Dealing with Demons

My mother tucked me and my siblings in each night
reminding us of sin, told us to pray
warned us that the Devil was never
too far to hear or see our footsteps
no matter how much he had to drink
but if we were good girls and boys,
turned the other cheek
then God would chase him away
and save us, if we believed
repeated Our Fathers, Hail Marys
and Apostles Creeds then Mom and us,
we'd be in heaven - looking down
in righteous glory on our enemies
and all our suffering would be worth it
because we'd be together and safe
so, we'd fold our hands
bow our heads
and say 'amen'.

When I'd forget the next day
taking God's name in vain or
acting less than saintly
Mom beat the Lord into me
with the same hands she used to pray
She'd call me things like Satan or Demon
had me so convinced I smelled sulfur on my skin
each bruise confused with confession
like my broken blood vessels spoke
of guilt within, revealing a million
cells of transgression spilling
on the floor like rosary beads,
a trail of Our Father's judgment
leaking onto the linoleum.

I prayed.
Every night my sister and I would kneel beside our beds,
weave our fingers together
and in hushed tones ask God for forgiveness.
We'd apologize, saying we didn't know why
he wanted to test me, making kids throw bricks
at our brothers or tease us about my broken family,
We didn't know why he made our lullabies
the sound of breaking glass and fists,
didn't know why he let my teachers
lie about the kids at recess
and my parents deceive and hurt each other
leaving marks across my sister and brothers
until we didn't have a home anymore
and our house was just a case number
because he knew everything, right?

He saw every time my sister held me
when I was too scared to sleep,
saw my brothers
picking up the brick and throwing it back
and he saw me turning cheek after cheek
heard the clicking and beating
of my red rosary beads
and I was sure he had a lesson for me,
I just wasn’t looking hard enough.

So I looked. I searched Bibles and
books, chased strings between beads,
and it turns out I couldn't see the Grace
for the trees.
God was in the one place I'd thought
he'd forgotten about.

God was in my sister, letting me in her bed.
God was in my brothers, always standing up for me.
And God was in my parents too.
In my Mother, in the way she prayed so hard
and my Father, when he made pancakes
and over the sizzling of bacon, laughed
so you'd swear the whole house was shaking.

Though we handle each piece of our
broken home gingerly, minding our fingers
on the edges as we glue it back together
with forgiveness and awkward family dinners
ever aware of the skeletons in the corner,
I'm proud of being a Murphy.
Because we're a family.

We'll damn each other and save each other
with a love you can only describe as divinity.

On Navy Pier

I grabbed you, noting how
the crosshatching of christmas lights
on your golden skin created contrast
between our hands, and squeezed.

My rings bit into my skin.

We ambled toward the city, dusk
deepening the shadows between our fingers
creating a canyon of black that
seemed to leak onto the boardwalk
leaving an inky trail behind us,
lost in the passing crowd.

Like we were melting.

Behind us the ferris wheel
oscillated while the distorted
reflections of children grinned
at the Lake from fun house mirrors,
farther away than the trail of
our ghost fingers, reaching,
could touch.

Summertime

Summertime and the livin’ is easy
Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high.
Your Daddy’s rich and your Momma’s good lookin’,
So, hush, little baby, don’t you cry.

It’s 99 degrees; I’m sitting on his knees
drinking to slow my mind, his hand on my thigh.
After I imbibe, he breathes, toking from a piece,
flame near his face despite the heat.
I call shotgun. Whiskey and weed.

We’re trying to devise
just how many vices
we need to mix.

I take a sip, he takes a hit.
Sooner than later, it’s lips,
rocking hips unable to tell
horizon, skin, or sin, where I
end and he begins.

Oh, Summertime and the livin’ is easy
Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high.
I’m one hot bitch and you’re quite good lookin’
So hush, little baby, don’t you cry.

Summertime, the days begin
Waking up in a pile of limbs
I dance with the street sweeper on the way
Back up Clark, singing to the beat
My feet make on the sidewalk.

After it’s dark, we’ll write
poems on the cells of our hands
holding, touching, searching each other
for one loose comma of inspiration tucked away
In the structure of our badly formed sentences
of fleshy psycho-babble,
our conversation defined by the monitor’s glow.

