(an introduction..... my dear Father died suddenly just weeks before I was born
my dear Mother started her life as a orphan
I have told them millions of time I love you )
This poem is dedicated to the loving glances between my Mother and Father still happening…..
‘I Born in Amniotic Infused Grief’
Midwife Cernunnos cough’s adjusts her Birthing Veil
A resplendent Seeded veil
Ensconced alive upon her head
A seed within a seed thence within another
Oak seed inside a Ash seed
Ash seed inside a Hazel seed then inside a Elder seed
Elder seed inside a Apple seed
The innermost seed Yew
Creating a many seeded snakeskin veil
A serpent skin interlaced, scaly weaved
Criss crossed seeds coiled
Entangled in mystical grace
Surrounding around her gentle discerning face
Creating the peaks of the veil
There are intwined saplings
Sprouted vigorous from each of the seeds genus’s
Beautiful bonsai abundance of flowers and fruit abound
Rising out of the beautiful petal clusters
Gaping wide, are a pair of highly mobile mandibles
The seeded snake jaw’s ligaments stretching
Inching down the air above itself
The jaws opening and closing as the Midwife moves
Hanging down from this glorious stack
Seeded snake wonder fangs
Falling down tipping the side of her ears
Through her ear lobes as seeded earrings
Sewn Bark from each genus her birthing garment
Now slowly igniting down over her shoulders
Slightly flaring down to her waist
The cork periderm singeing
Smouldering sacred fumes
The aromas reeking the nascence essence
A few cinders fall onto her fired boots
Cobbled from organic leaf litter
Winded gusted in from the Intangible Forest
Where Trees have flourished for countless eons
With never a feared thought
Of themselves as firewood or lumber
Festooned twigs and animal bones
Sticking out from her boots
Stabbing thrusting the air to calmness
Entranced she prepares the Birthing Bed
My Dear Mother
Slumped outside on the streets in a hospital chair
Dragged there uncontrollably howling wild in her subconscious
From a ambulance that left a maternity hospital at great mad speed
A stated benevolent place that mercilessly heartlessly threw her out
Matron Nightingale who travelled with the ambulance speaks
‘’We live in the halls of mercy to be sure’’
“Forbearance our stated vow’’
‘’Benignant we bathe with joy our possible inferiors’’
“We will gladly with pure heart nurse to anyone”
“Yet we have failed in our purpose here’’
‘’Though this Mother doesn’t understand”
“We tried to help her, she is beyond our dignified senses’’
‘’She a patient unconscious still yes’’
‘’Intertwined tight with her ghost in grief’’
“There was first a pervading aroma coming from her bed’’
“Impalpably like the semblance of a decomposing body’’
‘’Yet there was nothing to find’’
‘’To touch with fear amongst the bedclothes’’
‘’It was somehow imperceptibly seeping from her sheets”
“Till one late night close to the break of morning I saw it myself”
“A ghostly faint male figure levitating around the curtains’’
“But if truth be told and if asked I will deny I ever saw him”
“That the accusations that I spoke were invented to disparage my purity”
“Still in hidden truth these words did once fall from my lips”
“He had a pervading romantic sense of a young lover lost’’
“Then I saw that unearthly gentleman taking off his shoes’’
‘’Saw that sad phantom unpicking his spectral laces”
“Saw his slowly disappearance”
‘’Reflected in the shine of his ghastly boots”
“We searched with hallowed lights”
“Following a moving aroma of smouldering sweet amorous scents’’
“Myself and my nurses being made to run around in circles’’
“But we couldn’t find those pale cadaverous elusive boots”
‘’I at that stage wanted some sought of proof”
“Some artefact yes, a relic such things I’m known to collect”
‘’Lingering strange dissipating shadows appeared’’
“‘On our prayer books staining the pages almost illegible”
‘’The touch of rough then such soft fingers”
