Skins of the Flesh Book 1

8/2/2019 Skins of the Flesh Book 1

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SKINS

OF

THE

FLESH

A collection of poems

by

Dermott O'Dowd


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INTRODUCTION

The skin, like poetry is multi layered. In life it must suffer many cuts, some

deeper than others. The work presented here spans forty years and there has

been much healing in that time with only minor abrasions to show now.

There is no particular order to this short collection except for beginning with

'Love' and ending with 'Back before the beginning' two very healing pieces.Enjoy the journey.


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CONTENTS

LOVE...........................................................1

MUD............................................................2

WASTE........................................................3

FIRE.............................................................4

RAINBOW GRAY......................................5

MOVING.....................................................6CRESCENDO..............................................7

ALONE........................................................8

BLUE NUN.................................................9

WITNESS...................................................10

REMEMBERING.......................................11

SURRENDER.............................................12,13

CARELESS.................................................14

LOST AND FOUND...................................15

GUILT.........................................................16,17SERPENTINE.............................................18,19

OLD FRIEND.............................................20,21

SCONES AND TEA...................................22

WAITING...................................................23

POEFACED................................................24,25

THE WAY..................................................26,27

GREENANE CEMETARY........................28

OVERSOUL...............................................29,30

PEACE........................................................31,32SOUL..........................................................33

FULL FRONTAL.......................................34

I WILL SURVIVE......................................35

BORN.........................................................36,37

TOO SENSITIVE.......................................38

FROM A CHILD'S EYES STARING........39,40

BACK BEFORE THE BEGINNING.........41


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LOVE

Yes! I love you

And will gladly let you go,

For you are made of finer stuff

Than my careful dreams Command.

For a while I tried to make you mine,Constructing emotional cages,

Tempting you in,

But you are made of finer stuff

Than my careful schemes demand

And walk through the gathered forces of my

feelingsAlways free.

Yes! I love you

And will gladly let you go,

When I surrender And the doors of my heartAre held open, You come

With all your careless themes in hand,

Kiss me softly with your mind

And I am yours Because you let me go.

1


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MUD

I've been looking in mud

For things rooted in sky,Like a child eating chocolate,

Face ,clothes, splattered,

Most of the goodness lost.

What could be found there?

Fragmented reflections,

Splintered into endless images,This sex, that sex.

As the pieces meld,

The whole becomes evident,

A beast so rare and beautiful,

It terrifies the living daylights

Out of me.

2


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WASTE

Coming down hereTo the very ends of desire,

The sexend of all endings,

Where tails indulge in salivating mouths,

Pulsatingly.

I ask myself,

Why the staggered death

Of sperm let loose in hope of egg?

Why has nature undone so many?

A million acorns lost

Never to spring a leaf,

Who line the fermenting bellies of squirrels.

Is that us?

Expendable, fodder of the Gods,While a chosen few go on,

As the rest go off

To try again.

3


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FIRE

I dare to put my hands in the fire,

The highest fire,

The one that once was two and thenBecame One.

And that which was held so secret,

Opens out,

Reveals it petals to this bee,

Making it impossible to believe In the fragmented

mirrors of relationships, As if they were outside the

door

And somehow

Not me.

4


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RAINBOW GREY

Its taken a very long time,

But I finally never arrived.

Gave up somewhere along the way,For no reason,

After too many fine purposes

Dried in desert suns and blew away.

I guess I am happy

Doing nothing,

Walking the Earth and leaving aloneThe many hearts that beat

And race the veins of day.

Neither am I on the path

Nor on the paths side,

But rather taking in the view

Of something, neither black nor white,But maybe,

Rainbow grey.

5


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MOVING

It gets harder as I grow older,To uproot the tendrils of furniture,

Take the pictures down from all embracing walls,

Pack the books that read the dusty wooden shelves

with words.

I fall too easily as I get older,

In love with slowness and too fixed things,

With slug that silver trails for hours,

And keeps some shine of stars

For day.

6


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CRESCENDO

Ah! That moment again,

Rising like a bloodied march moon,

Haunting the fragile surfaces of day,Reverberating in the hollows of trees

And those pregnant spaces

Between thoughts and touches,

Hinting, there is more.

