Looking
For Work In Dublin
The same girl sitting
on different buses going by over and over I knew if I saw her one
more time the rest of the world would completely liquefy and go with
her. Wishing to avoid that whirlpool of a thing I knocked back the
coffee, paid and left keeping my eyes firmly focused on the side-walk
made my way to Eccles street. Side-walk, cross-walk not daring to look
up risking my life in the traffic like a blind man saving the world.
In the crumbling doorways
tilted columns boarded windows planning permission posters all along
the way safe to be looked at on the right side of the street I had no
fear of buses as the decaying signs of Eccles street lead me down to
the Georgian centre for saving the ruined life of city boys saving
ruins among the ruins 90 days repairs a lifetime then out with you
maybe meet again in some emergency of violence queued up amidst the
hospital flu wishing you weren't here.
there must be some as yet
undiscovered carpet to sweep you under.
On my helter skelter
straight way down to the bus station maybe O’Connell street.
instead some nameless to me slope of a road not to far is that the
tower of Ulysses where once Telemachus watched black mass Mulligan
sacred shaving interrupted by old Ireland who may have forgotten her
own tongue but remembering to bring the milk had her tits compared to
moo-cows and other things I cannot now remember. everything old once
was new like some profundity this rolls around in my brain tickling
something in me I'm not sure of any more than why.
Cutting across I decide
on O’Connell, I am afraid of the city only now when I am so
indecisive about destinations as if there is some gang of violence
waiting for that sign I send of not knowing where I'm going. Jackals
of the lost man wandering seeking safety in the numbers of O’Connell,
safe among the herds, oblivious to the old, ignorant of the new.
penniless. No merchants sanctuary, a foreigner among the African
languages and Friesian competitors, children named Rosalitta frown
then smile, German hippies Burberry plaid guitars,
Somehow I don't belong
except to old bullet holes on the GPO, rusted tin enamelled placards
above the discount shop on Talbot, soldier statues, new inns ward,
eroded Grecian friezes on greasy brick work, stained glass window
cracked holes. Noticing no one seems to notice like me wanting to
some how take the time to repair myself, remind myself, inquire of
the passer byes as to whom they attribute freedom to.
We are in a hurry to
forget, do our best to not remember.
There has never been
another day like today
There
has never been another way
It
has always been so
World
without life
Amen.
A
long cat stretch beach of green benches
Cobble
stone tides break debris from yesterday’s storm
Soggy
cardboard
Bleached
pigeon bones
Desperate
for sunglasses
Into
the leather sleeves of my dreams
I
fold my head.
