No More Corners

A fool’s mantra is pressed home in optimistic tones
as you doll yourself up for a night of untold promise.
“You never know what’s around the corner.”

My lips curve into a smile before I laugh the laugh
you want to hear when I really just break down inside.
“I have no more corners to turn.”

You begin to tell me of the revival of your fortunes
and how hope has returned to a once hopeless cause.
“I used to think like you, but look at me now.”

Then I silence your scoffs as I systematically prove how
my inadequacy has contributed to my four failings.
“I have covered every inch of this square.”

The light in your eyes refuses to dim in the shadow
of this reality as you believe in forgiving and forgetting.
“You just gotta let go and move on.”

But I explain how my circumstance has me boxed
inside this suffocating world of routine so mundane.
“I have nowhere to move on to.”

And we both agree that time is the ruler of all things
and that I just have to bide the seconds I have left.
“But why should I wait when nothing awaits me?”

Serenade

Death caws overhead as the black cat smirks
while revealing nothing in its glassy gaze.
A lone plastic bag makes the only rustling sound,
teasing me within this endless maze.
And it is quite clear that I write better than I live
when I spot life coursing through your veins.
We walk side-by-side down the same dark road,
yet you walk freely as I struggle with chains.

You go your way and I go mine, blood dripping
onto the grave as I visit the dead old man.
Concerns about the gash sustained in the bar fight
only grow more when I insist it was part of the plan.
I remember when, in exchange for bravery and heart,
I was promised the world and everything that is in it.
And I remember when the world fought my grasp
As my bravery and heart slowly waned, bit by bit.

Then we cross again outside my house, your fears
at my indifference growing steadily in silence.
My dismissals with wringing hands become agitated
Until they soon become yells of outré violence.
The tears form a stream on your face as you
Suggest we go out the back garden and serenade the walls.
My confusion meets your delusion as you hope
Whoever else is listening may just answer our calls.

Bedroom Door

I stare at my bedroom door, mostly shut
but partially open - too frightened to
peak around its edge because I believe
there is somebody beyond the threshold
whom I do not want to see anymore.
I continue to stare at my bedroom
door, my logic lost amidst the many
permutations of these complications,
swirling in the abyss of never again,
never to be and never was in the
first place, misplaced in a time of my own
manufacture from my own dreams which slip
away as sleep itself becomes a dream;
impossible in the warm summer nights
spent idly reading, writing and playing
virtual football with virtual players
who are still so much better than my real
self and my own mishap filled control.
So I stare at my bedroom door, wanting
to leave while knowing it would mean coming
face-to-face with those who will devalue me,
abuse me, assault me, those who say they
care - and mean it too - but who will never
have the means to make their sense see my sense.
And even though I know that my landing
is as empty at three in the morning
as it was when I first became entranced
by the known unknown beyond, I just stand
and stare rather than open it wide to
reveal no apparition as I fear the
meaning of its absence’ enforced admission.

In Hiding

Squabbling concerns fail to ignite a reaction
As they all voice opinions formed in the dark.
Disregarded are the unguarded who expect
Confessions to come willing as to why the words
Landing on page after page are red, enticing
Bad luck and worse scrawls that resemble
Streaks of blood staining the yellowish pages.
Memories, dreams and realities collide inside
As my mind struggles to comprehend between
The periods of dejection, jubilation and depression
Experienced in each of the three at any moment.
And friends’ voices shrill higher in their pleas
For access to my thoughts even though they are free
For all to see regardless of our natural degree.
But the pressure mounts, the brow twitches more
As tears in vain try to escape the clutches of my
Unforgivable lashes, barriers to and from my sanctum.
So when the calls come with renewed vigour I shall answer
With brutal honesty why my life is lived through lies
In the safety of solitude secretly sought in the night:
That this is a choice of my own making.

News: published on SpunOut.ie

SpunOut.ie is an online magazine that provides journalistic articles in varying media on all sorts of topics - in the website's own words it "is an independent, youth powered national charity working to empower young people to create personal and social change."