“First crushing then caressing our throats”
“A maddening horrid threat then sweetly arousing us”
‘’A piecing invisible sharpness”
‘’In our personal spiritual atmosphere’’
“Bursting the ‘ballon’ the ‘cloud’ of our secret talks with god”
“We hypnotised for moments we hope we don’t remember what we saw”
“Mad insane damaging visions against our belief’s , our creed’’
“A demolishing wind then a dismantling vacuum of myths’’
‘’Battering us to new unknown not sanctified not believed freedom thoughts’’
“This birth is unusual indeed profane”
‘’Beyond what we’ve have ever seen by candle or lamp’’
“We can not disturb our other soon to be Mothers’’
“Their births can not be infected by any such evil entrapment’
“We can not release this maybe dangerous baby on this blessed earth’’
‘’Our benefactors Bankers, Merchants the Noble Rich’’
‘’Must not be concerned assailed’’
‘’Shaken senseless ‘’
“It could well happen’’
‘’By new revolutionary youngsters’’
‘’Ah the false imbedded belief in a young aggressors’s mind’’
“The cry of rebel insurrection so sparking in its vocal attack”
‘’In usual reality just slight annoyance to the mercantile mind’’
“Another mosquito another slap”
“We often discuss over drinks at our exclusive clubs”
‘’The love of rare roses, the love of votive candles flickering ’’
‘’The fragrance of the expensive wine as the bottles open’’
‘’Always after many many pouring’s”
“Getting to the heart of our true! enemy’’
“One that by primal impulse would wish our downfall’’
“Nature realising our poisonous acts”
‘’Will send this dangerous potential destructive one on us’’
‘’Through the birthing of everyday children’’
“That there one day will be a different one born’’
‘’The little spoken of the Ignored one’’
‘’To their kin who will think the great threat is just a unusual child born’’
‘’Unknown to them the newborns fate’’
‘’To them it would be just a strange one’’
‘’This our most devious win ‘’
‘’Psychological hints sent successfully into society’’
‘’The black bird different from the beautiful ones’’
“Simple show us where they are nesting”
‘’Let us do the pecking’’
‘’Difference is danger’’
‘’This child will eat up your family’s chances your future‘’
‘’Let none disturb you climbing the social ladder ‘’
‘’Your child who wish’s to damage the status quo’’
‘’Turn them in’’
“Save what was not damaged by their misplaced anger’’
‘’There will be more loss if you don’t call us’’
‘’And we and our extensive Network must be vigilant’’
‘’Of course we have agents wherever babies are born”
“Ready to remove all concerns’’
‘’This the game we love to play”
‘’A ferocious tussle we never will lose”
‘’Against that which when it comes’’
“Would attempt to destroy us’’
‘’The Unraveller the Untangler’’
‘’One can never be completely sure’’
“Though slight signs are showing here ‘’
‘’That's happened many many times before’’
‘’Yet we still must act inhumanly’’
‘’We sadly, no not sadly we just must’’
“Even if its not that despicable great changer coming’’
“No chances can be taken”
“Any sign must be devoured has to be obliterated “
“We can not let that strain multiply and swamp us’’
“It would camouflage, disguise our true enemy’’
‘’So it must be stopped and stopped hard’’
“So I leave this Mother here abandoned’’
‘’I can hardly say that word but that is what I’m doing’’
“As I have done again and again”
‘’Before this most strange building”
“Away from everything away from any lights”
‘’Knowing the morning will find them dead’’
“Hoping they like usual are frozen and at peace’’
‘’The Network says kill them with drugs quickly”
“Stage it write it up as a medical attack’’
’’Say the birth was sadly catastrophically hard’’
“The Mothers heart so stressed just gave out’’
“Leaving her baby and herself to the flames”
“It works for me to just abandon them in the lonely dark”
“Then to read the newspapers with steely eyes”
“Flicking past their sad finding to read the theosophical news”
