The antecedent knows its own role And I lie in the expanse of my own soul As the bombs go off Or another person coughs As, I, awake in my bed Wonder what they would have said If they’d have known What was going down And I may visit the bay again Just don’t say when Because it is a futile ploy When I see my stars in a boy As he shines from afar He is my favourite star In the darkness of outer space I wonder if all these years have gone to waste Since I told him I love him And I would never hold myself above him But I feel like I was reduced For the receipts I couldn’t produce So I decided to write and write Even if it is sometimes shite Trying to get it on lock I don’t want to be something that I’m not But when I take a pill I swear I never will Be all I claim I am It’s like Kilglass winning Sam Impossible but still a dream Like me and the queen Inside my riverbed heart Blue and red from the start Do I use the pain to make art And the futility to show that the taking part Is the best part of the win I just hope I get to be with him Somehow, someday Anyway Thanks for listening Oh, look my teardrop’s glistening
The saint was born the day that I died Like Gandalf the Grey becoming the White And there was no absorbing light Only a peaceful flame That does not go by any name You could call it earthy awareness And I could guess What you mean by that But it gives you something it can’t take back And when the dream is rendered moot No one can play the flute Not with you, not anymore And they think I close the door But the reality is I am pulled away From the places I cannot stay There is distance in between Me and her and her and what they seem To be But free Does not mean foolish or prude I’m sorry if I appear a little rude But I’ve got to speak my mind When I don’t I do hard time At the institution they call St. Pat’s And there are welcome mats With my name written on They don’t realise I’m already gone As who I used to stand as And it’s nothing bad But it is unusual and unexpected And it’s not as thought I would have rejected Him without good reason His love is a season In the infinity of space time For a moment he was mine And then we were separated Like the schools where we were educated In to make good people of us With rulers and lines and teachers we could trust Some at least And I wonder if the last supper is a feast Like it’s portrayed And if Judas was dismayed To be singled out like that And I wonder what was he at To betray a saviour true Til I had it done to me too By a girl I used to know She cracked the whip so I let her go And I don’t know if time is fast or slow All I’ve realised is that it doesn’t exist though
There was that time I was at the bottom of the ocean The weight of the sky held all my emotion And it was burden to me Until the day I was set free Like some kind of ennui to fly But some part of me wanted to die It held me like a vicegrips I let go and something slips Into the abyss Is it that I miss The point of modern existence So much so that my reference is met with resistance To what it is And I will never be his Not now, not anymore Not since he closed that door The one I had opened to let him in But the grave is solemn as our sin As we barely make it through There were days I screamed at you And my family bled me dry For the crime of wanting to try To climb to the sky And sometimes I wonder why They condemned me to an education In their version of the situation Where I am the betrayer of the light The one they crack my knuckles with at night In tune with the rhythm Of their own great schism The one that pulls There is a pain that never dulls Not sharp and quick But one you live with and it’s a bitch Much more so than the submerge And I am on the verge Of letting go And opening to the place I can’t know The deep and vast spaciousness pure If only I could know for sure What it was Like I did before I learned their laws
I was fourteen and lost in the dream Til she rendered it everything it had never been And a lightning crack struck the stone To tell me I was never alone Not in my darkest day You know the one I wanted to make go away In the summer as I watched her die Slowly and I couldn’t cry Coz a tear might mean I would miss a moment With her and wouldn’t own it There was that morning I came and had breakfast with you Cornflakes with warm milk and you Put the heater on under my feet So that I might meet a warmer day Why did you have to go away I ask myself that all the time And almost twenty years line The road that took you from me Do you remember that day we Almost had a game of cards But someone came in and something hard I had to accept Was that I would have to regret The time we almost played rummy on the settee I know you were doing it for me And you ask for ice cream and jelly Just days before you die and my belly Still aches for your rhubarb tart The one you make like a work of art As you coat each piece in sugar and give some to me Say good things come to those who wait and my heart is set free From some imaginary chains It’s been nothing but torrential rains Since 2004 I keep thinking you’ll walk in the door Like that time up in UCD For a moment I could swear that we Are both in the same room Or the student union shop if I’m singing in tune But it passes almost as soon as it comes And I grasp again at when I was young And I was sitting on your knee I know you’ve been set free It’s just I know you’d never leave me So this Heaven you speak of has gotta be Nearer than close, than intimacy Could it be that you are One with me Like the Buddhists describe That you are really still alive Just in another dimension And the veil fell without mention Of the aforementioned fact The ones you’ve lost you can get back If you just trust the bough to break God puts you there for your own sake
The embodiment of the prose That happens at the intersection of less travelled roads Where you meet two parallel paths And think of how God might have wrath For you and entice You into a darkness that isn’t nice Because if you look in the biblical frame You’re talking to someone who has no name And you can call him Yahweh or Yeshua I just know that I wouldn’t mess with ya Not on any given Sunday But trouble doesn’t come on a Monday It was some idle Tuesday blue That took me from you And I was just walking back From the place where I lack Everything that ever was Do I lose you because I didn’t pray for peace Is there a reason why people decease Before their time Which is always now if you ask the rhyme In the indulgent hues Now I just pay my dues As they fall onto my desk Trust and have faith and forsake the rest As it eyes up my piece of bread But it’s all madness in my head As I hear a million voices Asking me if they have choices In why they are condemned to A kind of hell I’m party to And if I’m the only one who nears Then do I run away when danger nears Or do I open the gap And shed light on the torn map That says beyond this point You must not go because the anoint Have adorned it a place for sinners And all the winners That you have ever known Have only ever grown Through the pain of embracing the shadow I often wonder if I am bad, though
They can’t bring me down Not with their hospital gown You know the one that I wear When the fabric tear On my suit And I must be the proof Of what I want to hear Must I hold dear The days in subterfuge When everything’s the colour rouge On the page The shade of rage That pulls apart the sun And you know the one Is made to beat a heart Tearing all the stars apart In the firmament where they lie I am not afraid to die But to be caught In a place where my spirit’s bought By all and sundry And it’s quite the quandary To be lilt bound around the halls Of a place that is all walls In brick and stone I hear the ancients scream “leave me alone” As behind the barrier some horrors are contained I feel it in the pain That emanate From the people in that state And there are souls that walk the corridor Down to the art room on the first floor And there’s no way to say That it isn’t me, okay Because when I speak of vision They meet me with derision And false grandiosity It must be my animosity Reaching out to take a bite Of my own kryptonite Does that mean I’m Clark Kent Or the space where the hero went
