Francis O’Hare was born in 1970 in Newry, Northern Ireland. Publications include Outside the Walls – with Frank Sewell (An Clochan Press, Belfast), Falling into an O, Somewhere Else and Alphaville (Lagan Press, Belfast), Home and Other Elsewheres (Evening Street Press, U.S.A.) and Sailing To Omeath (Arlen House, Dublin).

In the Jewelled Light of Morning, a pamphlet-length collection, received an iOTA Shot Pamphlet Award from Templar Poetry in 2024.

A new collection, A Different Light, is forthcoming from Arlen House this autumn.

Back To The Future

“when this baby hits 88 you’re gonna see some serious shit”
Doc Brown 

I

Somehow, via memory’s DeLorean,
I’ve travelled back to 1985
and the Savoy cinema, Newry’s very own

dream-palace, the 50s come alive,
on the corner of Monaghan Street and Merchant’s Quay,
to see the must-see movie of the festive

season, Back To The Future, with Alex P
Keaton/Michael J Fox in the leading role
of a high school senior in the town of Hill Valley,

California, who discovers actual time-travel
with the aid of his boon friend and mentor, Doc
Brown, a wild-eyed madman whose eternal

sci-fi schemes and hair, a crazed white shock,
guarantee this rollercoaster ride will rock!

II

Around this time, if I recall correctly,
the movies were the perfect panacea
for all the troubles going on around me,

(For further details, look up Wikipedia –
you’ll find out all you need to know, the facts
and figures, names and dates, et cetera.)

the town of Newry grimly bearing acts
of war on a daily basis, army checkpoints,
shootings, hijacks, mortar-bomb attacks,

all adding to the general misery, hence
the appeal of movies. They offered an escape
from reality, the silver screen an entrance

to elsewheres where a mask or scarlet cape
could change the world, leave it wowed, agape.

III

So. Ticking clocks. Tick tock. I settle down
to witness history. An epic tale unfolds,
amidst the pitch-black theatre’s popcorn-strewn

tiers of seats and somethingteen-year-olds
munching, slurping, burping, cheering, jeering,
that ultimately informs, transforms and moulds

my destiny. Two hours fly by, careering
in and out of eras like a hoverboard
riding air-currents, and by the end I’m tearing

up as I leave my seat, having swooped and soared
with Marty through the space-time continuum,
invented rock and roll and revved and roared

my mind to speeds that left two lines of flame
fuelled by the power of love and raw plutonium.

IV

It’s through a film of tears I just now see
a kid two rows in front of mine, still sitting
and gazing at the screen. Great Scott!!! It’s me!

My teenage self before my eyes, unwitting
of the catastrophic danger we’re both in
if we meet and cause a paradox, unknitting

the very fabric of time and space. I spin
about on my heels and slide along the row
in a sort of moonwalk à la Michael Jackson

until I reach the outer aisle and follow
the exit signs out to the street unnoticed.
I realise now I must stay incognito

until I find a way back to the 21st
Century, yes, the future! Or all’s lost!

V

It’s cold outside. December, after all.
Merchant’s Quay is glistening and white
with frost. A dust of snow. The old canal

is like a spool of celluloid, the lamplight
giving the water a black-and-white newsreel glamour,
as I watch the past (now present) run a late-night

feature of itself, called Days of Yore,
with me the central character, like in Twain’s
A Connecticut Yankee at the Court of King Arthur,

except this is actually happening. A train’s
hoot from the Eighteen Arches, then a truck’s
sloosh and honk, remind me traffic lanes

are not the place to ponder temporal flux,
so I seek out safe haven in a snack-box.

VI

In Friar Tuck’s, to be exact, the new
retro-futuristic 50s diner
on Sugar Island. Chrome. Formica. ‘Blue

Velvet’ from the jukebox, wafting colour
into this midwinter scene where I
sit and try to conjure out of thin air

an incantation that might rectify
the temporary misalignment in my timeline.
When in walks me, the spit of young McFly,

and takes a seat, his booth backed on to mine!
I listen, breath held, as he makes his order
and, as he plugs in headphones from his Walkman,

I grab the chance to take my rushed departure
into the night, the rest of this adventure.

VII

As I leave I bump against a gang of thugs,
in leather jackets, entering the joint.
“Hey, Butthead, watch it!” one of them, like Suggs

from Madness, splutter-spits, to make his point,
and swaggers off, sidekicked by his goons.
I make a mental note to git that varmint

and disappear into the dark. By noon’s
stroke next morning, having barely slept
all night, just hunkered underneath the moon’s

clock-face stare, above the town hall’s, kept
awake by cold and calculations, I
have figured out my next move, forward-zapped

twelve hours in time and relocated Marty,
I mean myself, on Hill Street, near the library.

