Happy st Patrick’s day
To all the people
In the world
From Ireland
Everyone of you is beautiful
In your souls and minds
From Frankie and Lukey mcgivney father and son
Happy st Patrick’s day
To all the people
In the world
From Ireland
Everyone of you is beautiful
In your souls and minds
From Frankie and Lukey mcgivney father and son
Well
Water
Nah whiskey
I’d prefer a martini
A who
With a small drop of gin
Sweet Jesus
Now Tommy mind the tongue
Mmmm
A green spot, make it a double and a martini with gin for Denis there barkeep
Right you are Tommy
Nice dress there Denis
It’s Denise tonight Richard
Your right there now, it is Denise for sure
Is it comfortable
What
Well the get up
The get up?
The dress
It’s not too bad.
Breezy I’d assume
Fresh
Yeah fresh
Grand colours by the way
Ah green goes well with my eyes
Ah here give over with that now
Do you not agree
Yeah right
And the under carriage
Ah tucked and slung
Jaysus
Ah he would climb down from the cross
Be no harm and we in need of the wood
I wouldn’t be wanting to get that now
What
Wood
Wood?
You know a surging down below
Ah right
Yeah cause me an injury
So come here tell me are you a transgender or a transvestite or a cross dresser
Well I won’t be getting anything cut of
Thank fuck for that
Yeah I just like the liberating feeling of it
Sure gives you more choice
What
Well you know a more varied wardrobe
True
Jeans trousers skirt dress shirt or blouse
And all the colours
So are you set for the mart tomorrow
Ah yeah come here get me a pint of stout will you
For sure
Fecking half shot from that martini malarkey
Frankie with a WIP
There you are and he milling the spuds and no bother on him while the blood floated in the air and the roars evolved to screams and the light fading to dark.
The beef didn’t meet the appearance of steak and toughness would be the word best used for a texture hidden by an over zealous salt shaker
And he told them to stop the swinging
Why they asked sure isn’t the damage done
Because the juice from the cow is all I have an inclination to enjoy
Sure we’ll be finished soon
So will I so just hold on until I put the fork down on the plate beside the knife in a patrolled fashion or perhaps with the top slightly touching
And the sound from the radio is a song from a time when he was young and bolde and seeking truth and he will be humming it for the day
There was no need for what they had done but he couldn’t be telling them when he was the one who bred them into the ways of his heart
Her smile drifts from the shadows. Laughing at the strange ways of him knowing she wouldn’t be having it any other way apart from the unusual touch of his mind upon the world
The cat on the wall beside the bush where the sycamore watched the blackberries erupt in autumn yawned with the mundanity of the scene
The napkin slipped to lie on the once proud floor
I’ll be heading then he replied
Give ma a hug for us
Right then
The wind smelled of a factory in need of closing as he stepped outside and wondered where the madness ended and the sanity began
Frankie loving the words spilling from his mind
They sense the special
In each other
My ma and my daughter
The wonder in their eyes
The gentle strength
Of their soul
The words of my ma
Expressions to explain
The exploration of the self
Is added to by the query of
Her grandchild
Standing over the place of rest
Of my grand parents
Shared with the ashes of my da
Her question with a twinkle
do you get to choose
Your grave neighbours ?
Catching my eye
The one we share in misdirected
Common beauty.
Our laughter mingled
With the words
Reaching beyond the ordinary
To a place where
Dreams embrace the wonder
Of thoughts drifting unheeded
By human restraints
To wonder at the beauty of the world
Where dragonflies drift within the mind
Through rainbow slides of self discovery
He could see it in her eyes the way she looked at him from behind the screen. her hand reached out to touch her son who had returned. The reinstated gentleness in him as obvious to her as the colour of the fields or the taste of hot tea after a walk of a stormy day.
The blood flowing in his veins cleaned and cleared, his mind behind his own eyes softer, more aware of the world around him, with memories fleeting but still there to be welcomed for the precious time until they flittered back behind doors not locked but jammed shut in need of prising open when the inclination would come upon him. Sometimes they just swing open on their own accord. A glimpse of beauty wrapped in a gift of feelings and images and heightened sensory delights.
he recognises in himself the words of the nurse. “when your mother says no she means no” with a smile on her lips for the respect for a woman of determined mind while it roams in a desert of uncertainty and fear.