The one good thing about hell Was that Stephen wished me well And could see the light underneath The ghost with the sheet Around her head (You know the one I got from the bed) In the place with no name Because the memory brings shame Upon my family So I’m not allowed to mention it, we Did it, it was a collective decision And I risk their derision If I reveal That I feel Just fine About my time In St. Pat’s mental institution It was some kind of a convolution In my degree Why does life have me down on one knee Proposing to a saint In the colour of blood that I paint As it runs down the frame Of the place that brought me pain
I fake ambivalence on the way to the hospital And they put me in a cage So the only way I could rage Was on a page Listing all their faults As they keep me in a selection of vaults But like a Taylor track I’m only better when I come back And I boomerang that shit Do you know who you’re dealing with When you spider web the dream It’s split like a seam Along the line of someone else’s thread And you could say I’ve made my bed But I sleep soundly So what about me? You gonna write that prose Now that you have given up the road That lead you here And you have only death facing you, dear I see it in your eyes And even the man behind the concrete cries Silver grey in every way, you plug the drain Then think you know about the rain But it only ever runs away And everything that I say Washes over you into a puddle You can say I am in a muddle But it’s you that seems So lost in dreams That you don’t know the way to be In touch with reality
Creating my own version of hell Just to wish you well And appease the masses Coz the girl’s got classes That she takes on being herself And you could say that her wealth Hinges on being all that she is not And if you try to help a lot It will backfire Because she tire Of female dreams When you pull the fabric at the seams And enter into a plausible affair With someone that isn’t even there And her sister bites And ignites Passion she doesn’t know how to wear As she complains it isn’t fair And resigns herself to a fate She’s not even allowed to hate Coz that could constitute a sin A conflagration that’s within But I burn With every axis turn And understand how the devil might feel To be told that nothing is real And his existence is naught But a way to keep people caught God is everything He’s in every broken wing And in every fallen star There’s no way to escape what you are Even if you turn away The Truth will have the final say
Did you think I would wait for you There’s not a chance in hell As if you give me permission to be myself Only under your sun that the cards I’ve been dealt Could align with mystical forces But you’re all about the divorces That could happen if you’re not a really nice guy Because you’re afraid to die And the woman you love is fearless and true But she is no match for you When you put those glasses on I saw it and so I was gone In a heartbeat and I’d skip town again If I’d catch that frown on men Because I know what it means And it may be the stuff of dreams But I’m no puff pastry to wear And I don’t need you to care About me And free Is fine But there was a moment you were mine And we shared a soul But you break the begging bowl As you hold it out to me Cut my hands on glass that trusted for free And I thought you had changed So I let the atoms rearrange And came back to your door Only for you to say you don’t want me anymore Well let me make it simple for you It’s goodbye like you wanted it to
I don’t know who I am anymore Someone somewhere shut that door And I’m lying on the floor Thinking about identity And if it could encapsulate me In a tight little bundle But I just roll the trundle Wheel down the path And think about the God of wrath I was shown by a teacher in school She read the Bible and it wasn’t cool It was so dark and dense And nothing was in the present tense It was all recrimination And I couldn’t see that the station She stood at was pulling in to train Us all to repeat again What we’d learned And if we didn’t we’d be burned I shook with the terror But something told me it was an error Because we couldn’t be sinners at ten But she threw suspicion on us over again As though our childish might Could be lit by the devil’s light In seeking to avoid the dark But the word just means to miss the mark And maybe it’s not understood That the heart of the human endeavour is good If Jesus taught me anything It’s that there’s an angel’s wing Looking out for all of us And that it’s okay to trust In the best of what we are I look for the star You were born under And the sound of thunder Rumbles in a scene If this is all a dream Why does it feel So real In the dark and in the day Am I gonna be okay? Or am I already alright Is my soul the light in the night To remind me that the consciousness Is the way that we undress The skin We are standing in For a season or two You fanned the flame but I still love you
The commensurate struggle under foreign rule And we learn about it in school Like it is part of history But there is so much that does not sit well with me Because I looked to the North of Ireland and could see Blood on the streets as a child of 1990 And yet somehow there was an agreement that stemmed the tide The flow of blood was silent outside Though it still simmers underground And I’m attuned to that sound As I hope it will rise only to be let go of In place of a deeper kind of love Now, bombs drop in the Middle East And I wonder if our peace Could be translated If the powerful could be educated In what it means To break nightmares into dreams For there are tens of thousands of children die Since the birth of the realm that made them cry And I cannot stay silent and roll Like this is all there is in my soul Like I don’t have the blood of my ancestors proud Who would say that the innocent and the loud Should stand on equal footing And I know where they are putting The blame and why But no one deserves to die Before their time And is a war crime Only recognised in hindsight They starved us too From 1845 to ‘52 A million died And mothers cried Others emigrated Now I’m listening to things the politicians stated As they barricade and siege With a terror you would not believe Leaving the people to disease And hunger and thirst I can only imagine the worse As I hear the stories out of the Strip And soldiers as they equip Themselves with weapons of war Because they think they know what it’s for But when you look in their eyes do you see spirit And when a bomb drops and a child screams do you hear it In the midnight of everyday Is it that you want a people to go away And we were the Irish problem But somehow we were able to resolve them And for now, at least A tenuous peace Holds in the dismantling Of the broken wing At the heart of the tale Of how we are not up for sale And the people of the land Understand What it means to be driven home In a car all alone Thinking of a fellow kin And what they are doing to them Under the guise of justification Saying we need an education In the politics of the Middle East Well I do and it’s the least Thing I need to know it’s wrong When the materially strong Use their force to betray Everything in them that would say This is just not right What’s it like to be awake in Gaza tonight?
