Rooms

Rooms

In all those big bright rooms you see

Alone at night and all at sea

Perhaps inside there's someone there

Locked up beneath the attic stairs.

And I wonder just how can it be

While Mugs and Co. are having tea

Spread out in other rooms although

With curtains when you learn too slow

That two and two add up no more

And algebra unlocks the door

That leads you down past Friday night

Through blackboard jungles ruled in fright

On walls that trap the candlelight.

Where shadows steal away like ghosts

The cheques they sent you in the post

As Charm lays on in lots of jokes

The planning application strokes

Then files away through public bars

With deputies and senators

Who standing orders all agreed

With chairs and tables who decreed

For sound pure economic sense

That tax on virtue recompense

The once removed from minding hens

Their shiny new Mercedes Benz.

While trial runs that never end

With silk and briefs reward their friends

Who'd charge an arm and leg to plead

The law according to their needs.

A mean result you may depend

When you've broken down around the bend

Where doctor who what where and when

He'll diagnose you with his pen

And casting bones discern what ills

Will supplement his purse until

The patients waiting patient here

Pass on in corridors of fear

These rooms go on for years and years.

That's right....just rest!

These gentlemen know best

Your eyes....and watch the clock

Time flies.

Photograph: The river Boyne

at Dalgan Park/2007

Dead Lines

Dead Lines

Dead Lines

Reduced to clear

In easy pieces.

Everything must go.

Fine things on top

Of the food chain.

Old familiars,

Heads bent

In soap opera

Certainty.

Stepping around

The Big Issues

Waiting for

The penny to

drop.

Photograph: Trim Castle

Started in 1173.

Taken from across

the Boyne. 2007.

Party Lines

Party Lines

You know how it is.

That knock on the door.

The face you haven't

seen for years.

The spiel.

The handout.

The promise that

this time it'll be

different.

Everything fleesed!

The cut of him.

And the long spoon

in the drawer.

The long knife

as well.

Photograph: A bridge over

the river Skane.

Dalgan Park/May 2007.

The Graveyard Shift

The Graveyard Shift

The remains

Moulding away.

Like a passing fancy

Gone...Stretched

On some convenience.

Hadn't a prayer

And poor enough service

In the end.

Attendants drifting

In and out

Dying for a smoke

Getting their fix

From some box in a corner

Plastered with exhortations

To eat more fruit,

Cake while you're waiting

Hollow eyed

Behind frosted glass

Filling in details

Have you had an accident?

Is your visit really necessary?

Killing time!

To degrees of indifference

Next!

Photograph: Sheep's Gate.

Last remaing gate

town wall Trim.

All Washed Up

All Washed Up

Getting closer now

That rumble in the distance

Winds picking up

Delinquent signs.

Peeling

Off street corners

Easy deals

Drunk in the sun.

Crimping down

Notices to quit.

Shooting up

Back lanes

Window boxed

High rise, lifts out

Abandoned cars.

Flights of fancy

Flapping on the

Clothes line.

Liberation movements

Threatening rain.

Photograph: The River Boyne at

Bective Bridge

Jan 2007.

Satire and Poems

Satire and Poems

"The Market Dictate" and a number of the poems that follow, fall somewhere between the social comment and political satire, or at least the attempt at such. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica or a take on it, satire is an artistic form in which human or individual vice is held to account by some means, sometimes with an intent on improvement. Some people might remember from their schooldays the satires of Aonghus O Dálaigh or Jonathan Swift. The idea that poetry makes nothing happen was lost on the bards.

Poetry does not need anything to say, or anything of substance, but when language becomes more important than what is said, then it had better say something. The minute particulars can be particularly boring. Anyway one does not disqualify the other. Technical competence is an admirable quality but to elevate it above the material is to lend it something it may not have. On its own it is no measure of poetry or anything else. Nor is originality of thought. They are constructs.

Poetry is a medium. A means of bringing to consciousness in every sense. Of changing it. And the patterns within language have the most effect. FM

Photograph: Restored well at Tara.

January 2007.

The Market Dictate

The Market Dictate


They tell you it's great
Down in sub section four
On the set aside farms
Where they lock up the poor
Who'd forgotten to file in
Before it's too late
Now they're serving the needs
Of the Market Dictate.
As the credit runs out
On your permit to walk
Outside on the pavement
Nobody talks.
The Neon Reminder
Reads out from the wall
That the Bicycle Licence
Collector will call.
And if you've done nothing
There's nothing to hide
So trade in your name
For the numbers inside.
Yeah! Trade in your name
For the numbers inside.
Put an x on the spot
Where democracy died.

Photograph: A view of Trim Castle
February 2007.