‘’And through my pure heart is surely protected”
‘’I now feel nefarious iniquitous evil steadily beckoning’’
“Dancing slowly in sacred air provocatively’’
‘’With there naked images cavorting behind me”
“I see before me a conversation between myself and my God’’
‘’ I see us auguring inside the Body of the Devils Raven”
“My supreme Deity reclining on the Ravens Heart”
‘’Reading from a death’s head moth winged parchment’’
“Sprouting mad words expounding sermons that make no sense”
‘’I observe my crucifix’’
‘’Igniting from the words engraved above the cross’’
‘’Quod scripsi, scripsi”
‘’Starting now to change that lettering’’
“Now engraved ‘Speak for yourself’ ‘’
“Now burning its way into my breast’’
‘’A melting dagger plunging to ember my heart’’
‘’My life’s spiritual journey should never have lead me here’’
‘’We arrived with her here now”
“Only after following”
“Her relentless pointing finger”
“Led us to the dropping off place’’
“I have been here many times”
“But I couldn’t find it even by chance “
“Without the incubators of chaos guiding me”
Looking at my Mother
She drops to her knees
And try’s to remove my Mothers wedding ring
She speaks
“We should never have come here”
“I should have killed you in the hospital’’
‘’Led by your evil alive illuminated pagan finger’’
‘’Hypnotic waves of idolatrous unhallowed hooks dragged me’’
‘’I will tell the investigators’’
“I fought like a blinded Daniel rolling in the claws ”
“It’s only the the tightness of the weave the thickness of my garb’’
“That first partly protected me but now soaks up an endless flow’’
‘’Well at least She’ll pay for the ride’’
She has difficulty removing her wedding ring
Horribly pulling at my Mothers finger
When suddenly she all in a start screams
Blood droplets fall from her hand
She shuddering speaks
‘’Her impious nails have brutally assaulted me”
“This the stuff of gothic nightmares’’
“What’s this I now see there is blood beneath my own nails’’
“I am the attacker the striker”
‘’I’ve scratched myself with hard intent’’
“Where is my protective lost God ?’’
‘’Ah I now understand this expectant mother’’
‘’She has revealed to my soul what’s beneath my facade’’
‘’In her unconscious state her grace is a mirror’’
“She has shown me as I really am’’
‘’Spirit stripped my deeply hidden darkness tumbles out’’
‘’Best I leave with what’s left of my delusions’’
Matron Nightingale without looking at my Mother
Pulls her cross from within her chest
Throws it at my Mother’s chair
The fiery crucifix rebounds off the chairs seat
Falls noisily heated high down a nearby drain
Blocked by a plastic crown of thorns
It’s melting releases toxic gasses mercury splashes
As she enters the ambulance and quickly leaves
Mother in her chair alone under crying stars
This sound rouses her slightly
She remembers under the darkening sky
No embracing parents around her to hold her up
As she an Orphan now a Widow
Sadly slowly left his final resting space
Leaving without her sweet life
Her lover stranded in the soil
Where she was caught by attendants
Whilst tenderly rubbing her cracking dry lips
Again and again over his inscribed name
Her tears creating rivulets down her pale cheeks
Her parched tongue dismally highlighting the age of his death
Exhausted after trying to free him
Out of her mind scratching madly at the soil
All in a tremendous misery panic
‘’I need you! ‘’
‘’My lover’’
“I can’t exist without your touch’’
“I fucking need you with me”
“There is no life without you”
She screams over and again
Her fingernails broken
Fingers blotching the grave red
Black humoured gentle Gravedigger spirits
Woken in there rusty shovel beds rise
They are singing to her
‘’Your lover will meet you in the next world’’
‘’Love is stronger then Death’’
Gravedigger Spirits lift there shovels high
Each one facing another
They join there shovel tips together
Forming a tunnel of viewing
A seeing
Of all the recently departed
Marching stumbling onwards to blankness
“Look!”
