Alan Gillis Biography

I don't know you, you don't know me,
but if we want to carry on we need
to make like mountaineers who tie themselves
together to survive their clunt and grapple
...

This is not about burns or hedges.
There will be no gorse. You will not
notice the ceaseless photosynthesis
or the dead tree's thousand fingers,
...

Car like a comet, breaking all the lights, we speed
towards waiting rooms and vending machines.
The anaesthetic takes time to empty your head
so it becomes a stadium and the game postponed.
...

They say that for years Belfast was backwards
and it's great now to see some progress.
So I guess we can look forward to taking boxes
from the earth. I guess that ambulances
...

We dip, drop and dovetail in a cabaret
with crushed daiquiris and spellbound
maracas clippety-clapping the way
words click together and channel their sound
...