While Autumn hides in the hallway, biding her time.
Watching the seconds fall from the clock like auburn leaves
patiently putting Xs on the calendar we pretend not to see,
because she knows you’re not mine.

I should recognize the waning sun
Add up the differences and signs
But I don’t want to analyze,
So July creeps by, vices multiply.

They wanted me to go to rehab,
I said no, no no.
They wanted me to go to rehab,
I said I won’t go, go, go.

‘Cause it’s summertime, life’s good and easy
Fish are jumpin’ and somewhere a clock chimes,
We’re so far from rich, but still pretty fly
So hush, little baby, don’t you cry.

Now August dawns with gold colored days
and the metallic smell of frost lingers in the dusk.
We start to fight. Find faults to put inches
back in, sleeping apart in the diminishing nights
we’ve still got left together, frigid in the wrong season
unable to weather the change.

My chest is filled with ticks, tocks instead of beats.
You’ve lost the heat you had for me.
We crumble under the weight of vice.
And it could be better, we could fix it.

But, we know don’t have the time.

So, I’ve got my pints and
You’ve got your pipes and either way,
we’re getting fucked tonight.

Summertime, the livin’ is easy,
fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high.
Your daddy’s rich and your Momma’s good lookin’
so hush, little baby, don’t you cry.

Don’t you ever, ever cry.

the chickens

"You have to reach under them,"
the farmer's wife tells me, forcing her hand
beneath a hen that cries out loudly.

The hen's beady eyes look at its freshly stolen egg
shining against the flesh of her palm, bewildered,
like the egg is a fallen star or an oblong moon
that rose too soon in the peach sky
of the farmer's wife's long-fingered
spider web hands.

The hen begins to scream and peck
squawks of protest. It fights for
its treasured egg; its sharp beak
darts out and strikes
drawing a crimson line on a knuckle.

With a fierce curse,
the bird is struck down by
the farmer's wife's fist.

"Sometimes they'll fight," she says
whistling on her 's' through the black and white
piano keys that are her teeth
placing the egg in a wicker basket
at my feet, "But if you give 'em a good whack,
they'll remember who's boss."

She walks away, entering the house
the shotgun sound of the screen door slamming
and the scrambled static of the police scanner
echoing after her.

Surrounded by foul battery cages,
pebbles grinding into the bottoms of my bare feet,
I take up the basket and approach the next bird.

Sitting upon its nest as if in meditation,
the hen's eyes are serene and closed.
Its feathers are fluffed, feet tucked beneath
white plumes that are spotted with the defecation
of other birds.

So like a statue, she doesn't seem to breathe.

She sits so placidly that instead of seeing meat
and eggs, I see the figure of Mary in the
garden of the house where I used to live,
surrounded by dandelions and weeds,
her beatific face raised towards the heavens.

Her eyes were closed too.

Her marble white cloak was marked
with the drops of birds too.

She held her child in her arms,
and contemplated the wonders of maternity
that this bird meditates
upon the egg between its feet.

I hold the wicker basket,
Its gaping maw reminds me
so
timidly I extend my hand
toward the base of the hen.

The chicken's eyes open, angrily
and she immediately leaps to her feet
beating her wings and shrieking
defending the egg she's keeping
thrashing the air with her beak.

Determined to do my job, I reach
but she grabs my thumb
and she bites me hard.

I begin to bleed.

Now, irritated in my agony,
I knead my fingers into a fist
and draw it back, self-righteous,
behind my head.

But the chicken stops screaming.

Instead, it sits back down on its egg,
Bracing its head under its wing,
anticipating the blow, with all the grace
of a dove mid-flight in a
stained glass window
trembling with the wind.

A mass of quivering feathers.

I’m poised to deliver the hit,
My shadow covering her
Like an ominous black blanket
But there’s something familiar
In the way she’s cowering
In the fear that makes her shiver.

I’ll never strike.

I stand by the nest until
the chicken leaves of its own accord,
searching out niblets of corn peppered
across the gravel.

