An Earnest Engagement
- And the second of the day…
An Earnest Engagement
Two ticks ticked on the deed poll.
It was a riot, my darling,
but I cannot justify our proximity
in your unwieldy or unspoken terms.
The simplicity of the logistics of our
carefree entanglement
was entirely at odds
with the lub dub of my own ticker
- which told me to wrap her
up – and the erstwhile yearn
which now yawns into
the tarpaulin of a sleep gallows.
Bring forth the hurtler;
the hurtler. To go through your
ticker, and make it click or flicker
with loud and lofted language,
such brusque brush off the crisp cuff
of her sleeves, both of them,
which lie over there, very well,
that would be a fine thing.
Unrequited Love, Muddled, College Style
Unrequited Love, Muddled, College Style
“Oh, I just remembered!” His eyes light up with something recovered from deep within his memories of last night. “You scored that blonde chick, pretty fucking hot.”
“Yeah. I’m an absolute legend.” This really is the kind of thing that lads say to each other. However, these conversations operate on different levels. There’s what is said and then there’s the unsaid. The unsaid is something else entirely.
“We were very drunk last night, Dionysus filled our hearts. I saw you with that beautiful blonde girl. What are your feelings on that matter?” He notices my gaze fall towards the ground before I answer.
“That beautiful blonde girl was Herself, the one who has been the primary object of my humble desires ever since the first time that my eyes met hers. Who ever loved that loved not at first sight? I had almost left those seemingly unrequited feelings behind me, looking at pastures new. But then, of course, Dionysus stirred and Apollo saw our lips meet.” He understands and nods.
“Do not fall in love with me, for I am falser than vows made in wine. Alcohol, my friend, makes the lady loose, and of course you can only wonder if there is anything real behind the encounter. I know you too well; you are not going to try to find out. You are emotionally introverted, unable to take affirmative action. You are scared of what you would hear. You’ll write something obtuse about it and wait in hope for the day that she reads it and realises that it was you she loved the whole time.”
That is basically what is unsaid, lying directly underneath what is actually said.
Dalkey, Northbound
- I am embarking upon a ‘poetry month,’ or that’s what I’m calling it. I posted my first poem of the month yesterday, and I want to post one a day for the entire month of June. This obviously means I will be posting consistently, unrefined verse, and a lot of it will be rubbish that I’ll work on further in the future. So this is number two.
Dalkey, Northbound
It clicks heavily but steadily
and just as this murky holy water
offers to protect me,
the carriage physically shelters me
from a raw, wet gale
that would not fill but
tear away the vast sails
of the proudest colonial tale
but we clock clicks at a clip clop
only for, astride God’s cliffs,
a lonely and momentary stop,
when all I can hear is the violence of the sea.
Love’s Theme or, The Jar or, Sisyphus
“Small Paddy.”
“Water?”
“Small drop.”
Two glasses. Seared like a pan of cider on a high heat. Necked by a large grey stone with a drinking hole and a separate mouth to create noise, permanent distraction from the permanent slurp. An old grey stone digeridoo that drank gold and spouted shite from the ropes until blown over them and it all stops.
“Do you see you there, I can tell you’re a man after me own heart.”
And he’d collapse on the bar and shout holy jaysus mother. He would. No luck yet, he’s only searing. And the pints were two, and the pints were too big for her hands. And I winked with one eye as I winked with the other, and said it’d be alright because there were two of us and two pints and that I’d get the next ones, which meant that there’d of course be next ones. And in this dark you wouldn’t know what could happen if that pink little cheek came near me. I’d bite it off in sweet love, like a maniacal butterfly, and there’d be nothing left and it’d be mine forever. I’d eat it up, or put it in a jar and admire it when I was old and searing cider in a pan for Dave and me, or just for Dave because I’d hardly get that far. He’s eighty but he’s going up, and I’m a quarter that and I’m going off, by the look of me.
Six pints of cider at the table and now I have Arthur in front of me telling me I never was such a bold boy as when I was sober. I’m more calculated then he says, like a sober calculator, and he doesn’t trust technology. It might be Arthur’s influence but I swear I’m sitting across from several women all staring at me in mild disgust and I blink and they’re gone so I decide to go home but not before a -
“Small Paddy.”
“Water?”
“A drop.”
- and a pint for the road. One for me and one for herself there with the small hands that’d fit in mine so well if only they reached across the table. Sure, to have it that way she’d need fierce long arms and the hands wouldn’t look so well. Imagine the hand of a child on the arms of a tall man, no, not at all at all. That would be too much. We’ll leave it there because he tells a story or a song, and that is about a young woman stricken by a suspicious growth on her wireless internet box. Her service provider tells her that it is nothing to worry about. It is fine madam, nothing to worry about. I know, I know it doesn’t seem like anything to worry about but there’s one on the back of the screen now. Is it a flat screen? Yes. Well there you go, that’s normal madam. But no, you don’t know, there’s one on the return key, and I think some of the other keys are springing up. Okay madam, just relax, we’ll send somebody out within three to five days, and they’ll have a look at it all. And a man arrived the next week and he found dark little lumps all over her body and her fingers stuck in her ears and her curled into a ball and she was dead but the internet connection was still functional.
