Saturday, 2 July 2022

My Question

It's not that I don't know

but time and time again

a leaf falls from the chestnut tree

This is mortality

the eternal ending


my question, never asked

answered long time ago

I am pure in imperfection

we saw, on the horizon,

everything you need to know.


It's not that I don't know.

It's just that I don't know how to ask.




Sunday, 5 June 2022

Letters to my children

the pen writes fast, illegible in part

but that is not the point behind the lines

the ink remains long after these bland signs,

my love for you inscribed right from the start.

The content doesn't matter, nor the sense

it's so you feel "he loved me" by the end. 


Listening to Van Morrison

Listening to Astral Weeks on the record player

That harsh, rough voice paints pictures with words

capturing Belfast times, past times, times rare

I can almost hear the passing birds, the passing birds.


I remember listening to it with you

here in Hamilton, the way young lovers did

slim, slow, ah we were sweet things. Beside you,

you were Ballerina, me just a kid


We had our own Madame George on our streets

Harassed by some, protected by a gang.

As weeks turned to years, we danced to those beats

and decades grew old as Morrison sang.


Drinking beer became  drinking cold white wine

the bass upfront, flutes and strings floated up

my brother lost, my sister gone, too fine

even for Van's voice to refill their cup.


A toast then to David and Maria

and a bow to the man whose aria

brings peace to all with ears to hear.

May all have ears that hear.


Wednesday, 13 April 2022

the serious mind

the serious mind tends to be blind

to the things in life that are nonsense but kind

It can be so much a pious old bore

Say far too much and then add a lot more

the serious mind should switch off and stop

and just enjoy a wop bop aloo bop

bal lom bam boom


... and no more doom


Oh too serious

oh too serious

give it a rest for fuxache

bores with chores of poetic scores

just give the rest of us headache. 

Tuesday, 12 April 2022

Simplicity

nothing is as difficult

as simplicity

Thursday, 7 April 2022

Unreal

this is unreal

give me a tool

and a place

and I'll make it real