for some certain poets who write often of the void as if it were a lover

by Paul Harrison

no matter how well
you craft the lines
or the line breaks
falling
down
a page
no matter how well
you dance with Death
and her handmaidens
despair and ennui
no matter how often
you elicit
gushing
responses
from people
who live
mostly
comfortable
lives
who have rarely been intimate with Death
or seen the mess it leaves behind
who respond
to your unquiet horror
with words like
'yea, baby'
'emotive, surreal',
'real nice'
'bravo',
'i dig it, man...'
no matter how often
that fawning gallery
swoons all over
your nihilism
your one trick pony poetic shtick
no matter how often
you dissemble
yourself
or dissemble to others
no matter how
many times
you glimpse
or approach
or rework
the abyss
that which is all
our birthrights
no matter
that
the nothinginess
the void
you crave so much
more than
cigarettes
more than
love
more than
drugs
more than
recognition
is something very ugly
no matter that
often i wish
you'd just shut up
or put up
and take
the trip
the jump
the cut
the handful of pills
the swing
the plunge
a shot to your gut
because
no matter what
i'll be sure, to be cheering you on...

just so you know where i'm coming from

by Paul Harrison

when i was a kid growing up
in a Free Presbyterian hell-hole
where only hell fire and hatred were free
and everyone was an evangelical
and Sunday school was compulsory
and the girls could n't wear jeans or make up
and the swimming pool was shut on the Sabbath
and signs hanging from trees enquired
where you might be spending eternity
and the Bible was literal and Catholics knew
their place or if they did n't
it was soon beaten or firebombed into them
where culture revolved around a bi-sexual dwarf from Holland
and fucking the Pope, the Anti-Christ, that hor of Babylon
where religious tracts titillated one way tickets to hell
and the drink was the Devil's brew
where preachers thundered from pulpits
street corners and local government chambers
and where it was perfectly normal
to stone 5 and 6 year old children walking to school
because they were fucking fenians
or stomp to death a teenage boy outside the chippy
because he supported Celtic
and where the Mayor said he was sorry
but did n't attend the funeral
because the kid was a Catholic and going to hell
and where your best friend's brother got bound with electric cable
and battered half to death as the brave freedom fighters
discussed dismembering his body as he lay there bleeding out
until he escaped and left the country
forever
and where the Ulster Taliban dressed in conservative black and drove the latest models
and where i doubt it's getting better...

what is there left to say

by Paul Harrison

nothing under the sun
or the moon
the stars like campfires
(there, i said it, stars)

nothing in
the everyday
quotidian acts
called
living or dying

nothing in the stolen glance
the double take
her smile remembered now

nothing in the humming wires
the usb s
the headlines and nightmares

nothing in gagaku
the sonnets or novels

nothing in the drink
and the drugs
their chill like a blanket

nothing in the streets
the clouds and the rain
headlights and tail-lights
sweeping a void

nothing in the words
of any other
except contempt
or recognition
laughter
and weeping

nothing between
the pages
outside the pages
nothing inside
nothing in meaning

nothing in the solo
world records
the finals and plays

nothing in the mansions
the stores and the bars

(there's nothing to drink
and nothing to eat)

nothing in
the red shirts
or black shirts
they're all the same

nothing in questions
or answers
nothing
behind it all

nothing for you
here,
to see

nothing
in these
communiques
from the vortex
void

of

nothing, nothing, nothing

and nothing must be
destroyed

nothing in
here
this room
this poem
not even
you or i

what more needs
said ?