And there's more!

A Staircase in a Foreign Country

It wanders up from stonework riverwalls
And the old town’s cobbled lanes –
From tourist traps and pork knees,
Sweet lager and plastic half-crowns –
A timorous, frayed-ragged stairway
With the best seats in the house,
A skybound place to level out.

In the market marble coolness
Of a new town office courtyard,
Skateboarding kids work magic feats,
Fleet foot street artists with coterie crowds
And no box office, ticking off the seconds –
Anticipation of each moment –
Ollie, bail and second chance.

There seems stability in the hills;
Peace at the precipice, a house of God,
Veranda over the roof-tiled canopy,
Where sunrise tries to catch one’s shadow
And send it out across the skyline.
Fingertip metronome counts off the beat
For skaters in the scarlet fire of dawn.

Dear John, I’m leaving and taking the cats with me.

I never thought you’d say that it was so;
That with our finance you had been gazundering,
You went far further than I thought you’d go.

There were irregularities in our cash flow –
From our accounts, you swine, you had been plundering.
I never thought you’d say that it was so.

Oh yes, you’ve been found out! And now I know!
Just in the off-chance that you were wondering,
You went far further than I thought you’d go.

But now the acrimony ‘gins to grow,
The forecast of my soul predicts great thundering,
I never thought I’d say that it was so.

Our matrimony dealt a fatal blow,
Your plan was proof, aside from your small blundering;
You went far further than I thought you’d go.

So now you’re leaving, taking half my dough,
The alimony cheques will keep us sundering,
I never thought they’d say that it was so;
You went far further than I thought you’d go.

Thanks,

Dave

There and Back Again.

It's been too long.

Franconia

There is an old farmhouse, north of Boston.
I stopped by once. Its peaceful aspect caught
The scarlet sun’s swansong, the Appalachians
In silhouette as cricket-music fell.
Rocking chairs paced their motions, a little
Out of synch, still looking to the horizon.
An empty pantry, rusting range, wooden floor,
Wooden bedframe’s crafted skeleton, curtains drawn.

I read about death in an old comic book once.
It said that it wasn’t like a thief in the night,
Snatching you from your bed, leaving no trace but
A faint depression in the mattress and the smell
Of stale sweat on the pillow. It said it was more
Like someone you’d known forever, an old friend
Who stopped by every night, a loyal old friend,
Who picked up every thing you’d forgotten
You even had, so that it wasn’t there next time
You wanted it. And, that, over time, there just
Wasn’t anything left to keep you there;
You were the last thing death would take home.

There is an old farmhouse, north of Boston.
No one lives there now, the old man was famous;
But there is a clearing outside, and a path
Through the woods, passing cairns for forgotten
Little gods. You may find old photos,
Small foreign coins, footprints in the mud,
Roots weaving their stories in the earth;
And the spot, at a fork, where footprints end.

The Mountain

I

At the mountain’s peak, I stopped for
A while, cast an eye over the pines,
Rolling out towards vanishing
Point, layer over layer, rank
And file, phalanxed shoulder height,
Mottled units toiling under
Sylvan dictat. On north-eastern
Slopes, a fallen mount gasping for air,
Pleading with avian windpipes,
Tree-cacophony, crushed larynx,
Wilderness howl in falling twilight.
Suddenly the tree-pier did not
Seem high enough.

II

On the mountain’s side, verdant canopy-
Shelters, tree-grounded, gigantic fauna
Remembering Triassic brothers
In serenity and sanguine nostalgia.
The earth has ears, a heart, a mouth, bait;
Unrooted feet striding wordlessly, turning to
Constituent carbon, clawing through meat,
Unnamed vital organs, blood and carbon;
Hair falls out, becomes carbon, nutrients,
Teeth fall out, carbon (calcium?).
Eyes, tongue, brain. Carbon.
Soul.
Flight through treetips dancing on leafstages
Outstretched and dissipating further
Boundless offerings and earthtunes
Earth.
Knees soiled, hands caked in fecund soil;
Disgusted, croaking eyes observe my retreat.

III

On the foot of the mountain, my little fire
Cooks, browns tender meat, fresh loaves
And fresh produce for my pilgrim’s victual.
Lying on green mattresses, bathed in ember’s glow,
The mountain looks over the pale, rising smoke.

Crow and Phoenix

Crow flies down to the body.
Rain gathers in puddles, browning green earth,
Moonlight hidden behind jet blue clouds.
Crow pecks at the frost-bitten fingers.
Phoenix, old and diseased,
Bullet-ridden, one-eyed and weak,
Hops and flutters beside Crow.
Nuzzling his feathers, he clears his ancient throat.
“Shame,” says Phoenix, “There aren’t
Many left like this one.”
“Even fewer now,” crows Crow.
Phoenix stares at the corpse.
Crow says, “You will die.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” says Phoenix.