In himself he embraces the gentleness. his words comforting his soul as he listens to conversations and recognises a calmness he lost among the chaos and the process of living.
not that the time between gentle tides was anything but filled with wonder and joy too. the ebb and flow on the sunny beach needs the ocean’s scream to sing the mellow tune of peace.
(c) Frankie McGivney 10/05/2021 (feeling blessed)
Go on off with you now
You mutating feck
Go on back to where
You came from
Some dark place
Where nightmares
Cast shadows over dreams
We’ve had enough of you now
You malignant wee shagger
Don’t you know if you kill
The host then you’re left with
No toast to nibble upon
So off you trot
With your dodgy spikes
And your quaire auld shape
You have upon you
Away up out of the garden
And mind your own business
Go on
Go on
Go on
Go on
Go on
And don’t be coming back
Of with you know
Sheila bring out the shotgun
For the shooting of the covid
Have you been drinking frankie
Nothing much talking about biddy
Go on to bed frankie and leave the gun
Down and stop scaring the neighbours
Rightio there Margo
Sweet Jesus frankie
Can you not remember me name
Of course I can marie
Get in there out of the cold
And you naked and making
The neighbours feel inadequate
I’m hunting the covid
Get in or the covid will be the least
Of your problems
Right so Tanya
At 6 there are cars on the roads and the sky is sometimes pink or Scarlett red
Peoples day have begun while others grab the last few days of winks in scratchers of various states of dishevel
At five the ladies stand at the bus stop and I wonder where they go when they disembark and the men in hi vis jackets stand waiting for the vans I don’t wonder so much for them. One building site is just like another.
But their numbers are sparse at 5. More scratchers are full of snores and fears of chores
The radio man whispers to me as I stroll playing songs I could never forget and half way along the tiredness falls away. My eyes open and I feel alive.
I do a bit of workday planning before I stop myself and focus on the walk. I sweep a tide of calm filled nothingness through my mind and the moon appears as the trees suddenly have leafs and the air surrounding me is felt on my skin
There is a new walkway around the town I take for the desire to prevent my heart from succumbing to the rigours of inactivity.
It’s a tunnel through trees and bushes with blackberries and fields of corn. There’s a secret passage way some teenagers have dug in to the wilderness and there’s a field of cattle. The peaceful scene of them lying in the moonlight green resonates in my mind
Through the pitch darkness I feel the morning efforts of determined spiders catch across my forehead and I imagine-their journeys along the same path I walk stretching a strand of web way beyond the 2 metres now associated in our minds with social distancing.
And it is pitch dark with the fear I should feel crawling along stretching out to touch my mind. Who is waiting in the shadows? Will someone knock me out with the one punch challenge? Will the spirits I sense in the tingle in my spine manifest themselves in a sudden light of revelation.
But I don’t feel the fear beyond the realisation that I should surely be a bit apprehensive of walking in pitch darkness in the middle of the night a little too far from civilisation .
Instead I relish those steps where I am completely alone. I can’t see the path with the darkness yet still the wonder of millennia of evolution allows my eyes to adapt just enough to make out the minuscule difference in shades of grey and black.
I would welcome the spirits I would welcome the one punch attack I would welcome the friendly hello In the darkness I would welcome the cry of an animal in need of help I welcome the darkness and it’s beautiful silence and it’s clear air and it’s purity.
