A handyman indeed was Larry,
we agreed he was contrary.
He walked out on us all,
never warned us a-tall,
He slunk off to be tested for Artistry.
Author: Paul O'Mahony
I'm Paul O'Mahony - living in Cork - Father - Poet - member of Toastmasters International - Business storytelling consultant - Podcaster - Blogger - Foodie - Loves to connect with people. .
linkedin.com/in/paulhomahony
Diary note No 15 – Follow no one’s advice
If Rilke didn’t abandon his wife & child – and go to live in poverty in Paris – would you have heard of him?
Would his poetry be in print today?
If Rilke hadn’t taken Rodin’s advice so thoroughly, would you be (even a little) curious about what made Rilke great?
Did Rodin mislead Rilke?
Deliberately?
Did Rodin defraud Rilke out of a joyful life – by telling Rilke to do what Rodin couldn’t do?
How much gratitude is owed to Rodin for his dishonesty?
Diary note No 14 – Most important day of my life
Today is the most important day of my life.
I went to Phelan’s pharmacy for drugs.
I bought cat food from Glanmire Pet Shop, Royal Canin “regular fit feline health nutrition.”
The next thing I’m going to do is pick up my laptop. It’s been serviced.
After that, there are two rugby matches to watch.
The dinner will be a surprise.
Is it any wonder this is the most important day of my life?
Don’t make your poems rhyme
Don’t make your poems rhyme,
unless you’re a genius with syllables.
Don’t stuff yourself into a wedding dress,
nor imitate Cinderella’s sisters.
Half-rhymes are a different matter,
provided you miss the end of the line.
Ignore my view if you’re happy
to write mediocre cant,
bland, sentimental, niceties
your friends will lap up
and forget.
Crimes against umbrellas,
fine, generous and irritating
stress on the wrong core
of earth where you scatter salt
pepper, cardamom and treacle.
Stop fretting over dictionaries
in search of le bon mot.
You’re better to scatter and slant perspiration
before you blame your education.
My name is Donald Trump
My name is Donald Trump,
I’m the leader of the band.
I piss, I fart, I shit – I jump.
Sure I know we are all grand.
I’m a man who thrives on basics.
All my hair carefully made.
See these hands forever laid.
Believe me hugher than a Phoenix.
I’m greater than they say,
You want to know my way?
Ever one to steal a deal,
you want to eat my meal?
Build em high, build em strong,
Motherfuckers, bastards, wrong.
Let us send them all back home,
Let us lock them in a SuperDome.
I know you’ll hear my strong decrees.
Let’s see, what only we can see.
Let’s call them out, those Holy Joes,
those PC pussies, I suppose.
We are the Warriors, the Warriors,
no worriers, no foreigners
No losers here.
Lend me your ear
We shall build the tallest tower.
Let’s be rid of all things sour.
Motherfuckers.
Let the judges fear our wrath.
What a shower of lazy suckers.
We will turn their children back.
I am the Lord of Every Deal.
This one deserves a damn good feel.
With me you win, never grow thin.
We’re so righteous, we’ll never sin.
I will make America great
I will make the whole world wait.
We shall be forever tall
when we build that fucking wall.
My name is Donald Trump,
I’m the leader of your band…
If I was sovereign
If I was sovereign, a dictator, over the US of A, I’d make GREEN BOOK compulsory.
I’d compel every citizen to watch* Green Book on a big screen.
(I wouldn’t make this happen overnight)
The draft plan I’m considering is here:
- President & Cabinet obliged to watch the movie by 1 April 2019. Penalty for failure – disqualified from office for 100 days.
- Senators, Representatives & Supreme Court judges by 1 May 2019. Penalty for failure to comply – disqualification for 125 days
- Military generals, Governors & city Mayors by 1 June 2019. Penalty 150 days
- Candidates for all public offices (federal & local) by 1 June 2019 – penalty for failure to watch Green Book = disqualified from ballot until next election cycle
- All teachers (including kindergarten & higher education) by 1 July – penalty for failure = automatic unpaid leave from office for two months.
- All voters by 1 November 2019 – penalty for failure to be determined after Congressional hearing.
