WORDS
As If It Were A Choice
Birdsong fills the fading darkness
she sits, hunkered by the sea wall
deflecting the cold steal air
arms wrapped around her
lungs, breathing steady
waiting for the bus
the bus comes
suits, sunglasses, a soft slumbering hum
At the airport she walks head down
slow and steady wins the race
on the other side
everything falls neatly into place
the other couple from the plane
waiting for taxis
taxis came
suburban Manchester passes by
neat and soulless outside
but it's ok, I wont bore you
with the details of the day
like the Antichrist
with the rosary beads
- the hole Irish cliche-
as she waits in line
still lost in the great debate
somewhere between
self doubt and self hate
And all the lives
that come to balance
on her fiction
as she tries to decipher
the lines of her metal
as her courage breaks in two....
it's ok, I wont bore you
With the pain this country makes her bear
as it brushes her under the carpet of water
between here and 'over there'
or those first tiny fists
full of grief
that she buries
in the grape sized grave in her gut
... an emptiness
that could fill eternity
it's ok - we wont talk about that
because it's not pretty
anyway, she's got work on Tuesday
for minimum wage, to pay the rent
she plays the part of woman as Goddess -
the irony of art and dressing up
in other women's clothes
but it's a job I guess
to be self reliant and move on
in a way where no one gets hurt right?
I mean hey, this is
Life -
and the great taboo
of being a victim
of your own circumstance
but folks, here's the rub
it's not the holy church
or men of state that get pregnant
- it is us
Women
sisters, mothers, daughters, friends
so why do we let them steal our voices still
and send Romantic Ireland's Children
'cross the water
as if it were a choice
like black and white
right or wrong
the truth is there are 3,000 some reasons
and the truth is the shame can not go on.
20 years ago we legislated for X, so why
did Savita Hallipanavar have to die?
Why, under the gaze of the virgin mother herself
did Anne Lovette but a child
suffer alone in labor and alone in death?
Why, do we bury our heads in the laps of our abusers
and let them take us down from behind closed doors?
Enough! I say, Enough of this war on women
and if your too pious to listen
to a woman's right to life
or her decison to end the term
of what would be a still born child
or to hope for a home, money or time enough
to raise a child alone
then you have the right not to listen
to a woman at a time of crisis
You do not have the right
to deny a womans right to her own life choices
and I'm sorry if you find this all to much to hear
and she's sorry that she wasn't strong enough
to choose love over fear
and it's true, abortion is a sad and unholy mess -
that in Ireland it's still a crime for a woman to decide
what she believes is best.
Time to stop the legacy of secrecy and shame
handed down from generation to generation
from the horror of a Maggie's incarceration
to the continued perpetuation of the crime
Time to let women decide
Time to remove the yoke of church from state,
Give women autonomy over their own bodies
over their own fate
Time to Repeal the 8th.
Faith is a Beautiful Bird
From the city that gives birth to blues hero queers
who die to young, when the heart gives in
another one flies too soon,
too soon too young,
another good man gone.
Let me tell the story
of how we love to sit
in the evenings
listening to birdsong jazz
float free over rooftops
and all the years in between
you,me,here,Galway,Dublin
Manhattan, Berlin.
Those nights we learned to sing
The ghosts of the old Chelsea alive again
Those first late night words
etched on carton coasters,
Indigo skylines over Eden
first chords set to feeling
of how it was to love so freely
to burn so fiercely
that we would descend
through the nights wild heat
on fire, obliterate on impact
crash into desert sands
without warning, from blackbirds
on billboard signs, neon blind
to the static of city streets,
while all around us sirens screeched.
You, alone with a gun.
Those nights we couldn't sleep
for the love soaked sheets in the attic
wild beasts on the run
wild beasts with this desire
wild beasts with this alone
for an arched back
an ecstasy soft as that morning rose.
Where you knew exactly where I'd been and back
those losses cut loose from the deepest pit in me
the half prayed poems come to light
the ash of drift wood and cigarette smoke
and long distance phone calls, where nothing real
or of any importance was ever really spoke
living on the heat of my rages
on scraps, on pages
in my vain attempts at this
Love to reveal itself
Love to redeem the self
And I would fall a thousand times
to meet you here
and trace the weave of time
through your hair
or crooked cowboy smile,
the one that sets song birds free at night
Chasing untamed dreams across the sky
And there I'd let you roam, I'd swear
I'd tie a peacocks feather to your mane
and in the morning slap your hide and say
go ! Be free again
follow that diamond heart of your's
the one that wakes dreamers from their sleep
as if I had nothing to loose
and no wish to keep
but I am not ready yet
for deaths mysterious graces
I have too much to change into
to become
I am an inscet in a garden full of wild orchids
where worker bees sex the apples that I eat
sometimes I refuse to be anything other than i am
willful and destructive
let the mountain come I say
I am the mountain
and so it began
life outside of the self
as if nothing but a dream
and nothing is hopeless it is said
so I gave myself up to
the carbon in my bones
and with them morning sun rose
and headed off down the lost highway
Wondering from where did this life come?
What vessel? what seed?
Questions rooted themselves
in the wombs of ancient trees
from between who's branches spun
the designs of our creation
Deeper yet the roots reached out
the seeds of love
the years of doubt.
Oh foolish saplings! we filled lungs
full to bursting with songs
full of each other then
it was easy as the sun coming up
lovers waltzed in next door rooms
while pagan poets sat and looked out windows
as the snow fell
studying the lines and forms of those they loved
the blueprints of the dream itself
those first delicate filaments
spun between the worlds
where our bodies learned the letters
and our mouths kissed the source
and again and again we'd sing
sister to brother
rogues to witches
witches to lovers and
everything in between
the heat of your hands on my body
those nights you gathered me in
from the corner I had painted myself in
and let me lie there on your chest
the place where weary pilgrims
come to rest
and knit me together
in the form of a love song
where old souls meet
at the brimming of the day
sending prayers like feathers
over skylines of indigo eden
yes,faith is a beautiful bird my friend -
destiny , desires secret source in the in the end.
yes fate is a beautiful bird my friend
destiny desires secret source the end.