The website is incredibly interactive and is divided into six sections: Home, The Mag, Health & Life, Take Action, Forum and Get Involved. The Mag section is where fiction and poetry gets published and it is where SpunOut.ie have published my poem Rat Race. They have changed the structure of Rat Race, though, for reasons I can only assume have to do with the space available on the display page - for the original version click here.

They take all sorts of articles, not just fiction writing, so it is definitely worth clicking into the Get Involved link and seeing what you can contribute to SpunOut.ie.

News: published in Minus 9 Online - Minus 9 Squared's cousin

The editor of the monthly online zine Minus 9 Squared has set up a new blog called Minus 9 Online. The aim of the new blog is to provide a continuous stream of work by writers and artists during the gap between publication of the monthly zines proper.

The blog is split into two categories - Words on a Page, for poetry, prose and short stories; and Pictures on a Screen, for all work of a visual nature.

Three of my poems currently feature in the Words on a Page category of the blog - Fantasies, All the Old Friends and Rankle; though, once the blog receives more submissions they'll disappear from the home page quite quickly!

Submitting work to the blog is a good way of getting exposed and could lead to being published in Minus 9 Squared itself, or even in other magazines as anybody could be reading/viewing the content. At the time of writing, the blog remains relatively bare, so help fill it up with a catalogue of work by getting the submissions in!

Miracle

Today is her birthday, so we bake her
A cake, but one silly mistake is all
It can take and now we are left with no
Place to put her candle. The birthday girl
Will arrive soon and as the seconds slip
Away panic grips us all as we know
That time is running out to rectify
This simple wrong; there is no money to
Buy a replacement, and even if there
Was, the gift would mean more if handcrafted.
And the birthday room floating away on
The balloons that fill it seems absent of the
Crucial component which would give it life,
So a miracle is cried out for and,
With God apparently absent in our
Time of need, we turn to you - the one who
Has always made things happen when others
Have stood still. Your eyes widen in fear at
First but the colour surrounding you in
This moment of majestic expectation
Carries you to the kitchen, a place you
Feel quite homely in despite its walls never
Being able to keep you. And you smile,
And you laugh, and you revel in your role
Of responsibility as the sheer
Power of friendship makes something once
A distinct impossibility become
A wonderful realisation in
The form of a completed cake, perfectly
Edible and equally as delicious
As its now forgotten predecessor.
And the sense of satisfaction culminates
With the look on the birthday girl’s face when
She steps through the door - a genuine look
Of joyful shock that can not be achieved
Without the element of surprise; but
It is the cake that grabs her attention
As it is her favourite flavour, and once
The birthday girl blows out her candle, she
Looks up and smiles at you from across the
Room, knowing this could never have happened
Without you, even though she knows nothing
Of the cake mishap (which is better left unsaid!),
And you smile back because for you today
Is just about being happy with friends,
Which is a daily miracle in itself.

Measure

And praise lavish in its delivery
drops at his doorstep when it all goes well,
as he smiles his smile so famous for its
authenticity; but any man can
be a good man when things go according
to plan - the true measure of a man can
only be seen when it all falls apart.

Fantasies

All my fantasies are filled with people
who are not me, controlling my heartbeat
as if it was their own with actions I
could never even dream of achieving
by myself because I am simply not
able nor worthy. They carry hopes of
nations upon shoulders incredibly
broad, and they do so with the freedom
and movement of children gracing us with
the presence of their imagination.
And it makes me sad that some are younger
than I, and so much more gifted too, with
a grand stage to exhibit their talents
on; and it only serves to remind me
of my own inadequacy and my
own failings in my own life, here, in the
real world, where real things happen or do not
happen, depending on whether one can
speak up or sit down when the time is right
or wrong or never to be; and it soon
becomes apparent that my fantasies
are actually living nightmares that haunt
me night and day, and morning and evening,
tearing me to pieces to put me back
together, just to pull me apart once
more, just to piece me back together again,
like some sort of sick jigsaw puzzle which
has a jagged part that does not quite fit
because it is never allowed to end.

