I play.
I am a musical instrument.
Sometimes an orchestra out of key.
A string quartet at odds with itself.
Other times
– a pure violin making sacred notes.
You too make your music.
Play.
Category: poetry
Chicago calling
– lines composed as a result of spending a Sunday afternoon in The Green Room, Chicago, in July 2014
Play with your eyes
out of your head
Strum the chords
out of your corners
Crawl all over
his melody
into ecstasy
across the tap tap
slap into the face of her heart.
Glasses pop
into stacks
wicked slick
beats bleat
complete insider
Out to play
The Green Mill pill
ThoughtForToday – 15 October
My way.
By the way
what is my way?
Fingerprints.
Retina.
Unique genetic hand-me-downs.
But
there’s more to me.
My way
– what’s that?
What do you say’s my way?
That belongs to no one else.
It’s my birthday
Even the earthworms are dancing
leaves crinkling bent smiling
heron reflecting from Glashaboy bank
– It’s my birthday
Even Tweets are landing
Periscopes popping
Facebooks refreshing
– It’s my birthday
the day to smile
love and be loved.
Diarrorhea from Asia
followed by
jetlag
and
nose
dripping
snot.
It’s my birthday
the day to smile
love and be loved.
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Note: Composed yesterday
ThoughtForToday – 11 October
When you stand for “Kindness”
– you are a kind person
– kind to others
– you also speak kindly about others
– you live kindly.
You feel kindly towards yourself too.
ThoughtForToday – 10 October
The further you travel
– the more you learn
The more confusion you welcome
– the more wisdom you gain
The more disappointment you tolerate
– the stronger you grow
The less you quibble with others
– the more loving you are
Getting hammered in Malaysia
[If you can’t see the player below, please click here ]
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Getting hammered in Malaysia
pelted on by heavy water
flared by lightening
assaulted by thunder gods
– as if I’d been cosseted in the womb and sucked outside
– so unlike the Malay.
Raindrops are not under your command
we are sent to clear your air
disrupt the haze
silence your cough.
Nothing lasts.
Nothing continues
Nothing sits on top of you
unless lightening strikes your heart
and takes your breath away.
I am a failure
I am a failure
I failed my mother and father
– so they had more children.
I failed to like cod liver oil, tapioca, even semolina.
I failed to grab the offer my father made
– so the brothers got the business.
I failed as sociologist
– so I became a bus conductor.
I failed as a conductor
– so I moved on to be a manager.
I failed as a manager
– so I became a leader.
I failed as a leader
– so I became an owner of my own business.
I failed as a husband
– so I found another wife.
I failed as a father
– so I had another child.
I failed to live forever in England
– so I sailed back to Ireland.
I failed to stop the clock
– so I faded by the day.
I failed to be satisfied
– so I changed the world
I failed to find the answer
– so I learned be a poet
With that track record
– what chance do you think I have?
Guest : Lars Blichfeldt “Out of Sight”
“I’m 38 years old. I live in Denmark with my wife, my 3 kids, a pig and a parrot.”
Where I went to school, you had to agree with the teacher. If you didn’t agree, you knew nothing about poetry.
Every single word had its very own meaning which only the teacher knew the answer to.
After this introduction, I never did investigate poetry any further.
Then five months ago – on a social media app called Periscope – I randomly stumbled over an Irish poet called Paul O’Mahony.
In 2 months he changed my view on poetry completely. He inspired me to try writing poetry myself.
I have no experience in writing – and I know nothing about rules or grammar.
But it gives me great pleasure to write. [You can find my poems here.]
So start writing people, no matter what level you start at, I think you will love it.
And hey…we can’t all be Walt Whitman anyway.
———————————————-
Out of sight,
but always there.
I feel the beast,
lurking in shadows.
You were bred out of chaos.
You were nursed by feelings.
You were brought up by anger,
and strengthened by hate.
You rape my mind.
You abuse my body.
You blind me with darkness,
and tie me with fear.
How can I fight, what I cannot see.
How can I defeat, what’s created by me.
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Thank you very much Lars. It’s a honour to publish your work.
Important note:
In my imagination this blog will become a place where lots of people will be welcome to display & share their work.
Reading “Inferno” by Dante
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Dante’s Inferno Canto 1 (part 3)
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Dante’s Inferno Canto 1 (part 2)
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Reading Charles Bukowski – “The Trash Men”
I love reading his poetry.
