Are their still flags on the moon or have they faded in the glow of the suns eternal snow

What was then hailed as a giant step for mankind to me it was so short it seemed unkind

While millions starved on the earth below its off to you we flew to know were we a proper kind of race about to take our place in space

The decades now have come and gone, are we still that much further on

The president who helped fulfil this dream, himself killed in a nightmarish scene

The Russians too were in this race and flew around your cheese like face

Now they have landed with a bump, as their empire has lost its rump

Psychos and creeps seem to seep out of every room to pry and to peep

nurses who appear to be meek can wrench you from your sleep

With paper and pen they record why, where and when

God save me from this mess, its only you who can bless

Take these demons from my mind before I go blind

Like sudden wealth, ill health or ill gotten gains they can slip down times shores like elusive whores

Blue tipped frothing waves whispered their dying songs as they broke on the shingle of the silvery coloured beach, the sight defied speech

The sand sculpture of the dragon took on an eerie shape as the dark and the light intermingled in their eternal battle.

Lit cigarettes looked like fireflies in the dark as they passed by

Tourists sauntered and talked excitedly as they basked in this holiday scene

Children's eyes shone brightly with happiness , as they knew they were being allowed to stay up late in this dreamlike scene

Little fishing smacks chugged noisily along looking like candlelit floats on the dark blue velvety sea

Loving couples sat gazing out to sea reflecting and repeating what men and women have done since since they began, tasting the love of life's sweet wine

Some carried with them weapons of shining steel, mot of those they cut with these had rarely any time to heal . Others wore leather vests studded with precious jewels, they'd robbed them from the monks who hid high in their lofty towers. The test to reach them just took the Vikings a few hours, with ropes and grappling hooks they scaled the dizzy heights taking what gave them pleasure and delight. The monks an easy fight they put to final rest, their conical towers a simple test

They furled up their decorated sails as they came near the shore. . Now strong arms pulled oars smoothly as they approached land through the shallow sea. They beached their long boats amongst spray and fuming foam. The first thing that they felt was the arrows from the skies, screams and shouts rang out as men fell to their knees. The rest unwounded rushed headlong into the trees.

They were not aware that Brian Boru was there gathered there with a host of Celtic clan. Terror filled the air as Norsemen tasted to their despair Celtic club, spear and sword. Soon many Viking warriors lay dying in the mud which was later named in Marino as the field of blood. The survivors rushed to the nearby shore but most of their boats had fled after they had heard the wailing of their many nearly dead

Some brave warriors tried to escape valiantly by swimming in the surging Spring tide, but all who tried died

The valley of the Kings plundered their wealth mostly sold

Hot sands kissed by desert winds of fire, their shifting mass hides a treasure of ancient Egypt's past

Pharaohs buried with hidden treasures

Papyrus boats filled with incense and leather

Bodies mummified with secret potions, ancient jars and sacred lotions

Marble halls and hieroglyphs, images of their many Gods

Golden urns and golden chairs, spices from Zanzibar and fine coats of goat and camel hair

Children play happily in the warming glow grown ups remember childhood and dreams of long ago.

Rivers of concrete flow under the feet, neon signs glowing on every street they pain the eye if you look up at the sky.

Cars flash by like fireflies in the night they jostle for space and each parking place.

Tramps and the homeless bed down for the night in doorways and alleys' that are way out of sight from the glare and the uncaring stare

Single people wait in various places, waiting for the sight of their loved ones' faces.

Some shuffle uneasily, others just stare at their feet, while others turn frequently to gaze wistfully up and down the street

Their expressions change completely when their loved ones' arrive, some break into tears while others to smiles.

They stop for a quick chat, no more than a second or two before joining the mass that flows ceaselessly past

The noise in the streets rises to fever pitch as midnight approaches the hour of the witch.

Cinema doors fly open to emit swarming crowds they gather on the pavements in bunches looking like multi-coloured flowers.

A kaleidoscope of colour reflects of each face as electrical go on and off from above and below.

Taxis' seem to appear from every place, they soon fill up and depart with great haste.

