Testament
The bible is my survival
when they come
calling for my salvation
And it isn’t Matthew Mark Luke and John
that bail me out…
Category: poetry
Who composed this poem?
The moment I see
a thousand snowdrops blooming
under snowflake sky
I know my soulhome is here again
————–
Note:
I don’t know who wrote this. I don’t remember writing it. It’s in my iPhone notes without any information.
So it won’t make it into my next poetry book or collected works.
No matter – I like it – it means something to me.
If you wrote it – please claim it.
Warmed
Warmed
I am a wood frog in a previous life.
You would probably think I was dead
if you saw where I was inside logs and burrows
heart stopped
ice crystals in my blood.
I defrost in the warmth of Spring.
Before that, I am a deer mouse
huddled together snuggling with the others
I don’t live for long.
In my time, I am a white-tailed prairie dog, a bat, hedgehog.
I am even a skunk
suspecting that’s where I began.
Last December
I all came together in this chilled life –
until my sun got warm again.
Pulse
My child went to dance his night away.
And mine went for the love of her life.
My children had names.
My parents came out looking for everlasting love.
My family were herded together like cattle
and passed into the cold beyond
kissed by the fire of bullets
from a manufacturing plant
owned by anonymous shareholders.
These are not my words
I have no words fit for a future
that blows like a gorgon’s breath
spawned by Hell’s army.
Bless me Father for I have sinned
I have lost my pulse
and wished the thieves the same.
My child, my child …
Hell
Hell
From the depths of Hell in summertime
Dante heard his name called
wished he’d misheard.
However,
he always knew it wasn’t enough
to write a description of Hell
to ward off the experience of hell on earth.
—
I am Dante
I’ve tried to write my way
out of misery
– wished many times
I could have woken up dead –
longer than that Italian moaned his lost love.
—-—————
Notes:
(1) This poem was written during a livestream Periscope on 8 June 2016 – in 10 minutes.
(2) The first line was suggested by @shaggydog69 “From the depths of Hell” & @brendyrussell11 “in summertime”.
(3) The scope was both nerve-wracking & fun.
Potato Poem (PP)
Bluebells – new poem by Paul O’Mahony
Poem
draft:
Bluebells
When you go out to the bluebell wood
to paint the white bells blue
holding hands with your granddaughter
I advise you go by night
with light of the moon
– so you don’t paint the wrong bells
so neighbours don’t catch you mad
so you show her how to make magic
how to restore order in the universe.
Don’t squash the bluebells.
____________
With thanks to William FitzGerald the storyteller
Walt Whitman’s birthday – new poem by Paul O’Mahony
Lines composed on the birthday of Walt Whitman (1819-2016)
“You will hardly know who I am or what I mean” (Walt Whitman)
There’s a lot to be said for waking before dawn
in a strange bed
with friends next door
– especially if you stretch to a bookcase
crammed with unfamiliar words
fingering spines,
loafing at your ease.
Better still, when the bard of democracy calls:
“Pick me, pick me, take me to your heart,
I’ll grow your spirit.”
– his beard promising you adventure.
– a smattering of rain strumming on mullioned glass.
And you reply “Hey, why should my finger linger?
Why draw you to my side?”
The first light swells,
‘the wilderness of unopened life’ grips you,
and sings of ‘passion, pulse and power’
– as a barnacle to a rock.
“Prayer” – new poem by Paul O’Mahony
Prayer
I
They said they’d pray for me,
warmed and discomforted me.
“Pray for us sinners” echoed
“Get down on your knees and pray”
in pyjamas by the bedside,
after I leant on the drawing room sofa
reciting five decades of the rosary
every evening
looking towards the fireplace, coal box, chess books and bibles.
Now mother’s accepted she’s the one who’ll do the praying.
No more pushing, she’s done her best.
II
To pray
is human.
My friend with cancer wrote
“I’ve prayed for my health and yours,
five times a day,
everyday.”
A hummingbird whispered
“Surely you can say ‘I pray for you’
Shame on you.”
Like a guilty child I stumbled
“May your heart be warmed by the love you give to others.”
(I wish I’d added “… and yourself.“)
III
By the river that washed the soles of Bernadette
I rebelled:
“Every step of my way’s a prayer
offered in hope,
in thanks,
contrition,
desperation,
love,
in celebration of tickling mysteries.”
