In Word and Deed

Paul Houlihan
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Contents (dream)
3. Awakening (Exeter) a coin, within / a hand 6. Morning 8. The Rule of Thumb 9. After All 11. To Rest 12. Twilight of the Cockroaches 13. Diptych 15. Emersion 17. Galway 18. A summers haze 20. ()prs le deluge 22. a double bind (aflow) 24. azure (for conor murphy rip)

Awakening (Exeter) a coin, within / a hand / I had to go to the country-fare Without imposing when, I had to know where Tramping past canyons, past pyramids of tilted ice; A swollen mind pulsating with lice, No longer recognised
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my voice. Once appeared a cottage or so it seemed, collapsed upon rooftop beams A woman sowed shoes while I swallowed, And then we stole some slumber. When awoke I, a girl young was staring persuasively. She told me
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to get and up out-pointed hither. She said: You have to go to the countryfare. And youre nowhere Youre no Where here near there.

Morning ...the glass is half full today has just begun the sun will rise to shine all will be fine and I will be a man and try as best as I can with patience, sense & cheer, for there need be no fumbled fear of tomorrow's thrust & sorrow, no falcons now in the air the networks nerves twist & tear
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chaos reigns the reins are strained less than nothing nothing is... accept the bad enjoy the good free of thoughts taught redundancy

The Rule of Thumb Paul chuckles like hes institutionalised but when havent men been institutionalised? at least he' ll be the first to admit he's fit to be institutionalised; they pass the years press past the years passed at least they seem to be passing and everything goes on as if they were passing pages flick quickly from cover to cover over and over by rule of Thumb

After All This is the end, after the end; this is whats left,after you have left. Is this what we have dreamed Is this our work Is this how you wished it to be Is this our worth Are these our fathers Are these our sons Is this our prayer And this what was won Is this the centre Are these the bones Are these the hands And this our home Are these the days Are these our shrines Is this our blood And these our crimes This is the drought after the flood This is whats left when there's no-one left Is this the promise Is this stark pride Are these the things
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We hope to hide is this an answer Is this our light Is this our secret Is this our right Are these our symbols And these our games Is this our curse And this our shame Is this why we live Is this why we die Is this what will live And this what must die Is this what we've bought Is this what we've lost Is this what we've nourished Is this the cost This is the end, after the end; this is whats left,after all that's left.

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To Rest Token boy, token heart, Fills the paper cup up to the brim Takes a sip , notions drift, Dilate and delve within. Everything is out of focus; Savannahs swelter in a haze. Snug rests the slug On a sleek razor blade. Schizo bit the bullet. Dropped Upon rocks racked; His truth in life a tooth loose Noosed with string. Trestles truncate. Try to remember To forget the rot, right? Let it even Out. The journey ever moves As far as wide astray.

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Twilight of the Cockroaches I am a glorious cockroach. Moloch my name. See me scamper articulate to negotiate a way. My case is critical. 'Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness'.1 One day all this will be yours. Sacrifice your children now

1. GOD'S WORD is a copyrighted work of God's Word to the Nations.

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Diptych I City draped In dust & fog Beneath grim-grey Titanium skies, On the corner you situate Yourself, a figure Hypostasised. Tattooed streets, Tarred & feathered, Briskly rub their fists together, Around the theatre Where touts shout As the queues begin to slither. A bum comes mumbling ' for 'CHANGE?' Then wonders if

'That all y'got?'',

somethings you reach out to hold Are So cold you think they're hot. Now pubs & pints pour out Spewed forth From ceremonial doors, In the distance Sirens roar.... I wonder who they're calling for
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II In the bowels of Baudelairean alleys deep within nights rectum, silhouettes sit upon dustbins speculating on loose outcomes. of wire & string, sharp plastic, pulp, glass on glass, the glut of the word, masks a hollow nervousness of the empty but righteously absurd, Popcorn for the peasants fudge for the unemployed, In Mcdonalds. 4am. Note to self: there is no one present. In this. A void. Its hard to be a saint straight & true to who you are, you'll find yourself wrong way down a one-way street in a stolen car.

