I’ve somehow always known this feeling And it left me reeling When you told me that I was crazy And it didn’t faze me But I decided to get a second opinion So I fled to the city Let them assess every little bit of me And admit me to Stella Ward It was as though someone crucified the bird That had been singing within me And they try to begin me With a meal of chicken and gruel And I walked into a room, the floor smelt like school I dunno if it was the plastic floor Or the way they paint the exit door But it just reminded me of being three And terrified of what they had in store for me And as the years advanced I learned that I don’t have to dance If I don’t want to But I was always compelled by you To act as the role provides It’s as though I’m not even alive But just a cartoon cutout or a silhouette And somehow I have managed not to forget Just who I am All these years under the plan That aims to rob us of humanity And it did its best to take it from me With pills and booze With the winning and the knowing how to lose Somehow in the middle of the sea I realised it wasn’t for me And that there is another way to live That I could forgive All that had been done In my name by everyone And I just watch on a screen How the children scream And cry over a parent murdered from the sky Unprepared and forced to die To depart the form Now babies clutch bodies no longer warm And the saltwater flows from their eyes While we just say, my, how time flies As we get old and grey And pray That we’ll have a safe departure In Gaza they mourn the martyr Under a mountain of rubble We have known the same trouble On our island It’s on file and Making someone rich somewhere As they wonder do we care About the force of might And like every candlelight The dark departs When it sees what is burning in your heart I see a kind of constant flame Just whisper it when they call your name And as you step to the stage Let love be your kind of rage
He makes me feel brand new And I’m not thinking of him when I’m talking to you And I don’t know who I wrote this about But no longer mired in self doubt I listen to the angels that speak their tome Into my brain when I’m all alone And I told the psychiatrist that I hear voices It’s not like he gave me many choices It’s psychosis or on the brink Of letting the whole thing sink And so I drink the potion he’s dying to sell And all the people they call unwell And I know it’s nicer than crazy And it doesn’t faze me It just feels clinical and watered down And when you want to drown Telling people that the sea Is rising up to meet me In the great valley I am And someone mentions a care plan That I refuse to read They take my blood and I bleed Out into several jars And I wonder if the stars Had this in mind When they told me I would not be left behind By the might of weighted thunder Some people say I’m just a number And don’t know what to do But do you want to rock it with us, do you And I lose the rag And the man tries to brag But it falls flat As I wonder what the hell is he at I realise only too late He was trying to impress me into a date Or a roll in the sheets Was it predestined that we meet Or was it organised And something within never dies No matter what they put you through Telling you it’s for the good too As they lie to your face But they lie to themselves too and it’s a waste As the Barbie dream house claims one more doll Was I wrong to answer the call?
The darkest shame is that I followed the clues That I thought would lead me to you And there were blue chalked streets and bears They say the fabric of my sanity tears When I believe in secret tomes And become one who roams The avenues of misty eyed tears As the date nears And I cannot bear the truth So I pulverise my own youth By putting myself in their hands Now after slipping sands Have run the hourglass down I still feel like I want to drown Some where in all this emotion It’s as though the road is an ocean I cannot climb into And it becomes a sprint to The door And I couldn’t have loved them more But somehow I feel the wilderness in my bones And I refuse to answer my two phones When they call out to me And I could’ve missed our history In the avenue I let bleed Because I know you need Who I used to be But its just that they have destroyed me In their attempts to keep the dark away I just lay in the bay And it was not San Francisco Or some kind of cool fuckin’ disco It was like being drawn on a string So he could live on everything He ever thought he was And I take the hit because I want him to be sky high And not afraid to die A death on the floor I just want to prove I love him more
I delved into the dark of night And somehow I came out alright Like that bright blue rose I wandered the streets and I chose Life over death But I cannot forget The things I saw And I blame everything on the great thaw And I took a comic worth 50 cent Out of a box and away I went But I felt bad and I repaid The charity for my shade And you can say it was poor mental health But I still felt the cards were dealt Harshly and I take a couple hundred euro And leave it in an envelope to secure ya In my attempt at redemption I actually never told the priest at the intervention But it was because I had forgotten And because I sensed I was not well gotten By that particular son of Christ So I said what I could splice And took my shit and ran And the only place that can Fail to make a demon of me Is the place where the hellish ghouls were set free And they came to devour what they could I swore that they wanted blood And the psychiatrist said it was just my mind And that sanity was only something I could find In pills and therapy But the silence gets the best of me When I sit across from a nurse Asking me how it might have hurt And all I can think is that his eyes are oceans And they convey seafaring waves of emotion And if he was a colour it would be green Like the t-shirt he wears and all we could have been If only he had been single And I had been coherent enough to mingle But I take the easy route As my lover plays the flute Somewhere far away and I see That it’s only cloaking the mystery To realise That even the beautiful dies When faced with its own fragility I let them wound the hurt in me
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
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
Firefights in the snow And I just thought you should know That I will never be anything like you I know it’s not coz you wanted me to That you crushed the flower that you build Draw juice from it until it wilt And you can say that it’s bloom has faded Like you say I am bitter and jaded At thirty three Watching all the life just leave me Like a slow boat to China You shouldn’t let it define ya And they had me in hell For a secret I’ll never tell I hid out in the activity room Anything to get away from their bells of doom And I felt like it was rape To trap me somewhere I cannot escape Without my consent And I don’t know where it went But my fire failed me Aries in my blood almost derailed me As Kathy tries to talk me down But that ship has sailed three times around The sea you’re facing And it’s defacing The walls I know To paint on them but I had to show Something to the prisoners of war It’s not only them that this is for But for legions of youth growing up You could call it redemptive love
Taking aim at modern psychiatry Because it just seems to get the best of me As they say I’m not well I can only tell Them the truth That in my youth The darkness came to kiss The reason I exist And for a season or two I wondered if I would follow you Down into the abyss And I make a fist But I strike air Because the enemy was never there Only a foe in sheep’s clothing The nurse had a way of knowing I was just making shapes And so the girl escapes From Stella ward again It is full of older women And I cannot bear to sit in the common room And reminisce about the edge of doom While the TV plays a tune And the ladies said I brought some calm And some kindness to their alarm As I moved soft and serene Between the edges of the dream And it was a nightmare for some But I do not succumb And I talk to Francis in Special Care He says there is a reason he is there And I don’t need to worry And the hurry I’m in can quiet Does he not see the riot In the minds of his charges A whitelighter at the marches As they step in line for freedom But do you let them know you can see them When you let them down easy I was so breezy But do I let it go at thirty three Or do I stand up for the best of me In the subterfuge I was the refuge For a sea of souls In the realm that grows old Slowly by degree You can put your faith in me
The Poetry Book 