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Poetry collection
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1
In Word and Deed
Paul Houlihan
2
Contents (dream)
3. Awakening – (Exeter) a coin, within / a hand
6. Morning
8. The Rule of Thumb
9. After All
11. To Rest
12. Twilight of the Cockroaches
13. Diptych
15. Emersion
17. Galway
18. A summer’s haze
20. (à)près le deluge
22. a double bind (aflow)
24. azure (for conor murphy rip)
3
Awakening – (Exeter) a coin, within / a hand /
I had
to go to
the country-fare
Without
imposing
when,
I had
to know
where -
Tramping
past canyons,
past pyramids
of
tilted ice;
A swollen
mind
pulsating with
lice,
No longer
recognised
4
my voice.
Once
I appeared
at a cottage
or so
it stayed,
collapsed upon
rooftop beams
A woman
sowed
shoes while I
swallowed, And then
we stole some
slumber. When
awoke I,
a girl young
was
staring
persuasively.
She told
me
5
to get
and up
out-pointed
hither. She said:
“You have to
go
to
the country-
fare.
And you’re no-
where
You’re no
Where
here -
near
there”.
6
Morning
...the glass is half full
today has just begun
the sun
will rise
to shine
all will be fine
and I will be a man
and try as best as I can
with patience,
sense & cheer,
for there need be
no fumbled fear
of tomorrow's
thrust & sorrow,
no falcons now
in the air
the networks nerves
twist & tear
7
chaos reigns
the reins are strained
less than nothing
nothing is...
accept the bad
enjoy the good
free of thoughts
taught redundancy
8
The Rule of Thumb
Paul chuckles like he’s institutionalised
but when haven’t men been institutionalised?
at least he' ll be the first to admit
he's fit to be institutionalised;
they pass the years press past
the years passed
at least they seem to be passing
and everything goes on as if they were passing
pages flick quickly
from cover to cover
over and over
by rule of Thumb
9
After All
This is the end, after the end;
this is whats left,after you have left.
Is this what we have dreamed
Is this our work
Is this how you wished it to be
Is this our worth
Are these our fathers
Are these our sons
Is this our prayer
And this what was won
Is this the centre
Are these the bones
Are these the hands
And this our home
Are these the days
Are these our shrines
Is this our blood
And these our crimes
This is the drought after the flood
This is what’s left when there's no-one left
Is this the promise
Is this stark pride
Are these the things
10
We hope to hide
is this an answer
Is this our light
Is this our secret
Is this our right
Are these our symbols
And these our games
Is this our curse
And this our shame
Is this why we live
Is this why we die
Is this what will live
And this what must die
Is this what we've bought
Is this what we've lost
Is this what we've nourished
Is this the cost
This is the end, after the end;
this is whats left,after all that's left.
11
To Rest
Token boy, token heart,
Fills the paper cup up to the brim
Takes a sip , notions drift,
Dilate and delve within.
Everything is out of focus;
Savannahs swelter in a haze.
Snug rests the slug
On a sleek razor blade.
Schizo bit the bullet. Dropped
Upon rocks racked;
His truth in life a tooth loose
Noosed with string.
Trestles truncate. Try to remember
To forget the rot, right? Let it even
Out. The journey ever moves
As far as wide astray.
12
Twilight of the Cockroaches
I am a glorious cockroach.
Moloch my name.
See me scamper articulate
to negotiate a way.
My case is critical.
'Blessed are those who
hunger and thirst
for righteousness'.1
One day all this
will be yours.
Sacrifice your children now
1. GOD'S WORD® is a copyrighted work of God's Word to the Nations.
13
Diptych
I
City draped
In dust & fog
Beneath grim-grey
Titanium skies,
On the corner you situate
Yourself, a figure
Hypostasised.
Tattooed streets,
Tarred & feathered,
Briskly rub their fists together,
Around the theatre
Where touts shout
As the queues begin to slither.
A bum comes mumbling
' for 'CHANGE?'
Then wonders if
'That all y'got?'',
somethings you reach out to hold
Are
So cold you think they're hot.
Now pubs & pints pour out
Spewed forth
From ceremonial doors,
In the distance Sirens roar....
I wonder who they're calling for
14
II
In the bowels of Baudelairean alleys
deep within nights rectum,
silhouettes sit upon dustbins
speculating on loose outcomes.
of wire & string,
sharp plastic, pulp,
glass on glass, the glut of the word,
masks a hollow
nervousness of the
empty but righteously absurd,
Popcorn for the peasants
fudge for the unemployed,
In Mcdonalds. 4am. Note to self:
there is no one present.
In this. A void.
Its hard to be a saint
straight
& true to who you are,
you'll find yourself wrong way
down a one-way street in a stolen car.
15
Emersion
Idle
evening
dwindles -
the susceptible
sky
cascades
and bellicose
it billows
bits of burnt-
black-torn-tuft
cleft-clouds
while yonder
fishermen
return
to shore
with lost sons
wintry ones
who yearn for dice
i switch off the light
once more
and step
16
sprightly
scintillating in flight
gliding as the child’s kite
out on the deck,
tossed
into wrapt wind;
swept,
with a wish that
fights
to unfurl
like a stone,
the bones twist
the sail lifts
the foam glistens
my heart still-beats
17
Galway
Approach, in the slack-jawed hours of a wind-wild
morning;
Sunday papers and milk-cartons stacked beneath corner-
shop awnings,
Tired eyes. Tired. You and I. Hooded. Love in our
yawning;
Traipse through serpentine sloped streets of this
cobblestone-clumsy town,
Where sea-bedded fishing fleet sleep fast
calm in the arms of the harbour.