El Tres de Enero (for García Lórca)

Nieve cae, tranquilidad sagrada,
La zumba baja de la caldera
Hay la ruida sola.
Media-luz de la madrugada,
Nieva por aire negra.

El cielo cerrado tiembla,
Deslumbra la luna miedosa.
Quiero que quede oscura
Por siempre; esta noche plata
De relámpago y nevada.

[Snow falling, cathedral silence,
The bass hum of the boiler
The only sound for miles.
Half-light of the small hours,
Snow falling in black air.

The blanket sky rumbles,
Obscuring the timid moon.
I would it stayed dark
Forever; this silver night
Of snowfall and lightning.]

Thanks,

Dave.

Keepin' em coming.

Descent

Flying in from Glasgow on the eighteen-fifty

To Aldergrove; out through the thick-glassed window

The frayed knuckles of coastline, reaching out with gnarled hands

Beyond the fallow piebald farms, swooping and diving

A thousand feet below. The sun touches the horizon

With a feathered fingertip, hissing as it meets

The waves, settling in for the night under a blanket of

Flourescent algae, the unfathomable sea-dreams of fish.

An hour earlier, on the crystalline waves of cumulae

Propelled by the eerie thrumming of astral turbines,

I wait to be informed of our descent, patient angel

Entranced by the rolling breakers, snow-white foam,

Trying to feel something. Awe. My grandfather flew

Once a month to his work in Scotland, leaving his

Son and wife in the capital, watching the sky.

My feathers melt as the black cliffs drift into view.

Thanks,

Dave.

Shalechet
Leaves had started falling outside
In a late summer gloom of fledgling rainclouds
Reflected in foggy puddles underfoot
We trooped on through, out of step,
Packs on our back and foreign coins
In our pockets. The first discarded leaves;
Big five-fingered horse chestnuts, face down,
Showing waterlogged veins in the inch-deep pool.

Jackdaws fluttered outside the gates,
Hoking at dirt, pecking at apple-cores,
Flitting off as we arrived. We ventured in,
Catching the moment in digital memory:
An irregular holding cell, walls towering
At the end of a hallway that withered and shrank,
Though a door that led into sky-scraping judgement,
And the window that spoke of Saint Daniel;

There was silence in that room, space for silence
That loomed and condensed three stories overhead,
That rained ash-snow, staining the railway lines,
Unholy blend of hair and ground thigh-bone,
Snow on a mountain of odd shoes and lost luggage,
Marked in fading chalk with its last destination,
Deep darkened snow, overwhelming, drawing
The air from the room that had space for more silence.

I managed to open the door. Disorientated,
I took a breath to regain my bearings. Upstairs,
An exhibit that asked to be walked upon. Gently
Stepping between grotesque iron faces, frozen in
Wordless death-masks, turned to iron and concrete;
I lost my footing, and the faces, disturbed, screamed,
Awakened, echoing off high walls, reverberating;
As I left I heard iron crunch and cry out.

A jackdaw flew home as we escaped to the surface,
Apple-heart in mouth, into the sunshine.
I put the camera away, resting easily between
Victuals, tour maps and a handful of foreign coins.
I couldn't help looking back. It was still there,
A multi-story building under receding rainclouds.
We walked home, out of step, in uncomfortable silence.

Thanks,
Dave.

So I wrote one about God and how I was kinda pissed off at him. I don't usually write angry, or what have you, but I just felt this one flowed better for it. It's one of the more personal ones. Here goes.

God Must Be Lonely

God must be lonely; his only love
Proved temperamental,
Unfaithful, distracted by bright lights
And wet dreams that turned to sacks
Of yellow flowers at dawn, penniless,
Eating pigswill for brunch, down and out
In Sodom and Gomorrah. His love told
Lies to friends, abused his intimacy,
Hurling curses at enemies who
Didn't know what pawns were,
All the while wrapped round the body
Of the fella with bigger muscles.
God must be funny; only a real joker
With brass balls could make a world -
A whole world! - either deny him or else
Fight about denying him or else
Fight about defining him or else, or else!
A world where his name is on a bomb
Or in the mind of a bomber as he unveils
Hell for his love. God must be beautiful;
Inconceivably beautiful, blindingly, hypnotically -
To create something so magically vital,
And not bottle it up, frame it, bind it,
Publish it online - to set it to the wind,
With his blessing, to strap a satchel
To its back and send it down a road
With demons and angels who dress the same
And never make their intentions known.
God was my love; I insulted him,
Blamed him, wept in confusion, in bitter
And speechless frustration - everything
People had told me about him was wrong,
How could he... I will write him a note,
A postcard, or a letter, if I'm feeling
Old-fashioned, just to say 'hello,
I understand now, I think, and at any rate
I'm sorry.' I'll leave the end blank,
Because he knows my handwriting,
How I cross my 't's; and if I don't
Hear back I'll write again. And if
I don't hear then I'll know why,
And understand why God must be lonely.

