by Des Greene
The chap who is windsurfing
Doesn't know he is envied
By two lovers dressing on the shore.
But the day is young
And fed by a ravishing breakfast
The only cloud is the coming morn
When we part for the week
But with the dream of endless time
Between us.
Do not fret or sigh or wonder
Do not care how I feel or you,
Remember the times together
And together we start anew.
3. Greece
Tall toes and endless bottoms
On a bare beach naked,
In Greek Isles alone.
Remember the rustle of bodies,
The starch of virgin skin
And how the writhing of bodies
Remained forever within.
The cold night offset by shutters
And early morning by orange juice,
Take me oh my darling,
It's you I've dreamed of
All my life.
Not windmills nor barren mountains
Nor beaches strewn with flesh
But you I long for ever,
Come now, come with me again.
Perhaps its the dawn
and the horizon lightens pale.
Tearing back the curtains
And a new day.
How happy I was then
Driving into the sun
Singing to radio music
Whilst at home was the one.
We picked mussels together
And ate them,
With wine and later with stout.
Soon we would lie together
But to make love was not our lot.
To love is to endure
But here we're not the same
Because shatter we did our dream
Too late to pick up pieces
Too late to rekindle the flame.
4. West Cork
And the smile of the other haunted
And allowed the spirit to dwell
On days of splendour on water
And ending in eating as well.
We left the restaurant so late
And little juice in the car
Through the night we drove.
In Bandon found a petrol station
That wouldn't turn us away.
Early morning we arrived home
And tired we went to bed.
Separate.
How lovely and lonely I felt
To be forever repeated.
The good and the bad.
And seeing you again I wonder
Is there still the same light
Or is the spirit of Sligo
Forever within my sight.
The Lake 1
The lake is always there.
The grey pool of my imagination
steeped in the thrilling mysteries of youth,
romantically traipsing through adventures
that now never lighten my being.
The waves as they wash over brown stones
are frozen in my living memory
and always evoke a feeling
that wells up from within
from childhood, perhaps from ancient man -
a lengthening bond that I will pass on.
I seldom go back now
but am sustained in my mind's eye
to live and live over those days
as a child , by the lake's shore.
The Lake 2
How, lonesomely, I escaped school
to spend hours with the gravediggers
as they prepared the soil to receive the dead.
Their grey stubble and rough manners
were a comfort to a frightened fugitive.
Better the quiet of the cathedral -
there to pray pious supplications to Our Lady
to avoid the lashings and the anger
of my mother who could not understand
or the Brother who well understood and enjoyed
the pitiful wailing and the swishing switch
which left red marks on my growing hide.
Only my father understood,
as he lay blind and powerless on his bed
threatening lest anyone lay a hand on me.
I cowered by his side, sheltered in his shadow.
The shadows before his eyes dulled too soon
and left painful memories.
My mother fared better and matured
but understood no less even in love.
Wild wet nights in winter I remember
hunted by all, afraid and in terror.
The brute instincts of survival driving me
to avoid the retribution and penury
that awaited by the lighted fire in the kitchen.
Each hour scarred a tiny child mind
and tore the heart of love,
Made blind a blind faith in the sky
when the problem was firmly rooted on earth.
Collections of rosaries and prayer books
soon built up from off-hour visits to church,
Spoils of a miss-shapen youth gone awry.
I would walk beneath the school stone walls
and think of a heaven of freedom -
Each step drawing nearer a hell
orchestrated in the good name of heaven.
No, I don't blame you Lord.
You were my best friend,
loyal confident at chapel and bearer of my despair
that before long had broken my weak shoulders.
No wonder I let you take all without question.
My soul was vouched for before I had possession.
The Lake 3
I remember those frosty mornings
when the windows sported white fern leaves
and the sky was so purely blue
that the infinities of heaven were attainable
if I had wings to fly.
On such mornings my being would sing -
wingless and elated in a happy cocoon.
Time had passed, my father dead, the tyrant Brother gone,
School suddenly no longer held fears.
