Patrick O'Reilly

Sirens howl in the street & the cafe,
Trying to pull you either way,
Like carnival barkers
Peddling heart ache & tragedy
...

The great North Wind rattles the trees
And shatters their twigs to splinters
The sparkling quilt of snow knee-deep
Paves the streets of winter
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These places are always scary at night.
Dark and demonic,
Grey and grimey,
Forlorn and lonesome.
...

Thursday morning, sweep the dawn in
You're over the fields of Saskatchewan.
I miss you like a city, like a long-lost limb.
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This is an ancient artform,
A relic almost sacred I told her
As I placed the huge black disc onto the platform.
I've never even seen one of these she confessed.
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It gets quiet at 3am.
The bedsheets are wrinkled and rolled back.
Another half empty cup of coffee,
Another crumpled sheet of paper.
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The only girl in the world see says forever.
I ask forever
Forever is such a long time,
But we've already lived a million years.
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In the downtown clubs you can hear them singing.
Ghost's songs stepping off the coffin ships
Which carried them across that broad Western ocean.
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I'd run, run, run
Til my legs carry me over those wild green hills,
Kicking through thorn bushes and leaping over alders.
I'd worry about the scrapes on my legs tomorrow.
...

The sky was crying and screaming war.
The bombs burst high and broke his heart,
So he turned and ran,
Through blemished French fields,
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My trembling hand makes a reach
For the secret I'm trying to keep
You can promise so often,
But it's been awhile
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Eve tells you she loves you
And don't worry about the past
But when you're tangled up in the moment
You wonder if it lasts.
...

It is the first new spring since he died.
The larks are singing brightly in the willows.
Why and what for?
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The new world was built on the backs of many.
Nameless men and women all.
The slaves and slaughters,
The shot and powder
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As the ship dragged his body down,
He sailed back to those rugged coasts
And the sagging house on the hill
Where a worried woman waited in her chair,
...

I survived as background noise
In the circle outside the cinema.
Mass crowds of chaos.
...

The rust tin leaves
Crush 'neath my feet
The sky is already turning a dark, dusky blue
And filling with a forest's worth of chimney smoke.
...

A church is holier when it is empty,
When every private step echoes off the ceiling,
Like ripples of solemn sound
And the candles stand unlit,
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I was three and four
With a baby brother in my arms
Walking around the smoky city,
Hiking through concrete canyons.
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Goddamn them all!
I was told for just one summer
We'd go to Flanders
And we'd march back home
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