Unwanted Monuments

Grave adorned with statues of a religion not followed,
Mary Mother of God watches over a man who never asked for her presence,
A cross is draped across the dark green marble like a necklace,
Prayers left in hope for a man who never wanted prayers or to pray,
And I just cannot stop this train of thought charging through,
Is this all we have waiting for us at the end of it all?

Sitting in silent solitude in a spot that offers little wisdom but plenty of time,
Perspective should be offered in the young and old buried all ‘round me,
The clouds stop moving and the wind stops blowing upon a sad sound,
A little girl crying for her daddy while her mother desperately tries to explain,
Visitors can only look on and feel sympathy at one so young losing her big man,
I can relate yet disregard her with one simple glance left and right.

A look around and every grave is the exact same,
God, Mary, Jesus, Joseph and the rest dominate these people’s deaths,
The fear of the unknown forces loved ones to act according to the Bible,
Even if those they loved held no passion for God or prayer or salvation,
Even if those we loved just wanted to find a way out,
Regardless of risking a run in with the devil in doing so.

Mind wanders back nearly seven years to the funeral we never wanted,
Readings and references to that dreamt up place called heaven,
All the mourners shaking in floods as they hope its existence is genuine,
Tommy recites his favourite passages which he always wanted his son to favour,
Even though Tommy knew full well, and still knows full well seven years on,
That his son never heard God’s apparent calls of reason.

Tommy buried himself in signs while his son was buried closer to hell,
Claiming his son is being watched by a God he never truly believed in,
Denial is a river down withered old cheeks too stubborn to change their ways,
The loss of a real thing will only reinforce belief in something that has no proof,
And Tommy will want those statues resting on his son’s grave to remain,
Even if his son never thought this was all his death would mean to his father.

(I visited my father's grave one day and, seven years after he passed away, suddenly realised the hypocrisy he was buried in and the hypocrisy he his now remembered by).

Utopia

A perfect place where it never rains
And no wildlife dies without the water
Because the air is so fresh that it
Maintains the moisture in their bodies;
Located in the sky above, resting
On the clouds – floating, looking down
At the transparent sea
Where the sea’s beasts swim without intent;
The people in Utopia live in harmony,
In buildings of pure white, towers of
Hope forever achieved, of dreams
Perpetually lived through, day-by-day,
With the tallest skyscraper for miles around
Touching the stars;
Citizens never cease to smile, basking
In the glorious consummation surrounding them,
With illness a thing of imagination and aging
An incomprehensible and inane idea;
The population increases hundreds of thousands
A day, yet endless space materialises literally from
Thin air to accommodate the new born;
Anyone can be anything they want to be
Without any need to fear unemployment,
And it makes no difference if nobody takes on the
Mathematical, scientific or engineering jobs
Because there is no economy in Utopia – just a
Civilisation that has God on its side;
For God exists, and when you talk to Him
He whispers back, and when you pray to Him
A flash of white light blazes through the sky
And your prayers are answered;
Whatever you ask He grants because there is no
Greed in Utopia, no competition amongst the masses
Whose prayers are always righteous
And for those less fortunate than them, who live in the
Unspeakable places of which rumours abound;
And there is no evil in Utopia, no fear,
No shadows in the dark,
No rain, no thunder or lightning,
No devil to dance with,
No alcohol, no drugs,
No sex for pleasure before or after marriage,
No class divides, no religious divides,
No ideologies barring the one ideology,
No money, no poverty,
No pressure placed upon shrinking shoulders;
And there is no love in Utopia because heartbreak
Only leads to bitterness, which does not really exist
As everybody cares for one another equally,
With a family the only aim of reproduction and marriage
In Utopia;
And this place, this Utopia, is the most
Perfectly oppressive place ever wished for by mankind.

