Jameson's Whiskey

Rack, ruin and a wrinkled brow
immense star-patterns
and scuffed boots carry me on

Is it raining? Will the body weave its way
over pavements, tar-spots shiny
with the blood of dawn?

0 you know! You who turns
the handle of a door/
I am fiercely happy in this solitude

Every move ignited by an absolute
self-absorption,
having no excuse

In company coming as a child’s
possession,
a fierce free-wheeling brotherhood

broken the lines behind us
of what was known, and the windpipes,
wired poles, address the dark

broken in the vessel of what went before
having no clear form for
what is to follow/

I will not come in from the wild night
to familiar grounds,
the haunted self-reflection

all grand gestures reduced to meager
fidgeting and figuring out
tomorrow’s meal

I will go on weaving songs in the dead
of night–unknown, unknowing
and entirely empty.

Rosses Point, Ireland, September 77.