Five Rhymes

Here I come,
Just the one;
Loathed by others
But loved by some.

Along came you
To make us two;
Lights do fade
As if on cue.

Then there was three
And we did see
Moving music
And thousands free.

But there was more
As we went four;
Hands held high
And one huge roar.

Now so alive
We became five,
And festival fever
Saw us strive.

Five we stayed,
Not once we strayed,
But bathed ourselves
In fiery arcade.

Beguile

Pressed pointedly

In a protester’s hall,

My gaze rigid

As some notes fall.

Neck muscles taught

As I stare straight,

Fingers fumbling

While I wait.

She sits beside me

With an angel’s smile;

The stage is set,

Hope wafts down the aisle.

The orchestra plays

With pure emotion,

While maids and witches

Toy with devotion.

Some singers bellow

Verses of love;

Others recite words

To lay a bluff.

Uberto is then duped

To our own merriment,

And Dido is deserted

To her own detriment.

And the angel just

Sits, simply smiling,

Her impassivity

The more beguiling.

Her beauty noticed

By the bow nearby;

Her intellect drawn

By the horsehairs’ sigh.

Exiting the church

They speak in peace,

But my heart’s beat

Refuses to cease.

Envy inelegant

Sets with the night,

But where hope seemed lost,

A chink of light.

Her chariot awaits,

She offers to drive

(Minus the bow,

Who fails to connive).

She roams the streets,

Unsure of the city;

I just babble,

My tongue too free.

When we stop, silence

Fills our space,

And as we hug,

Her hair guards her face.

I say goodbye, walk

The wrong direction –

I should have moved her hair,

Upon reflection.

Apocalypnic

The hangover from the picnic

Throbs subtly above my brow,

While the wind and rain outside

Mimic the beats of an arena

Left too far behind.

One year on with little to show,

Bar the reparation of a broken heart

By women with looking eyes

But withheld hands.

In the darkness of home

I recall shapeless tents

In the dead of night

Threatening to swallow me whole –

Without fair judgement.

Visions interchange

Like a kaleidoscope

As my mind amalgamates

Memories and fantasies

Together,

Creating events that never happened

(but that I badly wanted to happen).

And for a moment, head in my hands,

My exhaustion drags me back,

And I am soaked but sprightly again,

Lost in the fiery arcade

Of unanimous emotion

Caused by the duality

Of music and love,

Which are never mutually exclusive.

I feel myself locked arm-in-arm

With friends newly made

And friends rediscovered,

With the oldest of friends

Reliably resolute in flowing

Within the masses, too –

A rebellion against the skies,

Built on castles in the air,

And everybody is smiling.

But back in the present,

As my eyes begin to lose

Their fight against fatigue,

My head vainly screams at me

To finish saying my part

Before the rain outside

Mingles with my perfect rest

And washes away

The hope which blossomed

From being with her,

And being with them all,

As fellow citizens of

The annually apocalyptic

Utopia of Stradbally.

Flies

The difference between

Eighteen and twenty-two

Hurtles forward

From behind me,

Unexpectedly.

At eighteen,

With a child-like innocence,

I stood on a ledge,

Looking down at my

Friends on the strand,

All gathered to celebrate

My birthday;

My best friend

Stood drunkenly in tow,

As I called out

(with his encouragement)

To all those people

Who seemed like they would

Be around forever:

“You are my people!”

At twenty-two,

Many of those people

Have vanished,

Turning right where we

Ventured left;

While so many lost loves –

Who never stood a chance

And never had a choice –

Have left me a shadow

Of the man

I once dreamed I could be.

At eighteen,

I was pure though tainted

With death’s brush,

And yet still whimsical

With simple hopes

And impossible ideas;

At twenty-two,

I am no more than

A carbon copy

Of my father,

The man who would

Remove his wedding ring

Whilst in bars

So he could distract himself

From the pain

Of being himself,

Alive and well

In all things but mind.

It is now

Impossible

To separate true feelings

From self-deception

As lust and love blur

Into one incoherent mess

Before my darkening eyes.

And it is hard to recall

What it was that made me

Love in the first place;

So, locked away,

I can hurt nobody,

Because whatever

Comes next

Will be to

The other person’s detriment –

And nobody deserves that,

So it can never happen.