BEHIND THE POEM
Michael Cullen | Poet | Ireland.
Home
Restrictive , refined and stifling
Is the cage that I call my home .
The bars are
repetitive in nature
And symmetrical .
Concrete .
Concrete .
Grey .
Grey.
Semi detached –
As far as the eye can see ,
As carbon copied estate after estate
After yet another estate and identical row of shops ,
Vended by and to cater the ‘essentials’ of the local populace it comprised of :
A pub , bookies , newsagent , Chinese , chipper and any beautician facility or barbers take your pick .
Concrete road connecting identical rows of houses ,
identical rows of carefully constructed green arrangements ;
Life was restricted to these areas .
Houses full of people
Yet not all known ,
Thousands of neighbours
Yet ,few friends to phone .
We live so close together
Yet so far removed,
Even the birds are not free,
Their lives too restricted –
To the diy shop bird feeders
That they flock to each day .
Same time , same routine,
Same Black cat appears too:
Waiting,
waiting,
waiting,
-To Pounce
On a hapless , helpless bird .
The cat hasn’t caught them yet
But her time will come,
She will not give them forever.
However ,
The birds still flock in feathered furry
To get their bread and make their living ,
Knowing that the cats prowling
in malicious hope of fatal weakness,
There’s a cat waiting for us all .
We’re ostensibly civilized ,
But in this world the spirit dies
And we’re eaten up by triviality
And vacuous ,vapid superficiality.
The grey colors one’s skin after too long and attacks one’s spirit,
Grey skies ,
Grey earth
– Uninspired minds ,
‘ I can no longer hear my souls song’.
I sometimes look up at the night sky
And I gaze in wonder and awe ,
All the land I haven’t seen or saw ,
All that was possible if I could soar ,
But I am tethered to this place
that’s forgotten me
By the longing I feel deep in my heart
And so I’ll look up at the sky and dream-
At least then I’ll have made a start.
I wished for peaceful, obsequious seas,
And warm summer evenings with her in July ,
If only my vision was coloured with ease ,
To Elysian lands that I could fly.
But I am a bird who’s never seen ,
Exotic lands I’ve never been,
Of fields of gold few and far between
Of tir na nog I can only dream.
But , I call to the feeder same time same day ,
Knowing my fate may call me home
At the hands of a beguiling black cat,
no more this land my dreams may roam ,
But still I fly to the feeder ,
Pluckily , plodding along ,
In the face of certain death
And not sure what for, or why
I still, each day , each time , I fly.
So When I spread my wings and trust the wind
all corners of the sky for me to Roam
And I’ll find myself where it all begins
Just know my destination is home .