How To Be A Dub

Never leave your umbrella at work. Never.
Don't dream of trying to park near Grafton Street.
The Guinness in O'Donoghues is hard to beat.
Sunset on the Beckett Bridge invents new edible colours. Lick them up.
Buses equal drama. Bring a pencil and notepad.
Most cinemas suck. You also need to book in advance. This seems shit.
The humour's dark, and always there. Laughing at it helps.
The Sunday newspapers arrive on Saturday nights and they read easy, after a few.
People will always diss this city. They're the ones who don't see it.

Lately

Lately,

All I see is the beauty 

Of the universe:

Perfectly formed potholes

The squish of a slug on the walk to work

Petrol stations, neon, one after another

Pay slips, unopened and yet spent

High heels, heels too high to be worn

Extra large condoms lingering on the chemist shelf

The early morning red glow of alarm clock digits.

The beauty sings, 

Somehow. 

Periodic Speculation

Is this catastrophe
Or epiphany
Or merely monthly musing?

Literary Condundrum

Sometimes, when I'm alone, I write so that I feel like I'm with people.
Sometimes, when I'm with people, I write so that I feel like I'm alone.

Where Do You Get Your Ideas From?

The universe sings a snatch of a song
That jerks the lobe of your ear.
You sing it back, feeling fake
A mocking bird, mimicking meekly.

But,

Let those few notes sing, let yourself sing them.
Follow the universes's melody
With your own tuneless timorous tune,
No doubt sung poorly, no doubt sung prosaically,

But,

Nevertheless,
A poem.

In Summation

Abacus snicking, I calculate

The accumulated total of

Teary pillows, full of

Feelings, each busy feeling.

They number too many.

Salt sleep soaked sockets

Subtract and divide me.

Propped up by mounds

Of pillows, suffocation seems

The neat simple solution.

Oh

Two = an irrational number.

The mathematical problem is

I swore off love,

Properly. The dramatic, repeated

Hand-on-heart kind

That somehow sticks, stickily.

I choked it effectively.

Now the integers integrate,

All the series correlate,

All the factors escalate.

And

Two = a complex number.

When the equation balances,

The formula replicates. Replicates.

The pillows are dry;

The vow, once given,

Cannot unravel, it loops.

Love eschewed, a cycle.

Freedom lives in freedom,

It inhabits the mind.

Now

Two = an imaginary number.

He flickers at first

Parenthetical on my periphery,

This piece of Greek.

I ignore, obdurately ignore,

Turn my pillow, collude

With its cool, but.

The random pattern entrances.

So

Two = a real number.

I carry the bracketed

Cluster of symbols, allow

The additional clause. Arcane

Words and pillows dissolve,

Sequences converge, joy multiplies.

The mesmerise is infinite.

Yes.

Two = a prime number.

This poem was first published in The Weary Blues journal by New Binary Press in December 2013. It was my first publication.

Untitled Poem

You wanted divinity
I was laughingly crude.

You wanted oblique mystery
I was openly yours.

You wanted feverish dysentry
I was body temperature cool.

You wanted polished refined sweetness
I was half raw cane sugar, half-tart.

You wanted a glass of Pinot
I was a luke-warm Tipperary apple juice.

Whatever else they may say of love, 
It does not bother with check-lists.