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Emersion Idle evening dwindles the susceptible sky cascades and bellicose it billows bits of burntblack-torn-tuft cleft-clouds while yonder fishermen return to shore with lost sons wintry ones who yearn for dice i switch off the light once more and step
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sprightly scintillating in flight gliding as the childs kite out on the deck, tossed into wrapt wind; swept, with a wish that fights to unfurl like a stone, the bones twist the sail lifts the foam glistens my heart still-beats

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Galway Approach, in the slack-jawed hours of a wind-wild morning; Sunday papers and milk-cartons stacked beneath cornershop awnings, Tired eyes. Tired. You and I. Hooded. Love in our yawning; Traipse through serpentine sloped streets of this cobblestone-clumsy town, Where sea-bedded fishing fleet sleep fast calm in the arms of the harbour. Seagulls screech and caw. Swish. The town clock ticks and churns its gears. No omen. Proceed as is your want. Here with the sulking hulks of bombastic ships; You and I; We are made one. I with the ghost of Galway town and you, Alice, with the Ocean; Made one till all doing is done.

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A summers haze In this asphalt desert walled up in the warmth beneath glacial skies the windows reflect concrete & sale-signs, over lugubrious bridges Past doors of locked office-blocks and vegetable shops Down promenades of pandemonium trolleys are thrust towards tattooed ghetto's past passage-ways of paraphernalia and trashcan retreats where cheap trollops entreat, arduous, under the squares mechanical eyes. Junk from the gutter sparkles and gushes, In spumescent pools by the margins of abstract boulevards where rag-tag groups
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Of bellicose troops in two piece suits pass-by Among - the cups the spoons, & the plates of the street -the sinuous sense-splitting-explicit streets, You, sit down. You think: "Who's got the time to keep up with the times?" You open up the petals of your palm instead & start studying the lines.....

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()prs le deluge As soon as the idea of The Flood had subsided, A hare stopped amid healthy hay and trembling bellflowers to say a prayer to the rainbow through a spiders web. Oh ! - (rubies and pearls were hidden,the willows already weeping). In the great dirty street stalls were dressed, and boats towed toward the sea, bestowed as if on engravings. Blood & whiskey flowed at The Bluebeard in abattoirs, where glorious light seared through windows. Blood & milk flowed. Beavers built. In the coffee-shops coffee-cups smoked. In great glasshouses bereaved children still drenched looked at treacherous images.A door slammed, and in the village square, a child pirouetted, understood only by weather-vanes and weather-cocks everywhere,under brilliant sleet. Madame X established a piano in the Alps. Mass and first communions were celebrated at a hundred thousand altars in cathedrals. The caravans [Link] the Splendid Hotel was built in a chaos of ice and night. Since then, the moon has heard jackals howling through deserts of thyme 20

And teachers in wooden shoes sluggish on the staircase. But, in the forest violet, budding, Eucharis told me that it was spring. Oh, pond, respond, - Foam, roll on the bridge and over the woods -break and shriek Thunder and lightning - rise and roll - Water and sorrows, rise and revive the Flood. Because since it has dissipated (with the rubies and pearls buried, and the buds full-blown) how insidious! And the Queen, the Sorceress who lights her coals in a clay pot, will never tell us What she knows, and of what we ignore. Trans. Bangkok 16/10/2011

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a double bind (aflow)

obssessive control unwinds wieldy ribbed aforementioned mind's-socket dehabilitated this ease founders famished the slipshod drunken ship bleeds rough-hued round its edges; Regard, how hinged, swelled toes and clinging finger nails bite by sheer smite principly alloted temptation's thorns thrust pitched past pith and call a hole a blister in birth answering breath. Needlessly the trial bewilders,
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errors amass. molds meet momentarily mirrored in satsfied horror. Dimly recollection decides henceforth its phantomfeast of conditions fracture this bliss washes waste taste incubates a want that can't

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azure (for conor murphy rip) To day in Dis day in t he f u c?k! in g re f ra in Am i u gl y am i va in wall ow in g wig g l in g ni gh ts in
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pa in Days drift past Like clouds p a s t a sails white mast O v er he ad h ave i lo st a gain a b ys mal fr i end wh ere nex t oh, Dra
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in ed es tr ange d for a for eign doll ar a day thre ad on dread thr ea d on Wa l k b y I walk a mon gst t he sha d ow s
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In the val ley of the lep ers hel p l ess l y the bur den of the self ish l y un dead weigh up on my con science Let the re b e
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ligh t & there will be ass u redly do ubt to fol l ow day dis da in the ho l low ref rain Walk on walk by the tram p sh it
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t ing on the side walk a si gn of des tit u tion not your va in glori ous revolut i on not your de ferred pre ference by so me s trange co in cidence
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c u nt wall ow ing in fil th t his wo rld g one wro ng vo mit t ing pret end in g t o be strong pre t ending to be
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right but we 've kno wn a ll a l ong that t hey ke ep it a ll hi d just tant alise with signs. I wa lk I w alk I wa lk up on the shad ows down In the valley of the lep ers

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