There shovels clanging two spirits speak together
‘’He is just beyond that group of children’’
“Those little ones always bunch together’’
“Always the last to accept the fated decree”’
‘’Endlessly looking back over there shoulders”
“Trying to find their parents in a world closed off to them’’
Three Gravedigger spirits speak sadly
“To the adults death is a dismal expected claimer”
“To the children and the childish”
“Death is a disorientating confuser’’
“Bewildered baffled mystified”
“They wander back and forth’’
“Jostled by the passing somnolent Elders”
“Till the weight and power ‘’
‘’Of mass pushes the children on to oblivion’’
One Gravedigger spirit points and shouts
“He is not too far ahead”
“But will soon be out of sight”
“Be quick about it”
‘’Suicide now’’
“Hasten there are multitudes coming”
They chant as one
‘’To fall again into his loving arms’’
“Wait we see you are with child”
“We with our shovels could remove the babe”
“You could die knowing he will go on safe”
“We could school him into our profession”
“There is always work for the likes of us’’
She can not hear them
Has no knowledge of their ghostly presence
Her innate senses overwhelmed
Her primal sense is her lone bleak bearing
Grabbed roughly
From embracing his headstone and removed
From the gloom of her lovers cemetery stone shadows
I in her womb
Echoing everything
My mother sobbing and wailing
“Dancing slowly in sacred air provocatively’’
‘’With there naked images cavorting behind me”
“I see before me a conversation between myself and my God’’
‘’ I see us auguring inside the Body of the Devils Raven”
“My supreme Deity reclining on the Ravens Heart”
‘’Reading from a death’s head moth winged parchment’’
“Sprouting mad words expounding sermons that make no sense”
‘’I observe my crucifix’’
‘’Igniting from the words engraved above the cross’’
‘’Quod scripsi, scripsi”
‘’Starting now to change that lettering’’
“Now engraved ‘Speak for yourself’ ‘’
“Now burning its way into my breast’’
‘’A melting dagger plunging to ember my heart’’
‘’My life’s spiritual journey should never have lead me here’’
‘’We arrived with her here now”
“Only after following”
“Her relentless pointing finger”
“Led us to the dropping off place’’
“I have been here many times”
“But I couldn’t find it even by chance “
“Without the incubators of chaos guiding me”
Looking at my Mother
She drops to her knees
And try’s to remove my Mothers wedding ring
She speaks
“We should never have come here”
“I should have killed you in the hospital’’
‘’Led by your evil alive illuminated pagan finger’’
‘’Hypnotic waves of idolatrous unhallowed hooks dragged me’’
‘’I will tell the investigators’’
“I fought like a blinded Daniel rolling in the claws ”
“It’s only the the tightness of the weave the thickness of my garb’’
“That first partly protected me but now soaks up an endless flow’’
‘’Well at least She’ll pay for the ride’’
She has difficulty removing her wedding ring
Horribly pulling at my Mothers finger
When suddenly she all in a start screams
Blood droplets fall from her hand
She shuddering speaks
‘’Her impious nails have brutally assaulted me”
“This the stuff of gothic nightmares’’
“What’s this I now see there is blood beneath my own nails’’
“I am the attacker the striker”
‘’I’ve scratched myself with hard intent’’
“Where is my protective lost God ?’’
‘’Ah I now understand this expectant mother’’
‘’She has revealed to my soul what’s beneath my facade’’
‘’In her unconscious state her grace is a mirror’’
“She has shown me as I really am’’
‘’Spirit stripped my deeply hidden darkness tumbles out’’
‘’Best I leave with what’s left of my delusions’’
Matron Nightingale without looking at my Mother
Pulls her cross from within her chest
Throws it at my Mother’s chair
The fiery crucifix rebounds off the chairs seat
Falls noisily heated high down a nearby drain
Blocked by a plastic crown of thorns
It’s melting releases toxic gasses mercury splashes
As she enters the ambulance and quickly leaves
Mother in her chair alone under crying stars
This sound rouses her slightly
She remembers under the darkening sky
No embracing parents around her to hold her up
As she an Orphan now a Widow
Sadly slowly left his final resting space
Leaving without her sweet life
Her lover stranded in the soil
Where she was caught by attendants
Whilst tenderly rubbing her cracking dry lips
Again and again over his inscribed name
Her tears creating rivulets down her pale cheeks
Her parched tongue dismally highlighting the age of his death
Exhausted after trying to free him
Out of her mind scratching madly at the soil
All in a tremendous misery panic
‘’I need you! ‘’
‘’My lover’’
“I can’t exist without your touch’’
“I fucking need you with me”
“There is no life without you”
She screams over and again
Her fingernails broken
Fingers blotching the grave red
Black humoured gentle Gravedigger spirits
Woken in there rusty shovel beds rise
They are singing to her
‘’Your lover will meet you in the next world’’
‘’Love is stronger then Death’’
Gravedigger Spirits lift there shovels high
Each one facing another
They join there shovel tips together
Forming a tunnel of viewing
A seeing
Of all the recently departed
Marching stumbling onwards to blankness
“Look!”
