My dreams take speed
Be simple just
Say what you see to whom you choose to say
So is my desk then altar or alterity?
I bite on life
The bitterness will daunt but not defeat me
And I hear you
I can never give you voice
My dreams take speed
My Baghdad dreams take speed
My rest my head against the pillow of the west
My dare not close
My eyes my sail on
Baleful
Exclamation bombs my Baghdad
I slow witted all my dreaming lovely disinherited
My magic near the edge
I love the edge
I love its line by line disdain
You don't
Have long to live
Sweet parliament
And worse
Declaratory vat behind the archive
You have never had a heaven to go on to
Heaven knows.
The smoke the boxing ring
The gypsy ash of
Seven homely hills
Your table cloth still knows
The knowing burns
The smiling scars
For here is one who lives
And takes
And kills
Go quickly
Corner him and shred
His punch-drunk dreams
Between the stars.
Birth poem
Lucha
You are poetry
In social and surprise
My comrade strenuous
And straining
And
Our daughter
Simply opening
And searching with
Her eyes.
Dr John Falzon is Chief Executive of the St Vincent de Paul Society National Council.