More to life than just this skinful thing,

Balancing the weights of pasts and futuresAnxiously conspiring to be born,

Into now.

7


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ALONE

As a child, I never dancedOr played or entered into games,

There was no one like me where I lived,

I was alone,

My back against the walls of home,

Of schools, of roads.

As an adult I never dance or playOr enter into games.

There is no one like me where I live,

I am alone.

My back against the walls of home, of work,

Of life.

8


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BLUE NUN

Heavy tieredRain eyed man

With just a wink of wile,

Before the wet beer altar

Hands prayerful with alcohol,

Remembering times that never happened,

People that never were,And not caring but always sharing

With strangers.

Faceless, raceless nomads,

Pub tribed warriors,

Ghost ridden and rifled empty

Of everything.

9


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WITNESS

I saw you come down the mountainsideAfter seeing God,

And rush to the nearest tavern

And get wildly drunk.

No better priest would I serve,

Than you my drunken friend,

And learn to loseThen leave the losing,

And laugh,

Laugh,

At No thing.

10


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REMEMBERING

Before the ending of the memory,

Primed to step into joy.

The tone breaks, quivers,

Leaving sadness to seep in.

As if it were the nature of such things,

That live and grow so wild and lovely,To reach a summit,

Then tread the vacant air expecting

More.

More than death and falling down,

More,

Than Earths preposterous claim.

11


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SURRENDERGod,

I am crazy,

Left and lumped in lostness,

Opened out

Pared peach speared,

Holy openAnd in love.

Love defy me not,

Nor define, outfine a plot.

Systems,

I know not, nor care.

Like tides moon spelledAnd puppet waved,

Not their will,

But Thine.

Surrender,

Those hanging things,

Mat material mush,Drip solely

Onto corrugated spires.

Let them melt

In light fires divine,

Into ecstasy

Blown like love 12


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Dovewinged,

Poised.A feather sill hung

And waiting Wind.

13


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CARELESS

Thunder ponders

Bearding the heather edges

And tumbling down the walls of EarthsCoarse skin.

I lay curdled, craved and full, In hollow silken

sculptures fed

Mirrored, monied and masturbated,

Deaf to drumming on outer painted bones,

Drinking tea and thinking Times,

No mans friend

And could not care less.

14


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LOST AND fOUND

I am lost and found

At once and last.

Cell separated, coagulated,In wider visions participated.

Earthbodied,bloodrivered,

With eyewind breathing

Lungleaf sighs In the tallsky mind.

This man, dogbarked and licking

Knows You now,Sunheart beating

In each and every core,

With every starfilled nerve

An open door.

15


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GUILT

Dark days, cloud hung

Wetcloth grey.Nervous edges of hedges

And trembling things,

Sharpened by fearwind

And flutterering red knife

Red.

Moments solarplexed, perplexed,Puzzled and riddled,

Shadowed by a white knight

Evil and mad.

Waiting for his sword to bite,

Souldrinker,

Selfmurderer.Sense lost, insensitive,

Poised on broken glass,

Prepared to throw my own sweet bottle

And it frozen, hanging there

Highhand held and stretched out.

For I the criminal, 16


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I the crime,

Confessed of unnecessary evils,Take myself to the guillotine

For justice to be done.

17


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SERPENTINE

Our hero sat,Tramp and trumpled down,

In Petes Caf at half past three in the afternoon,

Sipping tea content,

That battles anxious were over

And Mrs Murgatroyd

Would sleep

The silent sleep of the dead.

No one knew nor cared

That in his pocket pined

Soulsearcher Stone,

Key to mysteries miraculous,

Minder of Reality,

Teller of Truth,Edged Razor Of the Middle Way,

Next to a dirty hanky,

Snotsoiled and germ ridden

No one knew nor cared

That in his mined memory 18


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A thousand incarnations settled,

For he,Initiate most high ordained,

Healer of impossible wounds,

Master of love Mistress of Light

Mystified and sanctified

Clouding this filthy foul mongrel

In methalated daze.

At Petes Caf at half past three in the afternoon,

Shortly before our hero ascended into Heaven

A final tear fumbled down

Falling on the bean stained table,

Bad debt cleared.