Thump thump thump thump thump

Thump thump thump thump thump,
Racing through reality drunk on dimension,
A new divide deducting the falsities in truth,
Crossing in it the hope of finding an answer
To the heavy beating, constant, unfailing,
Thump thump thump thump thump,
Escaping into the deceptions painted all over,
The propaganda, the lies we all know are lies
But never confront because of the status quo,
And still they raise the tempo in our chests,
Thump thump thump thump thump,
Music toying with our emotions towards it,
The set scene, the duck and dive, the kiss,
The tragedy of death and the glory of victory,
The glimmer of chance before it is taken away,
Thump thump thump thump thump,
And then we lose everything amidst the drumming,
The rolling of the credits, the final note of the song,
Across what was supposed to be the valley of revelation
Only to find there is no end to any of it, just the wait,
Thump thump thump thump thump…

Taken Path

Whatever is handy is the taken path,
Overcomplicating the load is unnecessary,
Pretension sought and found, lived through and hidden,
Looking glass fogged, blanket covering
Up all those who are happy, blocked from
Begrudging glances;
Seeking a time when wishes breathe in life,
Bouncing from dreams like a rainbow arising from
The crest of a wave, banishing the rain
To a dark cloud in the Atlantic, while all the colours
Flourish in the sky and in your mirror-like eyes;
Hope haplessly given and taken away in two words,
The same two words, positively negative
In their structure, playing prospects with a
Turn of phrase, but not so much lies as a
Change of mind;
Glasses are worn to prevent tears, blue shining
In the drops held back at the sight of the opposing green,
And all I wanted was to take your hand, to flee
This suffocating standard imposed in the institution
Before its grasp sucked all the youthful enthusiasm
We had spare from us;
But you are caught in it now, heading back West
To establish your name as the others all fall away
And while I sit alone, writing about rainbows and blue waves
That just make up another poem about something lost
That I never had.

Stands

Stands manned by people close at hand,
Smiles wide inviting them to turn the tide,
Shouting, laughing, objectives graphing,
Alone I watch, helpless at hand.

Pins see the sky bringing a gasp and a sigh,
Bodies crush as people pointlessly push,
Staring, scathing, fearing their world is changing,
Alone I watch, and I can only sigh.

They snatched the confused while they mused,
Thieves of time gifting only rhymes,
Passionate in trapping their early mapping,
Alone I watch, not snatched while I mused.

And I have never been so close to friends
And still felt so lost,
And I have never been more alone in a crowd
Then when useless by the stands.

The Crocodile

Wrapping paper ripped apart in excited greed
And envious glances are cast my way.
I got the biggest present of the lot.
I tear to shreds the green paper with red
Presents decorated all over and am faced with
An unusual thing – a crocodile.
Initially, I laugh, joining in with the joke that
This crocodile is the perfect present for me
With its green skin and still greener hoops.
Then, it starts happening all around me,
The people do what they have failed to do
For the last two and a half years and actually
Revel in one another’s company outside of a
Classroom – and all I can do is sit here,
Crocodile hanging loosely from my hand,
Wondering when it was I last left my house
Without fearing ridicule from ridiculous people.

Snide comments passed by the standard bearers in the presence
Of the other better people, the other important people,
The ones who saved the publication from the mundane
And made guardians and independents take notice.
As they pretend to live in reality, the coldness of my lids
Reverberates down my body every millisecond,
Slowly, like a groping glove seeking the hidden problems,
Only without the warm intention to cure those problems,
And tears come so close before becoming cold themselves,
Retreating so far away the thought makes me want to cry
All over again, all over the people.
So I turn to the crocodile with hopes of a reprieve
From a present meant to make me smile, surely?
But the crocodile has no words of wisdom, no
Philosophy I can borrow; it just sits there,
Unemotional, quiet, with dead pan eyes and
A stitched up mouth preventing attack on open wounds.

Yet there is something else about the crocodile’s indifference,
A reclusive charm hangs about it, with a knowing air,
And I realise then what I missed in its absent glint;
This crocodile is laughing at me, mocking the blood
Coursing through my veins, and the life that blood brings
To my heart – only to allow it all slip away in whirlpools
Of doubt and despair, with death not even an option
Because I am not allowed to die the way he did.
In its entire idleness, its unnerving uselessness and
Its dead in every single way nature, this crocodile
Has finally enabled me to understand a grim truth;
I am as much use to those I call my friends
As this crocodile is – stuffed, lifeless and of
Value to nobody in the harsh reality of things.
Yet I am kept around, purely for entertainment,
Cheap, over apologetic, and utterly humorous to all
But I.

