Late Coffee

You were there.
In the smile when someone
(Could have been me.
Allegedly.)
Wore the plastic gown -
a mournful clown.
You were there.
In the moment you insisted
On sitting up
On getting out of bed
That old defiance, that bold man.
You were there.
In the pallid light
Over late night coffee
In the echo of other times
In brighter places.
You were there.
In the glint of an eye
When we discussed the state
of the Irish nation
after the Black Prince, and you nodded.
You were still there
When I left.
You were still there.

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In Bahrain Today

This is a poem for the medics arrested in Bahrain as part of the brutal clampdown on pro democracy demonstrators; some were arrested for their politcal prodemocracy views and others for helping injured demonstrators in the street. They are falsely accused of inflicting worse injuries on patients than originally suffered. The charges are cruel, injust and downright lies. Some of the Doctors will be executed if the Bahrain government has its way; for "extending" wounds suffered in the attack on demonstrators. In fact they were only trying to tend the injured people. One doctor's wife was abducted and tortured in an attempt to force her to lie about her husband. One lawyer for them was arrested the day before the trial.

In Bahrain today
Hippocrates weeps
Black clothed men stalk
hospital wards
dealing death.

Step outside into the street
In Bahrain today
and ask for help
No doctor will reply
fearing death

If you came to me
In Bahrain today
and begged me to save you
your son your daughter
my no means death

Injustice reigns
In Bahrain today
healing hands
caring eyes
face death


Please get involved Amnesty International

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Memorial Gardening

And this is part two of yesterday's poem; remembrance of them in death. It is a painful subject, but again with bitter-sweet and tender memories of a life that should have been longer. I tried to keep match the sense of loss, of the potential of this life, The carnage of nations surrounded my soul but I/ I am released with the individual himself, this unique and mad, eccentric and wonderful, tragic and comic soul we all lost too early.

To D.C.
Memorial Gardening

Revisiting the scene, it struck me at once-
how divine it all was;
how the angels of god were at play.
And I counted the stars from the plateau of steel
while the campfires grew dim in the day.

The carnage of nations surrounded my soul
but I, I am released.
I feast on the bones of a banquet grown cold
They’ll never grow old, the deceased.

Ah, I have the secret of dying for love
and I care not for dying of hate.
If this dance were to cease, I would cry out in rage-
as I carry the secrets of state.

I long ago realized how it began-
the man who was cheated made money
the money become the compost of souls
the holy flocked like the flies do to honey.

Ah! I cannot be burdened by Musings and dreams
Away with the shades of the battle-scarred dead
These contours of concrete are swaying like flags
The graves stones are huddled like sheep in a storm
And poppies are clouding my head.

1.

Memorial 2000

This is part of a two-part poem, or perhaps more properly two poems both memorials to the same person. The first remembers them living and here it is. It's a sad and painful remembrance, but one that is also sweet and tender; hence the poem tries to reflect the rawness of remembering tempered by the bitter-sweetness of nostalgia and shared joys recalled.
To D.C.


Memorial 2000


You have caused me,
more pain in the remembering,
than any hurt in real-time ever could.

From out of nowhere,
you assault me.
Stealing time.

I smell the newly opened pages of a book
and see again
the white desked college library

in springtime sun-
the sweetest silence,
the ordered rows of books.

The smell of you,
your skin golden,
your eyes on mine.

I inhaled deeply
And held it as long
As lung and heart could stand

until the pressure made me exhale.
And rushing back
Came shop and street and traffic

and rain and wind
and thirteen hard won years
and adulthood.

And my very bones ached.

Geraldine Moorkens Byrne

1.