Poems from L7 Blue to Jaysus UHL

I'm so happy to finally be publishing L7 Blue on here. Formerly 'It's not you I look for'. L7 Blue has come out nicely. 

L7 Blue tells the story of when JM became the central figure in my life in Limerick, and the many lessons learned. I hope you enjoy the poem. I don't look for him really, but I remember. I remember when I'm eating rice crackers and salad with 198 Champagne (Apple and Elderflower sparkling water) and I remember and hope he's okay. I remember JM and his unconditional kindness that was an antidote to the man who left me on the streets of Limerick. Here's L7 Blue. 

L7 Blue
(formerly "It’s Not You I Look For")

It’s not you I look for when I walk down O’Connell in the rain,
It’s not your face in the crowd I seek again and again,
Down at the boardwalk it’s not you I watch for, although the memory is there,
Shannon and the lights sparkle but it’s not about you — you’re not there.

I don’t go looking for you at the Salmon Leap,
It’s not for you, the vigil I keep.
But I see you, L7 Blue, and I give an evil grin,
I watch as you come round again and again — but you’re not him.

I sit on the wall and wait — maybe that’s him, he’ll be here,
But the ghost in my chest just shrugs, year after year.
It’s not him I follow when I cross the Square,
It’s not him — and yet, I still half-care.

L7 Blue, with your mirror-mind and tired old shoes,
You pass, and I wince at the shape of the bruise.
You’re not him. But you rhyme. And that’s close enough
To make me flinch — still not healed, still too rough.

And no, it’s not you I look for. Not now, not true.
But I still scan the bus windows for someone who
Might wear the same silence, the same crooked smile —
God help me, I haven’t unlearned the denial.

So I walk on. O’Connell slick beneath my shoes,
Past the lights, past the river, past the echo of you.
It’s not him. It’s not you. It’s no one I need.
But L7 Blue — I still watch you recede.

Next up is LNR, from my childhood. 

LNR

Far away is a town where the lines of orange lights shine,

Strings of orange flickering on at lighting-up time.

How can I capture that town in my memory, in this world alien to that world now?
How can I tell these people what was, and what is in my heart as tears flow?

I cannot tell you — the lines of lights, the smell of industry, the accent and dialect,
I can't describe what I remember, though it hums beneath my breath.
The children cry and the children play, the ice cream van far away,
The childhood we should have had and didn’t —
the words we needed, the safety that didn’t stay.

I remember dark railings and footsteps on stone,
The hum of the streetlamps when walking alone.
That town knew my name in a whisper, not a shout,
And even in silence, it never quite shut me out.

You don’t know it, and you never will —
That place where smoke rose over the hill,
Where girls with bruises ran past corner shops,
And no one looked up when the world stopped.

I carry it still, like an ember gone cold,
That town in the dusk, all orange and gold.
Not nostalgia — something sharper than that:
A ghost of what could’ve been,
Pressed under glass.

Monaleen Church. Many thanks to both Andrews, it was really special for this to go into words. 

Monaleen Church

I remember from childhood,
the rain on the stone and earth of the walls at Castletroy.
I remembered—but couldn’t tell you—the feeling:
sitting in the day services, looking out at the rain.

I remember you.
I could read you, though you didn’t know.
You meant well. I miss you.

I remember Groody and Golf Links,
Dublin Road, home.
Music, dance, oranges.
Dancing Queen. I lived for my music.

I was with you
when you brought her home—
when you brought me home.
Answering God’s call without knowing.

A companion to dance, to laugh,
to love the music.

I remember the rain on the walls of Dublin Road,
the trees drawing night in early.
But most of all—
the Easter Vigil at Monaleen Church,
the bonfire blazing bravely.

May 9th.
December 25th.
Monaleen Church in full bloom—
the flowers, the beauty, the ache of it all.

So here I am.
Home.

A ghost made of ice crystals and fire embers,
soaring above Monaleen and Castletroy—
and in her, in her music,
in her dance with life...

I came home.

The Ash Tree (also known as 'Daughter of the Granite Land). 

The Ash Tree.

By the endless road, the ash tree still stands,
its branches reaching into the wind like a question.
And the father is there —
not young, not old — just watching,
dreaming of playtimes once scattered like stones
by all his children who have flown.

He stands unseen now,
just past the edge of forever,
still watching, still waiting,
but I cannot reach out.

I cannot return
to that granite land
where quarries rang with sirens and gelignite,
where poplars whispered secrets to the wind,
and we ran — wild, laughing —
up rocky slopes,
climbing trees with scraped knees
and no idea what knowing would cost.

Those days are gone.
Replaced by the pall of insight,
the sharp weight of things understood too late.

But in my dreams,
he is there —
by the tree he loved.
And he reaches out
through the thinned veil of memory.

Now I fly above and beyond him,
a ghost in motion,
the shadow of the plane
briefly touching the granite below —
and I am gone

This one is for Kathleen and for the lovely people of O'Briensbridge-Montpelier. 

O'Briensbridge

O'Briensbridge, where the Shannon is sleepy,
but the canal never quite belongs.
The butcher there offers me a nice bit of sausage,
and I nod, half-lost in my songs.

She was laughing, sitting in the blue car—
‘You see why I love him,’ she said.
But I yawned, eyes heavy with silence,
as the red bus crawled over the bridge,
and Brahms' Lullaby played in my head.

I think about you.
And everything.

Jaysus, UHL - bonus track

The chaos of a weekend evening in the Regional—
trolleys everywhere and people gone mad.
No, I don't want to spend a few days on a trolley.
No thanks. I'm sick enough. Jaysus, UHL.

Why did you put me in the wrong zone
and forget my wrist tags?
Why did you forget you admitted me—
forget why I’m here at all?

Jaysus, UHL,
why won’t anyone talk to me,
tell me if I can go home?

I’ve no pillow on the trolley, and I need support.
Why are you leaving the porter to calm me—
or being rude when I ask a question?

Jaysus, UHL.
This is a mess.