Christ had come and gone

After many years of preaching in the wilderness

To Serpentine ducks that never cared.

19


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OLD FRIEND

Old friend,

Given up and gone over

To the other side.

You, who once flew off Parliament Hill,

As doorsteps grew milk bottles

And London your Cathedral.

You, who banged on dustbin lids Along the

Goldhawk Road,

A wild cymbal king heralding The New Age.

Why have you left me?

For kitchen tiles And a wooden wife,

And the striped tribesThat death claims,

Everyday in coffin trains

To Matthew and Son.

Old friend, 20


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Given up and gone over

To the other side.You, who once grew wings,

Solved the mysteries of life,

Turned your ladies into flowers

And saved the ignorant in Hyde Park

While Stones changed into butterflys

And love fell down the days.

Why have you deserted me, old friend?

Your garden is a tidy cemetery now

With memories buried too deep,

While your glasshouse wife

Shows her vast collection of goodies

To those she carelessly steps on.

Now a fully paid up member

Of the suburban set.

If you come near me now,

I will at the very most

Only ignore you.

21


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SCONES AND TEA

Having gone out near the Edge,

Found no one there

And nearly caught a cold.

I reluctantly came back

For scones and tea.

I have heard of others who have gone there

But never came back

And was told its oh so easy to go over

To the other side.

But having looked there,Apart from the odd Unicorn and Vestal Virgin,

I was not much impressed,

Besides, it was getting chilly,

And I was feeling peckish.

Maybe some other time. 22


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WAITING

Waiting, waiting,

Always waiting,

Waiting and waiting,

Grating waiting,Waiting and lateing,

Wasting while waiting.

If I am not seen to now, I will just,

Well I will just,

I will just,

Have toWait a little more.

23


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POEFACED

And having looked,

And having wandered

Over mountains, under seas,

I have felt in endless faces

Much more tears than in the oceans.So come to me, not in the morning

Nor in the evening, and tell me not

That you have died,

For I have seen before the burning

Locked in fight against the demons,

Loved a hundred, then a thousand,Till God grew restless from the mourning

Took me to the door of ages,

Left to merge in all my wanderings,

Nothing left but nevermore.

Still the beauty, still the pain

Over east and over west, 24


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Two of everything contriving,

Making eggs of good and bad.

Out they came and fast deserving,All they were and all they'll be,

Not a thing left for the dustman,

Nothing wasted here and there.

So you see and so it goes

In and out before your eyes.

Let it be and it will love you,

Build your walls and you are dead.

And I have not a single notion,

How it ended, what its for,

The present knows the fullest story,

But you cannot help exploring

Turning up and rolling over,

Prodding with your mindless peni

Till all is done to satisfy.

So the soldier trods the heartache

Never knowing what its for,

As you grow the reasons working,

Taking place before your eyes.

When you've grown enough to take it,Its importance falls to pieces,

And all your pointless thinking,

Dies.

25


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THE WAY

I go between

The too hygienic light

And too trying dark.

Feet, footing the razors edge,Bloodied and good.

Not too much niceness or goodness

But rather the spitting ache

From diseased roots

Occasionally well lit, but vague,

A monster of a saintReady to save those too easily devoured,

Holding the great weight of my wisdom in carrier

bags,

Plundering me down

Joyfully,

Lest I would fly 26


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To that which is too good to be truth,

Too bad to be wise.

So it is my right,To travel the hardcore way,

Expecting a wideness incomprehensible,

An infinity of purposeless meanings,

Not too tortured by what is light

But decadent in desires

That one day will molest

The night.

27


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GREENANE CEMETARY

There are holes in the walls of Greenane Cemetary

That let the dead leak out onto the road.

I have written several letters to the County CouncilBut no action has been taken to date.

It is very distressing for the relatives

Of the deceased,

Who have to pray uselessly over uninhabited

graves.

At a funeral the other day I witnessed in broad

daylight

A soul seep through to the nearby road.

I am tempted to take matters into my own hands

And plug the holes with stones and mud

To halt this unseemly exodus.

But it strikes me that it is a matter for near relations

To keep their loved ones in situ.As for me I refuse to be buried there

For its quite pointless.

