Limbo man
Once I met a woman and
She blew twelves holes right through my soul
And led me off to Samarkand
And other-halfed my half-a-whole
And did the biz in photoflash
And nuked the horse of Johnny Cash.
She was composure manifest.
I blushed and stammered and perspired.
I later had to wring my vest.
Meanwhile I mumbled and retired.
Although I fought hard for my soul
the hand grenade went down the hole.
Certain things and certain places
Somehow one never will forget
But when the soul has felt embraces
One is a fish within a net.
For all being meshed means hell to pay,
Strange destiny must have its way
I am a man upon the shelf.
I am a spire no bell can chime.
I haven’t been to see myself
For more than half a half a time.
Should myself call to my own door,
I’d ask: ‘Who are you looking for?’
I come from ancient Israel.
I date from Nineteen Eighty Five.
I often dine with Ishmael.
‘What keeps you in this dive?
Are you not already weary
Of harbouring in dead Dun Laoghaire?’
I often look up my address.
Once– just to keep a foolish vow–
I telephoned. To my distress
I found he doesn’t live there now.
Limbo, limbo limbo man.
Flash in the cosmic frying pan.
I have what lover never has:
The time to estimate the breeze.
A volume written in Shiraz
Is printed red down in Tabriz
Where only the insane may drink
The cauldron of the printed ink.
This heart is but a feelmobile
And most of what it feels is hell
As down by heaven’s loss I kneel
And weep in the most holy well.
No sailor ever faced an ocean
More awesome than his heart’s commotion.
And so, dear God, to you I pray,
Not by what mere speech has uttered.
Extremis Misericordiae
Is blood from a caged bird that fluttered
In anguish against metal bars
That shut it from a night of stars.
By Peter Kay
EDIFACE (Building a better future 2006)
Overnight they sprout and rise, the slums
and tenements of tomorrow.
Empty now, the concrete brood cells hang,
suspended from towering cranes
Swarming with workers from hither and yon
as bloated drones prepare for flight
In this land of mild and honey, blight lies dormant
beneath the soil
A miasma, waiting on a climate change before
the rot sets in again.
By Joe Taylor
The Back Garden
Just gazing out into the back garden
And feeling a little sad
The skies overhead are now turning grey
I was thinking will this day be bad
The ladder leans up against the old apple tree
Two lovely doves land on the ground,
These same two birds have come every day.
And for some years they have been around,
They eat all the food I put out for them
And stay around for quite sometime
The cat has got used to these two doves
Doesn’t mind them at all and that’s fine
The glass house stands near the end wall,
It’s my refuge and my island in the sun,
And its there I often write down my thoughts,
Of the past and the present and of times to come,
The old apple tree has cropped very well this year,
Much better than it has ever before,
Perhaps it’s through this global warming,
That the old tree has apples galore,
Now the wind has just come up again,
And the apple tree starts to sway,
For the clouds in the sky have now darkened
And I’m sure we are now in for a bad day,
The two doves have now just flown away
And the back garden looks lonely and bleak,
The rain overhead has just started to fall
Sure it’s near to the end of the week
So I’ll put all the garden tools away,
My plans have gone down the drain,
Now I think I’ll make a nice cup of tea
And enjoy looking out at the rain.
By Sonny Kinsella
July 08
My hair has turned the colour of lead
Serves me right,
For keeping my head, stuck in the clouds over Ireland
Looking for a silver lining.
By Joe Taylor
The time of your life
Life is like a pendulum swinging to and fro
One minute we are high the next one we are low
On and on and on it goes swinging left to right
Each and every morning and through the dead of night
Ticking by and counting and counting oh so slow
And when it finally comes to rest I wonder where we go
Some of us go up above and others down below
Maybe we go nowhere the answer I don’t know.
By Jim Tumelty
Angel
I found her purse
the one she had searched for everywhere.
Frantic, that her hopes and dreams were lost
with the shillings and pounds she had saved
to pay for her passage
on Titanic.
By Joe Taylor
Raytown
I remember good old Raytown
When I was just a boy
The Shellybanks and the Costelloes
Were places full of joy
And the Regal around the backstreet
Where our heroes could be seen
There was more life in the cushions
Than there was up on the screen.
There was Olins and the Laragh
And McCluskeys up from there
And we all queued up on Fridays
And Cecil cut our hair
There was Kitty Whelan’s Drapery
And Mary Lovely’s too
And we can’t forget old Martin
Who mended all our shoes.
I remember Ducky Austin’s shop
Where the cats sat on the sweets
And the awful smell of paraffin
That met you on the street.
Now I can’t leave out old Rafters
They were everybody’s friend
Where your suit went in on Monday
And come out the next weekend.
Well, we all loved Fr.Phelan
The fastest priest in town
He would have the mass all over
Before we could kneel down
Well the years have passed
And things have changed
But some things never will
When I walk across the Ringsend Bridge
In my memory time stands still
By Billy Kelly
Just so you know
I said no
But just so you know
It’s not because you don’t frequent my dreams at night
It’s not because you don’t make everything seem alright
I said no
Just so you know
It’s not because I don’t quiver when I see your face
It’s not because I don’t melt when I lie in your embrace
I said no
Just so you know
And I know you’re wondering why I did not
make your day
Why I didn’t say the words that you longed for me to say
Those three little words that would have given you a start
Given you a foothold on my broken battered heart
But I said no
And just so you know
Though my heart is calling out to stay
There’s a reluctant little voice inside urging me
to walk away
And its not that I can’t see us
Holding hands through good times and through bad
And its not that I don’t recognise
Something good in what we had
Just so you know
I said no because I’m afraid of giving into the pain
And I’m afraid of loving someone and losing them again
So I said no
Just so you know
By Audrey Healy
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