Daily
Mum and I go on walks
for exercise,

though we scarcely exert.
I give my hand
to her.

COLD HANDS, she says.
Circulation perhaps,
we say.

I WANT TO MAKE PAPER,
I say,
BUT I DON’T HAVE…

*

Later,
Dad made me a framed sieve
from wood and mesh.

Finishing up,
he said:
I’M FREEZING MY BALLS OFF.

He left to light the fire,
pour a whiskey,
and smoke.

I stayed in the garage
making paper,
heart warm.

Those that haven’t are with their lips
and tongues and hands attached
to hips and salty, green, decaying faces,
sharing airless, nailed-up spaces.

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If my joy is depleted –
from wondering if I ought to be wondering,
and getting ready to wait again –
there is still a backup,
like in A&E.

Eyes, ears, dusty solar panels to collect:
The music released from a cabbage,
when split with a large kitchen knife;
Sunset light shone low through a cock’s comb,
radiating at x lumens per wattle;
And glassy, blue light,
exploded by the chaff of suspended dust particles in my room,
where the telephone won’t ring.

I spent two of the summer months in the States, mostly in Texas, where they experienced the hottest heat they’ve had in years. My trip coincided with the end of an era for me personally and I’m left contemplating what of myself I am left with.

The first winter whisper,
harsh and real,
finds my wounds,
undresses me; knows me.
No shame here.
Off with that
American attire –
loose t-shirt,
baggy shorts —
take this old cardigan.
It looks right;
it suits you.
Richard Burton won’t mind;
he’s dead now.
No shame there.

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I know this Dublin well;
it’s pouring or ‘bucketing’.
I’ll get up with the light,
make a special breakfast
as if for me and my love.
I’ll haste to get ready,
as had I a lover,
whose forehead i’d kiss, and say,
sombrely, breathlessly,
“I miss you already”.

Two days ago now,
I left the tap on.
After half an hour
I discovered this.

Yesterday, bad too:
I burnt a pan black –
I’d forgot that too.

Last night, drunk and blue,
“forgot” to say “bye”
or “I’m leaving now”.
Feeling selfish, I,
not digging the tunes,
stole to a taxi –
asocial baboon.

Now that time is here:
Groceries have dates,
usually on top,
that are redundant
(I’ll be gone by then).
For example: beer.

But a pint on tap
is for drinking now,
or for drinking then.
“Goodbye Dublin town!”,
I might burp and say,
if I’d know that pint
were the last I may.

But, instead, I’m dumb;
It’s become my way.

I stand
for Lidl Quality,
more and more each month.

I am
sitting now on their shelves in boxes,
waiting to exist:
Brown bread,
Bebida Soja, tinned tomatoes.

Gladly
I picture myself at my last meal,
before I go off
(abroad).

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In the absence of a lover,
that man creates:
In want of wet lips,
a cocktail;
in emptiness,
a sandwich;
in love,
muddy memories;
and in singular loneliness,
man was created, because

In the beginning,
there was love —
the science of attraction
and unity –
and in the nonexistence of a single cell,
that love created.

And in the unification of the disparate,
so began a four billion year tradition
of love on Earth.