Goodbye NCR D7, the concrete heart that took me in when bleeding hearts did not.

When I met you death and devils were upon me, sniggering and taking measurements as I arced towards perpetual winter.

But you pillowed my fall; you opened my eyes and poured the cream in; you freed my ears of funereal noise and tuned me back among the living.

Farewell long avenues of trees that blossomed and shed the years that sped too fast.

How will I ever sleep again without the screech of burning rubber or the armies of wasted voices screaming, fighting, loving, weeping, dawn to dawn?

So long, saloon-keepers and professional drinkers.

Let me raise this half-full glass to the many who stepped outside for a minute and never returned . . .

to the handful who remained steadfast in decay, twisting in the wind of advancing cranes . . .

and to all the crestfallen who fired my faith in the ordinary day.

Ray's Radio By Aidan Murphy

Ray's gone, I don't know where.

I miss his all-night radio upstairs.

Through troubled, anxious hours I coasted with closed eyes along Ray's frequency, calmed by his placid choice of station.

Those whispered broadcasts, those underwater symphonies in gauze, tucked me in, like a child assured of safety in the dark by adult voices downstairs long ago.

Aidan Murphy's 'Neon Baby: New & Selected Poems' will be published by New Island this month