I look at the photograph and think of the people I’ve lost And wonder why life has to pay the cost Of being born The painting’s rendered and then it’s torn In two, down the middle And I spent some time in Spiddel When I was thirteen years old It was before the gold Broke into fourteen After I’d lost my grandmother to the scene And I’d pattern the stars on the wall Making constellations of them all I was not alone And I’m almost crying on the phone As I ring home Fast forward a couple of weeks I’m sad coz we’ll never speak To those girls again And I could call each one friend As I sleep on the top bunk And there was a moment my heart sunk For the shame of what I did I’m always inconsiderate to the point of flipping the lid Before I screw it on I loved a boy then I was gone And we are nevermore Why does God give me people to adore Then take them away again I wish I could say I was on the mend But I have no will to be I just want to be set free From the illusion Of my own confusion Held in colours I create It’s a disease I can’t inoculate
I can feel the verge of the Unknown Come to clip the wings that I have flown And I wonder why desire Would long to set the world on fire If it would burn its own house down And he acts the clown But I can see the depths In the aura of his regrets And it is stultifying prose As I walk the roads Like a woman with a purpose And the circus Never fails to make me laugh Because God does not do things by half And when he invented maya I realise why he loves a tryer Coz like Albert Einstein says Insanity is doing the same thing in different ways And expecting a result to arises But there is a horizon In your eyes When you look into mine And I wonder would you do hard time Just to know the freedom I speak of And I was just brave enough to call it love When you still hid in the shadow of the hall And a brick wall Always faced me then But I would do it over again If I had the chance As I shyly ask you to dance With me We would be A beautiful pair If we both had been there
The hero’s story lies unheard Like the flight path goes untraced by the bird As she arcs through the sky And she is not afraid to die A death on the scene And the serene Pulses with air And the energy of the Universe there They wouldn’t believe me So they just grieve me As battlestar galatica’s reign in the tide And I learn to abide In the misinformation I wonder who she’s dating It’s the modern fixation And if he’s a bad guy You better expect they’ll find a reason why And explain it to you Because you have hearts that they want to Corrupt and be seen To be caught in the dream In a web of lies And everybody tries To break out But their self doubt Arms the chains And the rains Are no match for the sky Because open space is not afraid to die Into itself I woke up with a shock and the rest start to melt
I have this fear inside me, do I focus on it And does it just make me act like a twit I find myself in St. Pat’s, ground floor And everyone shines, my God, mo stór As I’m lying in bed in Dean Swift at night And he’s illuminated by the bathroom light He says it’s very bright But I could look at him and sight Is no burden But how would I word them This prose that sits inside And I only ever hide The best of me And the rest of me Lies in wait All the guys I’d love to date But my heart won’t let me Soul won’t forget me And lead me down a merry path One I might never find my way back From And it’s gone That sudden sharp Like Cleopatra playing the harp It’s an illusion And the confusion Was I trusted words Instead of the flight path of birds As they streak across the sky And I am not afraid to die But say that to a psy Chiatrist And you may get the gist Of what I relay I eventually learned not to say What was on my mind Because it leaves me behind Like an autumn tree And everything is fluttering from me As I’m out in the grass With Mary Jean, I never had to ask Her to teach me how to knit She wove the wool deftly as I sit And she came to my door With something she’d baked on the first floor And we ate it with my sister God knows, I missed her When I was locked away And I don’t care what people say Those places don’t help They just teach you how to stand on a shelf All pretty in pink And I used to think It was for a reason Now I see it was just a season I was passing through Growing wings and flying too Beyond the veil And what’s not up for sale Will always be bought By those who think they have caught The value in it And I didn’t win it But let it go There’s joy in defeat too, you know
Getting older And I just grow bolder And into my own skin It was reflected in him And I thought that we Could be outside of history In a land beyond time And I wanted to call him mine Somewhere quiet and beyond the suffer Now I watch him love her And I wish them well But it is a kind of hell To keep myself away from him Because there’s a pact between women And what if he was to leave her for me If I reveal the mystery That surrounds my presence And the essence Of what we are Is born from a distant star Is there a way to be a friend to you Because I want you in my life too I shut you out Because the doubt That was cast upon me Just had to be gone me And I wanted a secret space With you so I could see your face And read the lines That arc over you a thousand times Like holy comets Are you still on it Like a diamond mine I would have told you I was fine If you’d have asked But your compassion’s masked By your fear I just want you to know I still love you, dear
I broke the clasp Because she didn’t ask Me to be who I am She had another plan So I pulled the plug Now I am on their favourite drug As I struggle to find The part of me I left behind When I left her for dust Amid the tyre tracks and broken trust And it was hell In the days she didn’t wish me well The tide, it turned And something burned Inside me But some how the light it find me And now I’m looking back On the attack And it seems different somehow Because I allow Her to walk all over me But, eventually, I let her go free To find her own direction Though I didn’t expect the insurrection To arise And everybody dies But sometimes something rise To meet the pain And I would do it again If I had to But I wanted you To realise That there are blue skies In your darkest foe I didn’t hate you, I just let you go To find your own path And you may believe in God’s wrath But I could never find That space inside the mind I had to believe in truth And live the passion of my youth Do I equivocate And stand in my place Like a good child Did you not love me wild And free as a bird What is it that you heard When I spoke to you I hope life has been kind to you But if it hasn’t Know that there’s a space that maddens Even those with an even keel You are not what you feel
