I buried a goldfish in a margarine tub,
we were always killing goldfish
by neglect,
spending weekends with our grandparents
letting things die at home.
my sister had birds that came in boxes
and over-dosed in glue in her wardrobe,
we buried them in the rubbish,
yellow feathers caught among baked beans
and tea bags
spilling their leafy guts.
I buried myself every night
woke up with my head
at the foot of the bed
bound by blankets,
believing the world to have gone
dark, tight and airless.
we buried our dog in the back-garden
my brother scraped her with a shovel off the road,
nothing but a pelt,
a stiff board of fur
then we moved house.
I buried my grandmother and grandfather
and we never went back to the grave.
I had to bury a butter bean
in cotton wool
in a glass jar
to watch the roots grow,
we were told to keep turning it, curling
the root that had always to go
down,
I tortured that butter bean
into spirals,
I watched it both buried
and exposed.
I buried Sean Traynor
in the field behind the house,
I sat on him
so he couldn't move,
his head sprouting out of the ground,
screaming from mercy,
he was four years old,
later drunk and homeless in Miami
his parents had to cremate him
to take him home.
The field got buried by the motor way
the whole area got shifted and buried
by that motor way.
I left on the mail boat,
I buried my gloom
in the bar,
the vibrating engines shaking
every tiny thing I had
inside of me.
I came back year after year for burials,
the older generation
gradually creeping underground.
we gathered only for burials,
in our cheap good suits
crumpled from the journey,
children turned emigrants
parents turned grandparents
the ground that would take them
could not keep us.
Ghost Stacking
This is my home
Christmas in Bangkok
I grew old and fat fast
When I came into town
Its eyes were red and bloody
The trees were dripping little lights
The Patpong whores were smiling,
I never made the connection
"I am lady boy," he said/she said
I told you what happened
Santa lady boy
My first night in Bangkok
In the bath room
I don't have one
Oh Santa Lady Boy
Lady Boy with tinsel around her neck
It was Christmas Eve.
Until just before dawn
Over now
I walked by the elephant
The droppings of electricity -
Two blots of grief
I walked passed and brushed my hand
The dreams I have
Could not have known
The nailing will come later.
This journey was to forget all of that -
I am a fat old fool
Simon,
My brothers,
He won't chase me out
With his stacking up of ghosts.
Everything is normal again,
Normal except,
It is the night's dirty fingernails that scrape away
The membrane of reality
And night that calls the images from my mind
And builds them outside
One dangles from my landing
I never saw it but could imagine
The tiny breath of air as I go by
Swish of a corpse
My dead son the murderer
Creating ghosts.
The other
She is always there
All the time,
Even in the bright day,
Birds chirping
TV blasting,
strangled
Face down.
Sign of a small struggle
In my house
An overturned lamp
The rug pulled away
A drawer's contents spilled.
I told him not to come
Confiscated his keys
Long ago
But on New Year's Eve,
When we were away
he checked out of rehab
and
He broke down the door
Left it swinging
Telephoned her to join him
And went on to
Pop ghosts out of the air.
My house
This was my house
I'd take his portrait from the wall
But it's always been there
So I won't
It would only make another ghost
Those beautiful pastel children
Eyes like the still garden pond
Mouths like spoons
Round and able to hold so
Little.
That man was not yet thirty
What he did to the past
Smells mouldy of sorrow
Damp patches
Leaking drain dreams
All our family photos ruined by his perfect
Smiling face
Blue eyes
Blond hair
Pink cheeks
He looks like a girl, so delicate,
Committing murders in my house
Hanging his big self from the landing
There he is in the photos
Sly as a fox among my other children
Not a notion in his head of what sort of spirit unleashing
he would be capable of doing
Boxing our lives in
If I could have said
"No murder suicide in the house or I'll give you the wooden
spoon."
Hand out,
The time he pulled his hand back in and
I broke my good spoon off the table,
I almost laughed and hugged him
His little bold eyes shining with
Terror and triumph
But I had another older spoon in the drawer
And I went and got it.
You embroidered my house with your evil
We have not the energy to move
Who would buy such a house
With ghosts so fresh
The face down one that never moves
And the other one that only hangs
In the backwards light of night -
That's my son
My beloved, beautiful,
good son.
