In a vision of the moment cast aside,
and yet – with each intake of breath –
There would seem to be a harmony,
what’s more – a dreaded repetition.
Why does the cycle present its terror
Except in the knowledge of what was before.
Therefore, no man feels stable, secure,
Nor draws comfort from that
which has become oh so predictable:
And in the tortured will to survive
Man surrenders life to existence.
© The Hairy Teacher, March, 2018
Another step, a neighbourhood
And yet the worries call.
The darkened corners of my doubts
Put service to my fall.
The imagination builds on high
the towers to collapse.
And in the end ruination
– but what will be the cost?
©The Hairy Teacher, March, 2018
The scaffolding still stands across the way
And under it other parties now do pass
In the shadow of that tunnel hidden memories
Some borne of repetition some of joy.
Each step a step closer to one’s abode
But- now- the turning wheel dictates the road
Will it be in hindsight our adventure or
In leaving it the spelling of our certain Doom.
The passing faces the road much trodden
The life the thoughts the everything
And in so passing us we too were passing
And are still from this side of the road.
© The Hairy Teacher, March, 2018
As the writer tries a composition
The young child delves to exploration.
The older hand deemed wiser falters
While the boy’s reality at a whim can alter.
The writer concocts mind-felt emotions
The boy just is in his devotions.
Together they occupy this very moment
But which one’s truly in the present?
©The Hairy Teacher, March, 2018
To women
To love
To sacrifice.
To lovers
To motherhood.
To tears
To joy
To hope
To pain.
To struggle
To equality.
To chance
To ambition
To youth
To old age.
To women
And once again I sit
Another last time to contemplate,
The kitchen’s almost bare
The living room hollow echoes
As the kids watch something to distraction.
A cool draught saunters in for a second
Hand in hand with the sounds of the city
And then back to the inside
The plughole gurgling at a deeper depth
Threatening the surface
The tap hasn’t dripped for some minutes
Somewhere an awful song sung in Hungarian
If the original is any better I cannot tell
I’m just not in the mood.
Plastic crackles, the reality where a fireplace would feature
But let’s return from twee
My geansaí grey but I’m not a Yeatsian fisherman.
I sit here a moment in a kitchen that will fade
Realising and those moments in blend almost already gone.
©The Hairy Teacher, March, 2018
A little spot away across the bridge
from where the night before
the party came on loud.
Set merged within the outside table seats,
and a couple to the right – a ripe old age.
When finally they arise and walk away
their every limp and sway a matted mated edge
A testament to a bond grown aged yet strong
as they fade with time’s embrace into my past.
©The Hairy Teacher, March, 2018
That far flung dalliance with Destiny
Forever fettered by my idea of beauty
Instead searching as I do the memories
Trawling all the bars, as Stu said,
All the vacant corners of the heart
Where ridicule and sentiment abide
Torn close because the distance threatens
To ensue a truth as well as any falsehood too
The latter factored in beyond my conscious mind
The former as much as always a surprise.
“And yet your talk of women only…”
Tis true
And this because the void therein was once defined
Inside the mind
Inside the soul
Of youth and sorrow
Inside the pain that brought no pity, and so
I rose a desecrated entity by my own hand
And with the lip and glisten
Kiss and touch
And doubt and anger
Only fear
And with the fear I straddled beauty on a dockside
And somewhere in a moment I found Life where breath no longer reigned
I found shape in a distortion of the romance in which I had failed…
And it is now the very essence of my being.
©The Hairy Teacher, March, 2018
A new path laden with old shadows
Still directing towards the land you dream to go
But it’s different.
The steps of strangers daggered
The footfalls decorated
And yet it’s the swagger, that damn’d swagger
That throws you off this time.
Was it this, that stride interrupted,
Was it? That the dawn bellowed forth its silence in?
Was it this or another vague Dominion
That spelt truth and yet imposing, gently
Deceived you into :
Being a downfall still a dream but essentially All reality?
The boatman laying up his boat to tar
The willow’s tail threaded through the swallow’s
Held high, suspended
The work is underway.
The shore beckons as all shores do to those who know them,
Grew up by them,
Embracing tenderly.
The duck within the grass, behind the tree
Tries reaching-
Trying to bend your will
But you don’t let it.
To the waters and the wild
Being drawn once more
A destiny beheld
If you will let it.