The Still Water
‘I love the sea,’
Said I to the stranger.
‘Why?’ was all he could reply.
‘The power,’ I sighed.
‘Is like glory,’ I cried,
becoming immersed in my joy.
‘And more,’ I said,
becoming more staid.
‘It’s more than that.
It’s all I’ve got.’
A silence ensued
And everyone stared and wondered.
I shouted. ‘Ye fools!
Take heed of advice
and drive carts and the like
Down to the shingle beach
And there let ye play
In the still water so gay
That all yer troubles
Be lost in the spray.’
But they listened not,
Got caught in the knot
And will never play
In the still water so gay.
How I feel
That how I feel be compared to thee
Is lost on a string of thoughts so frenzied.
That were words not enough to build a life,
How splendid it would be.
Lost again in myriad ways – I see
A repetition of life, of joy and sorrow.
A struggle of existence with thought,
An end eternally sought.
But not again nor yet to achieve
Happiness.
Of things mellow, fruitful and rewarding
To the mind of things I seek
And share and pine my life.
Ongoing through restless years, bypassing happiness
In search of the new and finding the old.
Of memories to haunt the future, unsure.
How to be able to exist,
to accept, be grateful
And not seek the other, the other and the other.
Training in happiness – a grant-aided specter.
The hungry denying their food, the sick their cure
And I my fulfillment.
Must I forever seek?
Cherish
Cherish now the thought
Of dreams and things
And all that lights
In the spirit of the night.
There are stars that shine unseen
To those who would behold them
But are lost in pain
In the silent patter of the rain.
Take me away
To where the trees grow pure
And the greenness of sound
Is reflected in sight
In the miracle of the night.
A whirlwind of images
Without a reflection
Inside the dull brain of existence
Await their sentence
But die in the moment of conception.
You have cherished the trees
And the rain keeps falling
But the clouds will part
Before coming of night
To reveal the stars
In a heavenly sight.
All dreams, sights, sounds and more
Are lost forever in a personal lore.
Beach
Wind blowing cold past cheeks
And hair flying.
A quiet walk it was by the shore,
With waves breaking on sloping beach
And in the background
The mountains, draped in last night’s snow.
The setting sun, tired by the day’s thaw,
Shelters behind a rugged outcrop of rock
And colder blows the wind.
Alone, but for errant stranger, in the distance,
My inner self expands.
And from the jungle anxieties come and go.
How good to expose them to the winter cold!
Quickly they re-seek asylum, unchanged.
Now feeling good, now bad, then unfeeling,
Never getting to the core.
On the sand the tiny footprints of the stranger,
Following no particular direction.
Inadvertently they trace out a curve.
Unwittingly I follow.
No better cause than imprints in sand.
Is the stranger too following imprints?
It does not matter which route is taken,
The beach is wide and endless.
I continue on my walk
As the sun finally disappears
And the evening begins to freeze.
Up there on the mountain slopes
Amidst the snow,
The coldness must be unbearable
And the coming night lonely.
So Far On
How is it now, so far on?
A whirl of thoughts colliding,
Chaos when things are wrong,
To come back to the beginning.
I feel sad, nay thwarted,
Such a strange word, thwarted,
But it expresses how I feel
And feel I will,
Deserted I am.
Can I love again
What I feel has deserted me
And towards which I feel want
But absence prevents our meeting.
Can I be cruel and part
From afar.
Am I deluding myself?
Perhaps I am.
I loved a girl and thought her beautiful.
Away she went
And what of my love?
Think, for this is crucial!
What of the future?
The future so bright.
I feel as if I am in a time warp.
Do I wait and see?
Or do I begin again?
Can I begin again?
I put these questions to you.
And hope.
And remember words, lost now,
But still there.
Where
Where are you now?
On the crest of a cloud
High over rugged mountains
Whose snowy peaks descend to the valleys.
Staring aloft at the flight of a bird,
The stranger wonders and forgets.
But not I, who will follow you.
The rain blows on the wind.
It howls against windows
And spits at trees as they sway.
