Twelve feet above the deck,The smell can make you gag,Five hundred salt water soaked,Unwashed humans in forty degrees, Make a few bad jokes to cover up your shame,That your stomach churned at scabies riddled teenager,Sunglasses will hide guilty eyes,To mask your revulsion, Overcompensate later by giving an extra ration,To a brown-eyed child,Draped from shoulder to... Continue Reading →
On the 21st day of September, on the international day of peace, conflicts rage across the planet, people die from twenty cent Czech bullets, five Yuan Chinese machetes, two hundred Ruble Belorussian boots, six hundred Dollar vigilante assault rifles, as well as one hundred and seventy thousand dollar bombs, a response to headlines screaming terror,... Continue Reading →
Alone. In that empty lifejacket,adrift upon the sea,was lost child or brother,borne away so far,to die alone,reduced to a statistic, Meaningless data thrown up,racing endless streams of television,infographic footnotes risk all,carrying dreams,daring tomorrows,out on the waves, Driven by the eternal motion,as the grains all settle back,washing final footprints from the sand,no mother’s tears will wet... Continue Reading →
The Master's Dog Guilty looks from left to right, glancing over sunken shoulders, ensuring fitting purity for the words, filthy black bastard, it rolls out of yellowed mouth, hits the deck like a seagulls shit, always seeking their approval, like a dog aching for the Master's hand, such a common thing, delivered with the snigger... Continue Reading →
Nomad. Dancing in the shade of a warship, miles from anywhere, a weary little nomad, alighting to take refuge on the dark grey timber, worn out and staggering, Rest, be at peace, staring fascinated, remembering in the haze of this beautiful dusk, past summers spent at home, Lying in the rough grass, lost in the... Continue Reading →
Valletta.Sun burns down on city streets,bringing in the light, beauty,in the shadows, mystery,lost in ancient rows of homes and steps,cracked flagstones balanced one upon the other,or rooted into living rock,tight alleyways frame views of a wave tossed harbour,an artist might go blind from the wonders,or mad from the ceaseless wind.
Seen It
I have seen the love,when Father makes himself into a bed,to raise the weary child from off the deck,cradling all the treasure of the world,within his arms, underneath thin blankets.
I have seen the love,of brother held fast to brother,sleeping, no support but each other,I had not the words to ask,did they even share a Mother?
Peters Fish
Red, golden, green, the scales of Peters fish,stretched and nailed to the curve of the dome,held up by pious prayers, feverish pleas and hope of the wounded,the hospital arches of yellowed stone, barred with wrought iron,twisted and anchored deep into faith,by head and feet, anointed shells of men, bent battered forms.
The Tower of Il-Gardjola
We hear it all,the endless message,carved high into the battlements,conform and heed our call.
We see it all,the lidless eye is never sleeping,stays dry mid widows weeping,for the husbands who lay bleeding.
From Pontus to Sophia.
Currently, in the Central Southern Mediterranean LÉ Samuel Beckett is on patrol, with fifty-six Irish service personnel embarked. She is the physical embodiment of Ireland’s commitment to a Europe Union (EU) mission which is determined to break apart the callous criminal enterprises which have extracted huge profits from the misery and death of thousands of innocents.With both an EU and United Nations (UN) mandate, the roles begin played by the Irish Navy in EUNAVFOR Med ‘Operation Sophia’, are very different from those which were undertaken by the other Irish vessels who have deployed since 2015, when LÉ Eithne first went south to answer the call from our Italian partners as part of the EU response to what has been interchangeable referred to as, the ’Mediterranean’, ’migration’ or ’refugee crisis’.
Empty.
If only the innocent could be kept afloat by faith,until the rescuers come walking on the waves,to carry the children to the cradle of their mother,not let them tumble in the surf,greeting the morning with their backs,silent and stiff, the red shirt on the tiny frame.
Mothers of Many Nations.
Mothers are mothers, white, brown, yellow, black.no divide amongst the races by colour, creed or social status,each mother cradles two generations inside her during gestation,endless cord to the dawn of time,when your mother's mother was also mine.
The abuse and danger a mother will endure,as she sets out unsure - to fleefetching up on a Libyan shore,with the precious child, her world.
Paper Never Refused Ink! 
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