I went on a search but I never found it Now all I can do is ground it As it pours light in through my crown I thought that I would drown In the darkness but it was light It lifts me up and I am alright As I, unsteady on my feet, As a foal I’ve yet to meet Struggle to regain the ground I’ve lost to the realm of sound As it pelts my windows I never let it in though Until that man came with his soul Held out like a begging bowl And it just undo Everything I was assuming of you And somehow we’re in! But does it pertain to Him Coz that will be evidence of it’s constancy And in my revelry I missed the quiet comfort of your hoodie And I’m just wondering would we If we got the chance You ask me to dance And I say yes I take the hand you hold out, I guess And we move to the beat And the heat That your body is throwing Has me knowing That this is something you’ve desired Ever since I set it all on fire No need to worry, dear The glass is crystal clear
The apparent solidity of matter is an illusion And there seems to be some confusion Over what it means When sages says that its just one of those dreams That seems to linger And the finger Pointing to the moon Cannot come to soon But do not mistake It for a freedom you cannot fake You know when you’ve been deceived It happens when there’s something you believed Rather than known And the flowers grown And in full bloom Can fragrance a room So it is with you I’m telling you coz you want me to Deep in your heart There is something no one can tear apart Not with knives and scissors Not with hacksaws and chisels It lives in a domain Beyond the realm of pain And the Bible speaks of the Valley In the Shadow of Death and any One who disputes That it encroaches on the resolute Must be wrong Because when I was strong I felt it multiply I was so afraid to die But when the midnight came I was simply not the same And surrendered the ghost To the Light I love the most It is my Jesus true And He asked me to share Him with you
Am I clicking the button again You know, the one when I asked you to be my friend And I know that all things end But something endures As the water pures The silt and the sand And your hand Is still in mine After all these years of time And I know that you’re with her It doesn’t erase what we were And somewhere in this heart I own There are birds that have flown To your side And you’re still alive In spite of attempts to the contrary And I used to pray to Mary To save my grandfather from death But it hasn’t worked yet Except to take his soul to the highest light So I probably should forgive her, right? And I spilled my heart to you But it didn’t go the way I wanted it to Or that I thought it would And you are good Better than most But you still sound as though you’ve just seen a ghost The ghost of me Come to haunt all that we never got to be
To be Irish and free Is this a part of our history That we could call a break with the past Coz it’s been nigh on 1000 years since the last Time empire didn’t darken our door And I couldn’t wish for anything more Than the heart that beats in my chest For the rest Of the world that still labours under The sound of that thunder As it quakes ground With artillery or the sound Of the machinery of the day Because they want to take away All that we have come to know But Love does not let us go In spite of all the trouble And it is no bubble That we just fell into It is the heritage we were born to Embody And already I can see the dawn When the tendrils have withdrawn From their occupation of lands And the dust and the sands Yield no harvest But I divest Myself of the poverty And say all beings should be free Of the mighty weight of bowing down And the water will not drown It will only nourish and refill What the darkness tried to kill And it’s not a personal sin It is just a deviation from Him And the persecution dies As the whole world tries To shift the narrative And it is imperative That we do not tolerate What we’ve come to know as hate As it darkens the door That has come to shatter on the floor But the light just pours through And it’s from within me and you There is no us and them There’s just a mistake we can’t make again
The darkness that ensued And all I could do was brood Over the way things had come to be Confinement was the only mystery I could bear to hold So I ran from the fields of gold To the chains in the city And it was more self pity Than it was bravery I couldn’t face the truth And the pillars of my youth Are falling around me Now I have no grandfather to ground me So I just grasp at empty air Because you are no longer there To catch me when I fall And see me play football Down at the pitch Making a switch With Linda on the field But the wind blows and I yield To it and let you go It was harder than you know To relax my grasp On the part of me that was born to last And I couldn’t cry tears Despite the years We spent together And the weather Turned suddenly snow And somehow I just know That it’s time And my crime Is that I couldn’t bear to face This aspect of the human race That we must say goodbye To the people we love as they die And I’m hearing voices The people in Pat’s say it’s just noises But I sense that I can hear More than just the ones I hold dear From the other side I think they are still alive In some other realm And at the helm Is a spirit greater than we can understand He is not ruled over by man But free to birth into the world of form And just because my body’s warm Doesn’t mean that I’m separate From the ones my heart equate With eternal love And if I no longer have to look above But within to find you there Would you know that I still care?
