David O'Sullivan's Blog, page 12

When Loved

The architect who loves the building,

the sailor who loves the sea,

have none of the feelings of joy

your love puts in me.

 

I see the world as I did when I was a child,

when all nature was new to me.

I take time to praise it all,

I am like this because of you.

 

The building must be made hard to stand alone,

The sea feels nothing and never will,

but with you, I will never be without

a dear heart that loves me true.

All in this moment

 

Coming through the city street,

I see a gutter flowing with brown water, the drain clogged with rubbish.

The flow reminds me of a year ago and purer waters,

when I walked Flowerpot Mountain.

 

The trees were green and heavy with leaves,

yellow flowers grew brightly on the dark forest floor,

animals darted about between cover

and birds haunted my ears with their song.

 

Around me now the smell of diesel,

and opinion after opinion,

I see the selfish thought and act.

Standing for a moment, I remember sunset over Shenandoah Valley.

 

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Night fair

Writing late at night,

I can see out across the lawn.

The lights of the house creep across the grass like a light frost.

But the night is warm; a light breeze comes through the open window.

The wind sweetened by the 100 acres of wood on the distant hill.

I start to think of the decisions I have made

And had made for me.

Money lost, money gained,

Love given and taken,

Objects, hearts, and dreams broken and scattered.

Do you remember when…? She asks me,

standing in the shadow of the hall,

Looking quietly into my room.

A clock chimes as another hour

Of this already late night disappears.

She asked: Do I remember

Taking the children, when they were babies,

To the fair,

And letting them ride on the merry-go-round

By themselves? How we all laughed.

Walking them home

On a night as warm and dark as this,

My son fell asleep in my arms.

Of course I remember, I say,

Calling her in to read what I have written.

She smiles and touches my arm.

Remember putting him to bed, that night,

How he did not awake until the morning,

And asked if we could go to the fair again that night?

And how we went?

I remember, I say.

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The last summer

 

It was our last summer together,

But there was no telling that then.

How do you know the last time you will visit somewhere?

How do you know the last day of anything?

The world can change in a minute.

She came into the room wearing only a white t-shirt,

She took it off and placed it on a chair.

Standing in the moonlight,

she let one hand drift through her long hair.

My eyes wandered over her naked body.

Her bare breasts, stomach and below that

The small nest of black hair.

She smiled and looked out the window toward the ocean.

This memory

Echoes in my mind

Like bells, pealing from a great tower.

I took her in my arms

And we danced to the sound of the waves.

On the truth.

Catching the train from South to North,

I notice the conversation had by two drivers on the platform.

Yesterday this very train took the head

off a man who had had enough.

He laid on the track

and the metal wheels acted like hot knives.

I sit in my first class seat

and read the kings and queens of words.

What bite do these printed thoughts have

compared to the weight and steel of life?

But still, this book does more kindness to me

than the train did for him.

 

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Humans, don’t trust them.

He told her he’d kill himself if she left him,

but she had to leave him

because he made her afraid.

He didn’t kill himself.

He showed up at her house

and stabbed her

and then poured petrol on her.

The police arrived and shot him

before he could spark a flame

He died,

she didn’t.

 

The girl

Opening the door,

the familiar yellow light falls through onto the girl.

She is so slender and gentle, her feet hardly disturb the snow.

The street’s noise snaps after her heals

as she closes herself in

and lies down in the small bed in the corner of the room.

She thinks in silent moments and soon dreams.

The men that she has known-

some treated her kindly and some with selfish intent

but all were sweet at first; then cold and sharp at end.

Alone, she awakes early and looks about the dark room.

She can see little but knows all.

There’s the table with the picture of her mother

there’s the shelf with the book about the sea.

What thoughts she has of the day ahead,

what thoughts of days gone by.

Morning in the city

The boat slaps against the timber wharf

the muddy water sloshes against the piers, like water poured out of an old boot.

Mr. Thomas lets out an inadvertent roar into the tired morning.

People around look at him,

not in surprise but more in disappointment,

as if to say:

Yes, we’re all in this, but we are controlling ourselves, thank you.

Thomas looks up and sees a group of teenage school girls,

laughing, their youth pleased with itself in the face of aging misery.

They are too young and strong to be brought down.

They are, in their beauty, like a powerful beacon holding off the heavy night.

He watches one girl for a moment, the tallest and most pretty of the group,

he sees the sunlight finger her blonde-brown hair

like the light in the leaves of a forest.

Then he looks away to see a man throw a cigarette into the harbor.

What promises he made himself

when he was young

and how much more beautiful that woman was

than even that girl

at 17.

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The Cathedral

The cathedral still stands mighty

Near the river in the city of my childhood.

I have seen it so many ways.

As a child, in wonder at its yellow stone greatness,

Receiving my confirmation.

As a student at Saint Michael’s high school,

Where I watched in terror

As older boys took out silver coins

And began to dig into stone walls,

Carving trenches in the glorious architecture.

What sins they committed

What vandalism,

The glory of God, raped by a silver coin

In the sticky fist of a dead end.

Then, more recently,

From her window.

The Cathedral lit up by powerful lights.

Fingers pointing to the sky,

The greatest buildings are alive

Even when seen at 2 am.

 

Ghost Story

 

After his wife died

Robert lived alone

And spent his nights painting.

His colours were directly plucked from nature

Or so he thought

And he toiled for hours to get the images just right.

He would take them to art shows

And once won first prize

But never made it outside of the smaller events in the country towns.

When he died, his children came and buried him

No one was too sad.

A local woman named Edith announced one morning

That she had been visited by the ghost of Robert Martin,

She described the scene

That it was him, she recognised him,

he appeared before her as she lay in bed alone.

It was his face, but it had shrunken, and the skin had pulled back against the skull,

Dirt fell from his mouth

And his eyes were gone.

He held out his fingers toward her,

The bones had pushed through the skin

And she could see the rib bones through his torn and ruined shirt.

The worst thing was that he glowed like moonlight.

The women listened to Edith speak

And never again did she have any respect in town.

A grown woman telling a story like that, they said.