Overnight lost my looks
Had to get used to
A new me
A wreck of me.
Carrying my weight into middle-age
Like a dumb sorrow.
I didn't know it was Christmas,
An elephant wandered down
The empty dark street
Alone -
No owner, no passenger -
The shop's shutters down and only half the
Street lights working
It lumbered unsteady
Unsure of its freedom
Through the closed yellow street at night
Looking for old Siam
Its ears were white and hairy, a different
Color from its body - Propelled diminished
At first I was so afraid of this Helen Keller elephant.
Like it had rained electricity
But I still didn't know,
I merely thought this was a Thai custom
To over brighten the trees along the street and give
Everything to the Gods
By ornament.
Festive almost -
One wore a red short robe trimmed with white, and a Santa hat
But I still didn't know
"Are you lady boy too?"
"No" I said.
And she thought I was so male she
Pushed in my breasts with her finger and winked,
"How much you pay for those."
I grew old and fat fast
I lumbered into town
Believing my self to have gone
To the dogs
Like a genius
Frustrated and unallowed
Orson Wells, Marlon Brando
I devoured everything
Pray with me
Dance for me
And there I was pulling
All this Day-Glo string
Out of a teenage whore's cunt,
She stood on stage
Singled me out
Handed me the string
Maybe only because I was
Alone
And everyone else was coupled
Or in a group
And they thought I was a man
I pulled at first
Afraid I would hurt her
But a toothless old lady by the counter
Urged
"Pull harder, Pull harder.
Much, much"
And she gestured with her hands as if
Pulling a giant's umbilical cord out
Of her own dead pussy
And so I pulled and pulled
I never would have guessed how
Much could be stored
Up there.
At the end of the night
Three dancers naked and squatting
In the inch deep marrow flood
Sprayed themselves inside out
With hoses
They were all shaved and it looked so
Irregular
Like eyes missing irises -
Those cartoon cunts that could blow whistles
The menu had read:
Pussy write letter
Pussy blow dart
Pussy use chop stick
Pussy shoot ping-pong
Pussy with mouse
Pussy with snake
Pussy with razor -
Those cunts blew out lights all over
My over decorated mind,
And I didn't know
What to say
What could I say?
When lady boy came in
In her tiger swimsuit
And her Santa hat
And asked me into
The one toilet stall
To suck my cock.
Only a hole up there
Full of air
That I can't locate -
Not now.
Dance with me
Pray for me
Stay with me
Giggled furiously
At my refusal,
And I didn't know
Watching the elephant,
I remembered
Two brothers dead
This same month
December 4
December 25,
Five years ago
This was the time
Hush now
She and I,
Under the droplets of bulbs
An ancient elephant
Looking for Siam.
Spread into one enormous
Stain.
Off of its side,
Rough and warm,
She did not turn but trotted on
lifting her legs in staccato
As if her feet were those of the little mermaid,
Deaf beast
Didn't even turn her head
When I hummed after her
There was a tiny bicycle light tied to her tail
As she trundled under city cement balconies trimmed with plastic holly
And my grief rose like Bangkok skyscapers
Over a suburban Dublin graveyard,
Twin towers.
Skating through my unconscious
death skimmed off the water
Making hops
Before sinking
I will say their names
Hum them like mantras
To the elephant's back
Simon, Damien
Christmas morning
And I would not have known
When we were young and
Christmas was in a cold place,
The other world holy of
Midnight Mass
The wooden life size baby
Brought in procession down the aisle
Cradled by priests of our culture,
Robed resplendent -
This is a special thing
Even one child is special
This birth is guarded treasured
Eternally celebrated
Universally remembered.
Of course.
Thirty three years but for
Us only three months to
Easter
How time shrinks as it flies
How it stinks
Following an escaped elephant
Just before dawn
Thinking she'll never be found
Thinking there is somewhere to go
To blend in
Damien
Simon, Damien
Cains,
Interlocked
You took each other down
Self murderers
Blocked paths
took each other down
secret keepers
killers
followers
myth seekers
junkie martyrs
entertainers
heart breakers
self destructers
damaged jesters
locked in an embrace
all the way
down.