There shovels clanging two spirits speak together
‘’He is just beyond that group of children’’
“Those little ones always bunch together’’
“Always the last to accept the fated decree”’
‘’Endlessly looking back over there shoulders”
“Trying to find their parents in a world closed off to them’’
Three Gravedigger spirits speak sadly
“To the adults death is a dismal expected claimer”
“To the children and the childish”
“Death is a disorientating confuser’’
“Bewildered baffled mystified”
“They wander back and forth’’
“Jostled by the passing somnolent Elders”
“Till the weight and power ‘’
‘’Of mass pushes the children on to oblivion’’
One Gravedigger spirit points and shouts
“He is not too far ahead”
“But will soon be out of sight”
“Be quick about it”
‘’Suicide now’’
“Hasten there are multitudes coming”
They chant as one
‘’To fall again into his loving arms’’
“Wait we see you are with child”
“We with our shovels could remove the babe”
“You could die knowing he will go on safe”
“We could school him into our profession”
“There is always work for the likes of us’’
She can not hear them
Has no knowledge of their ghostly presence
Her innate senses overwhelmed
Her primal sense is her lone bleak bearing
Grabbed roughly
From embracing his headstone and removed
From the gloom of her lovers cemetery stone shadows
I in her womb
Echoing everything
My mother sobbing and wailing
Under a unexpected torrent of bereavement
The Town clock’s wringing hands wish to mop her Brow
Streetlights trying to bend over to console her
The Town clock’s wringing hands wish to mop her Brow
Streetlights trying to bend over to console her
Her mind a mourning temple of Suicidal introspection
Feeling the enormity of the utter loneliness of grief
No caring warm family hand to stroke her
Inside herself her heart crumbling
She remembers....
The riveting and spanner sounds ringing through the Factory
Feeling the enormity of the utter loneliness of grief
No caring warm family hand to stroke her
Inside herself her heart crumbling
She remembers....
The riveting and spanner sounds ringing through the Factory
Their glances over sandwiches and sweet tea in the lunch room
His shy inventiveness displayed by him constantly walking near her
His shy inventiveness displayed by him constantly walking near her
Any excuse my Mother the wonder of his mind
All of everything was understood by their awaking Hearts
Suddenly my Mother and myself
Find ourselves in the warmest of rooms
Am I to be born on the sun
Away from the street and the lonely dark
I hear a siren leaving or is that my Mothers exciting heart
Inside this welcome nest
Midwife Cernunnos tender Touches my Mother with feathers so slight
Plumages lift her into a warmed by heated stones bed
Suddenly my Mother and myself
Find ourselves in the warmest of rooms
Am I to be born on the sun
Away from the street and the lonely dark
I hear a siren leaving or is that my Mothers exciting heart
Inside this welcome nest
Midwife Cernunnos tender Touches my Mother with feathers so slight
Plumages lift her into a warmed by heated stones bed
Disturbing memories in my Mothers tortured mind
Grave markers rising to emptiness void
His brass plate moonlight lit
Shocks Luna as it reveals his dying age
My Mother screams the scream of the truly abandoned
Crave dust staining her skin
It now seeping around her shoulders Creating a dismal shawl
It drapes over the floor as a forlorn rug
Grief sorrowed unburied on that covered floor
Her weeping tears composes a bereavement inscription
Words of pain of unacceptable loss Writ in her lovers ashes all over the bedsheets
Above her on the ceiling a sadness scene haunts
His Face appearing framed by cracked fibro walls
Ghostly greyhounds strut to and fro
His warm hand releasing the leads
Shadowed chicken wired landscapes
His tired loved head at rest
On a red Formica table
His grease smudged hands in repose
The side aspect of his young face
Seen nebulously through a brown bottle
A liquid shimmering view of domestic joy
Midwife Cernunnos opens the left side windows
Lights a knotted candle
Takes sacred bees from a pouch to protect the air
My Mother and the coming me
Whispers to the night air full of the rising dead
‘’He is here! bring the Father forward! ‘’
‘’Or at least something of him!’’