Sounds start to soften as the night lingers on, the pit patter of feet on near deserted streets'.

The click clack of traffic lights as they switch on and off, the sound of a tin can as it rolls in the gutter.

The mumbling of a drunk as he staggers and stutters, defying the law of gravity as he rolls of shop shutters.

The muffled shouts in the distance of a feud or a fight.

The song of a bird awoken by artificial light, it thinks its day break and not dead of the night.

Cats scurry up back streets, they cry and they hiss.

They wake some in back rooms from their sleep full bliss.

The curses they utter nearly turn the air blue, the ones' that don't curse are a solitary few

The dark starts to lighten as the milkman arrives the clink of milk bottles heralds the morning sunrise

Just waiting for your ring you lovely thing

I was waiting hoping you would not forget me and only to hear your loving voice, my love gave me no choice

I was waiting by the phone knowing that its ring could be a good or disastrous thing

Opening my inner eye to view the tides of forgotten dreams.

Feeling changes in the earlier emotions of the callow youth.

Strange perceptions invade the ever expanding imagination.

Song like anthems stir feelings like magical potions

Light speckles even in the darkest places, within conscious awareness of positive thought

Constellations in space mirrored by models from mythology.

Fortunes told on inaccurate information

To me the whole thing could be a clever mathematical energy displacement slip of ever changing matter

Caught out by the beings I trusted most with the great lie of father Christmas.

Marvellous conditioning for the start of paranoia and trickery,'' Thanks mum and dad''

No More Please

On Friday morn, the peace was born

No more plastic bullets in the drains, no more howling out in pain just the sound of gentle rain

No more banging on metal dustbin lids, no more petrol bombs or stone throwing kids

No more ignorant songs about situations only known to a few

No more beatings, knee capping or crap, no more specialized cabs in black

No more crazy solutions from the red white and blue, no more hidden bodies in lonely graves

No more warring feuds between similar clans, after all we are all Irish man.

No more U.K. soldiers hidden in camouflaged vans, no more bleeding U.S. plans.

No more shoot to kill its such a bitter pill

No more low flying military helicopters over peaceful pasture lands

Many hero's have died for what must seem obscene but examine every clause and you might see the cause

The fires the passions the burning rage will hopefully soon become a sad history page

No more banging loudly on coloured drums designed to spur on hate not fun.

King Billy now is dead and gone lets end this terrible nightmare song.

No more storming police or army barricades, no more slaughtering of innocent maids.

No more bomb craters in country glades

No more coded warning messages of impending doom.

No more hushed voices in public halls.

No more hiding behind stone walls

No more super grass they are just a pain in the ass.

No more cursing in the U.K. about stupid Irish fools.

No more politicians with mouths filled with bile while they put on their hypocritical loathsome smiles

The crying of young widows as they pass through cemetery gates.

I hope it does not make them hate.

The saints can now smile down again on Erin's emerald isle

It's about time, it's been a long, long, while

Finding you in an ocean of forgotten dreams made my heart tug at it's seams

The first time we were together in the park.

The twinkle in your eyes as light turned to dark.

Walking home singing happily with only a pocketful of innocent lovesick dreams, unaware of the World and all its schemes

The first time that your parents invited me in.

They looked at me as if I was sin.

The courting in your front room interrupted frequently by your mother looking supposedly for her TV. times or to say she was checking the blinds.

When all she wanted was to see if your skirt was still below the knee, she always made a rotten cup of tea

Your grandmother used to come in too, saying she had nothing else to do besides going to the loo.

What about the time the cat got stuck in the car after the door was left ajar

At the cinema a grave mistake kissing my nub arm around your lovely neck but what the heck.

We laughed so much we hit the deck

Soon after we both went our separate ways, I, hope your still all right to-day

The twinkling of the lights along the Dublin bay lift the spirits after a long hard day

Cars queue in long traffic jams, people would get home quicker using the old ways of horse and trams

Cyclists cycle along the cycle routes , it's the fastest and that's the truth.

