The Next Best Thing

I gave a poetry reading tonight in a pub in Wexford Street (not the one above, which is the entrance to another pub nearby). The reading was for a small gathering of people, mostly young though a few my age; a kind of atheist alternative to church, and the long room upstairs did have something of a chapel about it. The was some music and singing (All You Need Is Love as I ascended the stairs) and some pattycake-type dancing. I liked the atmosphere, which was much like that of a poetry reading though more relaxed, more folk-music-gig (with perhaps a bit of AA meeting thrown in). The audience were lovely, and very appreciative, which was nice. Two of my cousins came with me, Fiachra and Dave. Great to have them along. Mo, the friend who invited me to give the reading, asked for poem on The Next Best Thing To Love, which was suggested by a brief online correspondence and the looming V Day. So here it is:

The Next Best Thing To Love

is the aroma-therapy candle in the bathroom at the end
of the cul-de-sac in a ghost estate,
the instinct to breathe in, suspend
judgement and keep the (above all, lowercase) faith,

is the passer by who stops, then stoops to ask if you’re okay,
the policewoman who takes time to shoot the breeze
with the teenager sitting three yards away
undecided, on the rail of the bridge,

is whatever else you can find to bless
yourself, lift gently by the kittenish scruff
of your neck what D.H. Lawrence called ‘tenderness’ ––
the unforced smile, the punter who isn’t rough ––

is the metaphysics of streetlights coming on
faithfully, flickering like moths,
pink at first as the rosy winter dawn
that will see them off,

is what makes, not the world itself, but what
has taken a toehold –– our scrim
of furious activity, habit and habitat ––
do more than spin.