One Poem by Robert (Roibeard) Shanahan

(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 

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 

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 

Their glances over sandwiches and sweet tea in the lunch room

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 

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 

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 

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 

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 

Midwife sweeps them with oak branches 

To beneath my Mothers bed



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 

Known to her soul only he leaves a eternal space for her



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 

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 

It takes the character of my Father

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 

To give birth in the free air



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 

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 

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 

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