Everyone needs. - June 2011

These thoughts keep running through my head, periodically over time. So I decided to write them down.

Everyone needs physical affection.

Everyone needs to have an outlet to share.

Everyone needs to be appreciated.

Everyone needs to appreciate.

Everyone needs to know they belong somewhere.

Everyone needs to feel special.

Everyone needs to keep their feet on the ground.

Everyone needs friends.

Everyone needs to be a friend

Everyone needs sunlight

Everyone needs oxygen

Everyone needs water

Everyone needs food.

Everyone needs truth.

Everyone needs to be truthful.

Everyone needs to believe in something

Everyone needs to be believed.

Everyone needs sleep.

Everyone needs someone to sleep with.

Everyone needs to be kind.

Everyone needs kindness.

Everyone needs to be woken by birdsong.

Everyone needs to awaken birds with song.

Perpetual Chaos

The future prevailed, our lives de-railed,

The sturm and drang of it, no siren sang of it.

And everything that came before and after

was no disaster and certainly

couldn't plaster the deep, deep, wound

that left us sitting raw and stinging.

With ears ringing, we couldn't hear the song

designed to cheer, because it couldn't be composed.

It does not exist, so we continue to try to resist the iron fist

that everyone knows, can slap up against your grief

and give no small relief, to the constant happy clap-clapping,

of the ones who don't know the feeling.

The consistent reeling, while the cracks

of the existential whip continue to trip us.

But there it is in black and white,

no imminent warning to herald the morning,

the mourning that will never cease.

Snow White in the City - a poem

Snow White

in the city lights

just dreaming

of those moonlit nights

swapping stars for stars,

and cars for acres

of wild and free

but these dreams

can no longer comfort bring

outside the birds still sing

in concrete trees,

no rest on wires of string

but the song carries through

the smoky air and passes it

to those who care

and those who don't

and kicks the ass

of those who won't.

While in another time, another day

A Monkey Puzzle Tree

who'll never have his say

stands solitary

in majestically dignified

defiant self-defense.

Hello Goodbye

Yes she's coming to town, today. Hurray. Really, I think it is a good thing, it's truly wonderful. She no longer has to sneak in incognito, in an old raincoat and Groucho Marx nose-glasses. Walking through the front door of Ireland, welcomed and forgiven for all the evil things she has, no doubt personally, done to us over the last few centuries. Expected by some to make an apology, I think she should and it should go like this:

"Citizens of Ireland, I am so sorry for actually BEING the blade of Cromwell. Please forgive me for the terrible sin of the famine. I was a twinkle in the eye of my great great Grandfather at the time. How dare I, even to have considered being a zygote, in the near proximity of Sir Walter Raleigh, who is responsible for bringing the potatoes onto our colony in the first place...." and more of that ilk.. Would she get away with mega sarcasm? I doubt it. Will I? Doubt it.

Sarcasm aside, my mother is going to be driven through all the security barriers, so that she can get to the funeral of her long time friend Maurice. He was 91 and lived a full and productive life.

Not a word about him on the radio so here is the obituary:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0513/1224296840528.html

On a personal note we all lived together in a house in Dublin in the early 70's. Two families together consisting of six young children, about five adults (one of them lived under the stairs)

and two college going teens. There was even a dog. The school was the Rotten Jam Sandwich - of which I retain no memories at all. Worrying considering I attended for two and a half years...allegedly.

Maurice was a stable person, an oasis in the chaos. And chaos it was. I remember. His voice was soft gutteral and gravelly. Words spoken with a humorous gravity. Smiling eyes carved into a soft lived-in wisdom face....

Smell you later.

Hi my name is Lewie. I am a attention deficit hyper-active canine who barks loudly every time I hear any noise what sounds like a knock on the door. I just love love love it when the post comes, especially junk mail, because then my misses gives it to me and I can pretend I have just caught a big rat and shred it to tiny bits. It gives her something to do afterwards when she comes and picks up the pieces and puts them in the treat box. This is where all the good stuff goes. She pretends not to see and if there is something really smelly in there, I have to get it. Being smelly is good. She calls me smelly a lot so she must really love me..

I have been here all my life. This is my house and I don’t ever want to leave. Like the time when peoples came and took away my brother and sisters one by one. We were four, then three, then two, then there was just me and my mama. Oh and the peoples too, but they weren’t cool like us. We already had fur on us, they have to make fur and then put it on them. Not so clever, but then again they are kind of cute and always try really hard to be kind.

I am starting to train her now. So far I have taught her when I need to go out in the garden.. I had to pee all over the house before she would get the message. She finally noticed that if she opened the back door I wouldn’t have to pee on the corners of the chairs and the floor. ..I love the word ‘pee’. I love peeing. When I make her take me for a walk by running around in circles with my lead in my mouth, I can pee on the trees and the lamp-post and the yummy smelly dust-bins.and, and, and another trick I used was leaving a puddle at the bottom of the stairs. She always fell for that one. That’s when I learned the socks word. I love socks. especially after she has been wearing them all day and they are warm and smelly.

I got to go now because I can smell something in the kitchen. It’s chicken. I love chicken and I love my person because she loves to cook chicken. I sit there and give her the look. I can do it real well. She always says “ok you can have a little piece with your dinner.” so I know putting thoughts in her head through my eyes is working. Chow for now, and I will smell you later.