Along here it doesn’t matter who I am or how I look. It doesn’t matter what people think it doesn’t matter if one eyes drifts it doesn’t matter if I’m obese it doesn’t matter if I think differently it doesn’t matter if I look like an escaped member of a difficult hospital for the demented it doesn’t matter if I earn a million a year or scrape by on free bread and berries
The darkness accepts me for being a part of the nature around me
I am part of the darkness of the ecosystem of the night as much as the spider and the sleeping fly
I turn the radio of and I listen and I hear the wonderful whispers of the nights silence as it reveals its innermost secret. That none of the human concerns matter here. All that matters is been a part of the morning moment
Frankie loving his 5 o’clock walk to work
Alone the streets whisper their silence
Strolling alien to the tune of the lark
The air still deep in my lungs
The smell different refreshing
The song of silence returns to my heart
Memories of childhood times when
The words i used reflected the swiftness
Of the thoughts inside and they laughed
And pointed and I cried inside
I could understand the logic of maths
I could look at the puzzle and see the end
But I could never comprehend how
Having the answer threatened them
And who they saw as themselves
Because they are better than me
The answers I have while right in me
Are wrong for them who know
So much more than I Will ever think
How the words in my mind
To be the pauper at the feet of the
Sophisticated means to know you kneel
Or else the embarrassment will surround
The essence of my soul
As rightfully I become
the target of their scorn
To be a know it all was a crime
They turned away driving me to
Stand alone so I stopped revealing
The connections the solutions
I took from them my words
And gave up the chat the talk the logic
And let it fester in me growing
Wanting to be released
And now I sit alone again
The silence of the world returns
And I return to those days
I had somehow forgotten
Realising knowing the answers
Doesn’t mean you have to divulge
It actually means you shouldn’t
Because probably you are wrong
Instead I remember the leason
I learnt before the holocaust of the van
Always remember to hold your tongue
To Hold them inside your mind
and allow the lonely peace return
The war inside will subside
And the awkward stumble will return
Where it belongs with the crimson
Sweep of the moments when they invade
My silence and make me talk so they can
Enjoy the laughter built on my reply
(Frank silence returned Mcgivney
L
It’s not that their sad
Or want to be
It’s just they’re not happy
They’re not unhappy either
Is it the worst state to be
Neither one or the other
Is there no feelings where they lay
Not smiling or crying
With no jokes to make her cringe
Or no sad tale to make them sorry
they were foolish enough to have
enquired of your state of pleasure
A monotonous line where memory
Is safe and you don’t howl at the moon
Where frustration screams to be heard
And orgasms come and go without
A growl or a a roar
In the morning the reflection reminds
Me to smile to take the crooked eye
As a reminder of who I am and smile
With gratitude for looking as different
As the words inside veer from the mean
To embrace the sing song of the dreams
I hear echoing from sky to river in my
Mind searching for a page to be born
I can’t remember some things but my
Soul remember a touch an embrace
A warmth a love a joy a body
Eyes and scars smooth skin soft hair
The sound of her breath
The smell of her soul
The scream of her pleasure
The ripple of her ecstasy
Her eyes on me from afar
And I look into my eyes and I say
Today frankie is a day when
You will sing a song
And tell a tale
When laughter will be shared
And you will feel alive
And I prefer to feel enough
To forget and to cry and to
Laugh and to roar and howl
And read and write and sing
To notice the orange of a sky
And the fresh breeze of a midnight sky
To hear the heart beat of being me
(C) frankie Mcgivney
I was able to count
Around the chair
I used to spin from
Here to there
Never reaching
Where I found
The touch with
The one good eye
Mighty Benji
Had a guitar he used
To murder tunes he
Never could have wrote
And I pondered on the sheet
Scratching i felt all I needed
Was a whiskey and a gun
For the shooting of the instrument
Not the player for one is a sin
And one just a plain old crime
And so long Marianne creeped
Into my heart where the tears
Flow crimson from the pain
And I wished she held on like
A crucifix but they knew they
Would laugh when the letters
Had no distance to fly
Or scream or cry about it all
And I could do a puzzle
While others made love
To the night sky
And I could work
Relishing the blood
Tracing the words of
My heart along my palm
And I could read a book
To live within the tale
And forget the pound
Pound pound of the day
Delighting in the night
And the knife could have
Torn but it hadn’t the soul
And I could raise the metal
Hearing its crash upon
My skin cutting my need
Through the scars on my back
And I could love so much
More than the songs can tell
And when my skin felt skin
It moved beyond the touch
Reverberating in the dark
Where the only light
Is the only one we love
Where the crack is thin
But just enough to allow
All we need to feel
The shadow of the girl
Whose name you see
In the eyes reflected
When all you have
Is yourself alone