Charles Bukowski wrote “German”
I promise
I promise
I will always act in what I consider to be your best interest
I will keep my promises to you
I will respect confidences you place in me
I will speak positively about you to others
I will strive not to embarrass you in public
I will alert you or seek your permission before publishing something about you
I’ll go on promising until the day after I die.
I promise I’ll be without promise from that day on.
You see I was once promising:
I had a promising future my mother said
Poem by Paul O’Mahony: “Life-saving anthem: I stand against the crowd
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 that 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.
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Notes:
- First composed in Cork City in 2013 or 2014 – inspired by AJ Leon, Melissa Leon & their Misfit cause.
- Related poem is here
“To fly in the clouds and winds with me, and play with the measureless light” – Walt Whitman “Song of the Banner at daybreak”
Tis time for daisy-chains and dandelions,
the thrush with gangly legs has gone to wind,
hostas, risen, pushed aside the shale,
and clover back to torment dreams of lawn.
There’s a cherry blossom behind my back,
the baby oak’s grown leaves on time
………………… in rowan and hawthorn writ
with showers for ink, lavender for paint.
The black dog tastes an apple core,
licks the fly and sucks for more.
The black dog’s in the grass,
…………… paws, panting fast.
She sleeps below the windline stretched,
out of senses, out of mind,
no rush to untangle the rest of the deep.
The black dog’s dead. The black dog’s dead.
The daisy chains are broken,
the dandelion’s divine.
There’s a place we know as light.
There’s a home we know is right.
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Unfinished: you see the bits that I’m sleeping on. Waiting to approach this fresh.
The two poets who give me quotes these days are Walt Whitman (1819-92) & Mary Oliver (1935 -).
The background poets in the English Market
It would be easy to miss the poets
in the Farmgate Cafe
encased behind glass
as you sip espressoed coffee
on a Saturday afternoon
in the English Market.
Poems slip by without fuss,
prefer to let you pass
until you’re ready to listen
to your breathing heart
– the minute they sense you ache
for a set of fingernails
with which to grip on to fragile life
ticking like a fading metronome.
Poems are used to coffee drinkers
who turn their backs on them.
Poems become taken forgranted
even when handwritten and hung.
Poets never have the last laugh.
Ink fades gradually away.
I wonder whether the spirits stay
hidden among fushia encased in a water jug.
____________________
This was composed in the English Market Farmgate Cafe in Cork Ireland in May 2015
The Walt Whitman Show – on Periscope – on Katch.me
Click on this link please – it leads to “The Walt Whitman Show (14 September)
Warning: it’ll take a minute to load up.
http://katch.me/embed/v/5b71d1a1-7f30-34c5-804c-6e5956882bbe
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I submit for your consideration:
- Walt Whitman (1819-92) is the greatest of the American poets.
- On Periscope you can meet wonderful, interesting & connecting people.
- Katch.me is the way to save “scopes”.
(You can save video from Persicopes on You Tube & Vimeo – but not the interaction you have with people during scopes.)
Dante’s Inferno (Canto 7)
Note: I shall publish my readings of Cantos 1-6 in the next few days. My plan is to read, record & share all 34 cantos of “Inferno” by Dante.
This was a bit of an experiment: to learn how to embed a file from Audioboom.com into a WordPress.com blog.
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A poem about writing a poem
To write a poem now
To write a poem now
forgotten how,
fingers all too stale,
grown pale.
Unused soul went to sleep,
troubled deep.
Christ rose from the dead,
threw off sheets drenched in blood,
woke up, pushed the stone –
back –
so light and birdsong dawned,
his dream made flesh,
again.
Fear revisited,
traces linger instead,
as if painted over.
Whitewashed over…
Jesus wrote his poem
on the road to Emmaus,
recovered from Gethsemane.
The words even ascended into Heaven
and were repeated.
To write a poem now…
the least I could do.
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“To write a poem now” – read by the poet – my first effort since depression lifted (mp3)
First published 10 November 2011 in “From Bath to Cork with baby Grace (1)”. This was my first effort to write a poem since the lifting of depression. I began it in Ely, near Cambridge UK, & finished the first draft in Cafe Beva, Glanmire, Co Cork.
Echoes
I sing to the rocks on the road to Roundstone
and they sing of home to me.
I whisper my secrets to blooming heather
and she whispers back to me.
I hum a tune to silver stream that rushes past
and she hums my melody.
I wipe my eyes in the mountain wind
and she cries her heart for me.
I see the sea wave on every tide
and she comes and comes for me.
From Bath to Cork with baby Grace 