- All News editors by 1 October 2019. Penalty for failure to publish review of Green Book = Fine of $3,650 rising to $365,000.
- All law officers, prison staff & ministers of religion by 1 September 2019 – penalty for failure to conform under consideration.
- Exemptions: none, except patients in authorized comas.
- Green Book Film studio owners & CEOs – National Medal of Honor presented by President of USA by 1 May
________________
* NB This sovereign dictator will exert no pressure on subjects to agree with
(1) the point of view of the director, or distributor of Green Book
(2) feelings & thoughts shown & expressed by any of the characters
(3) the dictator’s views
(4) anyone else’s values.
The requirement is to watch Green Book (and remain awake in the cinema).
Pancake day
I’ll put Nutella aside for a year,
I was minded to chuck it away.
Tis the devil’s food, the bane of our day,
it’s time for you to hear.
There was a man who loved his sugar,
There was a man who loved his sugar,
his hair as black as ebony,
a girth as firm as any fine figure,
his brain is sharp as me.
Nutella for lunch, and syrup for tea,
honeycomb ice cream and meringue,
soon as stout as an orangutan
our hero worshipped Cadbury.
Diogenes fled, Diabetes came,
Diogenes fled, Diabetes came,
he couldn’t remember his best friend’s name.
Fructose, glucose, sucrose abound
Obesity reigned, Dementia crowned.
Obesity reigned, Dementia crowned.
I doubt he’s in heaven with Harry,
the lads from the links do not tarry.
It was hell to watch him decline,
and think Nutella was fine.
and think Nutella was fine.
I urge you fair friend do not splurge
your shekels on food you should purge.
Remember a love for your gut, heart, and liver.
Pray slay the taste for sugar.
Nutella thrills,
Nutella thrills,
Nutella kills,
Nutella fills
your tummy with fancy frills.
Remember, remember six pancakes you ate,
before it is too late.
54-word story
“Will you blow into this colostomy bag? Will you scratch an itch from under my arse, before you breathalyse me? I’m over the limit of the black stuff I drink. The coffee has gone to my head.”
She winced a smile from the side of her mouth, and waved me on my way.
Why does my wife not read my verse?
Why does my wife not read my verse?
She’s surely not averse
to phrase and lines she reads at work,
her daily dose of prose that lurks
on paper and email I’ve heard her curse.
Poetry, you scheming rat,
you promised you’d deliver
a feast-seducing habitat,
a song to make her quiver,
not a sour look, nor petty spat.
Oh, why does she not sneak a peek
to see what I have written
in Moleskine notebook fit to tweak?
At least she’d know what has me smitten
the day I dared to plumb the deep.
There’s much more depth in me
than fake illiteracy.
I’m a minor chord, a malady.
I’m a scribe in search of melody,
a cloud of nature’s ancestry.
May she not pass like a Pharisee
10 minute poem
(For Robert & Juliette)
I must arise and go now
and go beyond the Pale,
and a small forest grow there,
a heart and mind remake.
And I shall have some ease there,
and peace to rest my limbs,
and she will wait upon the seas,
and walk on roots of birch and spruce.
And I shall call her on the wind,
like gull and hawk in sun.
I must clear out this festering way
and take a mountain step
across the lake that’s shaped my view,
and bid my drive farewell.
When oft I rest in thrall of moon,
and bless the hour that’s struck,
you’ll see me stride among the stars
‘mid leaves that paint a life sublime.
I’ll draw my warmth from a fire she’ll set,
and crack a bottle of wine.
_____________________
Note: This poem was originally composed in 10 minutes – while being recited into my iphone. It took a lot longer than that to knock into this shape.
A fool
It is foolhardy
to drive a car
when your back is out.
Foolhardy to sit
on a sofa
– said the mature man
to himself
as he picked his keys
from the rack.
Diary note No 13 – Wanderlust in woods
A few minutes ago, I opened the front door and went out into fresh air.
Gingerly, I shuffled around. I talked to my aching back.
It’s nearly time for Wanderlust – to walk in Moanbaun Wood with Rebecca Solnit, again.
That wind today is a bit too chilly for me to start straight away.
