The Fall from the Classical

O Dyslexic poems built
like a row of condemned buildings,
short of some scaffolding.
The thread barely holds,
syntactically, stops and stutters,
breaks off mid-thought
at what might have been a sliver of wisdom.

Lines divert, meanings crash,
form dilapidates, contents trash.
Something has been lost altogether,
the artifice, the skill, the metric chisel
has been dropped.
Any child can riot a crayon
over a page of white noise.

O Dyslexic poems built
like a row of condemned buildings,
that won't hold up any longer;
there are no more coliseums, no more cathedrals,
just long lines of shopping malls,
and bubble-gum sentiments.
The season of falling standards
resounding, everywhere around us.

Just round for a cuppa.

'How honest can a person be?'
In the ensuing silence
the room assumes an immensity.
Someone clears their throat.
A window is opened.

Everyone hides, in plain sight,
behind gigantic mugs of coffee,
hoping this awkward moment will soon pass.
Mr and Mrs Smith, keep their underwear
well and truly iron clad.

'It depends what you have to hide,' someone admits.
At this, Mr Smith wipes sweat for his brow,
Mrs Smith nests her handbag closer into her lap.
Both ready themselves to take leave, leaving,
as always, the interior lives, untouched.

'It's not like we could all do with some counselling...'
Mrs Smith remarks, 'is it...?' 'Yes...' Mr Smith says.'
'...who in their right mind needs that?'
They make excuses worth leaving for.

The Maturation Process

Thirty years playing at the perennial child,

when will you grow up, just before the coffin?

Grab yourself by the brain. Become
the Catherine wheel you are. Sing a wall down.
Dance until kissing armies are created. 

Tame the private gloom with beasts of laughter. 

Spontaneously combust the toxic doubt of insecure Self.   

Embarrass yourself publicly and take it as spine strengthener.

Ultimately, we are all dead, so courage to do (and in doing be done),
something that might make you look a fool is a fine art gallery.

It is not the sadness in dying

but the sadness of not living intensely

that should shock you out of docility.  

April Showers

I will be reading at these events this month. Come along. Don't bother. However you see it. You are welcome. At Bletherskites the readings will be filmed for posterity and evidence that we do actually exist. The Holy Show will feature one of my poems which was made into a short film for the religious themed night. Holy Show clearly features some well known writers and musicians who will make it an entertaining night of God knows what. Reading at 'Last Monday At Rio' thanks to Robin Cairns on 29th of April on the The Last Ten Red will be on at the Persevere, come ear the words, if you can stand the silence of listening. 1st of May at 8. 

Yours sincerely,

McGuire. 

Searching For Everything Already There

'The Universe is searching for its long lost relative The Other Universe, as Life also searches, with infinite melancholy, for The Other Life.' - Department of Lost and Found Souls. 

(For Charles Simic) 

The World is a search party looking for itself,

looking for that which is absent;

A key, a cherished stone,  a heart shaped locket,
some lasting impression, something in the dark.

By close of day half the planet goes to bed, exhausted,

leaving the other to wake and continue their search.

A millennium – day after day – without object.
Not so much as a wry smile caught in the glint of a star.

Some say it is not the finding
but the search that is the measure. 

I am inclined to agree

as I look out the window at my lover

who shows no sign yet of disappearing.

Shadow Boxing

A silhouette less defined stretches 
prowls more panther 
beneath tall grass
primed to pull at all that is wild.

   All you compress 
   to hold together,

the clean surface wiped clear of suspicion

betrays nothing of the conflicts

which lie back there in the shade

as you lift the gun to your smile

to wipe your face off the world.


*

A darker number of a poem. My interest in the human shadow never ends. I'm no Jungian analyst but something in that metaphor of the shadow pulls me in and encourages me to shed light through writing on the darkest of human spaces. 'The furies are at home in the mirror.' R. S. Thomas.  http://www.samh.org.uk Don't be crazy alone forever. ;)  photo byjasonlumsden

Featherweight

For Olrando Cruz 

He was a delicate boy dainty as the stem of a carnation.

An eater of fairy cakes and banana bread.

An attender of Yoga classes, weekly bending and stretching

the Ashtanga Sun Salutations.

He could pirouette as smooth as Billy Elliot.

He read the poetry of Shakespeare

and Dickinson. He quenched the thirst

and trimmed the foliage of countless houseplants.

In the ring though, he'd cave your face in wide as Fingal's Cave,

bring out a flock of bluebirds singing and spinning into concussion.

A proud man, nineteen wins one draw two defeats.

Knocks out teeth round after around.  

Old Man Recovery

All the songs I have sailed
All the drinks I have sank
All the pubs I have ship wrecked ashore
All the alcoholic moonlights.
I have left them all behind 
for the harbour of Sober.