Cant Say

Can't speak my truth anymore
people have become hard hearted

stiff upper lips and code to ethic
forget it forget your not in control

who who lets love in these days
who tells the truth of their own

solitudes only our art can save
us now art is all there is now

paint a picture in words in words

I was attacked at dawn in winter
he was in a uniform a peace man

no he was in uniformed disguise
he broke my left shoulder tendon

brute strength will do that rip
he was a violent man in uniform

the doctor said seven years later
take this pill you wont feel any

more pain your tendon will hang
you wont feel any more pain and

stop telling this story of yours
there is another side he said

another side to this story
the local doctor reported

I was excentric

even by Denman standards

I lived this side of the edge
wow what a judgment I say

she would never be herself
i mean excentric who uses

words like that to describe
another human being

and then to say she knows
the edge silly silly woman

I jumped off years ago and moved
through time and space

I am an nano second she is
an hour that goes way slow

Omagh 15th August 2010

Saturday afternoon in peacetime
the man said there is a bomb
no one took notice up here
we lived with warnings all
the time nobody noticed
we were looking for shoes
for the youngest they only
can wear brown shoes at
the convent school my wife
was in buying them we were
all there on the streets busy
getting the wains ready for
school in peacetime you see
the shop I was in blew out
I ran into a volley of screams
I searched for my wife she
was killed instantly covered
in rubble and dirt my children
where were my children I ran
the police tried to stop me
looking for my daughters
he sent me behind the line
I ran back only the priest
caught me and welded me
to the ground someone
shouted have you a ginger
haired daughter she is at
the hospital I found her
as they loaded her into
a helicopter bound for
another hospital in Derry
I lost myself I lost the plot
drank and drank myself
into black hole of despair
till one night I saw a photo
of my family and said to
myself hi boy you'd better
get a grip

When the pain gets too much

I washed his blood from the front steps
congealed deep dark red cherry colored
that was all that remained after he put
the old rifle to his right temple bang
he fired the gun into his head to stop
the dragon that was always chasing him
He was a brilliant man funny little man
From an old tribe of Romanian gentlemen
Men of a good principled determination
He could fix anything he was intelligent