' ' ' ' ' Miroir A Mourir De Rire(Mirror To Die Laughing By) Poem by Dónall Dempsey

Here a blackbird
stitches the sky and trees together

in a patchwork quilt
of sound

using a note
for a needle

creating a tableau
that includes

you & me
both

stitched into Time
by its song.

You lost in
concentration

as the drawing
flows from your hand.

I reading & re-reading
Man Ray

smiling at the joy of his inventiveness

how discarded
clothes hangers

become
(in his hands)

a flock of wooden birds
that clatter away

to the horizon of his imagination.

I pour myself
the coldest Cava

cradled
in my glass

as at once
two spectrums

born of
that second

chase each other
all over the page

dancing in their rainbow
watery flames

lighting up
the words

MIROIR A MOURIR DE RIRE
(MIRROR TO DIE LAUGHING BY)

& yes (I think)
if taken thus

I could be half in love
with easeful Death

holding in his bony hand
(these reflections)

the lost last piece
of the jigsaw

that was us.

And look...look!

The blackbird
puts the final stitch

in its tapestry.

*******

This was written today on this gloriously sunny Sunday
as both sun and blackbirds dominated the garden.

All we could do was draw and think and sweat and philosophise a bit.

The sun put me in mind of our lovely time together in Positano last summer and this little memory strayed onto the page and found itself wound up in a Tanka.

*******

PRAY FOR US SINNERS

A praying mantis
appears...& appears...to pray
(in another world)

at the church of your left shoe
the white waves of your panties.

*******

And then one tender little kiss led to another and...and...well!

******

NOW LOOK HERE!

Your mouth
gazed at me

imagining the kisses
that were

about
to
be.