The old gate lodge has long since gone, although their are apartment blocks there now the old memories still linger on

Mrs. Canavan from the gatekeepers lodge smoking her Craven A and drinking endless cups of tea

Buckets filled with crabs and sand, the smell of seaweed was simply grand

The old open air Clontarf baths is now a dismal looking place.

It does not seem so long ago that we had so much fun within its old iron gates

St Anthony's church is just now a derelict standing shell The Lido cafe is gone as well.

The old police station is still standing but Lugs and Co have long since gone.

A large framed picture with a list of old guards names of former boxing fame is all that visibly remains of the old brigade

Byrnes old corner shop off the Stiles road is now twice the size but that's no surprise with small housing estates going up in every spare place

The wooden bridge at Dollymount is still badly lit.

The traffic lights on it take so long to change it would give some motorists a fit

Curlies hole now only remembered by a few.

The boiling kettles, the wood scented smoke.

The boxed kites, the black motorbikes, the large black inner car tubes used as buoyancy floats for many happy kids

The candy floss, the urge to doss, the donkey rides, the sand castles and sand pies.

The old wooden spades, the women selling home made's

Now the statue of our lady overlooks this beautiful bay but unfortunately the electric lights below do not focus on her head in any way

Threading softly through the mine field of human desires my character seems weak against fears that don't speak

Smiles from old friends seem like masterpieces of emotion as I know slightly better the hidden glimpses from within

The breeze in Winter funnels up the straight end of the Howth road like an invisible roaring river.

Everything in its path is effected in some way by this unseen energy.

I now confront it head on to feel the full force as I seek to know what is real and true.

Nature will not compromise for me and my weaknesses so it will at least leave me feeling that I have been dealt with honestly by a natural force

Two white plastic bags advertising a supermarket from the Southside are now flapping like demented bats caught high in a tree on the edge of Fairview park.

A place not to be after dark unless you can bark or look like a bush or sing like a thrush or make off in an adrenalin rush.

I, don't really know whether the bags are trying to hang on or escape from the bare skeletal tangled mass of the upper twisting outstretched branches

Now and then the trees take on the eerie appearance of a many limbed skeletons as shafts of moonlight slant down frequently through billowing clouds reflecting bizarre spacey images off their mottled trunks.

Bushes and hedges appear to be making their way towards me in the sea of movement created by forceful gusts of the gale

Stay on the bloody asphalt pavement I say to myself and don't look up at the overhead waving trees or run to the middle of the basket ball pitch and pray you don't meet up with an athletic witch

Giant trucks and lorries whine and roar like dinosaurs as they change down gears to take the narrow slip road off the Malahide road onto the Clontarf road.

Passing strangers alighting at the bus shelter sometimes stare at you as you can be still shouting for some time after the erring mechanical beasts have departed, luckily they probably think that St. Vincents psychiatric hospital is not far away.

A man collects cigarette butts from the gutter at the bus stop and stores them in the plastic wallet holding his free medical card.

I suppose he likes getting something for nothing no matter what it turns out to be.

A plain metal pedestrian overhead bridge straddles over this beautiful sweep of the Clontarf road before it is absorbed by inner city roads.

The Strand cinema formerly nicknamed the flea pit is now a bowling alley.

The last picture I saw there was called Behemoth the sea monster.

The nearby flats were blown up during the war and it is said that many years afterwards a head was found on the top of a building in Fairview over a mile away

The five lamps area is still looking a run down place despite the Celtic tigers pace.

Walking past the pubs my father used to frequent brought back old memories to my mind.

How did he manage to leave Dame lane half pissed most nights and walk along this perilous route to arrive virtually unscathed at his stop in Abbey street, a feat hard to beat

To me this will always be a mystery as the twenty four no longer runs and the fifty one seems full of nuns

To then have to stagger up the steep hill to his home sometimes followed by a scrawny little mutt with no home or not much in its gut.

Its last hope the kindness of the big bearded drunk.

It was quite a pleasant surprise to see him carefully feed this poor miserable thing, for such a big man it made it seem a much more gentler thing.

Later he would stare at me in a more aware way, different to the serious look he wore by day.

