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Love in sacrifice zones

The underdog was always her favourite.
In broken countries there are many.
The land ripe for extraction, pollution and rampage.
The air burned.
The water glowed.
The soil stank.

The spirit of the people strong through centuries of struggle. 
Ancestors robbed, bullied and blamed. 
Giant lakes gifted to Earls.
The people a productive inconvenience 
Irish Peasants, not overlooked, colonially buggered by Kings. 

Savages in the North, they told themselves. 
They got rich in their profit sports, souls tainted. 
The good people grew kinder, the elite’s malice nowhere to hide. 
Caravans in trees 
Speeches
Marches
Signatures
High Courts
Death threats
Their resistance had been fertile. 
Friendships grew and communities United to protect waterways, hillsides and children’s future. 

Dead loughs are money-makers.
Thriving businesses depend on a loss of life.
The enemy the governments they are forced to pay to protect them. 

Love forgives, but trauma is hard to forget.
This fight for land is not new.
Their desire to protect and preserve coming from the purest of places.
Their victory a win for all.
Even those they are forced to face.

Love

Doesn’t allow us to settle.
She inspires us to evolve.
Sometimes wildly
Sometimes gently
Always in the interest of our good.
An actualisation agent.

Conversations with God

Sitting by rivers, especially in Tyrone. 
Soothes the soul. 
Never knowing what a person might see. 

Over a year ago. 
Soft gaze. 
Drawn to object in water, other side to me.  
Focus.
Seen, the dead. 
A sheep fallen in, never to exist exit. 
Ewe in fact. 

Metaphors are cute. 
That sight and site.
Not lost on me.
I wanted a sign. 
It came clear on that day. 
Rivers kill women, sink them. 
Tread carefully. 
Women drowning. 
History witches were wasted.
Sheep that stray, might meet their maker. 
When searching for water.

The beauty of mundanity

Give me dull days.
Sofa naps.
Cups of tea I forget to drink. 
Half-read Sunday papers.

Promise me bedhead snuggles.
“Share” fifteens with questionable portion control.
Reluctantly gift me the fourth crisp from your packet.
Steal a roast potato with mischief in your eyes.

Gently tease me about my monologues.
Caress me like your most prized being.
Allow me into the spaces you most fear.
Sit with me in a silence that brings comfort, not terror. 

Be with me.
Accept our depths.
Allow this to be. 
The blandest of fairy tales.
Let’s live ever after.
With happiness stopping by but mundanity guiding us home. 

Wasps in December

She had not been stung since her childhood. 
That was decades ago. 
Her house on the hill had facilitated wasps. 
Not homed them
Not supported them
Entertainment had happened. 
She saw them as gifts.
Stings unwanted, but a sign of things to come.
Blissful Armageddon.
She noticed on her return, almost a decade ago.
There were lots of wasps North.
Not usually a fan, she liked this one.
Peace with it all. 

Sunday morning
17th December
9.20 am.
The buzzing audible,
Strong winds, no fear.
Just here with her new friend
Too close to Christmas for discomfort.
She guessed it had been drinking.
Maybe a Christmas do.
Cute, pathetic, her inebriated pal.
Weak, it wandered the window.
Trees, wasps, bramble- live to live, that is all.
Conscious to a degree, like her festive house guest.

In earlier months, she guided them out with towels or containers.
Today she watched as it exited unassisted. 
Slow and clumsy, prayer flags, a temporary resting point. 
Didn’t say goodbye, just needed its bed. 

COP28, had been bad, they are getting worse.
Activists not impressed.
Her small, dazed amigo an omen.
It won’t sting some of us.
Wasps in December.
A merry morning delight.
St Nick will be pleased this year.

Standing on business

How dare we treat her like that
Speak to her in that way
Use and abuse her so recklessly. 

Our Mother
The container of Mary
The birthing messages
Contempt complete. 

I write at the foot of a sturdy tree
Roots to hell, branches heaven bound
Wondering, what do we do now? 

The fallen hunter gatherers stormed streets in masks
demanding social housing after a comrade failed at beheading another. 

Logic skewed
No matter to many
Their business terms rejected
Farage delighted
Elon incited
Trump, dumpity dump, dullness, snooze.

When mothers mean business
they pick up the pieces
they do the real work.

They labour
They heal
They clean
The protect
They deal with broken boys and moronic multi-millionaire men. 

I sit where many have stood
The weeping willow ahead, the only sense of grief in me
I know what to do. 

Ignore them when possible
Earn my crust and protect hers. 

Many say I need a man as I seem so happy.
My glow exists because I am without. 

To need men is no longer on our to do list. 
From my hardened seat, it is clear it is them who need us. 

Killing Children 


I won’t say it too loud

In my effort to not be misunderstood.

Double negative -

I don’t like seeing children being murdered.

Ever.

Anywhere. 

At all.


I just think children should be allowed to live

To play

To laugh

To run

To bicker. 

To not be blown to pieces and traumatised.

That might sound silly, especially to politicians in power.

I just think children shouldn’t be murdered. 

Maybe I am old fashioned. 

A little out of touch...
 

I can’t see much good for our future.
 

Each dead child radicalising a generation to come 

Every injustice witnessed ensuring the crimes of the past will come back to bite a nation hard on the ass.

I don’t think you should murder children if your love for your family is true.
 

Actions create waves of movement.


Take care with what you do 

All of it will eventually 

Comes right back to you.


Killing children is bad.

All know that. 

Even psychos who enjoy. 


I can feel the ripples building and the tsunami that will come

From the river to the sea Palestine will be free

The laughter of children will fill the air and we will remember every tiny soul that never got to sing 

The following poems are about a trip to Cloughjordan Ecovillage in April 2024

Cloughjordan Community Calling

Kathleen blowing we exited stage North
Sunday afternoon, Tipperary bound
Bellies ready
Ecovillage, talks, expecting kale, not knowing it holy
Bus stops, pit breaks, unfamiliar, keen
Some didn’t make the crossing
Storms blaze new paths and obstruct passages
Community and Food what we found.

