Last Commented Ballad Poems (503)

5am.. I take my board
and smell the sky
the tide swims round
the breeze a spell
and says goodbye

the initial hit
of cold and salt
gives way to sound
I think of you
and your eyes of dew
fall on my ground

and all the stuff
we shared and did
just fades to grey
as you become
another girl
that got away

I couldn't stay
too long in town
it's just my way
and you became
the girl
from yesterday

seems I'm cursed
to new strands
and brand new seas
no matter how I try
that word goodbye
still blows the breeze

I guess I'm bad
at being true
I tried and tried
the sea is blue
and filled with tears
from girls who cried

another door
another boat
and another day
and a man who can't
seem to find
the words to stay

for everyone
that I let down
I say a prayer
but I know that life
can be a b*tch
and it ain't fair

the sea is cold
in January
it's cold in May
and you'll always be
the girl from yesterday




.

could a woman love the light
could she'd gladly lease each part
could the angel of our darkness
make a mooring in her heart

could a human heart beat answers
so each vein would never cease
could a good soul stalk it's death
so all death would know no peace

could she tame satanic iron
could she make it turn to rust
could she break him with her subtitles
could she torture him with lust

when time has all but ended
could she be the holy hour
could God who is all knowing
fail to calibrate her power

could a raven haired messiah
all but split the finest line
could every ledger nature fashions
be un-balanced by design

alas his plans revealed
as an architect's unfurl
in a bar inside your soul
sits the devil and the girl

she was tough
(as they come)
in a coat
of pain

she was harder
than diamonds
left out
in the rain

and she smiled
qualified
at how life
slipped away

and she wallowed
in strength
tíl her
final day

no one
knew her
her fame
was too great

so she built
a blood moat
that circled
her fate

sexy as hell
cold
as a stream

her talent
too vast
to thrive
in a team

so let it
all out
you might
as well

the back door
to heaven
is the entry
to hell

so sleep
little bird
but soar
like prayer

and I'll tell
the world
that once
you were here

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 sit transfixed as thought it flies
to see warmth twice inside her eyes
a carraige full of moving breath
some bound for life some bound for death

the train arrives and brakes do bite
and all else there is prop and light
a flicker of wind... a dash of rain
I see her breath on the window pane

she gets her things and does a check
a silk scarf hides a graceful neck
her lipstick stains my white starched shirt
to me a mark I had from birth

some hearts will always poets be
I taste her breath and know, not me

not me

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

I..
once had a girl
or should I say
I once had three

blonde, brunette
and red
one crazy night
took me to bed

they told me
they worked
in the city
and started to laugh

I told them
that I was
quite willing
but had torn a calf

I..
bided my time
drinking their beer
then they drank mine

and when
I did awoke..
I ran out the door
back to the shore

she looks at me, mid pub, and asks
in a way, rhetorical
as if she knows something
I don't and will never

"why do you live on a boat?"

for the sounds of raindrops
above my sleeping head
for my conversation with dawn
always the same woman
uniquely dressed

for ebb for flow for light
light such as it is
it informs, comforts, and listens
for breeze, whiped

for a wild mirror
pitched at an angle
past me
to show truth

for the lone swan
whose visits mean more
to me than it

for the years that should have taken
yet didn't.

for the woman I'll know I'll meet
who speaks in the dialect
of unaware kindness
dresses in the clothes of realism
and sings in the key of smiling

for ropes for knots
bowline
single sheet bends
carrick bends
reef
anchor hitch

arteries around
this chamber of peace