He sensed the depth of the pool he had accidentally started by forcing me to screw down the coffin lid on my beloved uncle.

Death is quite an enlightening feeling for an eight year old, as it makes you always aware of the final curtain of this I'm certain.

He always looked for demons but found none until he saw the one that came earlier to me and so it was far to late for him then.

I loved him dearly during those wayward times.

Thank God that there are some legal substances that can give relief and temporary freedom to the over indoctrinated and conditioned mind,

Who cares about the old toothless hag with the shopping trolley filled with plastic bags

They contain all her wordly goods form worn out slippers to a looking glass, a remnant of her past

A photograph from amongst this jumbled mass shows a dimpled lass holding a looking glass

Why both the souls are just the same, all that has passed is pleasure, time and pain

Unfortunate circumstances have left her pushing the trolley along the drain

I would like the memory of me to be a happy one

I would like to leave behind me an ocean of smiles and a mountain of grins

I would like to leave no sorrow, grief or tears

We had enough of them in younger years

I would like to leave an after glow that could melt the coldest snow

I would like to see you again sometime by my side soon after I have died

To tell you how I cried not knowing we might meet again

The signals from Karens red dress should warn have warned me when to stop but the colour red makes my heart beat stronger

I thought that I had being living well before, but I must have been half dead without that crazy loving feeling running always through my head especially when I'm in bed

The troubles that I felt were magnified greatly in my mind

I had to break the red light; well they say that love is blind

I never made her jealous but sadly more often to cry

I hope she will forgive my weakness and not find another guy

When lights go finally go out, I still will have her loving image imprinted deeply on my soul

I know that since I met her I'm feeling nearly whole

You are my first choice of my Earthly desires

You can be the ice you can be the fire

You are the hawk

You are the dove

You are the hope

You are the love

You can be the closed door or the open gate

You can be early or very late

I can be the one you sometimes hate

You can be the jester or play the Queen

You can be the generous or the cruel

You can be in bondage or really free

You can be like the Goddess Venus rising from the sea

However you willl never find another man to love you as much as me

Walking to the statue at the end on Bull islands promenade in Dublin on a crisp autumn night

I was thinking of the ghosts and demons that had in my earlier days put me to fright

Sudden sad news of a tragic accident and death of a loved one has sent me on this perilous path

My walking as I got nearer was not much faster than a snails pace

I thought to myself I must get to the statue of the blessed virgin, I hope my prayers don't fail

I pray reverently for her soul in the wailing wind and think of all the times I have sinned

Clear images of happy Eileen in her younger days flash vividly in my mind

The effect of this has made me nearly blind as salty tears mix with the spray of salted spray lifting of the nearby waves as they end their long journey crashing on the rockey sea shore

They have ended their shape but will endlessly return in new form, still part of the whole

As will Eileen on her eternal life

Hard Alan is now dead and gone

I wonder how his memory will linger on.

His mountain bike no flash trike is now rode by another or is abandoned lying in some gutter.

His appearance late in the night in Fairview Park, after dark was quite a lark with stubborn chin and wicked grin

His working men gathered round the open fire trying to sell a little smoke and laughing at the occasional joke.

He loved his family and his close friends oh so well and the rest of the World could go to Hell.

John Rock and he would go down to the betting shop each Saturday full of jollity sussing out the odds trying to make a killing in the field of winning.

He was a planner who used a scanner to keep check on the local plod they also knew he was not acting the cod.

When I now pass Fairview Park I think of Alan in the dark and his cold hard courage

There is no doubt he was a warrior who did not need to scream or shout.

R.I.P.

Softly as a feather you calm down my troubled soul

Softly you are making me feel whole

Softly you lay your head upon my chest

Softly you tell me I am the best

Softly you tell me sometimes I am a pest

You are hitting the deeper tissues in my mind with your beautiful body graphics

Constant desire keeps running through my mind like a raging river

Fleshly dream driven images haunt me through waking and while asleep, I even imagine that you could be Bo peep or Jill upon the hill, I'll be waiting to have you after your spill.