St Patrick’s day

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

In the pub

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

Random

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

Saturday

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

Gentleness

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)

Covid

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

Pitch

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

Whispers of silence

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

Happy

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

The heart

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