VIII

But just before he enters he’s distracted
by shouts and jeers from further up the street.
A skateboard posse, Suggs’s crew, roll up, led

by Suggs himself, as hard, and thick, as concrete,
demanding where he thinks he’s going, the dork,
and laughing at his answer. “Likes to read,

our friend does,” Suggs guffaws, “doing homework.”
And at this cue a minion grabs the backpack
my younger self is wearing and … “Hey, jerk!”

I butt in, giving Suggs a hefty headsmack,
then jump on board his skateboard and take off,
pursued by him, his henchmen, in a classic

skateboard chase down Hill Street, where I hat-doff
to startled shoppers, Zorro-style, on hind-hoof ‒

IX

‒ then vamoose up O’Hagan Street, discreetly,
and loop back (shhhhhhhh!) along the cobbled mall
to leave the howling pack of dogs completely

up shit creek, caught between the cathedral
and The Leprechaun newsagent’s while I cross Margaret Square’s
junction, down from Woolworths, with a casual

nonchalance, past O’Hagan & O’Hare’s
pharmacy and on towards my quarry.
I look around. He’s gone! I see my mirror’s

image waver in the window of the library.
The timeline has been altered somehow, placing
my existence in the balance. This is heavy!

I need to act, avoid the dire fate facing
me, my future, fortune. Time is racing.

X

I remember now I read a book at that age ‒
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,
that gave me wings, launched me on a voyage

above the earth and gave me eyes to scan
the world below, like its hero, Stephen Daedalus,
in flight from lamplit turn-of-the century Dublin,

risking falling, erring, like doomed Icarus
in the novel’s background legend, or young Marty
in the movie-myth created by Zemeckis

and Bob Gale. I found it over thirty
years ago, on this day, by chance, whilst browsing
the library shelves. But now that opportunity

is blown off course by my own folly, causing
an alternate reality’s arising!

XI

A reality in which I haven’t read
Joyce’s Bildungsroman and, therefore,
have not escaped my circumstances, anchored

in the grimly literal, clipped of metaphor
and where it takes you. Somewhere else, I mean.
Beyond the realm of realism, somewhere

over the rainbow, round the bend, between
the lines as written a priori for you
by other people, history’s machine,

to a time or place beyond the point of view
of Biffs and suchlike bullies, with their nets
of nation, language, religion, what have you.

With this inspiring speech I set my sights
on fixing things and putting the world to rights.

XII

The key, of course, is making sure that I
will read the book. And that means getting it
back into my hands. I have to try

a risky gamble, fraught with danger, yet
my only hope of salvaging from chaos
the proper timeline. Checking today’s date

in a newspaper blowing down the street, I notice
tomorrow’s Christmas Eve. That’s it! Eureka!
All I do is wait. And, meantime, purchase

a copy of ‘The Artist…’. Then, like Santa,
I pay a visit to my past, like Scrooge
in A Christmas Carol, tip-toe in and leave a

neatly wrapped time-warp, a subterfuge
forgivable as a one-off crime, I judge.

XIII

Einstein had it right with relativity.
Time drags when nothing’s happening. From
epiphany to fulfilment is eternity.

Which gives me space to plan how to get home
back in 2020. I will need
some means of transportation. And a storm

to generate the energy. I read
the paper’s weather forecast. “Winter freak
lightning storms predicted.” “Guaranteed”

would make me feel less nervous. I can tweak
the dials on time but can’t control my fate.
That realisation leaves me feeling weak

and dizzy. But I’ll throw the dice and wait.
If, for nothing else, the hell of it.

XIV

’Tis Christmas Eve. And all through the house…
I jemmy open my old bedroom window
and climb in, as silent as a mouse.

I cross the room, unearthly in the moon-glow,
and reach the door. A floorboard creaks. I shudder
as my other self half wakes, his mouth an O

in wonder and bewilderment. I order,
“Silence, Earthling!” in a Vulcan accent,
give my name as Eastwood, no, Darth Vader,

and cross my fingers as I lay my present
on the bedside table, praying that he’ll drift
back to sleep. He does! He’ll think this scene dreamt!

I leave the house and as I leave I lift
the keys to my da’s cool Datsun. What a gift!

XV

I’m almost outta time, but as the wind
outside picks up and raindrops fill the air
I start the car and leave the past behind

the way it should be, hit the accelerator
and head for town, recalling the inscription
I wrote in the flyleaf, hoping to inspire

me to become me; “the future isn’t written.”
I sense the static crackling in the air.
The rain’s a veil, the road ahead near hidden,

as I quickly check the flux capacitor
and time-controls beside me, rev the clock
till I hit the speed of 88 miles-an-hour

and lightning strikes the aerial… if Doc
Brown could see me… then I’m back… tick tock!