Last Edited Allegory Poems (62)

Mix your thoughts
All jumbled up
Life's body grows from seed to dust
From youth to adults we gather are thoughts
Who are we why we here where we going we do not know
On are sole journey
Full of life highs and lows
We battle are thoughts
Are dreams are thoughts
On are journey are independent life

pause and feel it
so familier
yet you've never
seen it
with your eyes

a kind of innocent
expression
something naive
something wise

I wish I knew what you were
searching for
something shimmering and right
a favour granted by your yearning
the place you grow to
from demise

the days are listing into evening
before the sun has kissed your skin
If you were oceans on a dance floor
I wouldnt wait to jump right in

pause and feel it
without feeling
rather be it
and move on

you won't know it
when you taste it
you'll only know it
when it's gone

a kind of dreaming
way of singing
superimposed
over thought

a commodified
returning rainfall
that can't be trapped
nor sold
or bought

I wish I knew what you were
looking for
something shimmering
and light
something hewn from endless endings
something spoken
in goodnight

If I could hold
the quill of truth
over the page
of unfolding story

and hold it still
and let the page itself
write the words
of your defining glory

if I could see
the candle
that lights the table
beside your bed

and see that light
in constant fight
against the dousing
tears you shed

but bitter winds
comb the sands
of the fragile breath
that you release

and war minds wait
in the long grass
as foil
against your peace

If I could read your name
in vast retreating sea
and follow the tides
in a raft made
from the bones
of you and me

I would pray
with actions
outside the gate
off all you hold.. most true

and guard from devils
and unworthy men
the very thing
that makes you 'you'

all was the same
on strawberry hill
the city looked up
at those walking down
and tethered boats
traced the breath of cloud

all was the same
on strawberry hill
shadows hid in the corners
of old masonry
at the stroke of 1
figures emerged
in search of bread
and milk

all was the same
on strawberry hill
the clock face
pointed out degrees
and starlings were
spilt iron filings
on the paper sky

all was the same
on strawberry hill
save bracken was cleared
from the boreen of thought
and you wore new
the ring
my labours bought

drank whisky
from a bellybutton
after hours in a bar
heard the sound
of my breathing
through the lungs
of your guitar

heard a seagull
sing the blues
from the deck
of a fishing boat
heard Mississippi
for the first time
thought that is all she wrote

heard tampa sing
"it hurts me too"
on a road to NYC
heard a lover say "I do" in church
then spent the night with me

and lightnings
just a broken string
on horizon's air guitar
cloudy lyrics
fall as rain
through the windscreen
of my car

there's always a new town
a new girl and you
you're trying hard
to unpick life
tangled up in blue

I was níneteen years old
when I set foot
in Brooklyn
with a head full of money
and a heart full of dreams

irish as green
broadshouldered and happy
I had two million thoughts
and two million schemes

"Take your time" said my Da
your game but your restless
not everyone out there
thinks like you do

for some
they would shoot you
for the brogues on your feet
or the claddagh you got
from your mother

so take it easy and lightly
and think like your happy
and the world is your own
and the good things are free

at the time uncle Finbarr
was a cop in new Jersey
my father.. much younger
looked after his Ma

when an email from America
said "send the lad over"
and my da looked at me
and the both of us smiled

for i spent my life working
the nightclubs of Dublin
for a few college women
and a few pints of gold

"so maybe you can learn
the true cost of living
see some of life
and maybe help me"

so I landed in Kennedy
with my big Irish head
holding a smile
and humming a tune

when my breath it was taken
by a big yellow taxi
and a stunning young woman
whose eyes were like June

the cafe was closing
and the air was darker
than age
Mary was fixing
her order
and her world
had become
like a cage


will you still see me
on Sunday?
will you wear that dress
and look nice..?
but you know
that a question
ain't a question
when you
got to ask it twice..

and the sparrows
still play
in the cornfields
where we used
to make love
and you'd sing..

ain't it funny
how something
is nothing
when nothing
was once everything?

