Clongriffin

This ghost town succumbs

To the haze

And towers over me

With soaked insignificance.

The buildings’ monotony

Harks back to the days of Ballymun,

With some of the locals

Even deigning to call their apartments

“Flats.”

The people who live here

Do not form the society anybody expected;

A bustling city centre with

Rich business types should

Have blossomed from here:

Instead, immigrants and “riff-raff”

Make up a population

Quite tolerable for now -

But an implosion awaits.

Boarded up land contains

A burnt out car and nothing more.

Vodafone and JD sports

Should be there,

While a Superquinn and a Centra

Threaten emptily to open their doors

To a tumult of silence.

At least the train station can carry off

Those who give this place a faint pulse.

Bloodied women remain,

Screaming of infidelity

(unaware of the word’s existence);

Antagonising teens mope,

Abusing homosexuality with

Their indifferent use of its standard term*,

Before pleading their age

With yarns once spun by

My generation, though not by me.

Yet this dull, despairing place

Has within it some rough diamonds

That make it worthwhile to see -

The young woman with the British accent,

Or Captain Lotto, the bus conductor,

And let us not forget our regular,

So forward in his being that he once

Decked my manager in the face

(With reconciliation, because both are men).

And there are other champions, too,

Like the woman with the keenest gaze

Who enquires after me with sincerity,

And my old P.E. teacher

Who forgot my name though not quite me,

And my colleagues,

Who make everyday in this place

Barely living bearable:

Because they are my friends.

And that once wily proprietor

Is the cause and effect of it all,

Though this is an unmitigated mutation

Of his own dream,

A dream which saw 40,000 people

Laden with money and ambition

Flock to what should have been

A future hub of the nation’s capital -

With Sporting Fingal on their breast.

And while he may lament at

The stripped down version of his vision -

Filled with people he may not want -

I say this place is better than his dream

For one very simple reason:

This Clongriffin is real,

And is here, now, waiting to implode

And produce far more for this country

Than he ever dreamt it would.

*ie, abuse by teenagers of the word 'gay'

My Valentine

Hollow is this heart you leave,
Love a flattery to deceive;
With a spoon you dug so deep,
And I alone am left to weep.

My Valentine! My Valentine!
Perfectly, you once were mine.
My Valentine! My Valentine!
My loss has come to so define

Me.

While the Fox outside hunts its prey,
I entreat you, please, to love and stay;
Still you appear so cold and callous,
I implore you, please, don’t let this pass us.

My Valentine! My Valentine!
Perfectly, you once were mine.
My Valentine! My Valentine!
Your cause has come to just confine

You.

And the wenches circle the whores,
Defilement bursting from their pores;
Cast aside, a stepping stone like me,
I abide forever, waiting to feel free.

My Valentine! My Valentine!
Perfectly, you once were mine.
My Valentine! My Valentine!
Deceit has come to softly recline

Tonight.

Lured

Dug from the depths, you

Confessed within breaths;

With one single word,

I found myself lured;

Without false intent,

With hope to repent -

But before midnight,

I lost you mid-flight.

Threads

The threads of an old life,
Strung out so far behind -
I grabbed hold to them once more,
To escape the cellar of my mind.
My friends still smiled upon me,
Not one was less kind;
But inside something had shifted,
To which I was utterly blind.

Weary of my past well-written,
Aware of my crimes;
I pulled my gaze warily forward,
To forget those good old times.
What was once well was then ill,
In weathered new climbs -
And those fragile bells of love,
With delicacy, still chimed.

The intrigues of my nearest,
Brought silent lashings of my tongue;
Each handsome flight of fancy,
Saw struggling hands wrung.
Yet as I stared through sleepless eyes,
To the past my heart still clung;
As I winced through pleasures old,
Each bell within rung hollow, done.

It was I who blundered, so,
In picking up torn threads -
Friends from then, who let theirs go,
Are present now, with wiser heads.

Working Dreams

January waits with the promise
Of a new
Threshold to cross,
But its inauspicious start
Ends more bitter than cold.
Midnight is approaching
So I start running -
Here comes my bus,
Early for once.

One journey too many,
Or so it seems,
As traffic lights intervene
To force a stop -
A glance left reveals to me
A decaying grey headstone
In a graveyard,
Bearing my last name
And nothing more.

The fatigue brought on
By day jobs and dreams of work
Weighs heavier
Each passing second;
With one eye fixed firmly
On the time,
An escape from my
Constricting uniform
Is planned meticulously.

All the long-held threats
Of optimism
Die when midnight strikes,
As the aromatic aura of
The kissers,
All so murderously beautiful,
Haunts me all morning long -
Sleep becomes impossible
To fight off, then:

Working dreams envelop me;
Some of which can come alive,
At least.