‘’To charm to ward off any risks to natural birth’’
He Cloaked behind and within the trees
His putrified branches given
Blown in through the open windows of the room
The Midwife now arranges them in a vase
Places it on my Mother bedside
My Mother howls and laments a Baby!
I CAN NOT!
Her arms reaching out He can not be with her
He has ascended
She squirms harks back in Time....
Their shared bodies as passion snakes
Shedding their skin together on flannelette
He holds her to his skeleton
Leaving eternal kisses throughout her revered bones
His loving touch remains caressing
Just below her skin
Midwife Cernunnos evokes by silent song
The aroma of impending rain With the crushing of garlic cloves
And the unfurling of skins from rotting onions
Making a paste which she rubs onto my Mother’s stomach
Rubbing the excess in preparation between my Mothers Legs
Midwife Cernunnos then materialises a cloud
Lifts the cloud under the chair my Mother sat on
Midwife her arms outstretched catches me
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Robert (Roibeard) Shanahan
I am a poet playwright and a painter
A storyteller
For me all there really is
Is Compassion and Expression
I described myself once as a...
‘Grand Lector of Apocalyptic Utterances’
I live in Tasmania
I am from the Irish diaspora
My family from Cork
I have had my prose published in Australia
Ireland in ‘Outburst’ magazine
Numerous times in ‘Life Encounters’
India in ‘Setu’ poetry magazine
One of my proses was awarded high commendation
In the W. B. Yeats poetry prize
‘Violence at the Egg’
Was read out in the National Parliament of Australia
Grave markers rising to emptiness void
His brass plate moonlight lit
Shocks Luna as it reveals his dying age
My Mother screams the scream of the truly abandoned
Crave dust staining her skin
It now seeping around her shoulders Creating a dismal shawl
It drapes over the floor as a forlorn rug
Grief sorrowed unburied on that covered floor
Her weeping tears composes a bereavement inscription
Words of pain of unacceptable loss Writ in her lovers ashes all over the bedsheets
Above her on the ceiling a sadness scene haunts
His Face appearing framed by cracked fibro walls
Ghostly greyhounds strut to and fro
His warm hand releasing the leads
Shadowed chicken wired landscapes
His tired loved head at rest
On a red Formica table
His grease smudged hands in repose
The side aspect of his young face
Seen nebulously through a brown bottle
A liquid shimmering view of domestic joy
Midwife Cernunnos opens the left side windows
Lights a knotted candle
Takes sacred bees from a pouch to protect the air
My Mother and the coming me
Whispers to the night air full of the rising dead
‘’He is here! bring the Father forward! ‘’
‘’Or at least something of him!’’
‘’To charm to ward off any risks to natural birth’’
He Cloaked behind and within the trees
His putrified branches given
Blown in through the open windows of the room
The Midwife now arranges them in a vase
Places it on my Mother bedside
My Mother howls and laments a Baby!
I CAN NOT!
Her arms reaching out He can not be with her
He has ascended
She squirms harks back in Time....
