Eamon
All the money you made/Will never buy back your soul
Bob Dylan 1963
The sudden end of the light
and Coventry and Dresden's stench at night and the imprints of light on the negatives of film -
and that ambulance flash blinding the souls ascending this dark,
and the horrible sneer of the closedown sirens
and the blues that the sky's sanguine lungs gargles and moans,
and Valentine's heart charred in a burns unit filing cabinet
hushed in litigations and tabloid rumour,
and you, nowhere to be seen.
Shame, shame, shame.
Sorry Eamon, bad news, you're not real anymore,
no speech, no scream, no wail
from the pockets of your gold-fused overhang;
and when they said that butter didn't melt
we knew who's guiding hands had shown you to the door -
dust from stellar scapes
five hundred and eighty thousand reasons
that you'll wriggle and writhe
in Dante's bonfire
for now -
and for evermore;
not really the kind of place
where a soul stays silent,
but plenty of lawyers and grassroots lackeys,
to keep your butter from ever melting
Cumbernauld, North Lanarkshire: June 1980
A tilted camera's virgin duet
root their ruffled dance to a peach-lips sunset,
to freeze this Caledonian alchemy, to let Gregory and his truest girl become spirits in these trees…
Jack Cassidy's Death Was Morbidly Fascinating
Mortals gather, as smoke stains their breath,
as blue screams space though night's clusters,
as Naugahyde becomes a noun creepy and toxic in its mystery.
I see some angels cleanse rage amongst the smoke,
and Jack, while not having been at home some time, resumes to mow his lawn
clad as God presented him, whistling tunes
perhaps Peter Falk or Lucille Ball
had shared - but Naughahyde - that noun angels and mortal
sludge their wings right through : it hangs like bad-souled cowboys
on the light that Jack's aura must force his senses through, unclothed - perhaps not there at all
Enemies : Both Foreign and Domestic
Light biting skies makes darkness harder to see;
by the snoring river we’ve riddled a bronze and easy peace :
this alarmed us, evil lay face down, air was a sin,
what kind of nails could we hammer
across the silent caravan?
A wriggling song, a moon's lazy dream, whispers that water's innocent?
she tried to drown a silly year but the river was angry with the sun;
the angry river hearing dusk's lies about sins darkness commits -
Voluptas is known for cheating at poker, or perhaps it’s just easier for the boys to blame her
Ina Dhiadh Sin
Is é glas an dath an tsíl,
is é dubh an dath
tar éis don síol na fírinní a fhoghlaim -
an saol,
an bás,
fuil dhearg na talún,
agus coirp bhána na síochána,
ina dhiaidh sin - folamh, gan a síol…
na síolta scaipthe
agus an bhratach stróicthe sa cheathrú;
glas, dubh,
bán, dearg
Barrat Qisarya, 1948
Of All the People and Things in This World I Have Loved, Few Come Close to You and Them
The ocean under the sun
made me red with holy water, simple and crazy -
still : it's not Thursday;
some wires are woven in this wreckage of forgiveness,
some acts of wars are the weakest rats expelled from their nest.
So your language feeds dark around stars? - if you listen,
you'll see an alphabet become a dream, a dream that murders weaker dreams.
So you listen, and I am nothing less than that dream.
I stayed in this hotel once,
me and this out of towner, out of this world;
The starlight was smooth when I removed the windows
to forgive the light,
the starlight was smooth like these stones
I'd find on the beach
to bring to her. I wrote a ticket for my death
as I watched an angler hip deep in his heroics or his stupidity,
so I died for him so he could see his Laurie Bird movie
wander through jeans ripped on a barbed wire fence on a shooting star.
She may yet write those same lines
from her lips or her skin or her broken bottle tango
that's invisible on these ocean beds
we've imagined would be softer in our deaths;
but we have movies to make - or watch or consume.
A crab smaller than yesterday patrols an inlet,
Ned Maddrell roars a poem from Ellan Vannin.
I pretend that silence after my song is my biggest ally. It's an option, it's the best one, kid.
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