There was that certain calm
The presentiment of Doom perhaps
It seeped in round the cars
And left on me its mark.
Was it a gentle harbinger
Or just a lull in thought?
The world so oft a loud refrain
Tempered stifled if not fraught.
At roadside watching waitingly
As everyone drove by
The silence at once descending fled
In the fleeting flicker of an eye.
© The Hairy Teacher, November 15, 2019
It may feel all so benign
But it’s not
And no longer.
That flagrant flame of youth
-Misguided, burned
out, upended-
All but floated and away
Into the flighty fancy of a memory
But things change
Have changed
And the energy expended
Now finds fruition.
The shadows of ideas
Pilfered in the half-light
Of fear and misunderstanding
Grow clearer, defined
And spell hope, recognition
The Phoenix forlorn
Mistaken
Spreads wing to take flight
And at last in the darkness of a globulus eye
Peering, searching, domineering,
I see reflected the being
That I had many years ago created
And which I’d sheltered
As I dared
Against the world
But it’s time has come
No longer hiding against the tide of criticism
That may or may not follow
On toward the destination
Plotted many moons ago.
© The Hairy Teacher, November, 2019
That I May yet across a summer glade brooding
Imagine love true love through my boyish vision
And yet may I remember it hence
At a time this time of writing
With the clarity that would as it was passing now.
That I May yet paint a picture truly
Not guided by a dream not dreamed but stolen
That I may figure such words as love
From a canvas freshly met and at points still dripping.
That I May yet open up to my losses
Counting them fairly not feigning to carefree
That I may recognize each moment’s worth
Or accept that at times I could have done and more bravely.
© The Hairy Teacher, October 31st, 2019.
We gave ourselves a name
Each and every day we valued it just the same.
We didn’t deride it even when others did
Or we did only at the very end –
Broken, resigned, or perhaps just disappointed:
But we were motivated just the same.
Now our name precedes us
Into the realm of everything we do
And because it’s not unique
We change it,
Design it,
So as to be understood.
We feign indifference
Presume normality
But we have yet to draw the truth from out the stone.
We probably don’t even recognise
That what we’re doing makes us more alone.
We have become disfigured by our fantasy
Where our friends, benevolent,
Fulfil our testimony
Until the moment that we no longer just agree
And then we realise the extent of self-made tragedy.
We sign in, log out, and never stop to think
That we have changed because
That we are not because
That we are because
Of what we’ve chosen.
© The Hairy Teacher, 2019, Just after the hour went back.
I want to create again
To write that poem
With proud held pen
I want to write it perfectly
As I imagined when read
It would be.
I want it to express everything
To capture the essence
To finally take wing.
I want it to soar like that Russian’s*
Like that love
And to forget nothing.
I want it to be
remembered for the words it spent
And for posterity.
I want it forgotten
To be misquoted
And turned to something rotten.
I want it to have
A life of its own, organic,
And then I’ll be glad.
*Yevgeny Yevtushenko: ” Poetry is like a bird, it ignores all frontiers”
Find what you love and let it kill you,
Let it consume and destroy you.
Let it never from your sight that is inside you
Let it be the definition of the why of you.
But first just let it be that urge to suffer
Let it wander, take a course, that you can follow
And take a risk jump right in and bathe in everything
That presents itself and that yet may have nought to offer
Let what ifs be another’s foolish game
Let regret be experience and not shame
And if you win hold your head in humble high
And let not loss be a reason to deride
Both yourself and those that you would blame
But first find that thing that essence and your end.
© The Hairy Teacher, 2019.
We are the traders, upstanding us all
Merchants, purveyors, at your beck and call
Ready to help you, relieve you of cash
Just one thing we beg you, no change should you pass
Only paper is worthy, and coins if worth much
The lower in value too filthy to touch
It’s your duty to hoard it, in boxes to keep
And never reveal it to bury it deep
For what is this coinage but the pointless remains
Of the money you gave us, so spare us the pain
And please don’t insult us demanding your right
For if you had any then what here could I write?
In fact it’s a privilege extended to you
So please stop complaining that this will not do
Moreover, how dare you even challenge this quo
And say that it’s we who have burdened you so
For what would you be if it wasn’t for us
So please just be quiet and stop making a fuss.
© The Hairy Teacher, 2019.
The homeless woman in the homeless women’s line
Always gave me the time to take my change with her sweet smile
The drunken Gypsy begging for a coin
Pointing at my bulging belly when I said that I had none,
As if my rotundness was my wealth
Any man who can build a belly must have money too.
Miklós shouting at me from two floors below
Never sober always drunk then never more
My reflection if I made my life that choice
His face remains but time has lost his voice.
The Jewish centenarians living right next door
TV blaring into the evening
To compensate a faded hearing
But deaf and drunk next door with my guitar
Their apologies unnecessary
Mine greeted with such gentle smiles.
The flower lady made her garden just downstairs
Smiling up at me in all my states
But my brother never felt but focused evil eye
Why me? he’d ask Not you?
I had no answer not that any could ever do
She was the flower lady with the changing mood
To turn her into an angel would do no good.
The courtyard queen sitting watching all
The kindest watchdog I have ever met
The Gypsy family scaring her away till they did leave again and she did stay
The skinhead bar the gauntlet to be run
On Friday nights the kicks would fly but wined up it mattered none
Except to the poor soul coming against me in the haze
No drink bravado to help him along his way
Then turning left or going straight ahead
To wherever this night that night it led
To Tina Turner’s bar at Podmaniczky’s end
The crooked smiles and tilted tongues,
The cheating, daring, hours lost and friendships won
From every side of day no end in sight
A springboard, a pillow, a hunger, till night took flight
Rub a dub dub three men stumbling in
The bodyguard the soldier the chef
A slip on the ice brought the big fellow down
But the helping hand winning free drinks.
Up Pod’s North East the two hearts did beat
The young lady for beauty
The old lady for speech
In our lingo the bar eponymously called
The Old Lady’s Now lost
At Immeasurable cost.
Such news learnt through a bath time discussion
Such things lost with education, progression.
New generations forsaking old ones’ schemes
Themselves in search of future dreams.
The trainyard calling in the depths of night, the tunnel farther up connecting in a howl on the drunken bike
The loneliness on those dark nighttime feats
The memories reflecting on the wet cobbled streets…
© The Hairy Teacher, 2019.
In the depth of a drink
Editing, considering,
I raise my eyes
Just for a moment
And watch
And I allow this distraction
And I allow it to grow,
Grow into the image
Of motion, movement,
Towards…?
The end of the line.
© The Hairy Teacher, 2019.
Friday fifth of July
Just over on Leitrim Street and Watercourse Road
Sun gleams through the freshness of the morning
Heating me from the inside.
Up at the Revenue’s Maedbh is nice
Her voice over the phone courteous, kind.
Next up and over through older and new
Along Lansdowne terrace then the top the Hill
To the school, my next stop, and where this summer will…
The laughter the smiles the general avoidance
Till mentioned and breezed over
Short-changed on overdue promises
Back through the city
Doing Pana at a stretch
Trusting and coiling till the Mall once again.
The bank building
A beauty, a glimpse of times past
The twenty on the floor
Unclaimed then named mine.
And last but not least
To the corner, Union Quay,
Not to Charlie’s but next door
Into the Grind and coffee
The comings and goings
The stories the chat
Another place I could drop into
If I ever really came back.
If I ever came back
On my own terms only
A nine to fiver would kill me
Of this now I am certain.
© The Hairy Teacher 2019, Corkban