So there you go. A little pretentious, I think, but it's a start, and I don't imagine this is how it will look in the end.
Thanks,
Dave.

Hello Again!

Three months on, things are rolling once more. Back in York, doing stuff. That's Amsterdam, up above there. It was the coolest place. And that was by no means the only bicycle in town. I'll talk about that more later. For now, content yourself with the knowledge that it was class. Here's a couple of poems for some reason!

The Island House

A cricket rubs his legs, wild percussion
Close to the house; close to the house
Are the open valleys with crazy-form mountains –
Slieve More - big mountain; Knockmore - big hill.

Hives on the arms are tattoos of honour,
Though the midgey convicts’ days are numbered.
They emerged, days later, from behind the curtain,
Overdosing on the quiet peace of the living room.

Over the fence, a donkey tears the grass free
With blunted teeth. There is space to hear breathing,
A steady brush of air between the lips,
The tips of the leaves twitter in the breeze.

She Held a Daisy in Her Fingertips, the Bitch

She had a camera, capturing the coast though a daisy
Held up to the lens. Her friends sounded German
Or Swedish, she looked French, or at least like
The ones I’d seen in the movies.

There she was, standing at the edge of the world,
Taking photos, though the tint of her travels;
Maybe the reality of Ireland clashed with her dreams,
Maybe it didn’t. Either way,

A month later, I was wandering through Amsterdam,
And met her in the red light district, taking photos
Of the girls in the windows, selling wet dreams.
But I hadn’t the nerve to say hi.

Three Nights In Belfast – A Villanelle

An angel, like an angel, clothed in white
Strides across the field on the attack
His antagonist stands quaking at the sight.

October’s dress, embroidered in delight
Heaven-witnessed observance of a pact,
An angel, like an angel, clothed in white.

One drizzling evening, nothing but polite
In her appraisal of all the things I lacked,
Her antagonist stands quaking at the sight.

A desperate prayer, the forlorn hope I might
Restore to you a life made whole, intact;
An angel, like an angel, clothed in white

Should patrol above your headboard, shine its light
To ward away the demons at your back,
Its antagonists stand quaking at the sight.

A man sits by the bedside, tries to fight,
And, pleading for a gem that sickness cracked,
An angel, like an angel, clothed in white,
Your antagonist stands quaking at the sight.

Thanks for reading,

Dave.

My First Revisions, How Exciting!

Having looked back on the septet of poems I've posted up here in the past wee while, I've come to the understanding that they are in need of work. So I've rewritten them to an extent, tried to make them more honest, because I reckon the more honest they are, the better they read. So, that in mind, here are - for now - the definitive versions of the work I've produced thus far. Plus one new one. We'll see how they last.

Achill

I will probably reduce your life to pithy verse,
Wailing, chest-beating, drunk despair,
Breathless hyperbole, unctious crap,
Which I’ve accepted. Just as fair.
I know nothing truly dies, though all things change,
As wind will alter course, lead the lost astray.
Though the truth of the matter may fade,
I remember in my own way.
I will look to sea, every coastal bound,
In stubborn dumbness, most hope gone;
Take what I need and to hell with the rest,
And with heart in hand, march on.

Birthmarks

They tell their own story,
Angry, red-ribboned, fraying,
Black-edged, a more sober
Reminder of nocturnal passions
That grow green and pale
In the cold haze of morning
Or the warm breeze of spring.

A Sorrow Burns

A vesperal flare in the reddening night,
Curled on the floor, half-naked, we lie
To each other, beautiful half-truths, delight
Daubed freely across the northern sky.
Drifting for now, asking nothing but the world
Leave us, all fingertips and tales,
Sun-fled and tight-lipped, too fleetingly held
To the warm, dull thud, too livid and pale.

And down, as needs must, as rainfall returns
Us to respective lives. Frail memory concedes,
And sentiment directs a crowd-pleasing reprise
Where our parts are played, sensationalised
By our favourite actors, the starring leads
In their picture. Somewhere, unheeded, a sorrow burns.