And as my mind walks away from yet another
Unfinished jigsaw puzzle missing its major pieces,
I attempt to console myself by withdrawing with
The crocodile into isolation;
The din of the party they had without me, though,
Follows behind like an annoying child,
Tugging at my ear lobes, smashing my drums,
Getting louder and louder the further away I go,
Repeatedly hitting the great time had by all off my face
Until blood begins to flow from my nose like the
Slowest and most elegant of waterfalls.
And I shout, and I shout, and I shout, and I shout,
But I am drowned out by the invisible long over party,
And I fall silent out of hoarseness, as quiet as this
Crocodile now occupying the foot of my bed,
As opinionless, voiceless and completely choiceless
As this stuffed loon.

(I got a crocodile for Kris Kringle and look what it made me write).

Spark

There is a light in Donaghmede that can bring more shadows than sight,
A spark that can start more fires than lighters,
She makes the book of love into a drama without the bland,
Forever seeking attention from two close at hand,
And age goes by so slowly for them all,
Each one waiting for the other to call.

He claims to have walked in with eyes wide open,
A fog brought by her blinded his way,
The orange glow carries him home five nights straight,
Dimming in hope as each night passes,
With the mildness of the beginning dying so fast,
Wind and rain soon doubling confused pain.

And that phantom no longer himself leaves her house,
Heart uplifted at the renewed vigour her words brought,
He is completely unaware of the tangle in which he is caught,
Strung along like a puppet by a friend played like a piano,
String and keyboard at the end of her shared bed,
A box of matches at her bedside.

She strikes a flame as all sparks do,
Searing the next scene into the grass of her back garden,
The smoke rises in the shape of the soap opera’s end.

Sort of

A certainty no longer guaranteed turns my head this way and that,
Options not even viable become the main focus of my confusion,
Somehow I have succeeded in pushing away true feelings,
In their stead comes silence and shut doors with taken keys;
Things are never so simple as they seem in the book of love,
With phrases like “sort of” often used as a ‘get out of jail free’ card,
And it is sad how one request can be met with such disdain,
Asked three times in total, the replies cease to come;
There is nothing to bury myself in now,
The realisation of three years wasted takes away all motivation,
All I can do is sit on my hands and wait for two semesters’ end,
Then I can walk away from the pointless things and begin again;
The touch of others close by offers a dangerous temptation,
Desires not reciprocated drag my eyes away from the game,
Which is so much worse to a broken mind and a broken heart,
Well, to a mind and heart that never had an act together in the first place;
And in the end all I really want is a big hug from a close friend,
As at least in her hug I can close my eyes and escape the real world.

Snowed in Salt

All is not sacred, the snow preserves nothing,
Frost may still lakes but it never stops life
Or the falling pieces caught in the brief glimpses of
Moonlight that show themselves through cloud breaks.
People slip on the ice but get up every time, dusting down
To press on with the day or night ahead - this, though,
Is not true of now, the break in play that feels like
A break in time; even though it has just sped up.
Love’s fragility can never be underestimated
Yet when its final chapter is written in two people’s lives
The shock reverberates through the streets, bringing
Feelings of endless emptiness in stomachs’ pits and
The odd tear of sympathy that lands in the snow,
Untroubled, as it becomes part of that blanket of white.
Footsteps over footsteps, forever trampling and unceasing
Despite the sight of a blown out light in the room next door,
Where warmth once emanated, heating passers by,
Lost thoughts of freezing wonder rescued by it.
Now, it is smoke and ash for reasons unknown; burned-out
Flames make eyes drift away from the facing facts,
Allowing the most important thing to be pushed out altogether.
Snowed in before it had ever fallen, making the love impossible to retrieve,
And no amount of salt could clear the sought path or the
Realisation that believing it would last forever was the biggest mistake.

Queen

The Queen in sparkling blue presides over her audience,
All dancing, individuals lost within individuals,
And the Queen is just a tarted up, personality stripped version of Grace,
Slightly older with a beauty extending to movement only,
While a Voice self proclaimed as God speaks to the masses,
Thinking His control of the beats gives Him control of the people;
The Voice makes meaningless statements and sentiments
When all the revellers want to do is throw themselves at each other,
Showing the signs to those they find attractive,
Dropping the eyes when contact is made with the Gorilla;
Every turn is met with the sight of grinding, drinking and border-line riding,
False pretence dominates as the ugly believe they can snare a minx,
The good looking smile wryly while struggling to stand,
They will not be undressing for the Gorilla tonight
No matter how many times they are chased around the dance floor;
And as the politics of drunken deliberation and spiralling hormones is played out,
The Queen rules with mediocre movements that entrance
All the races and animals of this enclosed world equally,
While the withered old Mother looks up at her daughter’s throne
And remembers when her two-step shuffle was wisdom enough to be Queen.

