JOE CUSHNAN - POEMS

Joe Cushnan was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland and, after retiring from a long retail management career, now concentrates on writing features, reviews and poetry. He has written a biography, 'Stephen Boyd: From Belfast to Hollywood', about the star of Ben Hur and The Fall of the Roman Empire.

---

                                 SOFT LANGUAGE

After listening to comedian George Carlin
 
First it was called shell shock,
Helplessness from trauma,
After effects of bombardment
Of mind, body and soul,
Panic-stricken, unable to reason,
To sleep, walk or talk.
 
Then it became battle fatigue,
Softer than shell shock,
Easier on the ear but still the same
Helplessness from trauma,
After effects of bombardment
Of mind, body and soul,
Panic-stricken, unable to reason,
To sleep, walk or talk.
 
Then it became operational exhaustion,
No more shock or fatigue
More of a sigh, exhaustion, but still the same
Helplessness from trauma,
After effects of bombardment
Of mind, body and soul,
Panic-stricken, unable to reason,
To sleep, walk or talk.
 
And now, it’s post traumatic stress disorder,
Four words to absorb the shock,
To soak up the fatigue and exhaustion,
To create a fancy-words condition,
To soften the language, to take away the truth,
To use friendlier marketing jargon for the same
Helplessness from trauma,
After effects of bombardment
Of mind, body and soul,
Panic-stricken, unable to reason,
To sleep, walk or talk.


               TIME TO DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE
                        BEFORE TIME RUNS OUT
 
This is the year to live on a grand scale,
To make breathless art, to spray paint
Your true feelings on sacred walls,
To sculpt the impossible dream in ice,
Then watch it melt to a puddle of tears,
A year to mix with prophets and geniuses,
To teeter on a cliff edge and risk whatever comes,
To throw off history’s baggage, live now,
Climb a monument and make a speech,
Olivier-rich in emotion and clarity,
To ride a horse, to make music, to caress
A hand across a table in a rooftop café,
Carefree to fall in and out of love in a heartbeat,
A year to ditch nostalgia and waste time
On meaningless and whimsical notions,
To enjoy being a jigsaw with missing pieces,
To realize that up to this moment, wherever
You have come from, wherever you have been,
Whoever you cared for and loathed, whoever
You are or pretended to be, you can choose
To not do a damn thing about the rest of your life
Or pick a road that is unfamiliar and prepare
For a journey of unknowns and strangers.
This is the year. There might not be a next year.
 
 
                                                      BEARD
 
When will my beard phase come?
Younger me liked the look of a scraggy folk singer,
Mussel-beard as some kind of a rebellious symbol
That I was in the revolution, looking odd and smelling odder,
Doing that nasal-Dylan thing to disguise a lack of talent.
Onward the years and Ronnie Drew’s bush was an ambition
But I’d never have gotten away with that working
In the menswear fashion department of British Home Stores.
I had to make do with stubble, maximum three days before
The scruffball comments and the tuts in the church pews.
I never liked the goatee because it looked villainous, sported
By guest stars in The Saint and Danger Man, foreign baddies,
Not my cup of tea. I was Roger Moore and Pat McGoohan,
Smooth baby-bum chins, as all heroes should have. Now,
Scant hair on top and less inclination to push for a full set,
I’m less Simon Templar and John Drake and more like Shaggy
Out of Scooby Doo, the icon of the mussel-beardies and the scraggies,
Letting bristles take their course, letting them grow wild and free,
Just how my hopes and dreams used to be.