In Charlie Byrnes Bookshop

Across from the Da Vinci Enigma Tarot
a man with green converses trips
on the Koran
and I, sitting under literary fiction A-Z
leaf through the dictionary
unable to find the right word.

Potential Heartbreak

Unsatisfied and a bit used

Nursing a hangover in an empty room

I think about the words I wasted on you

Potentials now lost, the adventures we’ll never share

Each appearing as invisible and tangible as the air

Surrounding me.

Your smiling face, in a dirty Red Sox cap

Rediscovering cribbage with my Dad, at the Lake House

Although he rags on you for being a Canuck,

And I laugh on the hammock

Looks at me from an empty picture frame.

Farther down the wall is the collage from

Our non-existent road trip, the time I didn’t meet

Your family (your mother loved me, by the way)

Our uncelebrated anniversaries, undefined magic moments

Next to the ticket stubs of the visits you won’t make

As the silent soundtrack of the CDs I never made plays.

The table in front of me is cluttered

With drafts of poems

I’ll never write as you sleep.

My cupboards are full of meals

We’ll never make and eat together.

My head is brimming with answers

To questions you never asked

As my secrets stay hidden behind all the things

You love about me but haven’t

Discovered.

Looking at these things,

I’m not angry.

And while I may

Mourn for unmade memories,

I feel mostly sorry for your ignorance.

That you gave up these things without a glance

For a few laughs, an easy lay, the character you play

And you play him well. Hell, I fell for it.

I gave you my heart, my body, my art

And you took it all without a return.

So as I clean out this room of potential

I take the 3 things you gave me,

The lessons you taught me:

You can’t share with someone who’s selfish,

You can’t make love to someone who fucks you;

You shouldn’t love someone who turns poetry into a trophy.

These are the last words I have for you,

No longer will you haunt my sentences

Hiding between the letters and sneaking into

The dots of my Is.

But let me close with this, with no deceit or motive,

Not even a play on words or decent rhyme,

just blatant honesty.

The night that we met, for the first time in my life,

As you walked away, I thought

I’m going to marry that man.

And while it’s silly at best.

There were things that you said,

Ways you moved, pieces falling into a puzzle that

All seemed to fit (despite my logic)

But I guess the finished product

Looked nothing like the box.

But, it was only potential, after all.

does that count as a loss?

A Song for April

by Sean Lewis



This is the story of your longest journey

and how it came to meet your fate

and how the reasons, time, and people tangled

and how your answers lie in wait.



And how it whispered, "O, adhere to me

for we are bound by destiny.

And whatever doubts that fill your mind,

follow me, you will be fine."

This is the story of your longest journey.



This is the story of your past lifetime

and how it's with you even here.

Your little loves, your books, your dreams, your freedom:

there were the things that you held dear.



And the little glimpses that you get

are the memories you can't forget.

And the feelings that you can't deny

Now you know the reason why.

This is the story of your past lifetime.



This is the story of the boy who loves you,

who loved you then and loves you still.

And how he stole this song to try to please you,

and now he's waiting on your will.



And if you return to me

I'll make sure that it's meant to be.

If you let me into your heart

I'll rend your ventricles apart:

This is the story of the boy who loves you.



This is the story of your longest journey.

Last Words - again

these are the last words I have for you
no longer will you haunt my sentences
hiding between the letters or sneaking
into the dots of my Is

If these confessions, this truth
can't satisfy you, then you can't understand

but is understanding necessary?
A spider being will be,
regardless of the affectations.

My only regret is that your songs
will remain secrets.

Pure Naked Idle

The scent of your skin
is peppered with freckles
the sheets, the peach
of your pigment
the color of my predicament

I want to erase the taste
of the spot beneath your navel
while I'm able to convince myself it's best

but horizon or skin,
where you begin, where I end
is the blurry line of 'could be' (ecstasy?)
and it will never be defined.

Katch + Casey's poems

KATCH

As the waves crash
salt on skin
not knowing where memory begins
I feel the NaCl and I smile

There are traps set for me
loveless marriage because it's easy
or a life doing other's obligations
but I've got aspirations

the world will be mine and me the world's
I am more than a pretty girl
Fear me. Fight me.
Love me.

I am.
I will.

And you'd best watch out.


CASEY

Seeing the world in color and shapes
I never see just wallpaper
it's a landscape, escape
the result of St. Paddy's day

But what to do, where am I
caught between a father's hopes
and an artistic temperament

Casey O'Connor, this I am
Juno may be what I admire
but I am truly what I aspire
and this is real.
verily.
I make my own reality.

Dierde's Past Life

anxiously folding a blanket
as eyes scan the horizon

Where is he? What's happened?
fighting for freedom, fighting for freight
the dead potato crop's weight

my children are hungry, what can I do?
my children are dying... and I am too.

A boat. A ship. A voyage. A chance.
my grandchildren will Irish dance
because blood is thick, but memory is thicker

and the Irish never forget.

"A Toast" - revised

Though I have been interrupted
and in bad taste
my lips still hunger for yours
and linger in your memory
because as our awkward bespecaled adolescent
faces kissed
our glasses clicked and made
a silent toast to our love
the unspoken words lay sweet
on our tongues tumbling over
and under
each other
shouting silent sentences in our shared breath

when you imbibe from my glasses
a little piece of blue plastic
of me
stays in you
surfing your blood stream
tangling in your ventricles
as we grow close

and then drift apart.

Shit Happens When You're Black Out Drunk

Painting my face and wearing the colors
that are supposed to accentuate my being
I find myself surrounded by lush-es-ious females
each in their own oblivion

And I know as I follow their tangential footsteps
that even if I am the sober one
the quiet one
I've been better for knowing them
and although my mouth is full of words
I'll never say
at least we've had tonight - today
and I could look after each
as they each wandered astray

The Galway Girls

To three there are only two
things that make each day
worth living - friendship and craic
while the fourth sits back
and absorbs it all with pen to paper
somewhere watching each event
and acknowledging the random proximity
which allows the depth of me
to shine through each of you.

Point. Counterpoint. Pulse.

Kick kick shuffle back to the beat
walking through winding streets
ever so trendy with your soaked chucked feet
the picture of early twenties rock

with your vintage tee shirt and raggedy sweater
(that may or may not smell faintly of urine)
and ear plugs feeding the life blood
while your liver pays for youthful magic moments

There are many differences between us,
I spell 'savior' without a 'u'
and when we kissed your lips
held no Eucharist
only the stale taste of old Beamish, taco chips
and the lingering smoke of your cigarette
Kebab house blues - that's what I'm talking 'bout
I just didn't know it at the time.

Are you afraid of silence?
Ringing of blood rushing through
the capillaries of your ear canal
aural unsatisfaction
the night dullened and dumb

is that why you write?
permanent marker on swing sets
and yet
You said your songs were secrets
because although you are a master of words
you'd rather leave them unsaid
empty syllables
running around your head
strings under your fingers sonorous and wordless
speaking in tones for you

but when I look
I see words coursing beneath your paper skin
ink moving through veins
and somehow,
you manage to breathe
music

the quarter notes and commas
syncopated rests and fermatas
combining in your semi colon
or just cruising your blood stream of consciousness
point. counterpoint. pulse.

(so,

fiend
or
friend?)

Ailise

Sky turns an amazing shade of blue
and though I've dreamt this six times
your shillouette as you make breakfast
is the only reality I want to accept.

Cerulian skies, but your eyes have
become the standard for all the hues.

Ink colored hands over paper white skin,
unable to tell whether horizon or sin
I can breathe this moment.

And I wonder, out there
what the sea is up to.