God

I have a friend who proclaims nothing is in our hands
because it is all in the laps of the gods we cannot see.
I have a grandfather who is convinced a god watches
over us day-by-day and keeps his son safe until the
long awaited moment when they are reunited again.
I have a grandmother who lives by grandfather’s rules,
not through faith but through hope that come the end
of it all he turns out to be right in the face of adversity.
I have a father buried beneath a headstone he did not want
because he never saw or heard the god his father claimed to know.

And I cannot claim to know him either, regardless of my friend’s
proclamations and my grandfather’s insistence that his
prayer’s for me are always answered because I am not
the bastard I need to be, nor am I as large as the life
they think I have behind these eyes so allegedly alabaster.
And it is in irony that I claim to be so cold in isolation as
grandfather truly believes if I clasp my hands in silent prayer
I could never be alone - but talking to myself, or to the walls, does not
constitute being in company; otherwise I would never be alone,
despite failing to utter a single Hail Mary for my spurious smiles.

All the Old Friends

Oh, there’s my old friend Karma,
A broken scene as the interest soared.
Cutting through pretension to grant an extension
To a time and place without record.

Oh, there’s my old friend Hope,
Temptation is truly the fabled sin.
Appeasing forever those with endeavour
So they always have reason to begin.

Oh, there’s my old friend Love,
Intervention of the well-worn friend.
Inhaling to choke on those flames you stoke
With shortened breath to comprehend.

Oh, there’s my old friend Silence,
Thickened walls offer no reprieve.
Yelling to pray while I watch as you sway
In a drunken attempt to deceive.

Oh, there’s my old friend Lies,
Trickling stream of an age-old river.
Sitting on your throne while the film is shown
As you wait for me to deliver.

Oh, there’s my old friend Logic,
Calculating prowess a point of assault.
Though you control parts of my soul
In you I can see no fault.

Oh, and there’s a new friend, Being,
Realisation cracks the white mask.
I open my eyes to reveal our guise
And find you already took me to task.

Invincible

Arms outstretched in a victory as false as his pose;
deceit spins through the air but is lost in the
tranquillity of the sea and the absconding aromas,
elements and senses teasing him with their freedom.
And as he stands there in a seemingly painted
picture of glory unrivalled, voices whisper in his ears
that his only consistent character trait is inconsistency,
that he can scale as many hills, receive as many cuts,
earn as many scars and throw as many stones
as he pleases, but that he will never be invincible.

He stands on the opposite side of the cliff now,
overlooking the ocean glimmering like gold
beneath the basking rays of the sun, which hangs like
a flaming orb waiting to be blown out; a sign of the
impending climax to his tale of thoughtful inaction.
And friends regale him with tragic stories of time’s
continuous murdering streak, forever unpunished
because the accepted wisdom is the tick-tock of
all the clocks can never stop and that age - not even
a guarantee - will occur upon hearing too many clocks.

Yet sometimes it seems time takes an age to pass,
in those moments of unheralded brooding in the
newfound wilderness of well-worn pathways
holding keys to the isolation he craves daily and nightly.
And he knows he will lose all of what he breaths in now,
this unusual, unfamiliar feeling of serenity and oneness
with a world so willing to overindulge on gossip and
death and politics and scandal and all the trivialities
for which we should not have one minute to spare as life
spins on its axis, not invincible either as the poles shift.


(more thoughts from the day at the cliffs)

Cliffs

And today June emphatically begins,
As we scale these cliffs, reliving our sins,
The sun beats down with no sign of a wind,
Just an air of hope the past will rescind.

Old war wounds burst their banks on my skin,
As rocks rapingly scrape “repent to win,”
We approach the edge, I approach the end,
And looking down I fear to surrend.

The beauty of certain uncertainty,
The unknown of life as a guarantee,
My laughter is said to bring so much joy,
But how can that be, I am just a boy?

Now the waves crash into the cliff side,
The roar grabs hold, without a place to hide,
But then it all goes numbingly silent,
So deafening, voraciously violent.

And though time drags us so far apart,
We breath in the clock, go back to the start,
And live in this scene of serenity,
Setting sun shows no shred of sympathy.


(I visited the cliffs around Howth for the first time yesterday - they were incredible)