My old man is dust-man

 

My da was a hardman from north Belfast.

 Was trying not to write of trauma but this

 Is all iv’e got, my down is my up. My da

 Was not a nice man, it wasn’t nice under

 His skin. I cried for him each night he was

 Out in a gunbattle.

 

I wonder what he would make of me now.

 Rummaging through T-chests in the attic

 were magazines Of Japanese torture no-

 porn. Books on the secret army Michael

 Collins and mums books on Hollywood.

 What a mix a sadist and a humanist. Dublin-

 Belfast, he always said I was to sensitive. 

But that was my mum the poet in me

 

I wrote my first poem called bastard life

 on the hard- chair, I sat by his coffin

 for three nights. Abstained from drink

 on the third day when he was put in

 my emotions burst out.

 It was the first poem I had published.

 As if he gave me this gift of elegy-

Negative capability. He is buried up

the black mountain, plotless is how

he lived and died. I have to live under

his skin his tears in my eyes