Follow Hope, Image before poem, Budding,
Budding,Image after the poem Dark

Follow Hope

Cold, crystallized, and plaited:
A manufactured smile.
Thumb sunk deep into your hip
Cocked way out of joint.
What a chip. What a chip
On your shoulder.
What a broken shoulder.
Eyes of molten lead,
Mouth full of knives,
Smoke rising from holes
Where your heart was once.
A waste. A nuclear waste.
A pitiful, turn-head-away waste.
It doesn’t have to be this way:
Follow hope.

Dark

It can’t be more than a poem,
This time that passes like ants
And the suffering it marks behind other
Doors in other cities.

The pillows smell of urine.
There is only one explanation for it;
Sleep is a restless creature when
Humidity makes the bed.

This mind of dualities, of
Hypocrisies, is mine for whatever
It’s worth. I make no excuses.
I apologise too much.

Clothesline thoughts on an evil
Night, a post-9/11 night, a
Hard onyx night. Holding knives,
But choosing not to use them.

Budding

The poets are whispering like the rustle
Of new leaves in trees touched
By tomorrow’s breeze:
“Teach me beautiful words.”

Like the corselet of silver rings
Dangling on the wall—a music
Like pale sunshine—and Love
In a bride’s unwary eyes.

A song unsung by Earth’s heaving masses.
This brings us to the Connemara
Chasing blue sky on green mountainside-
Racing the white bird.

Cold can collapse; one more try
Might result in what is looked for.
“Teach me beautiful words.”
For hearts oppressed, one hope

In an outstretched hand—like maize.
Like rain, the poet’s subtle dribble
Upon an ear. A wake-up call. A palm
Uplifted, a white bird and a Connemara.