Seabirds

For University College Dublin

In here we are like abominable seabirds,
we quack & crow - squawking over scraps of thought;
killing and eating one another to protect our territory;
clinging to the same shit-covered rock that drifts in the Atlantic.
Each of us as lost as the other,
and all of us forgetting how to fly.

I give you "POEM"!!

About four years ago myself and some friends ran a "chain poem" experiment in college.
Each week we'd put a box on a table with a photo above it. Beside the box was a note explaining what it was and asking people to write something inspired by the photo on a piece of paper, and to drop that into the box.

There was the obscene story of Raymond Frisby and what he did up the "Cadbury cul-de-sac" while he had a gerkin in his nose

Then there was the girl who said that she wanted "to have my abortions"! (I'm not kidding - and it still disturbs me)

But my favorite was a scrap of paper with the words - "I GIVE YOU POEM" scrawled on to it. I've always assumed it was some sort of threat but I'm adopting it as my motto for the "poetry" on this blog anyway.

Ashes and Echoes

A version of this pom was published in November 2008 in the Anthology Fishing for Change.

---------

I brought her to the forest on the day
the snow melted. I brought her to the
clearing where we watched squirrels in November;
to the wood where she sang as we slept in
the grass; to the trees where the crows called to
greet us.

I brought her to the forest; to the
robin’s tumble-down garden; to the spot
where we once found the stars in melt-water ponds.

I took her ashes there, beside
the river, where she taught me to listen
as it laughed when the frost tickled the flood.
I scattered her where she lives in my heart,
but when I go back and listen for her voice
I hear nothing, nothing but the echoes of the woods.

The girl who lived by the lake

There once was a girl who lived by a lake,
and I fell in love with the girl who lived by the lake.
But when I sang to her and told her that I loved her, I made her cry.
She told me that I had said the cruelest things and ran away.

Alone on the lake shore I tried to drown myself.
I held my head beneath the water, but each time I pushed it down the waves threw me back.
Crying that I wanted to die for love I suddenly heard the lake laughing at me,
and it told me that I didn't even know what love was...

I went far away in search of a gypsy woman who read the cards.
When I found her I asked her to tell me my love story
but she just laughed at me and told me that I didn't understand what love was.

I went back to the lake and found the girl swimming there.
I told her that I didn't love her becuase I didn't understand what love was, and I made her cry,
She told me that I had said the cruelest things and swam away.