I would be gone in no time.

For surely a leaking cemetery,

Is no cemetery at all. 28


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OVERSOULYou come!

Before the bell of knock,

Unannounced, spectacular.

Before the I is ready to determine,

Caught left handed and gasping,Trying vainly to catch up,

Take control.

You come!

Glorious and inexhaustible,

Tearing emotions to pieces,

Like some useless confused jigsaw,Setting off on pointless courses,

An animal caged

By the impossible.

You come!

And are gone so soon

And I who woke up at midnight,Lost the sun while it shone

Lost the light while it ran

Lost those eyes while they looked

And took their soul reward.

You come!

And do not care for me 29


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And I let you, like some unabled host,

Abuse my proffered hospitality,

Plunder my treasured cellar of its wine,Left half drunk by the back door,

Never to come back again.

30


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PEACE

Peace broke out without warning,

The butcher reopened his shop at 11:59 pm,

Selling the chopped dead,Business as per usual.

How may I help you madam, sir?

Peace splintered into the factories,

Machines sent their workers to tea

Just before midnight,

Packed the tasty chemicalsFor the supermarket kings,

Service with a smile.

Peace took the soldiers into slavery,

Gave them nice jobs in the city

Very late at night,

Making money for old rope,Sacred plastic cards

For your convenience.

Peace overwhelmed the farmers,

Mowed them down in their fields

Long after sundown,

Killed the meat heavy beasts, 31


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Cellophane wrapped,

A pleasure to serve you.

Peace taught the children to be fools,Took their minds and made them obvious

After their bedtime,

To dream of freedom

They will never see,

We are at your service madam/sir?

Peace took us all by surprise,

Especially the very good men

As the clock struck midnight,

And Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

Never to be put together again

Have a nice day sir.

32


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SOUL

I am afraid I can only see that which is invisible,

Touch that which is without substance,

For that is my true homeOne thousandth of a millimetre beneath the surface.

I am afraid I can only feel that which is

unemotional,

Taste that which is without flavour,

For that is my true home

A millionth of a millimetre below the surface.

I am afraid I can only hear that which is soundless,

Think that which is without mind,

For that is my true home

One billionth of a millimetre below the surface.

33


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FULL FRONTAL

Now is the time for not caring,

For over in the far corner,Etched in black oil,

Is my wretched name.

For I the maker

And the breaker,

The lover and the hater,

Poured it on,Thinking it was you and him

And the others too,

Till now,

The symbol in my own handwriting

From the corner of my eye,

Stands outFull frontal exposed

Obscene me.

34


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I WILL SURVIVE

When it comes down to this,

At the very least I will survive,

Breathe lungfuls air,

Eat handfuls bread.

That other stuff,

The luxury of dreams,

Reflections, memories.

The complicated emotions of relationships,

Evaporate,

When my roof rains down,

My bread grows green,

Lungs Jung hung.

At time like this,

Sex drips through my pores,

Freud and boiled,

My stomach is not a vagina,

My alveoli cannot give you head.

There is a can of beans that must be openedSpilt milk to be drunk

And clean fresh air

To be sucked in,

For when it comes down to this,

I will survive. 35


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BORN

The truelife is the birdlife,

Knowing only flight,

Not ever landing or needing to,

At least until that time

When greater LoveDemands a crash into mud.

I am a feathered thing,

In truth that is me,

I glide above the backs of clouds

Where the real work is done,

But I can only fly for so longTill tears heavier than rain,

Anchor me down,

Down again.

It is the law,

The one that goes in spirals,

That pulls us into cages,Locks the leaden door on memory,

A merciful act to spare us whilst in prison,

From crying, crying, crying.

Goodbye to you my aerial friends,

The time has come to dive.

The sentence is hard labour, 36


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Time off for good behaviour.

Your Love can never leave me,

For I will rise again.The weights have all been chosen,

The cage with colours broken,

I give myself to the birdcatcher

To be born.

37


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TOO SENSITIVE

Sensitive as the winds breath on still water,

As the birds beak in the worms stomach,

As an asthmatics inbreath laden with dust mites,

I am supersensitive to the nervous colours of other

People auras

And ask,

Should I be here?

