garde efforts of greying gents. Several retired ambulances were on hand, for to accommodate those present who were seen to be nursing threadbare skellingtons. A disgraced financier was smuggled onto the premises and charged with approaching the piece’s particulars in a cobbler’s vocabulary; his transcriptions are listed beneath.

———————————————-

The ‘rock star’ poets number few
And even their work is neglected
Like the luckless creeps
Feeding the flowers

In primrose rows
A rattle wakens
Gaseous sprites
Who can’t find peace

At the feet
Of tired tourists
Who’d dialled up
Their taste

In lieu of
A credible contribution
They leave their condolences
With the man at the bar

—————————————–

You can approximate
A man’s worth
With a studied weighing
Of his posture and build

His expression
And overall bearing
Amount to
A certain effect

A finer appraisal
Can be developed
Upon a sudden
Change in circumstance

————————————

Excerpt from a monologue

Ye were dancin like Paul Schubert
Formular one flag-man
The chancellor of the exchequer
Spillane was on the scene then
And Flaubert ye know like see
I’ve read and watched
The whole lot of them
And there’s not a man
Comes close to Joyce
For sheer misunderstandability
That would actually make ye
See sudden sense, in a pint like
With feathered festoons and all
The rest ye can keep

————————————

Creeping discomfort prohibits
Me from indulging my fancy
And so I face the music
Bursting for birth

From a tortured head
Its delivery will
Grant no real satisfaction
Only release

—————————

Orange cords
And a creaking
Leather jacket

You’ll draw
Stares anyway
There’s memories

In these clothes
And character
Whose value

Oscillates apparently,
I wouldn’t worry
Though you probably will

—————————————-

On benzos and booze
He spat furiously
Expelled poisons
With fierce zeal

Future nights ignited
As the looks
Fell from his face
Verbal coherence altered

His embouchure earned
Trumpet man’s rasp
Irish French
Athlete bodhisattva

Lit the road
Lugging that
Compassionate carcass
Across eternity

————————————-

Faced with a fillet
Of finest flesh
Flashed in a pan
For queer colouration

I struggle the hunger
Somewhere down
In my lower gut
And suffer my lot

—————————————

In my own little way
I have hastened to be heard
Hurried to be hard
Hardened to the herd

Nature plays us like puppets
Abandoning us afterwards
To learn again our limbs

We hurry still
To play as beasts
To forget in becoming
And fasten our tongues

———————————

What a relief to find
That one, being Irish
Cannot help but be
An Irish writer

Peeking out from his pint
The aspiring scribe
Will find all he needs
In the drunkard’s lag

Provided he handles
His barstool with
A respectable knack
Acceptance will come

—————————————-

These cold realities
The poet will chase
Dreamed up talk;
His lofty postulations

The likes of which
Would shame some
Into secret corners
Carefully carved of an evening

Whether in ignorance or
Blessed naïveté
Our boy meets
The curse’s cost

——————————————-

In a fit of absinthe
Coarse mannered Dubliner
Casts refined works
Into the consciousness eternal

Of course he overshot the mark
Brash as he was and aware of his gift
The various scandals need no recall
Him in his hat, barely a rake

You’ve to give him his due
The audacity, to go with that kind
Of once in who knows now smarts
And the da, egging him on

Meeting with masters at midnight
The life esoteric, Yeats by the wayside
And Flann the man a fine second
Awful tradition he birthed altogether

—————————————-

There is great fascination
For those of us who have
Ran the gamut of youth
And bear staidly the scars

Yes, great fascination
In choice tidbits and chops
Our dear interests
Every sample savoured

It makes sense then
That we are fodder
For a prodigy
And this is fine

What seems finer
Is the knowing youth
That walks among
Our dozing lot

He displays an ease
With not unsophisticated
Topics and techniques,
We must see ourselves.

