fish

an empty bag of crisps
a poem about you
me
the whole damn universe

and
fish
they have
feelings
too

the dog at the table
a man in a suit
selling
selling
sold

a life without meaning
and dreams that
lead back to
hurt

they talk about nothing
but beauty is a
killer is a slut
while brains
mashed and
governments
clamp loud mouths
shut

the end of another week

I hear the sadness in my mother's voice
I try and avoid it to confront it with
second-rate observational comedy
like all of us shitmunchers do

fuck take me to Malta or somewhere
and let me burn in the heat by a
restaurant with fake tourist bullshit
to turn the stomach

it's simply the end of another week
in a hell we wholeheartedly created
to keep the fire away and anything
that matters

isn't it a pity

the child laughing still
a photo of George Harrison
a photo of my nephew
the love we look upon
like Jesus on the cross

still

the gift you gave none
the moment passed, a memory
of sacrifice and kindness
what
novel scene, a playground,
tough, lesson
few words you can't forget

a movie star, a pop star,
a window to a world,
the photo of my beloved
in a field of red poppy
I crushed in my pocket
along with a Virgin
Mary miracle
reminder,
coins and fragmented
dreams, bursting fantasies,
the photo of my nephew
laughing, such a pity,
pity

the baby

the baby pops
through
mummy, daddy I dream
to be 100% like
you and perform
righteous
acts. I'll follow the
way to the golden door.
the baby walks over
to the chair, this is
my destiny, sits,
it is nine o'clock
so the baby starts
typing. friendship
is an expression.
the bottle does the
talking, son, the bottle
is a religion.
and the
eyes will tell you all
Picasso I've
seen the waking
nightmares of genius.
that is not a block
of stone. that is your
living.
the baby cradles a
rat in the gutter.
pets it. loves it.
feeds it. the rat
has an answer. belief
is overrated.
stroked
and cuddled.
trapped.

at the kitchen table

you were wise to the ways

reading at the kitchen table,

I watched you with love

Nicu, ‘twas your birthday

and I remembered your passion

smiling as the Communists lost

paunescu

the poet looks in the mirror;
he sees a face, the face of a memory
lays it down in rhyme without
caricature;
he goes back to it, the same
wordless, meaningless journeys
that end, they kid you
not;
there he was writing
in bed, one last poem
for the comrade
indoors.

belonging

I opened the drawer and saw a well organised pile of the books I read as a child along with my earliest school notebooks. These, I imagined, my grandfather or grandmother had carefully kept. I take the books and notebooks and flick through them, drawings and words and perfect handwriting. I remember reading or being read to in my bedroom. I also remember lots of homework and having to do it perfectly. And after all the years of schooling and work and my parents' divorce and getting married and writing books and the stresses and strains of day to day living these books and notebooks in perfect condition remind me of where I began. I take some time over them, truly glad that we are reacquainted, then arrange them back, exactly as I found them, because that's where they belong, even if I am not there by their side.