Then, I take the egg, gingerly
tucking it in the basket like
I’m cradling my own baby,
even singing it to sleep.

Collecting the eggs like this takes all day
with each chicken only mildly surprised
when it returns to an empty roost.

When the sky turns darker shades
I hush the screen door and creep into the house
with a basket full of tiny moons
and by the blue glow of the stove’s
pilot light, I put the eggs in the fridge.

Life After Depth

Hydrogen and oxygen
chained together
weigh down on sunken ships
putting lost sailors' bones under pressure.

Do their empty eyesockets
see fish swimming above
or birds in air?

Does the sun dapple through
fingers of seaweed or
clusters of leaves?

The corals and anemones
do they sway
in currents or in breeze?

A crab has taken the place of Eve
springing from the jacket
of one of these wide-eyed men.

A shock of red against sodden denim.

The sailor, as he lies,
smiles a toothy grin
the crab crawling across his ribs
and down his sternum

amazed that in this depth
there's still life within him.

The Ballad of Patrick Creevey (draft)

Patrick Creevey, seventeen
full of heart and full of dreams
set out to sail on the open sea
to pay for a golden ring.

His lady fair Molly McGee
worked night and day in a bakery
her hardened hands smelled of yeast
and only wed would she be free.

So it's off to sea with poor, young Pat
'least a fortnight 'til he rows on back
She'll marry him when his ship comes in
and Creevey's baby be.

Three weeks on board, no sign of shore
scrubbing red hands and knees on port
a man named Jack dear Patrick met
who offered him a tempting bet.

Jack, a man dressed solemnly
all clad in velvet of ebony
inquired of Pat why he chose to be
across the waves upon the sea

Patick, resting the soap on deck,
replied that he'd money to get
for a lovely lady Molly McGee
who was a-waiting for his company.

Oh, it's off to sea with poor, young Pat
'least a fortnight 'til he rows on back
She'll marry him when his ship comes in
and Creevey's baby be

"If you best me in a game of dice,
I'll double your wage; you go home to your wife"
said Jack brushing of his veleveteen,
to the sound of his pockets jingling.

Oh, it's a game of dice for poor young Pat
with a quick throw, he rolls snake eyes
She'll marry him when his ship comes in
and Creevey's baby be

I Do Not Write Angry Poetry

I don’t wear words like ‘survivor’
Or ‘victim’ very well. They don’t fit.
A size too small, my shoulders get caught
In the stitches, the feel of the cloth abrasive
and the tag ‘statistic’ itches.
So I just cut it out.

I don’t use poetry as therapy
Treating the page like a chaise lounge
And the audience as an MD
The subtext to every word being
‘Pity me. Listen to my pain, not my art.
You think that other guy went through hell?
Just look at my marks, they’re longer
Deeper and dreamy, conflicted artistic melancholy,’
Like if you’ve ever bled you understand need.
Like scars don’t count, you have to pick at scabs
Until they bleed.

A real reformed addict wouldn’t roll up
His sleeve,
Turning syntax into syringe
Making new tracks to escape on
Because real suffering deserves dignity.

A true resurrection does not happen
Surrounded by a crowd,
no apostles in the garden before crucifixion,
only the company of choice.

It’s having the strength for impetus, for change,
For having convictions.

I fight my battles alone
In the dark
Wondering if it’s real,
If tonight’s the night that
The demon strikes, breaking the door
And crawling in, sitting on my chest,
Weight suppressing breath,
claws hauling out a list of sins
then ticking the box
Next to ‘damned’ not ‘salvation’
Because I’m too proud to pray
To a God that doesn’t listen
even terrified, too paralyzed with pride
to say ‘redemption.’

I wake myself.

Then, between Hail Marys
the sound of clicking rosary beads,
I pray to St. Anthony hoping to find normalcy,
But instead discover gravity.

That things move only when forced.
That there’s no divine intervention.
Only choice.

I refuse to be defined by my problems
I am beyond the outline of my scars
I am worth more than the case numbers
Or the broken bones that have healed within
Creating hills on the horizon of my body
Or the stains on my skin,
Ink black then ball point blue fading
Back to paper white.