————————————–

Strong Aversion

I would hate to presume
That any of this carries great weight
Or for that matter suffer
That gasping waking realisation

That I’ve been seen through
Suffered through and sussed out
Again anytime soon as
I have an aversion to ego death

——————————————-

These directions
Are designed
To rouse
The unfit spirits

Of those
Who hang
Their compassion
On car key hooks

To the
Uninitiated
They may
Serve some use

May the latent bile
Fizzing corrupt
In their unfit guts
Lace their every pissing

———————————————

I walked in your shadow
Up the Beersbridge road
Had a jam piece

And in the torment
Of a half six blight
Walked the road I hoped was home

And then I remembered
One of your songs
And that eased me

Because you spelt it out
For us that needed to know
In times like this

You’d the good to sense too
To dress up the instructions
With wit and the image

And God knows
You must’ve hung in tough
For to meet with the fiend

Wrest away the stone
And stumble home
Approach its value

I too studied
Took what I could from you
Employ it now naturally

Those that know will see and hear
Close eyed nod with the peaked cap dip
A way with time like no other

That sense of swing
And the well set phrase
Will see us through a while yet

————————————–

An encounter
With one’s
Female counterpart
Can sap cranial fluid

This is no issue
Providing you
Recognise your
Commonalities

————————————–

Regulating one’s
Physiology is
Simply a matter
Of balance

—————————————-

It’s a rare breed
That exhibits
High intelligence
And so forth

Then flips
The script
And bares
Their teeth

Their animal savagery
Is most unexpected
They must be accepted
Not tamed with our projections

—————————————-

Do not neglect
The least of your nephews
Concerning women
Example alone will
Not suffice

Though outright instruction
Perplexes him further
An increase in patience
Might quicken his pulse

——————————————————

I don’t want
To be a martyr
Despite the
Obvious benefits

My various ticks
And strange habits
Would inhibit my
Ability to integrate

However
I would be
Willing to
Work with

Certain individuals
I must try to
Not be a cunt
Not all the time

Once I get less weird
And start loving their
Insane outbursts
We may produce results

———————————————

Aptitude

As a musician
Who works from home
It is normal for him
To ‘make silly noises’

The purposes for this
Are twofold
Vocal and musical exercise
Something approaching an ‘adult comfort blanket’

We recognise that it
May have been
An oversight, choosing to
Exhibit publicly these verbal tics

Studies suggest
A relaxed, assertive bearing
Enables an integration of the above
To be packaged and sold

As the ‘eccentric personality’

Maintaining this confidence full time
May prove difficult, a chance to rest
Might appear when others
Have something to say

——————————————————

‘It’s all in the voice. I mean let me talk here a minute. While I know.’

There’s a girl who can sing
The Moulin Rouge
Bel canto
Skipping keys with style

A round purity
Rare tone
Of course
She was was trained

But to hear her talk
Was I suppose
What made it rare
I didn’t expect it

The content
Of its lyricism
Gave me pause
For thought

A torrent of charms
In the good nature
And the necessary black
Filling it out rightly

Yes, ‘Rightly.’
A good singer
Is hard to find
If you’ve been running long with musicians

—————————————

Every now and then
You will be forced to hustle
Under the duress
Of a trying conundrum

Though experience
Enables us to
Recognise the traits
We can never really prepare

You have a choice
You don’t have to do this
Having got this far though
You’re probably going to stay

It is not necessary
To dismantle the workings
Knowings will assist
Keep up your guard

—————————————

They say you can’t
Put muscle on the chin
You can however
Improve your defence

Endurance can be built
And a better
Mental resolve developed
Some are blessed with reflexes

Countering involves
Anticipating a shot
Swift slick movement
Followed by an unseen pop

Yeah I know
My pop hasn’t
Been seen for ages
Insurance scam

————————————-

An Interpretation of Reality

She promised him a castle
He could see it
In his mind’s eye
There was a short debate

Assessing the sanity
Of any woman
Who would buck
The dying trend

The fella
Came away educated
And settled for a
Nice two tower job

His moat was filled
With the toxic remorse
Of some fifty
Unkissed frogs

At the head of the table
His queen held court
Him in shackles
Dictating to a child

Pig headed ignorance
Crossed with instilled insight
Sees a man
Shackled longer than most

He was tempted
To kiss the frogs
But could never
Face the stench

—————————————

Must read
Past instructions
On how to get
Along with a colleague

————————————

Sometimes when fooled
Into thinking I’m cured;
Naivety and general foolishness.
Vulnerability will manifest