Now I stand in prayer, warm and discomforted,
my way, this day.
“Lost Love” – poem by Paul O’Mahony
Lost Love
I’ve lost my love for you,
forgotten your name
among so many others.
Are you worth remembering?
Do you matter at all
any more?
Will you ever return,
re-emerge like hibernator?
Are you buried forever underground?
Could it be your disappearance
isn’t even noticed
and no tears shed for you?
The good of you fallen,
sieved like flour and icing sugar,
leaving only useless lumps?
Your name a melted hailstone,
gone from sight,
faded.
Pray surface in your own time,
lost love loved again
even if you’ve forgotten my old name.
I wish
I wish
I wish for Plenty:
manna, songs, dancing, smiles
gin, tonic, lime – even porter and champagne
especially the hugs of others
warm hearths for my belly
I wish for nothing less than a place at the next resurrection.
(I found no seat at the last supper.)
What I’m greedy for now lies beyond
nights of sleep, hummingbirds, smoked salmon, diamonds.
Tis daylight peace without end.
(It is a blessing to want.)
My longing rose from the dead on Monday evening
not long after a shrink spilled her seed on fertile ground
and stones moved in concert.
I wish I knew the secret of how to sow miracles
the way a spirit splits and multiplies
the rising of the sun.
(At least I remember her name.)
There’s nothing like a breath drawn up an elephant’s trunk
nothing like the atmosphere of air
Lazarus found out – and so did I.
Maybe I’ll remember how to wish next time round the mulberry
– trees breathe, leaves bud again.
There’s plenty to be found.
I wish
I wish
I wish for nothing in particular
nor gold, nor silver
nor the slightest material star
Not even the love of another being
nor warmth from the sun.
I wish for nothing beautiful.
What I crave lies beyond words
beyond prayers, beyond faith
beyond me: it is dead.
It died on a Thursday afternoon
not long before the assent
to the peak of Christmas dawned.
I wish for the return of the property
stolen from air I use to breathe
– I have a nickname for it.
But the memory is punctured
the proper name dribbled away
beyond reach, beyond breath.
It refuses to respond to my cries
lets the echo fester and reek of cracked eggs
in case I forget it wasn’t always so.
I wish it was like Lazarus
reincarnated human.
Maybe I’ll go on wishing and breathing too…
____________________________
Note:
Composed just before xmas 2015. With special thanks to Lars.
Rain and Wind
When I was a child
I loved
the sound of rain & wind
on glass
as I curled up warm
under bedclothes.
In front of this fire,
I haven’t grown up
2 Poems by Charles Bukowski read by Paul O’Mahony
I stand against the crowd
[You can also hear an audio version of this poem here]
I stand
against the crowd
I stand out from the crowd
I am an individual
odd
different
singular
misfit
awkward in my comfort
edgy in my skin
alive in my own little way
I live my say
I give the best shot I can
every day.
I stand against the crowd
of wasters who fritter
their life away their way.
I waste my life my way
I fritter my days into
the oblivion I fashion
every step I say.
because I am who am
me
condemned to be myself
I stand out from the crowd
comfortable in my discomforting way
that comes from every pore
every sore
every score of my expressions.
It’s my art
the heart of my song
the liver that cleans my spleen
seen in all my glory every time
I stand against the crowd
Each and every difference
friction
grating
unconforming
uncomplying
understandable me.
See that fella
hovering on the edge
the one who isn’t fitting in
the one with the shifty eyes
the glint of his own
You can smell
he’s an outsider
a weirdo
an awkward one
an individual
heart
a body of imagining
power
wealth
stealth
scheming to survive
the crowd
the collective view
the “what we all think”
thinkers.
I stand against the crowd
I stand out from the crowd
away from the crowd
proud of my own way
fiddling the melody
composed of notes
I’ve assembled from the crowd
playing the game I’ve invented
the rules I’ve annunciated
predicated on the shoulders
of giants who have fallen
in battle
against the crowd
castigated on shoulders
of heroes that have died
for the cause of being
themselves.
I reject the way of the crowd
every time my heart pumps
blood from the flat of my soul
to the peak of my imagination.
