Selected Poems
10,000 words in a cardboard box
In the kitty-corner of the room, beyond a catty-wampus mess
sit 100 words in a box, propped on a pain-chipped painted wall.
Words whining and whimper for freedom from the whelping cage.
While prisons guards walk longest yards to tower over and
look down upon these verbal inmates, one eyed ignoring them.
1,000 forgotten words shuffle in a cardboard box
Rattling crab claws trapped in a kettle, scraping on each other to escape
before the bubbling boiling point of death is reached. Water tight fears
broken glass tearing through envelopes. Words will suffocate in Derry air.
There is no time for drudgery to dredge sea weed soured memories.
10, 000 angry words in an abandoned cage starve
Thinned fonts are floater tattoos untethered from sensory deprivation.
They feel someone is near and wander against the wind, lost in tighter
and tighter circles having no reference point. Drowning sounds are
the same as forgiveness. There's a lot of screaming, flailing, then silence
100,000 riotous words bang about in a tippy crate of hate
All of a sudden someone returns and wants honey?
Go ahead, kick the bee hive and set loose agitated words
dumped out of the blue, without remorse or explanation
Guilty as charged. Ex-owners; expect to be stung, repeatedly.
No one ever drowned in a stream of consciousness.
sit 100 words in a box, propped on a pain-chipped painted wall.
Words whining and whimper for freedom from the whelping cage.
While prisons guards walk longest yards to tower over and
look down upon these verbal inmates, one eyed ignoring them.
1,000 forgotten words shuffle in a cardboard box
Rattling crab claws trapped in a kettle, scraping on each other to escape
before the bubbling boiling point of death is reached. Water tight fears
broken glass tearing through envelopes. Words will suffocate in Derry air.
There is no time for drudgery to dredge sea weed soured memories.
10, 000 angry words in an abandoned cage starve
Thinned fonts are floater tattoos untethered from sensory deprivation.
They feel someone is near and wander against the wind, lost in tighter
and tighter circles having no reference point. Drowning sounds are
the same as forgiveness. There's a lot of screaming, flailing, then silence
100,000 riotous words bang about in a tippy crate of hate
All of a sudden someone returns and wants honey?
Go ahead, kick the bee hive and set loose agitated words
dumped out of the blue, without remorse or explanation
Guilty as charged. Ex-owners; expect to be stung, repeatedly.
No one ever drowned in a stream of consciousness.
