Repose

There is no talking in the fields,
Flung words are shuffled on
Like hot coals; repelled echoes,
Buried in the ground.

The thump splash of footsteps,
Sending a shiver down the bramble,
The only measure by which to
Know that something is at hand

Birthing

The year is turning to a musty yellow,
There will be no more calls to rump.
The mornings are a chilly sweep,
Freezing your eyes with snappy indifference.

You were able to pull it apart and
Glance away our sentiment, the core
Is rattled by the blast. It is too much
To cling on to, my wits are at an end.

The passage to my burrow is stood off,
Ringed with knotted wood. The cold can
Not get into where I now finger and curl
The hairs of grass-root, and nurture their
Growth with warm tears.

Island

Pushed open the gate in the yard today,
The rust falling on the ground below,
I walked out like a mummy with a candle
In hand wondering where to go,
'Where did you come from?' I asked her,
'Goodnight', she said, on her way home
To walk across the iced over lake, to
The other side, before the town wakes up.

ROOT

Try to imagine city streets that whisper 

the words 'Monkeys everywhere, Monkeys everywhere, 

all in your head, Monkeys jumping 

all over your bed ...  

Fat haunch, oozing forward,

Gnarled teeth and cock-eyed malice,

delirious with laughter, 

hell bent on destruction, smashing 

the good china -

Admittedly, we can chop off 

the head of a tyrant, return the 

serve of recklessness they put 

in our lives.

SEX

I'd sleep with a man, give nature 

a kick in the arse because fairness has 

nothing to do with that which is willed ...

It is nonsense to ask of God whether or 

not he cares, same as the stupidity in worrying 

over the bad seeds that have been spilled.

DEVIL

In the eyes a demon rests,

It belongs to aeon wrestling 

around.

When I was young, I thought 

things would last forever, like the hills

and fields around my home.

Now they are gone, covered

in concrete slabs sponsored by

Seanie Fitzpatrick and David Drumm.

LOVE

We only knew each other in the 

comfort of our own hearts, never

in words, or touch. Never

in the same room 

with a naked light ...

Did we fall that far apart? It is 

utterly strange, no good, no bad

no hope, no fear. It is

out of our hands. I'll be peacefully

fatal, here and now with you.

SONG

I shout for nowhere and

I live in nobody,

I talk to the mute and I

see the blowing wind.

I touch the clouds and

I smell the taste,

I burn the water and

I listen to play,

I wash the dried up and

I chop the prepared,

I do the undone and

I love the unloved.

MADNESS

Still thunderstorms spin

the eye as the fly by. Continue 

to write in spite of your health, 

feel the wounds, care not for death, 

for it will come no 

matter what to sweep things 

away. Do not go to bed early,

stay here and mark the falling words

at the end of the working day.

PEACE

It does no good to turn in on thought

wading through the wires with one or 

two things,ever-pleating upon themselves. 

The devil can do what he wants. I'll ignore 

the trickery and take all the hits. I'll observe

the thorny patterns and make of them a quilt, 

under which will lie the whispers and sighs of 

all the women who have ever loved me.

Climbing limbs

It was the body, the limb and breath, echoing through the ages. The boy, Jax, wanted to lunge himself forward and shake out the vitality of his hips. A whispering space upon a chalice, remaining unconsecrated, was assured to be satisfied within his heart. He wanted to approach a woman with his body and heart in equal measure. Both pleasure and empathy with his lover simultaneously. Such a love heals, it is a cry from the body - to the boy - to the girl. It says " I am life and I am love". The scar of his sentiments encouraged his compassion, unlearned and unchangeable. 

One particularly windy night in September, the girl; Tiffany, was sitting outside the local cafe drinking a cup of coffee. People and leaves were being blown about in the gusts. Her lips were pressed on the coffee mug as she drank comtemplatively. 

"What is it my heart seeks? Or more truly, what do I want to see with my eyes?"  

This is what Jax imagined Tiffany; a girl he has long known in passing, to be thinking as he gazed at her from across the street. For a moment both of their gazes met and blankly stared at each other. A few seconds passed before they finally recognised one another. Jax walked towards her, pressing upon the button of his wishes that have long been etched in his heart. He thought about how it is that two people can communicate their wishes without ever speaking a word. Sometimes a glance, a gesture, an unrequested, but knowing, touch can give the game away. None of the usual flirtations would occur. A simple, but electrical and invisible jolt just shook them both.  

'How are you today, Tiffany?, asked Jax, 

'Oh, I am good, just resting my legs after work', she said.

With this response she looked at him and her lips began to tremble. She was valiant. Jax entertained the thought of throwing caution to the wind on this windy night. Gently touching her arm, he said,

'Why are you drinking coffee here alone on this cold, blustery street at this time of the night?' In truth, Jax really wanted to ask her, "Would you like to come indoors, out of the wind, and wrap your legs and arms around me?"

Tiffany was able to read his thoughts and decided, to cast aside bedside traumas and unsolvable riddles. She would allow nature to answer for her.

