Wanting
2007

Sometimes I forget
I don’t have to
do what I want
say what I want
get what I want
achieve what I want
eat what I want
buy what I want
live where I want
have what I want ...

Sometimes I forget
there are times when
I’m not sure what I want,
even as I want it.

Sometimes I forget
what I want
may not be what I want
but what other people want me to want
and I never noticed that I was
thinking their think
speaking their speak
doing their do

Sometimes I forget
if what I want isn't here
then being here isn't what I want
and I'm only ever going to be here.

Sometimes I forget
what I want
May not be helpful

Sometimes I forget
what I want may be
planted by the fixer
nourished by the escapee
grown in the soil of fear
boiling with anger
marinated in prejudice
dripping with desire
seasoned with selfishness

Sometimes I forget
I often want many things
And they may not be
going in the same direction
humming the same tune
walking the same path
digging the same hole
singing from the same hymn-sheet
ploughing the same furrow
flying in formation.
And that's okay.

Sometimes I forget
what I want
may be wanting.


Long enough on the island
(for Paul Hogan)
2010

Long enough on the island.
The sun at first did slake our thirst
for urgency to sweep away the darkness.
But chapped lips and burning feet
revealed the water's invitation.

And so we moved from contemplation
of coconuts' jewelled hearts and dewy palms
to render trunks as rafts
and offer bark to barnacles.
With cut and thrust we chopped and binded
till we splashed and splished
with hopes and hearts on far horizons.

Then it happened.

Our hearts so light did lift us up,
our raft asunder,
our bodies all in flight,
till in sun we soaked our skins,
and the sun we became,
the island we became.



Some clocks tock upon the wall
2006


Some clocks tock upon the wall
But all mine does is tick
I sometimes think it learnt it wrong
I sometimes think it's thick

I'm sure that when I go to sleep
It always does it right
That malicious little clockface
probably does it out of spite

But my mother says it's not for me
to judge when things are strange
It's not my fault my ticking clock
Is just that little bit deranged

Maybe it got all confused
while trying to work out Time?
Maybe my dysfunctional ticking clock
is a budding Einstein?

Does it think that Time moves forward?
Does it think that Time moves back?
Is it static or elliptical?
Is it fiction or is it fact?

Is Time without form all fuzzy and warm?
Without shape is it squidgy and blue?
If Time had a date would it ever be late?
If it had legs would it live in the zoo?

Does it think that Time's all broken up
Into minutes and hours and days?
Or a continuous continuum
That continues in infinite ways?

Does it worry about quarks and quantum leaps
Timeshifts and Schroedinger's cat?
Or would it swear to you o'er a pint or two
That it doesn't give a fig about that?

Maybe it’s just the cogwheels
That aren’t turning right at all?
Maybe it’s got influenza
or just caught the common cold?

Maybe some clocks are just made that way
Just unfortunate, not stupid or thick
Still, some clocks tock upon the wall
And all mine does is tick.


Aftermath of an Embassy Reception (Madrid, 1993)
1993

when I return to tread upon
the hair-trigger of historical remembrance
with words of second-hand wisdom
I shall laugh and recall the evening that we
raised our lives on cocktail sticks,
dipped in the explanatory sauce, the
glorious self-deprecation and practised regret
of the (temporary) Northern Irish
Irish exile,
leaning on the shadows of a setting sun that
dangles with bloodshot sighs above
my days of presumed abandon.

somewhere a bomb etches slow-motion into a
granite gravestone
to the invitation of a bullet
drawn by the gravity of
unique problematic complexity
while quiet, cup of tea desperation
drips slowly from the tired wounds
to stain our streets like Judas rain of
fashionable apathy.

hell, hate, and high water
provide pleasant conversation
at an Embassy reception
as the pseudo-sage seeks to rear his head once more.
so I raise my hand
striking the death blow
in the name of vain pursuits
with the natural ease of one who lives
where red is just another colour on the kerbstone.


Border
2010

The cold in-between
of a thousand somethings and nothings
that make us what we are
and what we are not
the one on the other side 
looking back over the line
in the sand
the hedge
the ditch
the cold comfort of a line well-travelled
but never quite as human
as the walk along the wall.

I met a woman last week
whose grandmother had lived in five different nations
over the course of her lifetime
never moving from the wee cottage where she was born.

a strange way to live some might say
but not quite as strange as the
pen-and-papered filing cabinets
in which were registered
her many locations
the lie of ages
the cold in-between
of a thousand somethings and nothings
that do not really make us what we are.


Untitled
1990

Will do
Going to
Am doing
Did.

Will do
Going to
Am doing
Dead.