Where feelings turn to cold stones

Caving in my access to

Worlds unbelievable, unimaginable.

And the it occurs to me,

Of course,

I should be here

To weigh my pain against my insensitivity,

Balance the scales

Become a true and fervent

Martyr for a pointless cause.

38


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FROM A CHILD'S EYES, STARING

Yellow bones lay crusting before the dustman

came, as the wind swept away the memories of old

peoples brains. Eyes so young had seen only the

well worn boiling street but not the blood that

spluttered under the doors, when a child was born,

where a war had torn. Within the fumbling walls,wild horrible screeches were heard from dirty beds,

letting the big eared neighbours know of what they

did to themselves. Innocence fell, a wilting ice pop

paper in the nervous wind and never was it left in

peace till the air stopped laughing. The little boy ,

who knew of other things, cultivated his tears thatnever saw sunlight but dropped like thorned molten

lead onto the thoughts he could not understand.

Alone he lived, enclosed in armoured flesh,

waiting, waiting. In this time the sea that

surrounded him, spoke in a stuttering of waves he

could not comprehend. Stones appeared to knowbut

would not say and as for the Sun, it did not care.

Yet the stars defied the deaf dark sky writing

poems in every spark but he a mere child could not

read such a complicated message. The straw bed

that filled his lungs with cotton, he shared with his


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brother in eczematic pools of sweat and blood.

There is something wrong with that boy! Outside

his home he observed that people were losing timeon their own clocks and watches. Children growing

older walked on nearby roads and when they'd stop

to play they'd do the things their Father'd say.

When the bad guys were about to win, the Lone

Ranger would save the day and no one seemed to

care what was won or lost as long they were beaten

and the good guys lived happily ever afterwards,

singing along with Roy Rogers as he rode into the

sunset on Trigger the wonder horse. God bless Ma,

God bless Da and don't forget Superman. Then the

cruel disappointment, no badmen, only his mind.

Keeping to the footpath he observed that cars could

smash his body and walls could block his mind,

how could anyone know they were lost when no

one knew the way. The world got smaller than

when his father was a knee and mothers breast milk

for free. Black nuns and pitch black brothers ate his

brains for breakfast lunch and tea. Hail Mary full of

punishment as leathers with coins and ends ofbilliard cues rained down on his fears. Each day the

dreaded journey to the concentration camp where

angry men who could not concentrate at all

stomped his breathless body and his mind.

Sentenced to ten years behind a desk with no time


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off for good behaviour. Mother driving and driven

by her brutal God to gain a priest slave for her

family, guarantee of Heaven attached to his lapels.Frantic for an answer, he looked into the eyes of

older caving faces, but only saw darkness smelt

their sins stinking of hell fire and woodbines.

Saturated in the dusty tomes of stories of saints and

martyrs, he, already tortured everyday was envious

of their release but no matter how hard he prayed,

no rescue attempt was ever made. From crucifixion

to Fanny Hill and The Gingerman and renegade

Jesuit Joyce. Saved by the sins he was not sure of

and an iron boat laden with a thousand stories,

heading with cattle to the Promised Land. Mother

crying at the door step, her dreams of salvation lost

as her son walked out of prison, her eldest and most

chosen taking her hopes away in a worn suitcase

that she knew could never be retrieved. From

always nearly dying to maybe nearly living. From

crimes he never committed to a place where the

innocent roam free. Ten pounds in his pocket and

wearing his too tight confirmation suit, shrunk bytears and time, he stepped out into the morning

light from wormlike tube, into a new world,

breathing for the first time in his too short life,

freedom, freedom, freedom.


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BACK BEFORE THE

BEGINNING

No further forward than before

Vanity foiled

Steps footless and fooled

Ache empty

For the sun's fine breath

Back before the beginning

Fakir coiled

Tricks toothless and cooled

Hold edges

For the skins blind death

What careless wave had flung me?

Treasure piled

Drops splattered and pooled

Left nothing

For the Styx bad debt

Yet lost I am somehow found

No less spoiled

Job joined and schooled

Open cored

For the winds full net 41


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Skins of the Flesh Book 1

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Transcript of Skins of the Flesh Book 1