'Yes it is very windy out here, I should take myself home and climb under my warm duvet, but I like to give an ear of solidarity to the hardworking street buskers' she said. Across the way, a single fiddler was belting out a catalogue of well rehearsed melodies. (bit more) 

'Are you okay?', she questioned him beguilingly. With this, the inner voice within Tiffany stepped forth with a petition that said "When I sit here and think to myself, where to next? Or I look out over my nose to the person sitting beside me with a wish to ask who are you?, and then don't ask, it seems the world is too quickly passing by. Then I remember the child I once was. I see that child in your eyes too, my friend, as we sit across from one another in this life". And then in a playful Victorian accent Tiffany asked of Jax, 'Would you do me the honour of this dance, good sir?'

Jax, startled, rose up his conviction and looked at her in the eye. Recognition sits in that Iris, he thought. 35'000 years of imagination swimming in the aeons, tossing up the same conundrums - "I need you" - "Will you love me?" - "Do I deserve this?" - "What is God?" - " What if I go for it anyway?". He casted himself into that nothingness, that completeness. His was a life to be lived. 

In a flash, the inaudible voice within his head was whispering to her, 'I see you, I can see your wishes and fears, your hopes and guilts, your fetus curled in devolution and your ever watchful antennae waiting for a saviour. I see myself". The walls of his cocoon trembled and began to shake. Cracks appeared. Muscle began to move to another place, an un-chartered land, an un-thought chamber of flesh and glare. He motioned his hand forward and took command of the dance.

'Will you lead?', asked Tiffany; robbing the words right out of his mouth just before his tongue could grab them.

'Tango?, follow my step' said Jax authoratively, hiding his nervousness.

He clutched her waist firmly, but not tightly; the reality of the moment trying to force its hammers down onto his willpower. "Can you be a man?" - "Will you deliver?" - "You're lying to yourself here". And yet, the touch of Tiffany was enough to awaken his pulse. Coupled with his elevated shaking, was the elevated animal within, the recognition.

'Take my left hand, Tiffany, ... it would be better if you came a little closer to me', he said with a grin. She broke an uncensored smile that screamed a bark of vitality out into the silent street. She was a wolf invigorated, tamed, wanting to step out of her cage. With an unseen force, she grasped Jax into her breast, pressing a thud that forced the breath out of them both. Their noses almost touched amidst the wobble and kilter.

'The show must go on', he asserted to Tiffany. 'Right foot first'.

At this, they began to swing and laugh and let their limbs unhinge. At times Jax could feel his pulse grow and hear the knowledge that comes from the body speak for itself. "Shake her soul" - "Open the Vacuum" - "Be a symphony with your movements and compose an ideal with these bodies, beauty is waiting!"

His energy had caught her by surprise on this solitary night. 

"Perfect", he thought to himself, "the unadulterated, innocent being within her has come forth and I am moving with it" 

He draped his head over her shoulder, releasing a primordial exhale, which caught even him by surprise. This was a place before thought. Tiffany was searching for words, some configures, some controls, to put a meaning on her gyrating frame. She was looking at herself and he was breathing right back at her. She remembered how her first love had felt this way, a time when knowledge had not yet formed, a time of original conceptions, which would in posterity be defined as love. She recognised the newness of that time and remembered the smell of her first kiss, spun out on a bottle at the factory behind her parents house. With these thought she remembered the words again, " I am life, I am love"

The clothes she now wore were strange. Her past was real. As she moved, the thought repeated itself with more assertion - "I have loved, I have loved". 26 years fell away in an instant. It was okay to grab these limbs. Her salvation was not in her body, not his body, nor somebody. No, the salvation lies within everybody. 

Sunday Morning

It does no good to turn in on thought,
wading through the wires with one or
two things, ever-pleating upon themselves.
The devil can do what he wants, I'll ignore
the trickery and take all the hits. I'll observe
the thorny patterns and make of them a quilt,
under which will lie the whispers and sighs of
all the women who have ever loved me.

Smash and Grab

https://soundcloud.com/bjonko-1/03-smash-and-grab-demo

Here is a song I wrote some time back about a guy from my neighbourhood who passed away.

October 2nd

Lately my dreams have been going back to the neighbourhood,
Wet concrete in the estates. Alleys with cigarette butts and shortcuts -
Years now since. Still, the waves crash no matter what.

8 years ago today you went. Hope you're OK now,
We only knew each other in the seclusion of our own hearts,
Never in words, never in touch, never in the same room with a naked light.

Now I create particles and ponder time. It'd be nice if you were here with me
Now to see the waves bashing. Here and now ...

Did we fall that far apart? Help me to live right and know some truth.
It is utterly strange. No good, no bad, no hope, no fear. Its out of our hands.
I'll be peacefully fatal with you. Here and now, with you.

The Listeners

Last year, with the help of my mate Charlene, I set about creating some music and setting it to a favourite poem of mine. The poem in question is the Listeners by Walter de la Mare. My friend, Jane; a beautiful and talented visual artist, created a video montage and our collaboration has resulted in this piece of work. Thank you Charlene Donabedien for helping me out with your violin playing. It's class! Also, thank you Jane for the montage, hopefully we can do more in the future.

Please check out and support Jane's art at http://janeosullivan.blogspot.ie/. Its really cool.

Response to a dream

Two shoes left on the floor
The two friends left
And walked up the hill -

A tight-spring bed, yellow
Newspapers in a suitcase
And outside the sky
Is more than blue.