Consternation
I will cause
conflagration to
instigation of the self
opinionated
author of my fate
creator of my faith
born to be wild
not filed away in a box
I defy
I stand against the crowd
that would
categorise me
classify me
entomb me in place
where they could ignore me
where they could make me safe
from causing a splash
from making a difference
from changing
the course of history
the dreams of others
the Universe.
For such a cause
I stand against the crowd
I stand out from the crowd
to welcome you
fellow traveller
fellow awkward person
follower battler
for your way.
For your way is my way too
your way is yours
my way is mine
our way stands out from the crowd
We stand against the crowd.
We stand up for ourselves
We stand who stand.
Against the crowd
Unto death.
_________________________
Notes:
The Rebel Creatives Manifesto
“We are #RebelCreatives
#RebelCreatives are those who rises in opposition or resistance against an established force or opinions. People who voice their opinions, want to make a change and promote social good.
Everyone is a creative. You share your creativty everyday through the way you walk, talk, interact, share and care.
The #RebelCreatives project will officially launch with epic 30 back-to-back broadcasts on Periscope. Each broadcaster will get 15 or 30mins to share their creativity about a certain topic.
The broadcasters will share their passion, knowledge and understanding of a particular issue through your creativity. “
______________
- The first draft of this poem was first composed in Cork City in 2013 or 2014 – it was inspired by AJ Leon, Melissa Leon & their Misfit cause.
- Related poem is here
Strangle Bukowski – poem by Paul O’Mahony
Will someone please strangle Bukowski
A disgraceful man
not worthy of the name Charles
He farts his syllables
belches his words
vomits his phrases
– his sentences smell
like festering fish
As for his verse
it’s worse.
When did Mewkowski last rhyme?
When did he not spew out his truth
as if it was personal?
If caustic Charlie didn’t drink sour milk
sucked from his Mother Nature
the inhuman race
would have no warlike bastards
inciting us all to spill blood
from eructive orifices.
Pastiching
the barely sane Bukowski
keeps my bad breath moving mindfully
in and out
in and out
through gaps between teeth
filled originally by a dumb dentist
married to his drill
addicted to screwing
holes he amalgamed.
Father, father
who will rid me of this
treacherous gurgitator
sent from that inner being
Steve Jobs
tried to connect with
on his ashram
in smelly feet.
See,
pastiche is the sincerest form of flattery
Will someone please strangle Bukowski?
Poetry is good for something?
disclaimer
I’m a poet.
I buy poetry books.
read poems (out loud).
run a daily poetry show
live streamed on Periscope
(The Walt Whitman Show).
And
“Does poetry still matter?“
(CNN)Quick: Name a famous living poet.
Somebody. Anybody. No, not Maya Angelou. She died last year.
Unless you’re a literary scholar or a subscriber to The New Yorker, it’s not easy. That’s because poetry, once a preeminent form of entertainment, has long since receded to the far, dusty corners of popular culture…
And
In 2003, Newsweek cried
Poetry Is Dead. Does Anybody Really Care?
“… Ultimately, though, there’s no one to blame. Poetry is designed for an era when people valued the written word and had the time and inclination to possess it in its highest form…”
I care
so
in December 2015, I did ethnomethodological research among an international, cross-cultural, mixed-gender, inter-generational group
https://katch.me/embed/v/f91e97bd-6af2-3d5d-8138-96fbec40d5cc?sync=1
Voices of the dead
human connection, honesty
I like to write poetry that speaks encouragement over others.
introspection
it’s like sunshine and rain.
for the poet or for the reader?
I like poetry… straightforward easy storytelling
expression of internal world
same effect as music, when it’s done well
I write poetry for my own peace of mind and self expression
reveals human connection
our connections through our secrets, fears
indescribable, sometimes, but you know it’s good…
‘Step of the body toward the sea falls the land to break’
poetry is an acquired taste?
it’s nice when you can relate to it in your own life
connection to another person’s internal world
for me it’s just for enjoyment.
I don’t analyse too much
I just let it happen
and
take what’s there in the moment
‘Poetry distills life like fermentation distills spirits’
‘Poetry wakes things within that are hidden under the surface’
Music and poetry are the same
unless the poem is a song
then it hits me inside
‘Poetry is an excuse to use forgotten words’
like a forever blossoming of the soul
ever opening and revealing
wrapping words around
emotions, perceptions, and the heart song
‘If a picture paints a thousand words, a poem can contain the world.’
transport you to another place
open your mind to new thoughts
sometimes
poetry is my weapon
a way to express feelings
a map for left brain engineering
in the language of logic,
poetry is a super structure
Forgotten words
for the dam
generates the power within
‘If pictures can paint a thousand words,
my poetry attempts are stick men’
(To be continued)
Walt Whitman “Pioneers! O Pioneers!