Are our memories so short that we could call this history And the mystery Of the Emerald Isle Is how we survived the trial Of invasion And the abrasion Still shows in galactic consciousness As we struggle to address The appropriate evil to compensate For why we were in that state It seemed like there was nothing we could do Except rebel, rebel But it was a kind of hell As they starved the land of its people And we replaced futility with a steeple And prayed to a God we knew not of Because only Divine Love Could be our salvation As we were collateral damage for a nation Who’s only goal was empire And I wonder they never tire Of the chains they induce And they seduce The whole world with their lies And now it tries To deceive again Because in the realm of men Killing and war are necessary But children are not an accessory To the damage you do Yes, I am talking to you You equivocate And evaluate What you do by some measure But your treasure Is not to be found in the blood of the young Or a people to succumb To what you want to achieve I know you believe In what you say But I see another way To mend the broken wall Try letting the damn thing fall
He has the courage to speak And it makes me weak To see a man in the stars Behind prison bars That are self explanatory And this is a war so planetary As it drags the dust and the water Upon every son and every daughter Of Palestine That the shame should be mine For losing this on my watch I just stare at the clock Every morning and hope that he Has weathered the storm that we Are safe from here in Éire It’s not fair That you should have to suffer And you may love Her But you shouldn’t have to entertain This kind of rain In this season And there is no reason This is happening but that Some people did something they can’t take back And the wrath Ensues What the god of men does when it cannot pay its dues It says what it does not know And it holds on when it should’ve let go Long ago And I just sit and stare And pray that you’re still there Behind a screen Here’s to you and the scream That pierces the night I guess there is no good fight
Was it just a twin flame dream That a man could mean What he says when he says it to you And that he’s not just out to Wrap the chains of control Around your soul Like vines that entrap When he tries to map Your mysteries And histories Are replete with this story So don’t implore me To just give in I will never be with him As long as he holds the casing He is intent on facing With the full of his sight And I say “It’s alright” Because it is for a moment or two But if you’re not willing to Give it up for love Then all of the above Has been rendered obsolete I’m not falling at your feet Just so that my hair Might wipe away your every care And render you the king But a king wouldn’t throw away everything For a cheap night in the stars Behind steel bars That he calls a safe space But the human race Was not made for prison tomes So I leave him all alone As he tries to encapsulate Everything in a spate Of cold weather that freezes blood I didn’t think you were great, I thought you were good
He wants me so fuckin bad But he is still one of the lads And he talks trash behind my back It’s a form of attack As he holds his weight behind the line In case I might suspect the diamond mine Was harvested with blood on hands And he is the inheritor of lands But he will never own me, my dear Let me make this crystal clear I’m not going down that route And you may play the flute To deflect And then the dream is wrecked But the man protest “I am not like that” Then why say something you can’t take back To me on the phone I say, leave me alone And just go be with your girl Let go of your hold on the world Coz it will never be yours And there’s nothing the water pures When it flows free It is the essence of me It is bound for the sea Not a dam in the river And I’m sure your could forgive her If you really knew what she was saying to you But I don’t have the time to go explaining to Someone who doesn’t want to see What he means to me In the forest of desire But now we’re in LA and it’s on fire From some lightning strike And I don’t care what you like When it comes to a woman Is it just that she keeps you coming Down the hall And a brick wall Only reflect The dark heart that I suspect To be at the core of you I would have loved you if you’d wanted me to
He thinks he has something to give to me But I’ve been set free And your cocaine soul Is not enough to intoxicate and roll Me up like a cigarette At least, it hasn’t yet And you show your cards to the deck But you don’t see the summer that you wreck When you try to tear me down And rip shreds into my beautiful gown The one I wore to the dance And I’m all about a second chance But forget about a third Because I am a bird And I’ll fly away from here I won’t be tethered to you, dear Not in any of your dreams You can burst all of the seams And it still won’t be enough to take The part of me that I will not forsake You say you’ve been misunderstood And all you’ve ever meant was the good That human beings aspire to But I was there when you Pulled the switch on the phone Called me a bitch and left me alone To face the dragons that breathe Down my neck and seethe With the fumbling weight of time And I never did call you mine Because you always moved from the casing So now I’m intent on erasing All that you were to me Is it enough if I set you free?
They tell us to co-opt And be something we are not Coz I am soft and I am supple And I dream of being part of a couple And they say that white feminism is not intersectional And it is too one directional And I have to agree Because it has never been me But there are parts of it I would pluck Because I still give a fuck About independence and freedom But I would never cede them To another hand And they say to let it go is grand But I stand on my high horse And do so with no remorse Because the beating heart Is something that will always start Within my own And it is not something that I could disown And I imagine myself being taken In the moment love is forsaken And being heavy with child And losing all my wild That blows with me in the wind And the people say it’s the woman who’s sinned When a man commits adultery That you should never let them see your sultry Gaze And there’s cities that they’d raze Because they haven’t met The part of themselves they can’t forget Buried deep within the grass Hidden in a childhood that is part of the past And lost innocence will do that Far more dangerous than an old spinster and her cats But society would have you believe That this burden must be relieved Into the female prone And I just stare at my phone Because I loved him true How could he do this to you? In the name of a just defence I can’t contemplate what it meant Anymore And every open door Was slammed shut in his face Because he is a living disgrace
He bullied me into letting go And I fell into the snow And it was icy cold Can I be brave, can I be bold? And just speak my own truth Reflected through the prism of youth That is growing long But still I believe that strong Comes with age If you do not allow it to turn the page On the fiercest of you If my heart means anything too It will continue to burn a hole Through the veil that hides the soul From the masses And the classes That I aced Were nothing to the glory of his face When it was revealed to me He tried to steal into what it means to me But it cannot be undone Once you’ve seen the sun You cannot unmake it And I would never forsake it Not for a pretty boy That uses females like a toy To play with in the day But in the night it goes away And he is mired in loss and pain And learns to live with the rain That pummels the skin I told him that if he let me in I could make it better And the weather Would pass But our moment didn’t last As he sold me out for someone else And claimed that mental health Is more important than truth My God, life can be such a brute But it will reveal itself to you If you let the web fall through Into the long lost water I am no wife, I am no daughter I am no female set free I am what I’ll always be
The weather brushes aside And I am alive Still, in spite of all the years And the tears Only served to make me stronger But I don’t entertain them any longer And I lost someone who means the most to me But I’ve been consoled he’s been set free Unto the Great Expanse Where all the spirits go to dance When their day is done In the realm beneath the sun We call Earth And the hurt Fails and falls apart Under the power of the heart And he’s always throwing slurs Because he’s afraid of what we were In the old domain And he’s had his share of pain And he takes it out on us The female is no longer a plus One And undone Is the male sovereignty That tries to lay claim to the best of me In the winter months And all of the stunts That they pull Can’t destroy the cotton wool Of being pure It’s the one thing I know for sure
Group think And I feel the power begin to sink Under the waves Look what love gave Us to hold And you can’t tarnish pure gold But I feel the flagellate As I look at others in that state Building a bomb That will explode in the sun And they’re just kids And we’re all His Even the ones with whom we disagree Even the man who’s not down on one knee Professing to you He’s undressing to you But that’s not what you want And the village starts to haunt Every alley I’ve ever walked And you could say that we’ve talked About the summer wine And are doing fine But it’s not that way And sometimes there are no words left to say As I watch it all pull asunder And he has my number But I let the phone go dead Now I’m just rolling in my bed Trying to make it real But there’s nothing that I feel That ever comes close to you Did I see an enemy in you too?