I drove down there
around midnight
past farms
that seemed
to be free

but I knew
one day
that I'd buy one
and that
would be the end
of me

talk of music
and college
of dance halls
lawyers and gown
but it's hard
to dance with a roughneck
when a banker's hand
owns town


she was getting tired
of me
my work, my car
and my dark
and I looked to the heavens
for answers
and saw nothing but stars
and a lark

"I heard she married a doctor"
my friend Dave
did say
later on

and I smiled
like it meant
nothing to me
and got sick
when I knew
he was gone

now the sparrows still sing
in the cornfields
neath the mountains
where she
used to sing

aint it funny
how something
is nothing
when nothing
was once everything

and her car, her car
is a dream.

Should I drop U a note
naturally again l am eating alone
waiting on a bowl of gumbo.
Ur a no-show
likely doing the three famous maestros
Larry, Curly and I hope
U choke
on Moe.
I'm sorry but feeling pretty low
losing my Piedmont pillow.
I remember U long ago
U tried to corner the market playing the blues on a banjo
Made sense nobody knows
Maybe since lock in cellar sits a dusty jazz piano
Then Lock jaw denied U fame and fortune blowing the piccolo
always known for Ur solos
this was before wearing out Ur welcome on the cello,
Started as a joke
writings odes
to The Twilight Zone
staring the fallen saint, Billie Joe
who had an episode
when she lost her halo
when rain turned to snow
It slipped from her dome
while dipping her bent toe
into the dark cosmos
but caught the eye of fire breathing hippo
in mid-pounce on a giant translucent minnow
So the story goes
like a Viking's fine paid thru the nose.
Plunging halo
now traveling at speed of light heads for ground zero
was caught on film in slow mo
oddly snatched up by a swooping sparrow,
but dropped like a dirty ho
on seeing a dancing scarecrow
doing the tango
with a Hispanic gringo.
Never scare off any crows
Each of them having a mind of their own
Scavengers are at home
grilling up some squirming lizard toads.
on the sun baked roads,
like on US 95 thru Mosco
not in Russia but Idaho
and yet the halo continued to roll
for years through God only knows
til it finally landed in Chicago
on the Antiques Roadshow
shown off by an old crone
or St Joe incognito
with big nose
who lived alone
making a cameo
drooled over its host
a fat sweaty fellow
who smelled like pork roast
sampled his ear lobe
on toast
out doing Van Gogh
Anyway my hat off to poor bloke,
with necklace yoke
now a foot off the flo,
at end of his rope,
swinging low
to tune of Desperado
fading in and out on solid state radio.
Once again The Silent Landline Telephone
takes another mofo.
dreams he gives up the ghost
but wakes up surfing down an ice flow
in hills of Glasgow
tripping too much Gingko
staring past where horizon aglow
but alas seeing nothing that doesnt show

when I tamed rage
and tried anew
a road emerged
that led to you

when I quit work
and made a career
I fed with tune
my starving ear

when darkness fell
about my boot
I shed the cloak
that hid the truth

when I buried hate
and then forgave
a poem grew
around the grave

I was mending a hull
'neath the crying gull
when the call
came down the line
my dad had gone
his time had come
and a world of hurt
was mine

left my girl
to anger swirl
told her "needed space"
but I was dust
not even lust
could the hurtin'
I replace

time dragged on
when I was gone
my love
I failed to warn her
about the rendezvous
I shared with you
in a pub
on poet's corner

"I'm the ghost
of every girl you've loved"
your spectre
said to me
I'll haunt your mind
till you go blind
and then
I'll let you be

"and the bird
that nested
in the eve
fed its young
in Byron's sleeve
in the pub
on poet's corner"

so every night
my daily fight
is a scramble
to emerge
strong and well
from the bowels of hell
where dark
and madness merge

where music
from the walls
is bled
by DJ Jazzy
and a girl called Red

"and the bird
that nested in the eve
told me that
I'd never leave
the pub
on poet's corner"