Hold Your Own Read Online Free PDF

it. Let it be heard.
    The worst thing that can happen to words is that they go unsaid.
     
    Let them sing in your ears and dance in your mouth and ache in your guts. Let them make everything tighten and shine.
     
    Poetry trembles alone, only picked up to be taken apart.
     
    Instead of an elephant, roaring and shaking its ears,
    it’s one of those handbag dogs, yapping and scared of the rain.
     
    The clever folk talk in endless circles and congratulate themselves on being so untouched by passion.
    But since when did the clever folk ever know anything?
     
    Sometimes things are as simple as they seem.
     
    It’s as much about instinct as it is about intellect
    And if you feel it, it’s alive.
     
    Let it be magic.
    These are not engines we’re making.
     
    Wherever you come from is a holy place.
     
    Do not love the idea of life more than you love life itself.
     
    The world is a terrible place for sensitive people
    but the closer we come to losing our minds, the harder we’ll work to keep them.
     
    If you’re not fighting for it, you don’t want it.
     
    Taking things for granted is a terrible disease. We should all be checking ourselves regularly for signs of it.
     
    Sensitive people are frequently beaten up by things insensitive people can’t see.
     
    If you’ve been beaten up, good for you.
    If you’ve never been beaten up, good for you.
    If you get beaten up all the time, you should take up boxing.
     
    It’s ok to feel alone.
    Usually you are.
    That’s what poetry’s for.
     
    It’s good to care about things so much you feel exhausted.
     
    Don’t read women’s magazines. They’re bad for your stomach.
     
    You’ve only yourself to blame when someone half as talented as you ends up achieving twice as much.
     
    If people judge you badly and misunderstand you,
    it’s good for you.
     
    Fame is the worst thing that could happen to your reputation.
     
    If you want to know your worth, ask your lovers.
    Especially the ones who don’t talk to you anymore.
     
    You can’t be a good person and treat your lovers badly,
    no matter how much you give to charity.
     
    Better to have been a dickhead and seen it,
    than be a cunt all your life and not know it.        
     
    A thousand fans screaming your name is nothing compared to one lover who whispers it and knows what it means.
    Although of course both would be nice.
     
    The world is getting stranger every day; you’re not strange for noticing.
     
    You don’t have to be young to be good at what you do. You just have to be good at it.
     
    There’s nothing wrong with dogs being dogs and baring their teeth at each other.
     
    The pain of having fucked things up so bad will never leave us.
     
    If you say something funny on Twitter, it doesn’t matter.
     
    If you’ve been an arsehole today, acknowledge it.
    Try not to be one tomorrow.
     
    Never underestimate how nice it is
    to make someone a cup of tea without them having to ask.
     
    If you have a shit job and you don’t love your girlfriend and your life is killing you, take a fucking risk for once.
     
    If some people don’t hate your work, you’re not doing it right.

Watching my dog sleep
    after Dermot Healy
     
     
    Murphy is dreaming:
    his muscles are twitching,
    his ears are alive,
    his paws scrape the air.
     
    He’s dreaming of yesterday,
    stones thrown into waves.
    The heartbreak of chasing
    what’s no longer there.

Learning curve
    You taught me what a body’s for.
    Before you I was scared of being stripped completely naked
    even in the throes of it.
     
    I never quite lost myself.
    But would watch it from above.
    Never so completely moved
    that I understood what all the fuss was for.
     
    Since you, I stare unashamedly at strangers.
    Hold their eyes for seconds at a time.
    Smile like I’d know what to do if they smiled back,
    panic when they do.
     
    I am faithful to the lessons you have taught me,
    but they’ve flooded me with hungers I’ve not satisfied before.
    And so I