Spent Dream

You invite me in, purple dress playing off your blonde hair
And blue eyes while you smile a smouldering smile,
Full of passion, wanting just one thing from this meeting.
Forbidden and desirable, we remain chaste for all of
Ten seconds - innocence melts away before our fire.
The door to your bedroom nearly came off its hinges
We burst through it in such impatient haste, as if this
Perfectly imperfect moment was about to slip through
Our fingertips back to the reality of the situation.
I thought to myself that this was so wrong yet it felt
So right if not long overdue as I tore through your clothes
And kissed your breasts while knowing we would never again
Get another chance - every kiss was filled with all the life
I have lacked in recent weeks, proving to me that you are
The missing link I can never have; secretly, I have always
Known this to be true, but ignorance of the reality we live in
Was always better than accepting it and slinking away in isolation.
We stop as our eyes meet, me looking down and you looking up,
Attempting to put everything into perspective as our illogical sweat cools
On our naked bodies - we know the consequence of our urges,
And we reaffirm in our minds that this is all either of us want,
A forbidden fruit so tantalisingly close that to stop now would be
The biggest crime either of us could commit - and we make love
All night long, releasing the pent up frustration of the truth
Before falling asleep in each other’s arms, sorely spent,
But hopelessly happy and just wanting to wake up to the sight
Of the other’s eyes the next morning.
But when I woke up, the night still hung like a cloak around the room
Which was not yours but mine - and I lie alone, exactly how
I had fallen asleep whilst watching the days of Summer,
And all the life you had given me begins to slowly fade away
As my dream quickly becomes a memory that never happened.

(I had a random dream and this was it, exactly as it happened in my sleep).

Rising Smoke

They dance, forgetting any potential problem they have,
Me at their side, unknown to them but known to me,
And I use the safety of introductions in ignorance as a scapegoat
To get lost in the rising smoke.

They drink, celebrating the birthday of an age old friend,
Me at their side, celebrating in isolated, silent sobriety,
And as they circle the birthday boy in his naked birthday suit
I get lost in the rising smoke.

They shout, demented in their deliberate drunken state,
Me at their side, unaware of being sucked into their oblivion,
And I drown myself in their yelping yells and my standard sub-vocals
To get lost in the rising smoke.

They link, jumping around the birthday boy singing “Happy Birthday!”,
Me at their side, humming the tune in distracted disinterest,
And as they cheer and clap amidst the shenanigans of ropey randomers
I get lost in the rising smoke.

Wondering when again I would get to wield my weapon.
A perfect pen forced painfully into prostration.

(another night out poem where I was more concerned with typing random lines into my phone than having a good night).

Light Through the Leaves

Rhythmic drunkness is a release sought by many,
The rhythm alone is all I have.
Patience is a virtue that has faded into history,
Mine needs to be never-ending.
Darkness becomes darkest as temperatures drop,
And it seems as if the opportunity has been lost.

But our generation never do things by halves,
Your vodka and coke loosened your tongue.
We come together amidst random faces,
Our eyes meeting and keeping with every step closer.
The music escalates along with our laughter,
And we forget where we are and why we are there…

Caring only for the coincidence of our chance meeting.

Our dancing feet tear holes in the floor,
To the dismay of our friend the home-owner.
We got swept away by the rush of the moment,
So we leave to find privacy outside the packed room.
Sub-zero temperatures cannot match our heat,
Hidden by the nearby bushes.

Then, a terrible thought rises to the top of my mind;
Everything happening around me is separate to me, myself.
Devoid of feeling, emotion, physical movement,
Even though I should be in control, I should be happy.
The last thing I see are a set of car lights through leaves;
You cannot feel things in dreams…

Those emotions hit you in bed as soon as you awake.