And the night gets rough,
The journey – hard – continues.
Through the wind and rain I follow.
Over dead sea drifting
Endless space of blue
And white stripes at random.
Fresh and invigorating,
I thrive with you and exult.
The rewards are on the horizon.
Silently through darkness,
No guide or direction,
Through night air ongoing.
The calmness I share.
Arriving at the destination
The image blurs for me.
You are there.
I have never moved.
Sadness from afar.
To have gone with you, I despair.
Leaving
The engine revs
And all is packed.
Memories surge to the fore,
Of many days spent here.
Sure, not all of them great
And few were good
And some were…
Well memorable.
But the thought of leaving is sad.
Driving through streets one knows,
Oh so well,
The bars, hotels, shops,
Each one a memory.
Pavements one knows
Where on somber nights
One did contentedly meander,
The cracks, a map of existence.
The city now so attractive,
The people once unknown, now loved.
The surge emotive
Makes me want to cry.
But tears are not shed over this.
With hope for the new ‘endroit’
I press my foot to the floor.
Into the distance recedes
The years of habit,
Now all gone.
Onwards through familiar countryside
Towards a destination in the distance.
Spirits rise and hope envelops.
Sadness is nearly gone.
The Picture
Mid-summer tolling
The zenith of blossoming.
The road, a track, dusty.
Overhanging trees in green
And flowers pouring forth.
Somewhere a blackbird sings.
The cart rattles along,
The mare calm.
Old oats litter the floor.
High above, overlooking the valley,
A small cottage hidden by trees.
Cart track leads down to gate,
Sentried by two great piers.
Garden cluttered with wild roses
And in their midst an old plough.
Cobblestones before doorway,
Well worn by time passing.
Below in the valley the road,
Like a snake in grass,
Wheedles its way to the horizon.
Beyond there is no beyond.
A dream world within a dream.
Please do not shatter the illusion
That such exists.
An enchanting picture conjured up
By an artist,
Resplendent in itself.
Ask not where the setting exists,
For the artist will look tired
And come back to earth.
It's his dream.
Doing and Regret
‘A nice to do,’ said the old woman.
She leaned against the stone wall,
Her face expressionless yet alive.
‘Twere better not to be here
than to be like that.’
I felt reproved and accosted.
‘What,’ asked I, ‘to do?’
The wind caught a grey wisp of hair
And looking at the greenness and greyness
She sighed.
‘You know what to do
but have not the courage to do it.
Just remember you are only afraid of fear.
It’s not the risk involved
But fear of the risk.
How often have you looked over a hedge
At a fiercesome bull
And your mind pictured its rampage
And from the safety of the meadow
You conjured images of violence
Where none existed
But the birds sang and flies everywhere?’
How right, thought I, was she.
But nonetheless I didn’t.
Our Portrait
It hangs on the wall
In greys verging on black,
The record of our state
At that time.
What time is that?
I hear you ask.
A time, we were not first in love,
But alas, on our honeymoon.
Montmartre in the rain
And the gallant Gaby
Recorded
And set down
What she saw.
And none could recognize
And were ever amazed
That the heads portrayed
Were Clare and Des.
The Badger
Once I went for a walk
And met a dead badger by the road.
His journey ended in a strange place,
Blood on his face.
I stopped but for a moment,
Contemplating his fate,
Then moved on.
I continued on my journey
But my mind stayed put,
Standing there at the badger’s foot.
When I Speak of Love
When I speak of love I see
Of all that is external to me
A small little boy of three,
Nay more, growing towards four.
But not of me or a part
Of my own self made image.
No, an existence all his own.
A gentleness and naivety
That is born only in tender years
And that becomes suspect with age
- of those who perceive him.
Pray that I who perceive him
Will not wane in my ardour
As the moments I savour
When sleepily he hugs me
Slip further and further away.
That time will come
When no longer a child
But a self seeking young man
Will ask of his past
The questions that to now have eluded
And with no answers forthcoming
Will distance himself with disappointment.
And what of the love,
To what can I appeal?
