I was the queen of blocking it out Back in 2020 And the streets were empty Are we all suffering from the trauma Of a year and a half of flora and fauna Growing up through the pavements that we don’t walk And it’s only electronically that we talk But somehow I found some kind of telepathy Some community That are united around the pain And it all falls as rain And I was terrified Of the people who have already died In case a list of names might be added To the families already saddened By the might of a hand that swipes across And we count the ones we’ve lost And I remember the first one that was fallen as I stood by her bed And she said That’s just the way it’s gonna be for a while And some people could find a way to smile But I was buried under the timber And now I’m listening to a singer Articulate it so much better than me The weather got wetter but now I see That I was tapped into the collective fear And I quenched it in a place that was not near To home Because I couldn’t be alone I could sense it coming Now everyone is running Away from something smaller than a cell Capable of unleashing hell Now I”m watching Israel bombing Gaza Like we haven’t been through it all together And they’re using Covid suits to protect them from the weather And make nappies for the babies While we’re told that the dragons have rabies And it’s catching kind Some humanity that’s left behind As what divides us conquers And it’s as if those who run the place want us To devour our tail And the part of me that is not up for sale Rails against the storm in the sea I thought I was alone but it was just me
I watch the images of bombed out bars And burnt out cars On city streets And I know that the heat Is born from a fervour deep and true I feel it in me and I see it in you And somehow peace has found a way To hold and that’s the order of the day It’s been 800 years And so many women have cried tears Over lost sons And I could be the one To finally unpeel The way they made our nation feel As they circumscribe the land And say this must be tilled by hand And no more than so many yards I don’t even know how hard It must have been And my dream Has been rocked Like the walls made up by people locked In Connemara by the rule of the day To hell or to Connaught, isn’t that the way And we can bark orders and we can make decrees But that Ireland isn’t me It’s something other It’s living and breathing for your brother And dying with hands crushed together Nowadays we just complain about the weather But the sadness is embedded in the roots Of the great tree that began as shoots From the fertile soil I feel my blood boil When someone talks about English rule The things they taught us in school About how to bend and break And why they did it for our sake And we must be respectful, too Because they are human just like you Then someone utters a word And just like that the bird Of hatred is born Because the fire of fear is still warm And glowing embers Not everyone knows but the heart remembers Even when the mind forgets And it’s not over yet Not till the trauma storm Has made the people realise they warm Their hands on the coals of the past And in some ways people are classed In the stratosphere I feel the time near When we must stand up and be counted Oh, what has it amounted To but this Heaven is in the first kiss
Messy little snowflake having your child I used to be impetuous, I used to be wild Now I just come to dock at the bay And learn to say I love you anyway And the youth of my generation Are estimated to spend less time at the station Getting on trains Or making bodies with bloodstains And there’s a hidden kind of invisible trauma When they encourage you but don’t inform ya Of the onset of pain Flowing from you like cyclical rain To prepare the ground for the seed And half of us will bleed Out what we’ve come to make You say you do it for my sake But do you know what you plant When you call my words a rant That aim to please Til I’m screaming on my knees As I fulfil my function But we’ve come to a sort of junction And you make a hard right In the car and the night Comes to envelop us both And I know that you live to hope In what I offer but I Am not willing to die To bring another soul on the scene That was somebody else’s dream Since I was eighteen I would rather reign as the queen Of my own domain But I hear you ask again For a match to spark a light And you ask someone else, am I right To be your two point five caretaker And I know you didn’t make her But it still feels like force And you living without remorse For your bullet pen But if I had a choice, I’d let you in again
Do I break the lid on categorical pain That seems to be as seasonal as rain And some people walk through a waterfall But they don’t seem to get wet at all And I climbed up mountains and I ran down valleys Befriended enemies and demonized allies But it never got me away From what I quintessentially say And as a baby I cried a lot But what was it that time forgot My first day of school Or when that girl broke the golden rule Watched my reflection in another’s eyes Or felt the pain when somebody dies Like my skin is being ripped from my bones Or the silence when I’m all alone Feels so much like peace When the noise cease And you can’t erase the childhood you own The good, the bad, before the iPhone That we didn’t post Or the narcissism when that person ghost Me over something I didn’t say So I let her walk away Took it out on a guy Who was the answer and the reason why The stars shone like diamonds in his eyes He suddenly lit up the night skies And the river runs deep and true I forgot about loss the moment that you Held my hand, they were all asleep And is it just like a trinket I keep Like so many others And the cloud smothers Me with its love Though I still look above For a being I can’t find I didn’t really go out of my mind I just had to get away And what people say Claws at me But the thaw reaches deep and sets me free From the aching of time A moment, nothing, and then It was mine
The Poetry Book 