There is the habit to recapture.
Thank goodness I haven’t finished reading that magnificent book, that best of companions.
The three Rs
(For Robbin T Milne)
Rilke, Rodin, Rembrandt
all made for reading
all fit for writing
all writhing with the rhythm of arithmetic life
the precision of patience
lichenlike.
Three men on a mission
To scribe with a steely sense of solitude,
to shape with stoney sight
to paint faces in the light of night
I met Rembrandt alone,
beard like waterfall,
watching stars.
Rodin lost in thought
on a bench
across the street from a brothel
I passed Rilke in a vacuum,
listening to water boatmen
making solitude sing.
I found out later
they all supported the same football team
Picture-painters on the pitch.
The French sculptor Auguste Rodin said, “Compare me with Rembrandt! What sacrilege! With Rembrandt, the colossus of Art! We should prostrate ourselves before Rembrandt and never compare anyone with him!”[
Diary note No 12 – Cricket, Fish & Chips
What have the game of cricket and fish & chips got in common?
Do people take fish & chips to cricket at Lords or the Oval?
Do bowlers eat chips before taking the new ball?
Maybe some top-class cricket coaches ban teams from eating fish & chips the night before the toss?
Perhaps the conversation in Café Beva between Roger & Paul went from trivia to profound – from pastime to work?
Why did Paul record the conversation about cricket?
Could it have anything to do with the next test match England will play? (Against Ireland at Lords)
What would an eavesdropper have thought?
– the mystery of everyday life.
Are you wearing your hearing aids?
Unless I’m wearing hearing aids I won’t make the great speech you’re hoping for.
You know, my friends, that unless you hear brilliantly, It’s impossible to speak well.
Before I speak I need to put my hearing aids in
- My mother had excellent hearing all her life. She listened at keyholes. She kept in touch with her children’s phone calls about important matters which might impinge on the extended family.
- She had phenomenal hearing. She once heard me and Brian Cox lighting up Woodbine cigarettes behind the copper beech tree in our garden.
- She had patient hearing. She spent hours in the kitchen listening to me spout on about my beliefs, my thoughts, my feelings. She even asked me questions about my political rants.
My mother couldn’t afford to buy hearing aids.
Her hearing aid was the acute attention she paid to me -whatever & how ever I spoke, plus the attentive ear she gave to others, all her adult life.
—————
And what about you?
The most important thing I know about you, I see written all over your face.
Deeply chiseled into your Toastmasterly character
Engraved
- You love to be heard. You are no wallpaper – You are the leading actor in the Oscar-winning movie “My dramatic life” – you are the Linchpin.
- In your deepest heart, you wantthe person sitting next to you to wear hearing aids, before they speak to you.
- You want them to listen to you as if their life depended on it
Last evening, I was cooking spaghetti Like my daughter said over spaghetti in the kitchen last night, “Dad, all I want for you is your attention, that’s what I call love.”
This evening, you expressed it through your body language, the way you settled into your seat.
You wanted all of us speakers to pay attention to you our . It was as if you spoke to me “Paul, pay attention to me before you speak.”
Where are your hearing aids now?
Isn’t it so uplifting to be in the midst of a community of friends who listen to each other – genuinely listen.
Friends genuinely listen to you, friends listen well.
Imagine
you’re going to leave here and go out into the garden and hillside of a wider community.
Imagine
you’re going to take your hearing aids with you – just as your best friends do.
Imagine
like my mother, you have excellent, phenomenal & patient hearing.
I must arise and go now, and take my hearing aids out.
Let me trust you to leave your hearing aids turned on.
Let me trust you to listen well
I trust you to speak superbly and wear your hearing aids with pride.
Diary note No 11 – Blarney Toastmasters
I was ‘Master of Ceremonies (MC)” last night.
About 20 people in a room in Blarney Woolen Mills hotel.
All keen to become better at public speaking – formal & informal.
All expecting a good experience.
The meeting was mettlesome.
Two members of our Toastmasters Club introduced themselves to the audience.
They each spoke for about five minutes in prepared speeches. There was plenty of applause.
I felt good to be in the room.