Oh, I almost forgot.
And peace.

Dog tails telling

Tales of friendliness 
Tails of Joy 
Round houses scripting relationships ending 
Groundbreaking projects completed 
PowerPoints, passion, playfulness, pain
Such is life. 

Friendships singed, seared, eco-cemented
A community-chosen family another name.
 
They bought it for a million
Before the tiger roared 
Reminding them resistance is fertile 
Their impact immeasurably 
Banks will not touch the ethereal currency of community, boldness, audacity, and strength 
A legacy complete.

A landscape of simple seasonal beauty
People the best and worst
As those messy beings are meant to be. 

Look at this, the orchard whispered
Look what we made, the stoned building muttered.
Look at how things could be, Cloughjordan mumbled in humble magnificence. 

The dogs told on them all 
They might never know 
As many are filled with grief and love
Love and grief
The wise know they are each other
Stories told of a journey walked softly with fragile, tender footing. 

The paths wander so they may wonder 
I walked there
Knowing it is here 
Never to unknow what can be done
They did it 
The dogs told on them 
Nothing but love, in these fields. 

Peace is not given on this planet
At this time 
In this most violent era 
It is fought for 
A community built by heart warriors taught me that
The best weapons are truth, integrity, morality, and unity.

The houses all south-facing 
The soul site after all 
So much sun
Found in all our bellies
Cells 
Bones
System. 

Food made with hands, time, dedication, honour 
Bake bread for all
Carrots lacking
Hungry gaps
Allow space for gratitude 
God in this place 
Eyes, dogs, food 
All, never and always lie in good living. 

Biophilia in the air

In every crevice
Corner
Surface
And challenge
The biophilic beat bursting bountiful blasting beauty.

Life is best faced with connection, contemplation, community, compassion and care 
The noise is deafening for ears attuned to nature’s pace 
Times are insane, we must, must, must slow down. 

The beat is her heart
The light rain her relief weep
The hunger gap her inhalation
Her exhale will be sublime.

The buds 
The droplets on grass 
The soil, her skin tenderly preparing 
To provide life for a community 
Mindful to her loving
Gentle with her fragile soul
Mighty, delicate, merciful, abundant, divine. 
In April they congregated
None of them fools
To live tenderly in the bellyful abundance of living, growing, bickering, healing, biophilia-bouncing
The answer to every woe a well-lived life could muster
Springy in her wisdom
Sunny in her ways.

Uncomfortable conversations

Gentle Coups redirect
Democracy prevails with passionate thirds
Breaking through by contemplatively rejecting collective breakdown
Resilience through vulnerability.
Community is family of interconnection and relation.

Differences respected
Democracy attested in beautiful ways
Two thirds beaten by a passionate, dedicated minority
As it should be.

16 euros a week feeds the farm, the people, the home
Life-sustaining and affirming.
Food within feet, no air miles points gained.
Holy kale saves the day and is sense
Lots of sensing in Cloughjordan.

Thinking in messy ways for new days
Planning is a piss (non) taker in waste ways
Round houses permitted as don’t look ‘too round’ in departmental fonts
Many rejected
The pulse of community moved on. 

Still here
Sensing, surviving, thriving, flourishing
Mostly modelling how things could be for many.

Imperfectly dialoguing 
Real relating
Embodied ethos
Meetings held, holding breath, grief, space and hope
The birds are delirious to blow-ins ears
The rain did not dampen the sweet, soft, tender soul of a haven of eco-hopers
Soil soaked, smiles emboldened, stories shared, memories stamped clearly in pleasure and inspirational mind files
This gentle land creates ripples far and wide
Those lucky to visit leave touched by a special place 
How things should be.

Love landing

Love lies in the land

The way we hold

Fold

Tend

Relate.

The stomach is the heart’s best friend

Feed it from the nearest earth pantry

Grow your fuel

Earth system depends

Be of service- land lovers

Reap the soulful harvest of our life.

Rub it up 'em. 

They preyed on the "weak"
That is how they saw sensitive souls
Kindness deemed weakness
Compassion seen as flawed
Love not their language. 

Nevertheless she/ they persisted...

Dedicated in the pursuit of justice, equity, beauty.
They filed their fraudulent claims/ bills/ documents.
Each one slowly declined
Their lifestyles an attack on earthly good. 

The truth stood naked
In front of their greedy, beady, dead eyes.
They could no longer look away.
When she spoke 
The veil lifted
Their game end. 

What ensued in their bank accounts- mayhem.

They knew what they did.
Their nonchalance their inevitable downfall.
They wept into bankruptcy filings.
The lover people collectively sighed relief
and whispered under their karmic breath-
"Rub it up 'em."

To the child

To the child who feels unloved,
you are loved beyond measure.

To the child who feels unimportant,
you are more important than you could ever know.

To the child who is never heard,
you are going to use your voice for the world, hang in there.

To the child who cries alone at night,
your tears are not wasted, let them flow, the best is yet to come.

To the child who never wins,
you are a bright, brilliant star and your prize is coming. 

To the child who is not good at school,
you have many skills, gifts and talents that no one can teach you.

To the child who barely laughs,
you will laugh much more in better days that are not far away.

To the child who is scared of the future,
you have nothing to fear all will be well in your world. 

To the child who is angry,
you are angry because you have been hurt but you will heal.

To the children we are all failing.
I am sorry.
We are making mistakes.
I know you can do much better.
Because every time I meet a child
I know the future is bright
I know you are all very special
I know this world is for you.