Their shared bodies as passion snakes
Shedding their skin together on flannelette
He holds her to his skeleton
Leaving eternal kisses throughout her revered bones
His loving touch remains caressing
Just below her skin
Midwife Cernunnos evokes by silent song
The aroma of impending rain With the crushing of garlic cloves
And the unfurling of skins from rotting onions
Making a paste which she rubs onto my Mother’s stomach
Rubbing the excess in preparation between my Mothers Legs
Midwife Cernunnos then materialises a cloud
Lifts the cloud under the chair my Mother sat on
It rises high past the moving clouds in the sky
As I the Poet the unborn looks up
I can see my Fathers legs Dangling down from that chair
I see through the stretch marks on my mothers stomach
As Clods of soil fall
To my eyes they descend as diamond stars
He is leaning forward he’s head between his legs
I see eyes I shall never see again
A face that will never smile at my awkwardness
Great strong shoulders I will never ride
My hand above my head swirling those stars
I yet without language
Try to find some sound some vibration
Somehow I know this is my only chance
To communicate with my dear Father
Amniotic fluid fills the first opening of mouth
Faint gurgling noise is all I can express
I cease and with all I am
Send feelings
And turning in my Mothers womb
To embrace this my first impulse in life
Being wonderfully awakened by seeing my Father
To the importance of feelings
As the truest of human communication
(A gift from him that I forever hold in my poems plays and paintings)
He Entranced looking down past all the living can see
He’s eyes now bleeding in this other world
The price to see me
That severed bill paid
He for moments
Can remove himself from oblivion
Blinded there he’s vision now temporarily in our world
Mother stares ceiling locked
Swelling thoughts of her unknown future
Her body transferring Soul flicking every moment of her misery
Midwife Cernunnos chews life fish
Purges beneath the Fetal monitor
Enfolds herself in animal skins
A ritual of divination
She rolls coins of silver
As I the Poet the unborn looks up
I can see my Fathers legs Dangling down from that chair
I see through the stretch marks on my mothers stomach
As Clods of soil fall
To my eyes they descend as diamond stars
He is leaning forward he’s head between his legs
I see eyes I shall never see again
A face that will never smile at my awkwardness
Great strong shoulders I will never ride
My hand above my head swirling those stars
I yet without language
Try to find some sound some vibration
Somehow I know this is my only chance
To communicate with my dear Father
Amniotic fluid fills the first opening of mouth
Faint gurgling noise is all I can express
I cease and with all I am
Send feelings
And turning in my Mothers womb
To embrace this my first impulse in life
Being wonderfully awakened by seeing my Father
To the importance of feelings
As the truest of human communication
(A gift from him that I forever hold in my poems plays and paintings)
He Entranced looking down past all the living can see
He’s eyes now bleeding in this other world
The price to see me
That severed bill paid
He for moments
Can remove himself from oblivion
Blinded there he’s vision now temporarily in our world
Mother stares ceiling locked
Swelling thoughts of her unknown future
Her body transferring Soul flicking every moment of her misery
Midwife Cernunnos chews life fish
Purges beneath the Fetal monitor
Enfolds herself in animal skins
A ritual of divination
She rolls coins of silver
Coins of gold
Rolling them diagonally towards each over
Places a river stone where they cross
My crib will sit there
Spanners and rivets, records. paintings and pencils
Hats, books, clothes, journals, photos all my Fathers paraphernalia
Spanners and rivets, records. paintings and pencils
Hats, books, clothes, journals, photos all my Fathers paraphernalia
Fall from the stormed gusted sky
Through the ceiling of the Birthing room
Descend without sound and with great feeling
Around the silvered Birthing chalice
Through the ceiling of the Birthing room
Descend without sound and with great feeling
Around the silvered Birthing chalice
Midwife sweeps them with oak branches
To beneath my Mothers bed
Midwife fills the chalice with herbs soil and opium
Midwife fills the chalice with herbs soil and opium
