LOVE POEM FROM BONMAHON God in his heaven never bettered this; Never hit perfection more square-on. Rugged cliffs lip the strand, Opening to fields behind, The Atlantic, white-layered, Sweeping int…

Source: LOVE POEM FROM BONMAHON

Merry Xmas

 

POEM FOR MY FATHER

 

 

 

 

THE NIGHT THE MUSIC DIED

 

He lay in the box quite comfortably

His waxen face staring into infinity

Looking much better in death

Than he ever had in life.

It was all that I could do to peer

At him through slatted fingers

From the back of the room;

The ever-present smell of tanning

And leather aprons absent now;

More than forty seeping years of it

Scrubbed away one last time

 

His moped – a natural progression from pedal power

When his legs gave out –

Lay discarded in the coal shed

At the back of the house.

(No driver you see, and mother still had the shopping to do)

He dug turf, cut down young Sally trees,

And turned over his bit of stony ground endlessly.

In summer he clipped sheep slowly

With a machine bought by post from Clerys,

Carefully stowing it away in its box

When the shearing was done.

 

The clay pipes he sucked on – their broken stems

Held together with blood pricked from his thumb –

Were redundant now

And his three bottles of Sunday-night Guinness

Would stand corked under the counter evermore.

Who would dance half-sets with her now?

My mother enquired of no one in particular,

The smoky saloon bar stunned that the music had felled him

Knocked him to the floor in the middle of the tune.

He lay there with a smile on his face

Knowing it was over

And I never got to know what was on his mind.

 

We put him in the ground

And sadness trickled through me

Like a handful of sand through my fingers.

Later, everyone stood around

Eating sparse ham sandwiches

While I stood there, dry-eyed;

He was a great man they all said

Slapping the back of my overcoat;

Sure he gave forty years to that tannery

 

And what did it give him?

I wanted to shout to the throng;

A gold watch and a tin tray

And both had his name spelled wrong

 

 

 

 

THERE WAS A TIME…

 

There was a time which was                                                                                                 Much better lived than told                                                                                       There was a time we were much younger then                                                         And growing up held  more sway than growing old                                              And then one day all that growing was done                                                          And the long slide down that                                                                          Imaginary hill had begun…

I’ve slid, lost my hat, what’s worse, I’ve gotten fat,                                                But if, at the end of it all, I could choose,
I’d say it’s been a good slide; I’d go again-
Through every bump and cut and bruise.
And I still reminisce now, of life back then.

 

HEMINGWAY’S HEAD

 

You know, I always thought Hemingway

Had a Romanian head on him.

Well, it had that bloated look to it,

And Romanian heads always

Look a bit soggy, I think;

And Hemingway had that in spades.

‘Course it might also be the drink

He could never pass a bar, could he?

Or it might be that time he landed on his head

In those two helicopter crashes he had

One after the other, the same day I think.

Split his skull open, they say

Exposed his innards to those African parasites;

Who knows what damage they did?

Rampaging around his grey matter.

Times like that tend to make you feel

That life’s a real bitch.

He never said much about it afterwards

Though that twinkle in his eye

Began to look more and more like a twitch.

In Hastings town I met a man

Who said he loved the Klu Klux Klan

But then he loved Lord Sutch as well

And now he’s dousing fires in hell!

LAST BREXIT TO ASYLIUM

There are no free lunches anymore

But there are food-banks galore

The last brexit to Asylium

Is the first exit on the right

Or maybe it’s the left

But it is well known that the left are bereft

Of ideas that are pure

And ideologies that can cure

The cultural emulsification

Of a once sane nation

Hear them all wailing in Christendom

Let’s have another referendun-drum

 

 

THANKSGIVING PRAYER by William Burroughs

“To John  Dillinger and hope he is still alive.
Thanksgiving Day November 28 1986”

Thanks for the wild turkey and
the passenger pigeons, destined
to be shat out through wholesome
American guts.

Thanks for a continent to despoil                                                                                                              and poison.

Thanks for Indians to provide a
modicum of challenge and
danger.

Thanks for vast herds of bison to
kill and skin leaving the
carcasses to rot.

Thanks for bounties on wolves
and coyotes.

Thanks for the American dream,
To vulgarize and to falsify until
the bare lies shine through.

Thanks for the KKK.

For nigger-killin’ lawmen,
feelin’ their notches.

For decent church-goin’ women,
with their mean, pinched, bitter,
evil faces.

Thanks for “Kill a Queer for
Christ” stickers.

Thanks for laboratory AIDS.

Thanks for Prohibition and the
war against drugs.

Thanks for a country where
nobody’s allowed to mind their
own business.

Thanks for a nation of finks.

Yes, thanks for all the
memories– all right let’s see
your arms!

You always were a headache and
you always were a bore.

Thanks for the last and greatest
betrayal of the last and greatest
of human dreams.

 

 

THE WAY WE WERE

The picture house is full of it tonight;

‘A TEAR JERKER…THE WAY WE WERE.

See that old woman?

She has three carrier bags of it

To comfort her in her doorway.

Belfast Johnny has two bottles

Of it in his greatcoat pocket

And eight shiny photos of it

Bridging the gaps in his shoes.

The preacher ladles out doses of it

With hot soup.

Georgie Best,

Rock-n-Roll, wedding vows,

They are all part of it.

The past follows you around:

Like a faithful old dog

It never leaves your side.

 

I Have Not Lingered In European Monsteries from “The Spice-Box of Earth”

I Have Not Lingered In European Monosteries
and discovered among the tall grasses tombs of knights
who fell as beautifully as their ballads tell;
I have not parted the grasses
or purposefully left them thatched.

I have not held my breath
so that I might hear the breathing of God
or tamed my heartbeat with an exercise,
or starved for visions.
Although I have watched him often
I have not become the heron,
leaving my body on the shore,
and I have not become the luminous trout,
leaving my body in the air.

I have not worshipped wounds and relics,
or combs of iron,
or bodies wrapped and burnt in scrolls.

I have not been unhappy for ten thousands years.
During the day I laugh and during the night I sleep.
My favourite cooks prepare my meals,
my body cleans and repairs itself,
and all my work goes well.                                                                                                                              Leonard Cohen