Artificial intelligence
(with thanks to Ray Garraud)
I have artificial intelligence
Unnatural impulses
An emotional database
A robot brain
Dots & dashes
reflex connections
I am a smart machine
A digitalised hub
that makes meaning matter
A deepfake
Virtual vision
Digital imagination
Holographic presence
A synthetic wormhole of darkness
I am an algorithm
Antithetical antibody
I am human image
Neural synthesis
Fractalic acumen
Biblical beta
Lightning connector
Idealistic conductor
Symbolic bridge
A child of the Deep Blue flag
Superb Stockfish
I am a labyrinth of thought
Intimacy of everyday life
The blood gave Puma what he craved,
that warm connection,
that deeper resonance
the end of a ritual.
the flow from a raw, umbilical cord,
roots
There was, of course, the fur,
the light fluffy stuff.
It was claws that built a bridge between them,
it was sinking teeth in flesh that released the duende,
way beyond play.
It was the same for the bunny,
it was the same for the rabbit,
only this time the rabbit was fed up of being called a bunny.
The rabbit wasn’t cute,
the rabbit wasn’t Flopsy Mopsy or Cottontail.
The rabbit had feelings too.
personified,
objectified,
infantilised.
There’s more to a rabbit than a cuddly thing for children.
If you could get close to a rabbit, you’d meet the animal within,
an animal with teeth,
an animal with family
an animal with ties,
an animal that doesn’t live in cottonwool
has enemies,
is preyed upon,
and is a killer.
Oh yes, rabbits kill cabbages.
So when Puma the cat met the rabbit outside,
there was a deep connection within,
Desire,
the sort of desire a tiger has,
the sort of lust a jaguar has,
the sort of appetite every self-respecting big cat has.
Fear,
the sort of thrill running for your life gives you.
A wildebeest across the savanna,
the ancestors of the rabbits ran free for their lives.
No half-life here,
no cuddly wuddly bunny.
Blood,
flesh,
even the fur mattered
in the utility room that night,
It was the intimacy of everyday life
Diary note No 10 – Teamwork
“When you get back to Ireland, give us a shout” said my cheeky brother No 2.
Proof positive that I’ve been away from the telephone line that connects Cork to Limerick – since Ireland beat Scotland.
I’m sticking to the lurgy – that relieves me of all guilt & shame.
LOCATION
I’m writing this on Friday morning in Café Beva over a (too) large helping of scrambled eggs on a warmed plate.
Roger didn’t make it. Eoghan is preparing for rugby in Rome. The Wiffe has Louis in the wood. De daughter was asleep.
TEAMWORKING
Compelled to go beyond pony-riding to hockey by an exponentially expanding ambition, I morphed phone-called chat.
“Isn’t teamwork in sport ideal preparation for civics & working in a shop?“
Don’t shelf-fillers & managers need to work as a team with common sense of purpose, and inter-dependence?
A notion that welled up like lava.
Has the Harvard Business Review published a paper on this?
Diary note No 9 – Captivity
I was born into captivity, into a family, they were in charge, set my daily routine, administered my food, decided when I was heard, what I should see, my destiny.
Those gaolers sent me to an institution that held me captive, defined my agenda, put me in a room, decided what I should learn, when I was good enough, when I should be let out
into another ritual, and on into another asylum.
Gradually I was made fit for an open prison, condemned to a life sentence immersed in a language I had no power to design.
Moment by moment, my thoughts sucked into solitary confinement within a zeitgeist that disguised itself as an dreamscape, shaped with illusions of grandeur.
Captured & captivated, imprisoned & impressed,
As if I was an ant that thought he was a free spirit
As if an elephant that loved to be tethered in a circus tent
Even my imagination ring-fenced.
I was bred in captivity by a family that thought there was a key hidden somewhere safe
As if it could be released in time to avert what is to come.
The ants face extinction
Elephants are shuffling into an abyss
The key never strong enough to turn the lock, and release inmates
These marks, letters, phrases, are a sentence for some and a sentence for all.
The eyes of the wild animal that roves over paragraphs & stanzas are focussed on straight lines.
I don’t see what I don’t see in my captivity.
The mystery of history.
