THE GIFT

When straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails.

                                                                         Cheslaw Milosz

 

The gift of insight was given to me

by the master Carver, a faction un-

dreamt. I caught his breath all

the way back to the source like

a ripple of his fishing float Yakima

to the Bann in a flow state.

 

For ten years I wrote his breath, became

a published poet, creative writing tutor.

Took a massive stroke that almost killed

Me took my being and long-term memory.

I can’t remember my kids childhood but

his words make me see through my black-

hole aphantasia.

 

 Pure gravy flows through me, I see

Beyond Irish traditionalist nationalistic

Republican nonsense a top I.R.A. was

My father man whom I never spoke but I see

peace through words of wonder the words of

Carver, Kavanagh and Simmons flow through

my veins.

 

They appeared like Nietzsche’s Zarathustra

The world isn’t ready for peaceful words, this

Is a time of war, how can the world do from

Peace to war in one day no longer C.N.D. anti-

 war warped by propaganda like the rise of hate

speech fascism.

 

Humanity is lost in materialist con-sumerism, all

those years I wrote the brutal truth of growing up

an English boy in nationalist Ireland thirty years

of war as if I knew that I would lose

my memory, the die-cast from peace to war.