Our industrial roots
we come
from two lines
of long-feuding families
and I hope
we don’t end up
ending up
the same way.
it seems like
every generation of ours
has some minor squabble
over god know what;
land
or parentage
or just plain blood
mentality. our mothers side
I guess
can be all too easily
forgiven. they’re from
West Cork
after all.
and pointless feuds
a growth industry.
but
god knows what Seo’s side did
to get so deep into this
petty shit. I’m not talking Sile.
she’s crazy, sure
but no-one
doesn’t love her.
or I do, anyway. their cousins though –
god know what happened there. mad piano playing
and tinderbox feuds in shyness
that never start properly
until they never get resolved
and people don’t get invited to weddings
and only then realise
they’re in a fight.
what were they thinking?
look, Roisin, Donal,
I can’t promise
that we’ll never
hate each other
or tear ring off the fingers
looking for diamonds
in dead parents’ clay.
I can only promise
that if we ever end up
fighting
I’ll make sure that we both know it
and until that happens
as in, right now while I write this,
I love you both
and don’t care for money
more than you
and I can’t imagine
right now
anything happening
that would change that.
A person in blue.
art,
sequenced and clipped
ran down his arms
like frightened spiders.
and I sold this one for 50 dollars.
well, technically I sold it
but the guy never came to pick it up
nor give me the money.
this one, it’s a little busy,
nobody else seems to want it;
I might scrape it up and start over on the canvas.
he said he’d taught himself perspective
by painting down sidestreets,
watching trash and bad graffiti
vanish to a point
and burst outward.
said that abstract art
was finally dying
thank god
and representative art was making a go again.
he said when he painted a person in blue
that was representative art
because blue was the exact colour I mean,
believe me.
I said when I called something a swan
I did it for the same reason – each word is the word
and the art is the order
and the image is the image
like the spider legs
of his splayed paintbrushes.
you paint with light, I said, I try with a keyboard.
god, I was a prick. we both
were. but swans
do move like swans
and a person in blue,
images like magnificent ships in evening.
all verb, no adjective
doing things.
The anchorite.
he lay in bed
with the doors locked
indoors once
for 3 weeks at a time
until even the walls
were talking. yellow
paint
sprayed out like smoke,
and roses
in the wallpaper
above the toilet
twisted chains
against his neck.
he’d been allowed
to work from home
a while
in the expected
bad weather,
but none could have predicted
that the storm was due to stand.
3 weeks
they were snowed in
until his carpet was kicking
like a bull at a lion
and the window
cracked cold jokes around him
and laughter
at the owlishness
of the coffeepot.
when he eventually
got out
he was clean shaved
for the first time;
blinking and pale
as an eyeless fish.
like a boat on a river
he had expected
the world would travel;
it was a shock
when the stores
were still there
in brisk business
and the bus-stop.
worst
was how loud his voice felt
and how
it seemed to echo
when he asked for a cup of tea
and fumbled
with his change.