SEAN REDDAN
3, by Sean Reddan
decade girl
her sunglasses were cape town style resting on her forehead not an easy way to stare into the light but easy to see, easy on the eye
sun chaser dressed in 70's denim bangles and a surfer tat was a decade girl a lover in all seasons as the shore rises to greet slipping, sliding, sea sand feet
children of the revolution came out of the beat box and that took us back but we swore never to return to littlehood, destitute girl next door was a princess and we danced, we prayed
but neither of us had reached divinity yet and the pictures in our lockets were the gods around our necks heave and sigh and your adolescent breasts
and we pillaged your brother's stash his herbs and albums and other trash and smoked matches when desperate sucked in the sulphur at the strike it was a wonder we didn't die just got drunk and got high life and at a blink, the night
and babe i haven't seen you for such a long time and babe remember how we cried and held hands and laughed in our desert town hideaway so gone, it takes me back years
but girl you haven't changed still a tomboy, how we fought
but you gave me your jackie mags pride of place amongst stolen memories and i read about the jam, generation x and the pistols too
and i recall you said they were cute but i had my eyes on bowie on your wall lips on teenage kisses, blown but too close to look and comfort and ears on the impending storms in your floyd and tull albums, yeah
never a tear, never to cry i'll see you in years to come again, girl decade girl and we'll talk about another time another place and we'll know, we touch and we know, we'll remain
her sunglasses were cape town style lowered now reflecting water and memory not an easy way to stare into the soul
never to be alone but a silhouette, as we walk away, walk away
isolation
february (for stacy anderson welch)
i give you these words that is all i can do you’re invincible you never happened those things to you you’ll still fly, you know you can’t be defeated by routine wheels of circumstance they don’t turn and twist anymore even though they may on the wings of a mare remind you of once it is through a haze of daybreak that positive things radiate and then the pincushion of pain subsides and deflates although it cries your name often your hands beat it away your arms hold on tightly to breath your heart screams integrity brilliance your temple is strengthened through battle hardened tangible
desire for the now and strong power lust for life which is always like the rain and air, alive
like bodies is it the bones at the side of the road the silent and ageing stones that stop you from stopping
that hold your stare as you hurry past is it the knowing that once they held a man erect in a war torn world is it the knowledge that you could be staring into the future the way you read about the past and how it often becomes dark and cold overnight when the candles are left in neat rows and stacks like bodies in a morgue of compassion and nobody moves or speaks just to stay warm in fear comforted by doing nothing wrong comforted by doing nothing at all
like a knife i pick up the pen heavy like lead i circle the knuckles on my right hand
in black i have a red but i used it all up on my left wrist like a knife mere ink yet the lines remain i change hands and with my right i cross out all flesh scars leaving only trembling angry intense white scarred, hurt, tears welling up blue veins that don't run metaphorically but literally to the heart, with my fist i hit the wall i might break a bone or two but i write with my left hand, right? and i spill blood
poetess your anguished countenance rises from the makeshift pages and remembers through my eyes
the stanza i am on a funeral song a hymn to lost love and days verse of time twine a stay without end unrhymed incomplete your arms of times past reach over and cover my tears my fading eyes nod and acknowledge comfort of a sort looking backwards i realise that if the blade which penetrates your writer’s wrists doesn’t offer blood it must mean that you are immortal and that your words still gush through chapters waiting to be born and then could you let me into your sad confessions as a living poetess could you turn wine into water if i was dying of thirst and pierced by vestiges of history unclaimed by scribes reaching in the virginal
now when you get down on your knees to praise the gods of eternity celebrated poets victors of the fountain pen sipping from their ink would you still act like a lady and if you did my friend would you still be unknown?
Mother and Son
wireless you move frequency to frequency satellite to satellite bar to twist twist to turn turn to jive shimmy to techno ballads left out like an unobserved star child hopeful to find playing in your ears an earth melody a simple love song but even the static coming from the impersonal speakers between breaks between beats is out of tune wireless breathless from inaction but sore heels you scan the chairs for a non-pair and pick up an empty seat out of the groove and shy now a timid warrior on the dance floor of loneliness a lifetime of nights spent in routine you look down you look away
afraid of anybody breaking your heart with an unfamiliar touch a look of mistaken identity and then walking soon to be rejoined by a set of fixated limbs back into the distant music distorted inviting so warm disregarding the slow kiss moves the laughter the expressions so warm playing on another planet you only visit as one you finally get up to leave, there's a radio whispering your name and a pair of slippers at home
Second reflection
sean reddan is a self-taught visual artist, writer, photographer and spoken word artist. from south africa originally he now lives in ireland, where he has been for the past ten years. sean paints mostly with acrylics, but also does collage and uses other methods including watercolours and recently oil paints in his artwork. his paintings have been called energetic, bold, colourful and spiritual. this is also relected in his writing which ranges from social observation to personal reflection. currently sean is writing his second novel and looking for a publisher for his first. he is also hoping to publish a few collections of his poetry. www.facebook.com/seanreddanartist www.myspace.com/seanreddanartist