Revelation

Standing by a clearing, unassuming,
Awaiting discovery, a stone
Behemoth shading the wood. There sits
A fallen trunk worn smooth by time,
A wizened great thing, skinned by curious walkers,
Curiously slumped, wide-eyed
Transfixed by terrible earth-woven beauty
On root-woven soil. But none the wiser,
For once seen, my native landscape,
The drumlins and cliffs, like so much
Ham-fisted doggerel, stands
Unassuming, all noise of myth fallen silent.
Waiting, dirty-eared, pulse-conscious,
The great stone bastard holds his breath.

Giants' Causeway

Back on the path, its gravelled lustre
A reminder, overwhelming, that I hid
Skillfully, pretending the rough sea
Wind had blown dust under an eyelid,
And walked on, a few steps behind.
I made jokes about the cliff face, and
You pointed out primroses, designated
Them spots in the garden, and I feigned
Interest, and pointed out Fairhead.
It emerged we'd walked the wrong way,
And shuffling past the anoraked yankees
We giggled like kids, knowing no fear to allay,
Being locals, proprietors, and far more
Rightful to shuffle down the stairwell
In half-hidden mirth. By a crumbling
Hand-rail with a red-rusted warning fell
Any palm-sized rock we found,
And after all these years I shouldn't've been
Surprised that you still had the better arm.
They stirred the spray. The ocean
Refused all entry, the cluttered sky gone grey,
We retired for the day for a stout meal
At one of the pubs you knew. And then, I thought

I knew what you felt in your blood.

A Good Year

A good year it's been now. Coarse and brittle,
A rainless year, without memory of rain,
Without a prayer for a squall,
Or the lousy grump of October.
A full year now, since the pang of thirst
Was settled, and reminders of that
Something I felt first, cast to the roadside on
That cruel April evening, driven out.
A bloody year it's been, with blood-torn nights
And bone days, where no bitterness
Lies, for the senses have crumbled, no scent of

Summer lingers, no words lie in the throat.

Going Home

It was a strange thing to hear,
Like a student-fantasy play
At the end of the Ireland crisis; "We're
Imagining that one day
The two of them'll meet in a room
And, y'know, get on like normal folks.
Not to say they'll sing the same tune,
But they'll laugh at them'uns' jokes,
And get on like the whole thing
Was just a misunderstanding."

A Patch of Daffodils

These could be my last words.
This could be the last feeling I manage to recall,
Bearing in mind that the feeling cannot be retrieved in full,
Only represented in poor rhyme, or not even that.
I would you could step in my skin for that brief moment,
To know how I felt when I looked at you
And saw everything I wasn't.

Thanks for reading,

Dave.

The Edge of the World

It's not every day you find yourself part of someone else's family. So when I found myself in Stirling at the start of this week a full-fledged member of a social group I hadn't seen since St Patrick's, I was somewhat taken aback. It was an incredible experience, and to my new relations north of Edinburgh, a big "'sup?" is more than due.

In other news, it turns out each new heartbreak hurts less than the one that went before, to the point where it barely seems like heartbreak at all. World, bring it on. Things are looking rosier than you like them to.

In that vein, I'd like to continue the theme that has been running through recent posts, and stick some more poetry up. It's hard to know straight away how good they actually are, but time and revision will play a definite role. After all, being 21, time is only on my side. Here goes:

Birthmarks

They tell their own story,

Angry, red-ribboned, fraying,

Black-edged, a more sober

Reminder of nocturnal passions

That grow green and pale

In the cold light of morning

Or the warm breeze of spring;

The bitter solace taken

In the fact you came back.

A Sorrow Burns

A vesperal flare in the reddening night

Curled on the floor, half-naked, we lie

To each other, beautiful half-truths, delight

Daubed freely across the northern sky.

The kinetic meander slides flowingly past,

Leaving us, all fingertips and tales,

Sun-fled and tight-lipped, too fleetingly grasped

To the warm, dull thud, too livid and pale.

And down, as needs must, as rainfall returns

Us to respective lives. Frail memory recedes,

And sentiment directs a crowd-pleasing reprise

Where our parts are played, sensationalised

By our favourite actors, the starring leads

In this picture. Somewhere, unheeded, a sorrow burns.

Achill

I will not reduce your life to pithy verse,

No wailing, no chest-beating, drunk despair,

Nor breathless hyperbole, nor unctious chaff,

Just acceptance, as just as fair.

For nothing truly dies, though all things change,

As wind will alter course, lead the lost astray.

For nothing's truly lost, the destination knows

To come along the way.

I will look now to sea, every coastal bound,

And defy, though every hope be gone;

Take all I need and to hell with the rest,

And with heart in hand, sail on.

Thanks,

Dave.