JANICE I WAS GONNA SAY YOU JOGGED MY MEMORY BUT I HAVE NONE.

JIMMY ONCE TOLD ME POEMS ARE AUTOBIOGRAPHIES, YOU CREATED

A RIPPLE OF WORDS FLOWED IN ME. AFTER I READ YOUR PIECE ON FB

I WENT SEARCHING AND FOUND TWO OF THE FIRST POEMS I WROTE AT

THE POET'S HOUSE. THESE ARE MY MEMORIES THANX:

FIREWEED 1.

The mist moves in over Islandmagee

blue horizons are no longer seen. 

I'm here at The Poets House, locked 

in a poetry workshop: "Invasion".

As the mist begins to clear, I see

purple, the head of thistledown.

I reach to touch the color green

my skin welts with nettling pain.

I move inland along climbing narrow

twisting lanes, smugglers paths.

The blemished earth of invading

armies from other defeated shores.

The nettle stings have disappeared

but the gulls cry in my heart, I move

inland like fireweed on this burnt

encrusted land.

Fireweed2
for David Craig 

Shaving with virgin steel in the pulse 
tension of hand, the misted condensation 
of age. The blade cries like a sharp tongue 
licking red release.

The residue of my past lies at the bottom 
of the sink, I pull the plug and it falls away 
into the mensural sewers of loss.

I wipe away the mist from my reflected self, 
bloody war, winter landscape. Recycled pulp 
on my face hardening like a second skin.

I must shed and reappear wounded.