Let's Run

How about we run, run away from here,
Out to a place free of restrictions,
Come take my hand, my hand and run,
Out to a place without distractions.
Or let’s go back, back to the start again,
When bliss was ignorant in a newfound friend,
Or get aboard a train, a train to Galway,
Where time is precious without an end.

Allow me to help, help unearth you,
Buried in the ground beneath pretension,
A single sign, a sign with information,
Should I continue my constant extension?
It could be kept, kept our silent secret,
So beautiful hidden in our eyes,
There would be no need, no need to run alone,
Or to make true feelings lies.

So just grab on, grab onto my hand, let’s run,
Just hold on, just hold on and we’ve won.

Dither

Convoluting confusion teetering towards a crushing confession,
Danger dithers while we discuss the diversions,
Sought solitude fails spectacularly to sink or swim,
Instead initiating a sound suspension inclusive of intermediate instances,
And all along we wait alone for another aspiration or aversion,
But being loved leads the blind back to before,
Repeating ripe mistakes made right because they are wrong.

And so it was...

And maybe she thinks me a creep now.

**************************

And it was me, I did it,
No one made me,
No one helped me,
I did it alone because I wanted to create something beautiful,
And I didn’t want to share it with anybody.

**************************

And it starts,
Every single person looks the same;
And the pieces fall apart at the seams,
Bodies try and fail to come together;
And the cylinder mirror jumps left to right to left,
The reflection I see is as distorted as the reality;
And bevy after beautiful bevy swan past,
Amplified arrogance barges in pursuit;

And I never stood a chance, did I?

And the days of politely asking a lady to ballroom dance die and die again,
Its replacement a shadow dance filled with false smiles and dawns;
And now I close my eyes one more time,
Lost;
And I stand alone amidst a million strangers,
Abandoned;
And I don’t want to wake up just to piece everything back together again,
And I just don’t want to wake up;

You could stand there forever, holding the same person.
You could stand there forever, holding the same person.
You could stand there forever, holding the same person.
You could stand there forever, holding the same person.

**************************

The world has no need for another glory hunting ‘intellectual’ who claims to have our species’ best interests at heart and who claims, in print, to have the solutions to all our problems.

Red

I bought a big red balloon today
And tied it around my right wrist,
It was my friend to talk to all day,
Red was there when others were not;
I took Red to the seaside for a walk,
We had a heart-to-air as the tide
Came in and the people pushed out
Toward the nearby ice-cream van;
We got some funny looks from
Those beach folk, who just did not understand us
And the way our friendship worked,
That single white string the only bond we needed;
She turned out to be a guiding light my friend Red,
Offering sound advice as she floated innocently by,
The only problem was I found myself watching her glisten
In the sunlight rather than listening to her words;
You see, an epiphany struck me late in the day
Like a car on the motorway - in those hours we spent together,
Walking the coast, I had come to really like Red,
And all I wanted to do then was kiss her inflated body;
So I leant into Red, really thinking she
Felt the same, but she had untied herself
From my wrist, and floated straight up,
High into the sky above, where she burst into shreds.

(I didn't actually attempt to snog a balloon, just in case you thought it was going that way - to be honest, though, I don't actually remember where the idea for this poem came from).

A Broken Promise (To Myself)

Sitting across from me is every feeling in my chest,
So close, on a crowded couch surrounded by people,
And as she laughs in the only five minute gap she has,
My mind drifts to the messages we exchanged not so long ago;
My eyes read the confession while they were shut tight,
Ignoring the sheer impossibility of the current circumstance,
And as I allowed myself to dream of something special once more,
I forgot about the promise I made to myself;
Since resuming hostilities with the institution and its heartless sarcasm,
Our paths have crossed only fleetingly with your time not your own,
And as I ask you to come out with me again and again,
I find myself crashing to the ground harder every time;
You are buried in work for a paper buried in pretension,
Living your life through it and through the friends you have made through it,
And as I realise the inconvenience my advances must cause,
It becomes clear that my presence in your life is an unnecessary distraction;
And back in the present I see you walk away one more time,
And I see that infectious smile on your face at the thought of the day ahead,
And my feelings for you continue to grow despite the futility of it all,
And I begin to let go of something I should never have snatched at in the first place.