I write love poetry
Because love has saved me.

I play with words
Because I like meaning.

I say things prettily
Because I want to live in a world of beauty.

I do not write angry poetry.
I do not share the crosses I wear
Or the things that broke me
because I value my privacy.

My revenge will not
Be the venom of my words
Or living an entire life of ‘after’
But the songs I sing, my desire to love,
and my laughter.

Jack the Reaper

I creep out the back of the house. Mother should be climbing into her sleigh of a bed, brother should be watching TV and me, I should be fast asleep but I want to die a little instead.

Sauntering down the driveway, I dig my dirty nails into my pockets, searching for fire. However, there is no answer to my finger’s burning question, so I stick the cancer behind my ear and weave onto the street. It’s a warm summer night, breeze in the trees, and my feet are itching in my three dollar shoes so I promenade down Lawrence Avenue, a skip in my step.

Which I reach the arrow, suddenly I note that my skin is prickling despite the heat. I’ve changed texture from cotton to suede and there’s a shade on the pavement that doesn’t match the scene. I bring my fingers to my neck, touching the Celtic cross that hangs there. It’s an old inside joke with the company I keep.

From behind me, a black sleeve creeps over my shoulder, spider fingers play with the chain of my cross, shadow on my collarbone.

“Hello,” I say, placing my digits on their counterparts. My heart skips a beat. A searing, fleeting pain streaks across my chest, an echo of a past heartache.

“Hello,” my old friend replies. He retracts his touch and falls in step with me. His voice is pleasant to hear. How many years has it been?

As if reading my mind, Jack speaks, “You know, you’re kind of a tease. We don’t see each other too much anymore – just passing glances, a wave or so. Nearly meeting but always a miss.”

“I dare say you’ll catch up with me one day.”

He laughs at my expense. We’ve reached Sprague street, passing by Karrie’s house. All the lights are out. Trying not to be vague, I start shooting the summer breeze, “How’s my sister?”

“Business is booming,” he takes the cigarette from my ear, “an excellent partner. She doesn’t talk much, good for the morgue.”

He touches a finger to the tip of the cancer stick and it begins to smoke.

“Thanks,” I say as he passes it to me.

“Anything to bring us closer,” he replies with a wink.

I think as I inhale the fumes and exhale through my nose. Nicotine absorbs faster that way. By now, my companion and I have strayed to Elm and feeling especially bold, I take Jack’s cold hand. It overwhelms me, his skin. I tremble. He notices my chagrin and lets go, withering some leaves on a tree we pass. As we amble by the Wead library, I nod at a house across the street and ask, “Why are you so hard on Cheryl?”

He sighs and wearily replies, “It’s not my place to question fate. I just do my job.”

Though I find his tone odd, I don’t speak. The only sound is our shuffling feet, the wind in the trees, and the hush when I breathe.

Somewhere down Park, the silence makes me silly and for a lark, I start doing a jig. Jack smiles and joins in, though he’s a bit stiff. If someone were to drive by, they’d probably think we’re high, but we’re just playing with being alive. But after the jig morphs into a hand jive, we decide that things have gotten ridiculous and return to our constitutional. We’re by the hospital now, its façade toothy with neon signs.

Jack ducks inside for a minute, to take care of some business. I don’t mind. I light another little suicide and chill on the curb, humming the opening bars of Another One Bites the Dust.

In just a few moments, Jack is back again. He smells a little like formaldehyde so I walk beside, not behind him. The aroma is carried away on the wind.

We’ve wound our way to Constable street an found our words a bit lost after his occupational jaunt. It’s always weird to see a friend at work.

“When are you going back to Chicago?,” he asks, as if he doesn’t know.

I play along, “Sunday morning, three A.M.” and flick my cigarette butt onto the cement.

“Rail or sky?”

I smile as I reply, “Plane. Statistically it’s the safest way to travel.”

He laughs deeply, “Y’beat me.”

Starting to climb the incline of Prospect, I suspect that Jack’s got something on his mind. There’s a frown on his lips.

I gasp, giving him a flat tire and he trips. “C’mon man, out with it.”