With the milk from black ewes
This she pours over my Mothers naked body
Splashing as much as she can into Mothers mouth
Mothers body arched straining
Fingers pierce the mattress
She can rise no higher
She can not reach him
He somewhere in the moments of our now
Is also held by deaths roots in spirit
He stands amongst the stones of transmigration
Carving the effigy of his emerging new incarnation
Mothers body arched straining
Fingers pierce the mattress
She can rise no higher
She can not reach him
He somewhere in the moments of our now
Is also held by deaths roots in spirit
He stands amongst the stones of transmigration
Carving the effigy of his emerging new incarnation
Known to her soul only he leaves a eternal space for her
Midwife Cernunnos lifts a small urn from within herself
Midwife Cernunnos lifts a small urn from within herself
Places it under my Mother’s bed
This urn hewed out of rocks
Bought from sacred healing pools
Releasing soothing fumes wafting
That enter my Mothers nostrils
Releasing soothing fumes wafting
That enter my Mothers nostrils
The grief shimmering in oncoming contractions
My Mother raises prone from her bed coverings
Hanging motionless in the air
The bed turns to liquid
As my Mother’s Sac breaks
Amniotic fluid flowing It mixes with the aqueous bed
A fine mist forms it ascends around my Mother’s Body
My Mother raises prone from her bed coverings
Hanging motionless in the air
The bed turns to liquid
As my Mother’s Sac breaks
Amniotic fluid flowing It mixes with the aqueous bed
A fine mist forms it ascends around my Mother’s Body
It takes the character of my Father
He holds her as if he’s standing in a threshold
At a flash Midwife Cernunnos transforms
He holds her as if he’s standing in a threshold
At a flash Midwife Cernunnos transforms
Creating a arched threshold over my Mother and Father
Carrying Mother through Father stops embracing passioned kisses
Their last together
Father returns my Mother to the living side
Carrying Mother through Father stops embracing passioned kisses
Their last together
Father returns my Mother to the living side
To give birth in the free air
He looks at my Mother’s open legs sees me breaching
He looks at my Mother’s open legs sees me breaching
As the unjoined bones in my skull
Puzzle pieces seem to not want to fit together
Splintering parts of twenty two bones repelling
The cranial not accepting the facial bones
The Maxilla and the Mandible
Now trying to quell the concerns
Then joining in the bone melee
In this skirmish in this tussle
My cone skull starts to round
All that grinding of bone
The eternal soundings of my mind
That the gist of a poet
Father in his mist bounces
Kisses my emerging fontanelle
Puzzle pieces seem to not want to fit together
Splintering parts of twenty two bones repelling
The cranial not accepting the facial bones
The Maxilla and the Mandible
Now trying to quell the concerns
Then joining in the bone melee
In this skirmish in this tussle
My cone skull starts to round
All that grinding of bone
The eternal soundings of my mind
That the gist of a poet
Father in his mist bounces
Kisses my emerging fontanelle
The Caul that covered my face
Falls
Plays dancing in orbit with it
He passes through the threshold holding the Caul up over his face
Enveloped in the eternal darkness and is gone
Falls
Plays dancing in orbit with it
He passes through the threshold holding the Caul up over his face
Enveloped in the eternal darkness and is gone
Coming out of the dark like a falling Star
Flung from Oblivion appears my Caul
Midwife Cernunnos devours it in mid air
She sits beneath my suspended Mother
She sits beneath my suspended Mother
My birth is imminent
Midwife her arms outstretched catches me
Robert (Roibeard) Shanahan
I am a poet playwright and a painter
A storyteller
For me all there really is
Is Compassion and Expression
I described myself once as a...
‘Grand Lector of Apocalyptic Utterances’
I live in Tasmania
I am from the Irish diaspora
My family from Cork
I have had my prose published in Australia
Ireland in ‘Outburst’ magazine
Numerous times in ‘Life Encounters’
India in ‘Setu’ poetry magazine
One of my proses was awarded high commendation
In the W. B. Yeats poetry prize
‘Violence at the Egg’
Was read out in the National Parliament of Australia
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