Author Archives: Vincent in Ireland
“Gay Cop Murdered”
Sitting at his usual spot,
his stool at the bar,
nodding now and then
to acquaintances
people he bought a drink
someone he spent a night with,
waiting for a new face
to smile at him.
Loneliness was his companion
And fated attitude a friend,
Come get me if you dare.
And of course they did.
Trust in Friendships would not
Protect him, when they
Themselves needed it more.
Bullets perhaps withal as
Worthily destined for others
Were bartered and exchanged
For his hearts blood.
Unarmed and with back turned
He received his fate and
Face down, life’s blood
Drained out and around him
His battles won and lost.
Trespass
I journey, my body freshened
By new air hanging around me
Fresh currents breathed in.
Beside me, they swelter, forcibly
Wallow in staleness, enveloped
In toxic powerlessness, fated
Stripped and shipped.
The air bears Saharan sands and seeds.
Wantonly beached driftwood in solitude
Arriving worn, wet, out of place
To some undiscovered land
From long determined paths.
landfall in blindness
released and rests in fear
in an unimagined whereabouts,
from places of sand, of wasteland
of desecrated ruination
of remembered blood and fire.
Some reach out, offering
A healing hand and revealing gesture,
With Understanding of unseen baggage
And a knowing of what is left behind
and what cannot. Finally, a space,
to feel safe. To be safe.
Being
I want to talk about men
About being a man
Strange and estranged
Challenged and judged
Thinking and linking
Feeling and seeing
Fucked and fucking
Talking and walking
We need to talk, men.
FINDING
I found six red roses
Resting on a wilderness ledge
And I thought of you
They were dry and faded
And who knows why they were there
But still, I thought of you
I lifted one wondering
Left for love, remembrance, loss?
Despite that I thought of you
I contemplated, just how often
Had another stood looking, longing
In that moment I thought of you
Placed in joy or the pain of absence
Knowing how love and jealousy feels
Anxiously I thought of you
I felt the distance, a lack of you.
Recalled you smile, your eyes
And with my body thought of you.
Looking out, looking back
An old, a true, a future love
And I thought only of you.
A LOVE POEM
Falling in love again
Not a thing expected
love also brings pain
memories collected
Falling in love again
A thing not yet perfected
pursued with no less restrain
this time perhaps more respected
Falling in love again
The heartache to be accepted
No need to be my ball and chain
I want my love reflected
Falling in love again
Falling in love again
Falling in love again
Is bliss in my brain.
Haiku
Two, young and trendy
One, in his hand a chap stick
London’s air strips him
Londoners look grim
Hurrying impatiently
Life’s relentless grind
Death message by text
Unfinished business by choice
A revengeful death
Long travelled marble
Re-used again and again
His curves adorn it
Skin so very soft
Indian hands my friends says
Caresses I seek
The mind understands
My heart and soul embraces
Polyamory
Gay patriarchy
Unless proven otherwise
Exclusionary
Grow a big strong heart
Be as you wish to be seen
Loving keeps me sane
If your plan a fails
There’s 25 more letters
Trees stand, and let go
Seeking the Stone Age
Youthful feet chase Pokémon
The tide turns again
Fleeing refugees
The boy sits in bloodied shock
To have lived through this
At the grocer’s shop
I was the English grandson
Apples torn in half
Mint imperials
From tall jars on high shelves
My grandmothers treat
Patience by gas light
Blue pipe smoke, tales of New York
Bluebottles and wasps
Fun filled long summers
An old quarry, rough playground
Blacks mad bull raging
Two communities
This man has no connection
A tree without roots
Curiosity
Fertile imaginings
Seeds carried far away
Reckonings of life
Lives, leaves carried on the breeze
Face it, don’t look back
The mind seeks answers
Souls crave loving nourishment
Carbon is inert
What is the spirit?
A thing we cannot behold
Childish innocence
My androgyny
Undifferentiated
Juxtaposition
Gender bending men
Male dominant narratives
An oxymoron
How men think they cope
Troubling masculinities
Find that inner child
I knelt beside them
Imagining their ardour
Consummated love
They fade, loose colour
Like the love they once shared
Memories echoed
Six dry red roses
Rest, abandoned with a view
Tokens left behind
Red love tokens rest
On the edge of an outlook
Faded, dry like life
I found love tokens
Resting, left behind, marking
And I thought of you
We miss each other
Dried petals connected me
Our love reaches out
They lay on the ledge
Once blood red, filled with sap
Now discarded, lost?
Six ruby red stems
Lie in winters decaying
Ashes long gone now
First, procreation
Then recreation, ah sex
So, concentration
Chit chit chit, a wren
Robin’s solo lullaby
Lavender browning
Days grow, short again
A last bloom of butterflies
Green nuts underfoot
Late summer echoes
Red laden hawthorn boughs bend
And the sun grows cold
Convicted eyes leer
Contemptuous of our stare
Menace, starkly bare
Shimmering moist
Love and joy swim openly
The stream flows through us
Love can suffocate
My world feels a lot smaller
Autumnal breezes
The black iris chills
Their rage enhanced
The fear is in them
Sex connects us all
I stopped validating him
Relationships lie
He has a presence
His eyes smile and that’s a gift
Him revealed by it
My world feels smaller
There is less connection now
Like a lone wether
Lost and found
Coveting and loving
We need to talk, men.
Timeless weathering
Grockling rocks at bloody bridge
Cascading chorus
An otter edges
Blends in spaces, affording
Safe passage beyond
A lonely leaf falls
In my solitude I grieve
For all loves lost leaves
He said he loved me
Now he says he needs space
Driftwood & solitude
Heartbreaking is real
Heart aching physical pain
Separation hurts
Familiar
A familiar voice called me
By my name. There’s darkness,
In my head and around me. I
Don’t know why, it seems distant.
Distance, I had ran, down the
Road, back up the hill, shouted
A warning, looked at the van.
Phoned down to the other place
But was interrupted, although
I heard and recall nothing.
Another familiar voice, on
The radio this time, from the other
Place I think, there’s an urgency.
The old man, the driver, had
Looked so bewildered, said
Something about his family taken,
And the van and 20 minutes.
There’s that familiar voice again
I sense light, catch a glimpse of
A flashlight and other voices now too-
“Christ he looks bad”
A pressing weight is lifted, and then I am.
Muted muffled pandemonium,
Everything has moved and is broken.
A hand takes mine, and presses it
To my head. Clarity and recall
Kick in, get searching and fuck the risk.
Three, two, then only one is missing.
Ah no, not him not Cyril.
He was laughing with me only,
Minutes ago I guess, getting ready
To go home for good in six weeks
To Carrick-Fergus, and the family business.
A familiar face, looms out at me
In my mind’s eye, but in finding him, I
Don’t see it, or a side of his scalp
His brain, feet or hands -just
Union jack boxers remain.
I lose his cheerful voice in the dark,
And say a prayer, not knowing
What else to do, and then call out;
In my own now unfamiliar voice
Driftwood and Solitude 