After recovering his balance and a quick glance in my direction, Jack says, “Sometimes it’s hard to leave work at the office.”

As we descend the end of the hill, I give him my best clap on the shoulder. It stings my hand.

But now, after our meandering maze, we’ve made our way back to Lawrence Avenue. As we walk up to number three, Jack says to me, “Well, it’s been great catching up with you.”

“Likewise, my friend,” I say, climbing the steps to the porch.

He stands at the bottom of the stairs. The air moves in the trees around us. I’d embrace him, if his touch didn’t hurt so much.

“You take care of yourself,” he says, about to turn and leave, “and don’t you forget about me.”

I laugh and say, “Jack, you know I’m a sucker for a man in black, and besides, I can’t forget. I wear you around my neck.”

He smiles, then blows me a kiss. I pretend to catch it, but don’t. He won’t know, though. He’s already taken off.

So with a yawn, I open my door as dawn begins to form. It’s late and I need to sleep. Climbing into bed, I'm not worried about seeing Jack again. It’s only a matter of time.

My Mother is Massaging my Shoulder

My mother is massaging my shoulder
the right one, its knotted sinews.

Overhead a disembodied voice announces
departures, arrivals, boarding calls,
but I don't listen.

It doesn't matter that I am twenty years old.
It doesn't matter that I have traveled across oceans.
None of it.

In this moment, I am listening to my mother
softly humming Church hymns beneath her breath
her fingers softly kneading the muscles beneath my skin
tension under her persuasion.

Once, I came home
my mother was crying in a corner
crumpled under invisible weight.

I put my backpack by the stairs,
pretending I didn't see.
Her sobs chased me
echoing guilty footsteps.

Another time, I was leaving
my mother was singing in the shower
voice mingling with steam

I put my back to the sound
talking aloud
her tones chased me
filling in the pauses of
my breath

The carpet beneath my feet is making
cross hatching on my skin
lines into skin into muscle

My mother is massaging my shoulder.
Overhead a disembodied voice announces
departures, arrivals, and boarding calls.
I don't listen

All in my Head

We laughed when by honest mistake
I put the cornflakes in the fridge
and the milk in the pantry.
Later,
when I got lost in christmas tree lots
and drove in circles around the block
we smiled to cover our unease
but when I lost my wallet and keys
we couldn't hide behind our teeth
so I got replacement checks,
but the balance was off.

The doctor likes to talk a lot.
He says words like aphasia
apraxia, agnosia which sound
more like goddesses than symptoms
more like muses than a gathering
storm forming in my synapses
lightning striking but firing less.

They say the Irish never forget,
yet I see my face in pictures
I don't remember taking and
people tell me memories that
I don't remember making and
my words are waning and my
brain is straining but
neurofibrillary tangles and
amyloid plaques have
backed me into a misfolded corner
that only a coroner can diagnose
like some sick practical joke

but no one is crawling out
from behind the couches.

My husband, my rock, my caregiver
takes my hand over dinner and
whispers "I'll always love you,
soon you won't be able to remember that,
so I'll say it as much as I can."
He squeezes my hand.

He leaves me crossword puzzles on the table
I'm able to do a few but across and down
leave me confused and sudoku is a lost cause.

I pause when I see him,
not because of his old age
but because I'm having trouble
remembering his name.

And Washington thinks this is all a game
that stem cells are more
precious than my memory that
embryonic studies are murder as
I get further from myself
because some Texan's religious convictions
have turned church into state
and takes a life for a life.

But I'm not really dead.
My heart still beats,
my lungs still breathe
and maybe this isn't even a disease
it's just all in my head.

Trading in my Beauty

I'm trading in my beauty
to be pretty
or hot, if I'm lucky.

I remove my ponytail
and instead use a straightener
making no waves.

I look at my eyes
then line them with black
take my glasses off
add layers to my lashes

My baggy, torn jeans
I trade for a skirt
after shaving my legs
(bleeding a little from a cut
above the ankle).

I've started running in the morning
in the time I used to write
in hopes of losing my figure
coaxing curves to disappear,
in favor of hardened edges.

