Mouth-Flower Rock

"Style is a function of theme
   Not imposed on subject matter
     But arising from it  
       
    Style is truth to thought"

                        Julian Barnes
                  
                         ----------


Julian. Some say he was the big man
who thought outside the box
a giant in the cannon

 big gun saviour who tore up terrain,
fully functioning saint of the eternal theme,
and main squeeze of the triple goddess.

An anonymous author nobody read
  who remained unknown and unrecognised

and could not get arrested if he was
cart-wheeling naked on the high street.

He was a country bloke. A big fellow

great for field work and labouring. His
 family's blue eyed Jewel - destined for

 greatness. Be handy for a bit more than
sweeping up and swilling down the yard.

 D’ye get it?

Couldn’t put a foot wrong. A farm boy
   and youngest who grew up tall

shovelled muck from sty to dung
heap, dug ditches; a bit of building
work.

                       *

Jules
            he was a man who thought about
all sorts, not just pig swill or chickens

  and having a lend of his neighbour's
sheepdog. He was a crackerjack who

            out-thought the lot

   tossed out ideas on spuds, swedes,
  beetroot, dairy produce, small rural

industry, stocks, bonds, and treasury
 papers

     domestic think-tanks

and strategies that rid the workplace
 of prejudice, promote tolerance,

inclusion, diversity, fairness,
     and transparency in local transport

and territorial issues; the national health
 contingency for a state of emergency

and the most practical way of
 mucking out effluent from piggeries

    stables and chicken coops.

                       *

Several pub's number one
 writer-in-residence, who, in no time

at all, could whip up a master-plan
of attack on the back of a fag packet

or beer mat - when he wasn't devoting
his energy to farm work, or thinking

of what style might arise from
the subject matter of his next essay.

                       *

Many don't care for the doings
 of his life, or read his works

 couldn’t give a toss if his style was
imposed or arose.

                       *
    Barnsey
                     he

    was an intellectual giant
who’d direct operations from a lounge bar

or hay-barn HQ. Wield a shovel for six
 hours solid; and run the economy with

invisible ink. Could write wonderfully
 well, grow a muzzy - any dodge going.

He could keep an army on its toes
 if he bothered getting out of bed,

and he knew how to keep a dream
 hidden when love was terminal.

He fought in the trench of Art
and plotted to overthrow the status quo

cycled the countryside picnicking
keeping fit, necking a few scoops

as he moved about bossing the troops
 whipping up the craic

and firing off one-liners.

He had a great gas
 taking it to the max, tittering

giggling at being a legend,
 and taking the piss out of titular rich ones

who thought they were doing themselves
 a favour by not leaving Her be and feckin
off out of it.

                      *

His doings foxed everyone but
 Kathleen up until that night. He was

always straight with her. Had to be
  because she's a right one who

 always knew the score. Still does.
She's unreal. None of 'em conned
her.

                       *

                    Julian

in Barnesly Bloomsbury and Brum,
he knew lovers, fighters,

fanatics, violent shit-houses, loons,
frightened bullies, spivs, liars, cowards,

  and good people with a desire for
 freedom. In Dublin he roused peace-
nicks who looted

hearts, minds, mythology and shops
 on his whim; but only when desperation

kicked in for the things he never
 had as a kid.         

More than all this though, Barnsey,
 he was a style expert who spun 
tales by jumping straight in.

                         II

                         ~~

"Aoife mouths words but it’s all
Kathleen’s world, and the brown

leather robe draped across the chair
tucked beneath the table

contained within this locked box
is mine"

Niamh cries
coming through the door of the
occupational therapy room where

nurse Aoife O'Brien sits listening 
to angelus bells peel havoc at the hill
top.

                 -----------------
                      
Julian

deport to the reader's mind
let them see beyond
stereotype freaks from a secure

ward and out-patient casting
agency of unknown background

artistes on a promise a day for the full
bore shoot of pretending to be Tom

Robert or Marlon's heir. And through
those who share your consciousness

Julian
connect them to angelus energy.

Have the sense to look for meaning
where few dare peek for fear

of being branded mentally unkempt, 
like Niamh was before she died 
a derelict in the loony bin

opined to be beyond all reach 
by the boss head doctor of a crumbling

psychiatric hospital, where she lived
in nineteen ninety nine

when nurse O'Brien dished up pills
and injections from ten to eleven

depending on
depending on…                         

                            
If there is a cow in the field and
a machine out of order.. 

                        III
 
Niamh is on-ward and in role play 
as a not-yet dead nut-nut strapped in
 
the naughty chair and babbling freely
at the table.

                 ..the machine is out of order.

Niamh continues 

              "Within the four walls of this crypt
            I conjure the tall author, architect

         of state and soldier of memory who
        lives on ...

 
Does Niamh now flit with the tall
fellow's shade

        .... in books
deconstruct schoolchildren
 from shadows in caves

and tower over oath bound men
 to find a simple mountain grace

  written ...

at life’s end?

       .....when Yeats ruled a world of
      words his imagination shook fairly

     from her tongue pouring forth to
    make prayer and fable a nation's
   tomb?

                --------------------

Me me me me me more than he it was
             back when Niamh gobbed off

and got on with the business of
    being la la. Nuttying it up for

medication and a cosmic life
of ticking boxes and flapping

  wings across forms Aoife's boss
Kathleen - the chief executive - read;

before deciding the only option on
   offer for Niamh were a few large

energy jolts to her brain.

                      IV

A one woman universe who returns
her tribe to disperse underground
and travel through air as ether.


Niamh knew Aoife's way was 
the leather restraining belt 
and the moniker they used

   Kathleen
 
her daily jacket.

  will be where the morning lit
 mountain's phantasmagoria and shade

  leisure with the ghost of a man
 who topped a fella who took draughts
of demands to London.
 
                     *

ECT demons came haunting Niamh
in the TV room, until

the liquid cosh tipped her mind 
into overdose and she disappeared 
during the angelus bell

silently faded and was instantly
whisked to VIP at the post-life bash
in paradise.

    Will Kathleen tell?
              
                     *

Niamh never spoke
once the initial dissolution instantly

dissolved any questions lingering 
in her bonce, just got stuck underground 
in a box after Kathleen called her 

to dance her reflection in the grave 
where a well of time will return 
in wild spring flowers.
 

"An answer blown on ageless dumb
stone tells of what love fell there

for you Kathleen, who saw what went
on when my heart beat alive and I

breathed being driven through the
breeze to an ambush that night

when the windows blew in and a
bullet got shot through my skull."                
                        

                        V  

                      Julian

Anonymous dreamer

did not scatter

as the other protagonists withdrew
- who moves now in shadow -
and told Niamh

Kate's phantom triggered Mick's
quick return to her. And in the

immediate aftermath a faint ghost
trail appeared to flicker on the track

glowing, they say, for the short time 
it took for his spirit to pass over. 

                       ***

The light dimmed as it drew in beneath 
the foot of Mouth-flower rock, then paled

out and disappeared. The big fellow's
shade dissolved into Kathleen Ireland's earth.

                 ------------------------

              "Style is a function of theme.
           not imposed on subject
        matter but arising from it
     
          Style is truth to thought"

                        Julian Barnes