Seagulls screech and caw. Swish. The town clock ticks
and churns its gears.
No omen. Proceed as is your want.
Here with the sulking hulks of bombastic ships;
You and I; We are made one.
I with the ghost of Galway town and you, Alice,
with the Ocean;
Made one till all doing is done.
18
A summer’s haze
In this asphalt desert –
walled up in the warmth –
beneath glacial skies –
the windows reflect –
concrete & sale-signs,
over lugubrious bridges –
Past doors of locked office-blocks –
and vegetable shops –
Down promenades of pandemonium –
trolleys are thrust –
towards tattooed ghetto's –
past passage-ways
of paraphernalia
and trashcan retreats
where cheap trollops entreat,
arduous,
under the square’s
mechanical eyes.
Junk from the gutter
sparkles and gushes,
In spumescent pools –
by the margins
of abstract boulevards –
where rag-tag groups
19
Of bellicose troops in two –
piece suits pass-by –
Among - the cups –
the spoons, & the plates –
of the street -the sinuous–
sense-splitting-explicit streets,
You, sit down. You think:
"Who's got the time
to keep up with the times?"
You open up the petals
of your palm instead
& start studying the lines.....
20
(à)près le deluge
As soon as the idea of The Flood had subsided,
A hare stopped amid healthy hay and trembling
bellflowers
to say a prayer to the rainbow through a spider’s web.
Oh ! - (rubies and pearls were hidden,—the
willows already weeping).
In the great dirty street stalls were dressed,
and boats towed toward the sea, bestowed as if on
engravings.
Blood & whiskey flowed at ‘The Bluebeard’ – in abattoirs,
where glorious light seared through windows.
Blood & milk flowed.
Beavers built.
In the coffee-shops coffee-cups smoked.
In great glasshouses bereaved children still drenched
looked at treacherous images.A door slammed,
and in the village square, a child pirouetted, understood
only by weather-vanes and weather-cocks
everywhere,under brilliant sleet.
Madame X established a piano in the Alps. Mass and first
communions were celebrated at a hundred thousand
altars in cathedrals.
The caravans departed.And the Splendid Hotel was built
in a chaos of ice and night.
Since then, the moon has heard jackals howling through
deserts of thyme -
21
And teachers in wooden shoes sluggish on the
staircase. But,
in the forest violet, budding, Eucharis told me that it was
spring.
Oh, pond, respond, - Foam, roll on the bridge and over
the woods -break and shriek
Thunder and lightning - rise and roll - Water and
sorrows, rise and revive the Flood.
Because since it has dissipated – (with the rubies and
pearls buried, and the buds full-blown) -
how insidious! And the Queen, the Sorceress who lights
her coals in a clay pot, will never tell us
What she knows, and of what we ignore.
Trans. Bangkok 16/10/2011
22
a double bind (aflow)
obssessive control
unwinds
wieldy
ribbed
aforementioned mind's-socket
dehabilitated
this ease founders
famished
the slipshod
drunken ship
bleeds
rough-hued round
its edges;
Regard, how
hinged, swelled
toes and clinging finger
nails bite by sheer smite
principly
alloted temptation's thorns
thrust pitched past pith
and call a hole a blister
in birth answering breath.
Needlessly
the trial bewilders,
23
errors amass.
molds meet momentarily
mirrored in satsfied horror.
Dimly recollection decides
henceforth its phantom-
feast of conditions fracture
this bliss washes waste
taste incubates
a want that can't
24
azure (for conor murphy rip)
To
day
in
Dis
day
in
t
he f
u c ? k !
in
g re f
ra in
Am i u
g l
y
a m
i
va
in
wall
ow
in g
wig g l
in g
ni gh
ts in
25
pa
in
Days
drift past
Like clouds
p a s t
a sails
white
mast
O
v er
he ad
h
ave i lo
st
a
gain
a
b
ys mal
fr
i
end wh
ere
nex
t
oh,
Dra
26
in
ed es tr
ange
d
for
a for
eign
doll
ar a
day
thre
ad
on
dread
thr
ea d
on
Wa l k
b
y
I walk
a
mon gst t
he
sha
d
ow
s
27
In the val
ley
of the lep
ers
hel
p
l
ess
l
y
the
bur den
of
the self
ish
l
y
un
dead
weigh up
on
my
con
science
Let the
re
b
e
28
ligh
t
&
there
will
be
ass
u
redly
do
ubt
to fol
l
ow day
dis
da
in
the ho
l low
ref rain
Walk
on
walk
by
the tram
p
sh
it
29
t
ing
on
the side
walk
a
si
gn of des
tit
u
tion
not your
va
in glori
ous revolut
i
on
not your
de
ferred pre
ference
by
so
me
s
trange co
in
cidence
30
c
u
nt
wall
ow
ing in fil
th
t
his
wo
rld g
one wro
ng
vo
mit
t
ing
pret
end
in
g
t
o be
strong
pre
t
ending
to be
31
right
but we
've kno
wn a
ll a
l
ong
that t
hey ke
ep it a
ll hi
d
just tant
alise
with signs. I wa
lk I w
alk I
wa lk up
on
the shad
ows
down
In
the valley
of
the lep
ers
32