I’ve cleaned the room, easing
creases out of my blanket
and washing the saliva stained
pillows, no record of dreams.

I packed away the notebooks
that used to outline the bed,
filled my chest with wrinkled pages,
had to sit on top to get it closed.

To loose some baggage,
I’ve emptied my library
of chapbooks, dictionaries
and instead put conversation pieces
on the shelves.

Oh, yes, I’ve read the new Dan Brown novel.
I found it most engrossing,
didn’t you?

Chinese New Year (draft)

Rising and falling softly,
sleeping with your eyebrows knit
against the wall
pins and needles
my arm is
pins and needles

This is the moment
where I should wake you
where I should admit that
I'm trying so hard not to fall in love with you
but I'm silenced by
your sleeping frame, a painting
canvas heavy with layers
and it hasn't dried yet.

As I watch your skin get goosebumps
with the touch of the morning breeze (Chi?)
I think about how I should
clean the house
sweeping away last year's
negativity so that good luck can
creep in and have room to breathe

(Don't forget to hide the broom and dustbin
so it can't sneak out again)

Maybe later we'll go to Chinatown (Cermak)
have passerbys hand us red packets
and if we're lucky they won't find us odd (reserved for death)
but rather like Tikoy, the brown sugar
of your skin mixed with my Irish powder

Laying here, I know that there's
one thing the Chinese got wrong.
The color of love and luck isn't red.
It's yellow.

I want to kiss you,
but when I open my mouth
yellow comes out filling
the room like a great Tsunami
of my gut-grounded-feelings.

But I can't wake you.
I can only marvel at the gold
of your hue, my fascination
with your pigmentation, the
predicament of dawn
in a city never darker than dusk.

EB fun.

Nick: Dostoevsky gets me hard.

My response, via email:


Note from the Underground:

A Nasty story of the insulted and humiliated Idiot possessed the raw youth as dictated in a writer's diary in the village of stepanchikovo, poor folk. Pulled a double on Netochka Nezvanova, so he had to take some crime and punishment, but he always was a gambler. Now he's off in the house of the dead.

What a major piece of work!

"Oh, Canada" (draft)

Canada,
I have lived spread eagled on the border
Between desire and empire
Dreaming of your territories.
Je me souviens, very well,
When you were between my thighs
My strange Northern Ally,
And I touched your maple leaf.

I have heard your white noise,
And compared to American boys,
There’s something I enjoy about those
I found in your home and native land,
From the BC man who fucked me and
Stole my poetry to the Nova Scotia
Lady who let me travel her Saint-Lawrence
River of blonde belly hairs to the locks
Of her seaway.

Canada. I want you. I Seskachewant you.
I want to dribble syrup
On your snow white mid-drift and
Nibble it off when it gets hard –
You know maple candy always melts
In your mouth.

And hell, if you want to carve stars
Out of bite-marks and stripes with
Your nails on my spine and shoulder
Call me in October when the weather’s
Colder and we’ll have our own
Sugar shack.

On the first of July we’ll celebrate
The dirty act which made you
In 1982, and named
My foreign soul mate who knows
Dominion on my affairs of state.


In the room women come and go,
dreaming of Toronto.

Oh, Canada. I don’t mind being under you.
I flirt with the border patrol, the royal mountie
Can mount me anytime he wants, thinking common-wealth
Thoughts as he plays with my loony and two-nie and hails
God save the Queen.

C-A-N-A-D-A

You’re my strange situation, my fascination,
Your vowels so round they fill my throat
Like poutin, Molson, and sin,
‘til you make me scream ‘EH! ‘eh! ‘Eh!
My darling canuck, ‘til I make you howl
Like the Habs just won the stanley cup,
Je ne sais pas que je te desis mais,
You’re what I’m talking aboot.

We'll All Go Together (beginning)

Wednesday night in Tigh Coili
Aeonghus and Ronan tend the bar.
Nestled in a corner, I practice
my Irish with Majar,
my throat grumbling with
the guttural sounds and
vowels too round with my
pseudo-Canadian tongue.

Majar sits next to me,
Aran sweater peppered with ash
cheeks gashed with wrinkles.
The kind of face that's an acquired taste
like the Murphy's stout I sip.