First, a recording of a fine actor, Will Geer, reading “Pioneers! O Pioneers!
Second, a recording of this poem being live streamed.
The Walt Whitman Show on Periscope
(saved via Katch)
https://katch.me/embed/v/d7bce79c-57b7-328d-a2cd-40526034fc9d?sync=1
_____________________
Pioneers! O Pioneers!
COME, my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready;
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp edged axes?
Pioneers! O pioneers!
For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
O you youths, western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship, 10
Plain I see you, western youths, see you tramping with the foremost,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied, over there beyond the
seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden, and the lesson,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
All the past we leave behind;
We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world,
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing, as we go, the unknown ways,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
We primeval forests felling,
We the rivers stemming, vexing we, and piercing deep the mines
within;
We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Colorado men are we,
From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high
plateaus,
From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
From Nebraska, from Arkansas,
Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental blood
intervein’d;
All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the
Northern,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
O resistless, restless race!
O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all!
O I mourn and yet exult–I am rapt with love for all,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Raise the mighty mother mistress,
Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress,
(bend your heads all,)
Raise the fang’d and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weapon’d
mistress,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
See, my children, resolute children,
By those swarms upon our rear, we must never yield or falter,
Ages back in ghostly millions, frowning there behind us urging,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
On and on, the compact ranks,
With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly
fill’d,
Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
O to die advancing on!
Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come?
Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is fill’d,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
All the pulses of the world,
Falling in, they beat for us, with the western movement beat;
Holding single or together, steady moving, to the front, all for us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Life’s involv’d and varied pageants,
All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work,
All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
All the hapless silent lovers,
All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wicked,
All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
I too with my soul and body,
We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way,
Through these shores, amid the shadows, with the apparitions
pressing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Lo! the darting bowling orb!
Lo! the brother orbs around! all the clustering suns and planets,
All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
These are of us, they are with us,
All for primal needed work, while the followers there in embryo wait
behind,
We to-day’s procession heading, we the route for travel clearing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
O you daughters of the west!
O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives!
Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Minstrels latent on the prairies!
(Shrouded bards of other lands! you may sleep–you have done your
work;)
Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp amid us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Not for delectations sweet;
Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the
studious;
Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Do the feasters gluttonous feast?
Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock’d and bolted doors?
Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Has the night descended?
Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged, nodding on
our way?
Yet a passing hour I yield you, in your tracks to pause oblivious,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Till with sound of trumpet,
Far, far off the day-break call–hark! how loud and clear I hear it
wind;
Swift! to the head of the army!–swift! spring to your places, Pioneers! O pioneers.
__________________
Notes:
- I found the video on You Tube with the following information attached:
“Uploaded to You Tube on 11 Nov 2009
Vocals By Will Geer
“This is the full version of the poem that was used in the Levi “Go Forth” commercial. I added the backing music to spice it up a bit (thanks Garage Band) You can find the vocal portion of this (and other Whitman poems) on iTunes. I do not own the vocals – however to take it down for copyright violation would be to down a little piece of America… Whitman….America…think about it”
2. The Walt Whitman Show is live streamed on Periscope. I use the January 1892 “Death Bed Edition” of Leaves of Grass. Walt died on 26 March 1892
“What a writer” – poem by Charles Bukowski
what i liked about e.e. cummings
was that he cut away from
the holiness of the
word
and with charm
and gamble
gave us lines
that sliced through the
dung.
how it was needed!
how we were withering
away
in the old
tired
manner.
of course, then came all
the e.e. cummings
copyists.
they copied him then
as the others had
copied Keats, Shelly,
Swinburne, Byron, et
al.
but there was only
one
e.e. cummings.
of course.
one sun.
one moon.
ThoughtForToday – 1 November
There isn’t enough short- term thinking
like :
why should I improve my world – today?
like:
how can I make a better world in the next hour?
like:
what do I do now to make a difference?
Think short-term.
From Bath to Cork with baby Grace 