The antelope run like gazelles And it was the birth of hell When I saw Mufasa die Was that the origin of the tear that cry With my eye Or is it evidence of Irish mourning In the din that I’m forlorning To be wonder held And all the shapes meld Into one As I am undone In 2011 By the sound of heaven But it doesn’t last And now it is just part of my past I set sail In a current that cannot fail Not now that I have the wind at my back The man I love I attack For daring to make me trust In something that I know will rust At the first rain And I say “never again” But he knocks at my door And I can’t keep him out anymore So I just let him in And he flashes that grin At me and we Are all one and sundry again And he is the best of men When he was just a boy He broke his golden toy And has searched ever since For a lie that might evince The pain that he feels And film reels Are no substitute For what he cannot play, now it is mute The cellophane wrapper he called home I watch him all alone In her arms And visualise us on our farms Raising a brood And there is no other dude That could tempt Me to preempt Fate once more I get up off the chair and answer the door
The thread unwinds And are we all just out of our minds Running blind Into the wind And the boy grinned At me like it was all okay And somehow it was with him that day Will I find my way back to see The moment of eternity That held itself out in his eyes Deep blue opals that disguise The soul that’s looking through I would love to be with you In any kind of way No broken heart to mend today Just ashen earth clay pots And calling the kettle what I’m not In the morning The sea was storming Until that deathly calm It should have rang some kind of alarm But it didn’t, I just gazed Into a man I would have saved If I had known how Now I just allow You to breach the barrier And I know you wear the weather with her I can see it through the grain As it’s all coming down as rain In a January morning In the winter of 2013 And the dream Is less like shattered glass And more like Gandalf and “You Shall Not Pass” But the goblins from the grave Seem to haunt all of my days In so many ways As I look into the sky And wonder when you too will die
I was too soon to know What I had let go When I was young And the bell rung To signal class had begun And it was all systems go Business as usual so Ms. Earley came into the class How was I to know that day would break the cast That had solidified around me And it beckoned to ground me Into the earth it knew And I was far away from loving you That day But somehow, nothing would get in my way And the ground fell apart as I crumbled The ball was thrown and I fumbled The past How was I to know that day would last And I felt the dark encroach Around the subject that we broach Perched on the edge of a prayer It was the last moment “I” was there As I began to sway and lose consciousness It was as though I undress In front of everyone And the sun That was about to shine Was to say it had always been mine In the subterfuge And I thought that no dude Could ever move me from that place But that was until I saw his face Masked in subtle tones Now we’re staring at each other through our phones As we don’t talk But we walk Every bloody mile of ground Until we hear the sound Of forever in a glance Would you just shut up and dance With me And let my love set you free You know it can I knew it when you took my hand And showed me a handshake that people forget But I haven’t yet Like I swore I would Make good On ever word I uttered Is your bread buttered On both sides Because I am still alive In your heart and soul So put away your begging bowl And look within Lightning struck a second time with him
In the midst of subterfuge I painted my lips a shade of rouge That he had edified From the cavern where my soul died Its first death In the season of regret And folly There’s holly Hanging from the trees But you wouldn’t believe Me if I told you what I saw When the ground started to thaw And winter gave way To something some people say Is only myth But I’m sitting in it And it is open space The kind of dream that lays waste To reality It dealt its cards and folded me On the bay I was laughing at the good of it anyway But anyhow, it was not to be avoided And I surrendered to the void it Brought to bear upon my world I lived and died a young girl At fourteen and eight months And sometimes people can be cunts When they’re talking to you Like you should give up all that you Are And some star Shines over the crib So that I would know it is his And I should kneel But I would’ve known it by the feel Of salvation and the sacred Then he gave me Ken and the aching Started from miles away Because neither of us can stay In these forms And the bodies that the sun warms Will one day fade to ash I know it since before the crash Of all that I had known He was barely even grown When I lost him to the water And I grew up a daughter But will never be a wife I just promised him my life And I don’t take it back Not even when he is on the attack And throwing bricks through the window He asks me do I sin though And I just reply That the ego die On a slab And I couldn’t call that bad
I write about the woven thread It piles upon me as I lay in bed And her unexpected answer rings in my mind As I wonder what’s left behind When she chooses to abandon the earth And I wonder does it hurt To be sky high in the clouds When I talk to her out loud In the silence of my room And the doom Doesn’t reach this place, this far I was just driving in my car When the moon came down to kiss the ground And now I hear it in every sound That ever makes itself known to me The liberation of being set free
You’re sending me a peace of your soul The part where you are whole And united we standing on the same ground I love the sound Of the click and the flash And the button you can’t take back When you hit send There are no notes to amend I love the love I let escape And pierce a hole in your hate You know the one you reserve for self and other The one that knocks down sister and brother Til they’re nothing but failed monuments to the sky And we’re both gonna die Someday But we shouldn’t let that get in the way Of our short lived love in the form Representing something that was never born And holds its strength in the unknown You take the biscuit and my mind is blown Far past the point of wilful abandon And some would say; you’re totally random But there’s method to the madness you see I am not all incoherency But something suited to your prose The way you pick the strings you chose To adorn your guitar My God, I love the way you are