His cracked lips relate to me
in perfect Irish, the story of a Quebecois
lady who got away, due to an unprecipitated
twist of fate (the maid washed her lipstick from the mirror)
the sad syllables weighted with drink.

The crowd has handled as much
as they swallow, the trad stops,
door closes. And feeling like I'm imposing,
the boys invite me to stay
not paying for my pint on the house.

Majar stays at the bar.
Beer mats glow under bar lights,
the sound of sweeping as he sighs.

Only the O'Flarhertys and I see him
wipe his eye, frown, and
sing softly into his glass

And we'll go lassie, go
and we'll all go together
like the wild Irish rose...

the verse, his curse, fails him.
He lays his head on his arms
hugging himself and his glass
crashes to the floor.

Ronan pours me some more stout
as Aeonghus sweeps up the pieces
of Majar's cure. It crunches
beneath his feet.

I lean back in my seat,
heat from the drink flushes my
cheeks, and with a glance at my
friend, I find my timbre filling
the air

and we'll go lassie go
and we'll all go together

from behind the bar, Ronan joins in
a high tenor, Majar
snores a brilliant bass as Aeonghus
takes the lead, dancing with the mop.

and we'll go lassie go
and we'll all go together,
like the wild Irish rose
goes with the bloomin' heather

"Potential Heartbreak" revised

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 tangible as the air
Surrounding me.

In a dirty Red Sox cap,
Rediscovering cribbage with my Dad at the Lake House
(Although he rags on you for being a Canuck)
Your smiling face
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 ticket stubs of the visits you won’t pay,
As the silent soundtrack of 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 all the questions you never asked,
As my secrets stay hidden behind all the things
You love about me but haven’t
Discovered.

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

As I clean out this room of potential,
I think of the reality.
I think about what you didn’t give me.
I think about what you weren’t.

It’s silly at best,
At first,
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?

Windy City Blues

5pm, a massive evacuation from corporations
to public transportation, I catch
the 22 bus up Clark street
and brush shoulders taking my seat
crushed by the bodies of suits and skirts
feasting on their blackberries, juice of business
staining their mouths, focused on Microsoft
outlooks, or just lost
in their pocket books unaware of the buildings
passing by.

From the corner of my eye a bouquet
of flowers walks away on a shoulder
followed by a man wearing a chaise
as a hat (he kinds looks like a play horse –
human feet stick out beneath) but no one
is chuckling except me.

Loneliness, I confess, is riding with me.
Today at three, counting ahead six hours,
across sea waves tuned into your frequency,
I can fantasize about your itinerary, if I’m
remembered, and what you’re wearing
(Here’s hoping it’s the sweater that highlights
your double feature of green).

The loneliness is something old, yet this brand
is new, heart worn and liver abused, I’ve borrowed
your blues as I transfer to the CTA red line.
Searching faces I find they’re all different.

But that’s what I intended,
that’s what cities are meant for. Diversity. Multiplicity.
But Chi-town has swallowed the whole
of me
and spat nothing out.

So waxing romantic trans-Atlanticly
I know my particle waves are not
travelling seas to your station.
But rumination substitutes well in
lack of communication – in this not
tragic but bathic tram (existence)
crammed with people I’ll never meet
each headed home on one way streets.

Today - revisited

The corners of my vision
Crusted with the night
I met the day with dark words.

A flame extinguished
With his own breath
Fall to the floor, drop the phone
Bereft (a small heap of flesh)

A tone.
And then you were back.

How does one rise from the dead
With such ease
Not knowing how close they were?

I existed without you for half an hour.
Now I won’t again.

More poetic spam mail

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A Toast - Revised another time

"A Toast"

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

You're a fiery one
and like a moth twice burned
a taste of chocolate and the light behind your blues
Draws me back every time
and with a laugh
I’ll convince myself that
I knew
That this was nothing (to you)
Relatively
But after imbibing the essence
Of your existence
I will leave empty handedgladlybecause I have stood in your shadowat least through your spectre
I glimpsed the outline, the corona
of something that felt like home.