———————————–

The first time this happened
I came home in a mess
It wasn’t good like
But it had to happen

It’s easier to take now
But if I allow it to sink
The hurt is real
It’s all good though

There’s some things
Ye have to do
Like write these
Wee poems

—————————————–

This is a happy song
Gypsy rainbows and all the rest
I sing it down the pub
Under my breath
And the lads throw coppers

—————————————–

I can only write what comes
Didactic craic
In the tradition
Of Seamus Fox

Dry crackers
Leave you parched
We do laugh
Sometimes

——————————————-

It was a Sunday morning. She drank coffee after coffee trying to bring some meaning to the day. The home was a quiet hell. The kitchen area was deserted, thankfully. Uninspired reams of worthless shite passed her by in a taunt. There is a fault in the cognition. The deep screaming waves of pain had left her, numb, unable to operate. Nobody warns you about grief. Shed made sure to drink only vodka before leaving the house, nobody noticed anyway. People had a way of looking through her lately, looking into the void. Her sister phoned often, as much for advice as anything.

———————————————–

Sometimes we lean
With our behaviours
Some more than others
This is perfectly normal

This can be in accordance
With our present company
Or the societal role
We find ourselves occupying

Some individuals maintain
A steady accent
Whilst others
Are apt to adapt

This may be a coping mechanism
Though strong musicality
Can engender swift
Progress with this tool

Emotional or mental
Instability will flag
Identity issues
That can be resolved

The discipline and patience
Required to address such matters
Are driven by our desires
Detach ego if necessary

—————————————-

An introvert
Denied crucial
Alone time
‘Reflection’

Will appear
Dim and
Maybe actually
Under a spell

Diagnoses
Will miss the mark
Yet still
It’s temporary disability

Whether or not
Observers see
This as some permanent
Obstruction

Is immaterial
The man functions
He’s perfectly normal
At home at peace

He’s shy is all
And doesn’t know what to say
And afraid to look you in your face
He doesn’t like mirrors

He’s sees and hears it all
He’s just physically incapable
Of getting along normally
So he writes poems

He calls them ‘instructions’
‘Cause that’s what they are
It might not need said
But some folk are slow that way

—————————————-

Citations

The world is fucked
Everything’s wrong
Divine comedy
Five days in hell

The plot has thickened
Like my red ear
Too thick to hear
And you keep shouting

Away you go
I’ll piss in the grass
Jif lemon do rightly
And that says a lot

—————————————–

On Sunday we’d to be quiet
‘Cause mum was a psycho
If we broke a plate
She’d go even crazier

I loved my mum
But she was mad.
Sunday behaviour
She was funny like that

—————————————-

To set
The boundaries
Necessary
For a fruitful exchange

Ye’ve first to find
Just where they lie
Let rip
And breathe

---

All things considered
You’re not a bad’un
I’ll draw this one
And you can go next

————————————-

Don’t ever cry
We’re trying
To keep the fluid
So that our brains don’t rattle

————————————–

I was under the impression,
During a recent psychosis,
That the man next door
Was sending me complaints

We were using

An updated VR email prototype
That he had somehow developed
He was sending them across
And laughing through the wall

———————————————-

I used to paint
I wasn’t very good
The psychic paintings of Gerry Gleason
Are pretty good

I didn’t know
To begin with
He was concealing his genius
Beneath his moustache

I paint from the basis
Of my being. The weight
Required engages kundalini
Then leaves you bare

—————————————–

I’m not here
To make excuses
For anyone
Or anything

I’m simply
Negotiating
The oncoming rush
Of sensory information

——————————————-

Laying beneath the stars
Your eyes bugging amid the glint
Of freights on the move

You fancy
A horse’d take you
Clear across the night

The way you pull
On your cigarette
Wrinkling up those lips

Would have you coming
Straight from Sacramento
Where they do like that

—————————————–

Regardless of the rearguard
Philanthropy smiled and cursed
Skulls scalped and tasted
For their innards were rare

This the throats gurgled
And sizzled through their slits
All the while lingered a leper
His vintage scars black-moulded

Merry was the child
Bleak were their feet
Lips blotched and blemished
Finally it was finished