I’m getting the message to where it needs to be Because people drown in a foot of sea Water as it comes up to their throats They don’t know they can stand up and hope floats And seeks eternity in the bones Of the body the soul has made home We tiptoe around the fact It doesn’t help that I want him back In spite of all his flaws And the way the icicle thaws As it hangs like a stalactite From the room I ignite With my Lára flame You know everything is in a name And I am not to be crossed But look, baby, all is not lost Not if you count the shipwreck safe But there’s a coast we can escape To if you just open your eyes But you keep them closed and something dies In the subterfuge And it’s all rouge Everywhere And people who just do not care About what has come to pass And the part of love that last Far past the point of surrender I do everything I can to make you remember But you are lost in your nonchalant As I pick an adequate font To write out your epitaph You know you made me laugh So hard that day But was I laughing at what goes away When the midnight is done And there is a sun That does not need light Or fusion to combust into all that’s right And I know you hobble and I know that spiders’ webs Weave their tendrils above your head I’m just here to be a reminder That if you look you will find her Right where she always was Under the stone of your in-laws
I watch the dagger plunge into her heart When I say I just cannot take part In this game she wants to play What is it that the dragon say If you dare fire, you’ll get burned And I’ve tangoed with the furnace and I’ve learned To never quote the things you say As if they were true anyway Then I watch her eyes go wide As if she has nothing to hide Could it be in innocent prose I have killed the horse I rode To the pasture green As evidenced by the queen By my side But she whispers “you are still alive” As if the fact passes comprehension And I never did get a mention In any of the stories you told “What?”, she says “I put you in bold And in the aforementioned text You never read the part where we had sex” That stops me dead for a moment or two Then I remember I’m dealing with you And you’re a master of manipulation And your education Is like a trophy you wear On your arm but I just tear The fabric of that particular dress But you look at me and I’m a mess Spurning looks and throwing out words As if they’ll ever be heard By anyone in the abyss And she says she’ll miss The way my shy smile came to her like a gift Oceans between us and the great rift
This is not a cry for help It is an exposition Of the Blessed Sacrament Of that which is not caught in the dream And everything that it may seem I find there is a dagger in my heart It catches my breath and I start To breathe shallow and low There are places I do not go Because of how it makes me feel And somehow I cannot deal With his web of lies That he calls a mere disguise Somewhere in the shatterproof glass And as we crash I see the class We used to frequent Die a slow death on what once heaven sent Should I concede in being weak It’s in every syllable he doesn’t speak As he sits beside me on the bus And I thought that I could trust In his effervescent light But the meaning of the word is spelt better than alright As a saviour comes in once I open the door Because I don’t want to feel this way anymore Whether it’s in the halls of Dean Swift Or a look I just received as a gift From the boy next door I can’t explain if you don’t already know, mo stór
The plate clattered to the floor And the one I adore Don’t love me no more But enough of that, dry your tears There’s snot on my sleeve and time gone by in years How did the child in me Grow to be Thirty three It’s almost unfathomable and destiny Calls infintily Go to your husband with the bracelet you wear With the space you hold and the gown you tear As he’s dancing with you And the floor clears for you two As he sweeps you up into his might And you finally say “he’s a bit of alright” And the mystery dances with itself through the night Do you remember when we had that fight You know the massive one on the phone You know when I collapsed and you were alone Despite company Why didn’t you just hang up on me If that’s what you felt Was I the weight or the cards that you dealt On speakerphone? She moves round the kitchen of her home And I resolve to close the window Try as he may I will not let him in though Because of the betrayal And all of the advance that he put up for sale When I paid him cash But you are too close and so now I must dash To the horizon, past the folds of land And I know you don’t want to understand But somehow you do Don’t close that third eye to what’s coming through It will set you free There’s God in this, it isn’t just me Playing pirouette Your silhouette Is stark against the rising sun Wake up,baby, you’re the One
New season, can you accept it with grace And it’s been an age since I’ve seen your face And for all my intuitive understanding I can never reply to what you are demanding In splintered prose And less travelled roads It all gets so tiresome and weary I just want someone to see it clearly And I had thought that you Had peered through The vast abyss or canyon cavern To something more than a tavern With spirits and ale A chalice that is not up for sale I support the columns because should they fall There would be an unholy clatter in the hall Like that time we shattered glass Or broke the branch of class With our own brand of free Now he’s talking to me And it’s like all my dreams have come true In the midst of me and you And absent weight A moment to forget the hate And all that weighs us down We could be the coolest folks in the town Your words, not mine And every crime Has its resolution And the solution Is meeting them where they are Every person, I don’t care who you are Has a star At the core of their being Even though they may not be seeing The light sublime I wouldn’t trade it in if it were mine
I don’t have to wait Just so I can call it fate And find the perfect partner in you There were other men I stared into In my years in the valley And Sally Announced my proclaimation When I met you at the station Where we had docked our phones In our separate spheres of alones And I click high Just so I can say goodbye To a scene I dressed for And I may have called her a whore In my mind Because she chose to find All I had left behind In the wilderness I face Why should I care who you date And it is an adjacent slur And you don’t deserve her When you typify The way you lie To yourself in the grass I know it will not last But I wish you both well From my vantage point in hell Bitter and bubbling from the froth Of all that I am not Then John crosses my sightline And I have to double take the time I spent staring at you I think this guy will do The job you vacated And it was never stated As such But he just loves so much He reminds me of something clear And for a moment I forget you, dear
There was a crash and a bang And then the phone rang To say that he had died And I screamed out and cried And the memory of it sings Like a bullet in my back and things Were never the same after that Because I can’t get his light back As it leaves his shape I watch the soul escape The body I thought I knew And what if I never see you Ever again You were the best of men And you would get that look that would lock Into my gaze and I would take stock Of the moment that we held Like out on the mountain that morning as dawn broke its shell Or the time I took a video recorder And filmed you looking into the border That bridges the place between you and I I was eleven when the sigh Escaped your lips And my own eclipse Began with a swathe of rage I decided not to use a page To document my anguished sobs Because that would be to rob Some of my pain from me And what would be left of our history The one with Ireland on the wall You had cut it out or you walking down the hall In the middle of the night when all was quiet Just a door gently shutting on the riot That cascaded my dreams A grandfather that isn’t all he seems Because he is a whole life away And I’m just starting mine, what do you say That everything will be okay And you love Granny and that day You held a candle as you depart And it nearly breaks my heart Watching her watching you go Why did God make us for this so To love and to say goodbye I don’t mean to always cry When I think of twenty two years ago It’s just I promised that the low Would bring me a high And I feel you in the sky As I gaze into a scene And ask God to wake the dream Up if He possibly could So I walk alone in the wood At the back of our land Until something takes my hand And leads me to a monument That points to the place the person went And how could hell be heaven sent I swear and I eff and blind But it doesn’t bring me respite from the mind That tears me into treachery Look your love is not lost in me It’s just fading into eternity One you will come to know My surrender will not let you go
I wanna take a trip to the states Because when the air escapes From my chest It is the place that knows me best And I found myself in New York City In Brooklyn and no one was with me Until you broke into my dream And told me that the queen Wanted her king back And it is a massive attack To know that the strikes will hit Every girl you call a bitch As she rises to claim her power And I watched the demon shower All the shards on me Til a little girl set me free I ran out of my building half afraid Because the sun was in the shade And she took my hand Asked me to help her cross the sand To the other side because the cars Were passing by like shooting stars And I could only think “you must be an angel” So I stood and paused until the ladle Was full with soup to drink And I took a second to just think And looked left and right Til the coast was clear and white As a ghost I led you across the trail It was Flatbush and it didn’t fail To live up to it’s reputation But as I watch you catch a dream with elation And skip away into the neighbourhood I thought God the Great must be good To send a little precious child To save me from my thoughts so wild That had convinced me I was masked By an evil that was dark Because I reached out my hand to touch And it, damn well, exploded the plug It blew out with a bang And I was scared because my phone rang At the exact moment the die was cast And I reached back into the past To pluck an apple from a tree And now he is one with me In the land of duality To break like waves on the shore And I can’t take it anymore I gotta get outta here But it becomes crystal clear That kundalini is electric And when life gets hectic It slows you to a glacial pace And you drop out of the human race Into something deeper and dynamite I don’t think I’m keeping this thing quiet
I’m long lost and wistful for a guy that I know But he made another choice so I just let go And let him be He could move the sea With that soul of his And God let him live To be my mate I called it fate But it was more than destined to be It was the recognition of eternity In the miles and miles of all the same A grey that only ever places blame Upon the heads of those who die And break the hearts of the ones who try To be more than they’re born to be I didn’t wake just so I could see But set alight in every set of bones The remembrance of home And she ticks the box just so In the realm of lost in snow And there are pebbles and flakes But He died for all of our sakes And so I meet the moment with his vibe As though He is still alive In the smoke and mirrors you see I don’t know who to teach illiteracy When they’re all high on words While I am away with the birds But alight on a tree You could say we got history!
It whispers “go back into your cave” Because there are people to save And I can’t do it being thin Or just kicking the can with him Til my day arises And everything is full of suprises Most of them bad as hell As people wish you well Then stab you in the back Smile right before they attack I gave my heart to her And she shattered everything we were And I won’t go into details but She was the bridge my fever cut Like a knife right through the grass And the man just wants ass To smack so he can be the king He laughed at me so I took a swing And knocked his block right off Then Susanna got a cough And it was open season I ran and ran without reason I got lost in the ocean I swam in a sea of emotion And tried to get away From the grand sway As it unleashes hell on me To be the dragon set free Like some Chinese proclamation As they worship my exclamation Of wonder in the winsome lost I speak because I am the boss
The weight of pain tries to find me again And it would search anywhere it could Find me in that wood Because the great and the good Have no concern For the way the people burn Under the might of empire And the fire Is not something I can put out Under this self doubt As I avoid Catching the eyes of the boys As they try to catch mine But I will not do hard time Trying to be someone’s version of love When I’ve been always been obsessed with above And I can feel the tendrils curl Around the frame of the girl So I abandon her to the ether I will not be woman either I am not somewhere in between I am awake to the dream Where we live in duality And our reality Is conditioned by the thoughts we entertain And the rain Only falls on fields that are green Eyes only open once you’ve seen
The age of fear when dragons rule the roost And I like a button to give my ego a boost And people click on things that resonate The algorithm on your dinner plate And there are people in Africa who find the ore And the metals that make you want more Does Apple pay them their due I’m not trying to slander, I just wonder, do you As in the Congo, the war rages And we flick the screen like flipping pages On a story we don’t want to hear But I feel every single tear You could call it empathy or a burden But how do people know that you’ve heard them If there’s no one there And the forest does care About every single tree Because each one makes up the map of me And we are all brothers and sisters The fire burns and the skin blisters On friends and foes It’s wild country and anything goes Because they have the power And the tower Fell from on high I watched the people die Screaming or in silent registration No one could change that TV station Because it played on the airwaves As firemen saved All they could And it’s written in blood But I try to flood the plain Because I don’t want that to happen again But an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind Is there hope for humankind?
The Poetry Book 