Cyphers magazine has published my poem – “Zlatan”– in their Issue 93. I am really pleased as always to be published in Cyphers . Thanks to Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, for accepting my poem.
…Jim Feeney
Cyphers is a Dublin based print only magazine which has been in existence since 1975. They publish poets from all over the world, both new and established and this issue features a number of translated poems.
Hiram likes to drink water direct from the spigot on the front wall of his house; he hasn’t had to connect a hose to that darn spigot since he converted the lawn to artificial. Good times. In the evening, he sits on his porch staring out at the Christmas tree green of the lawn drinking lite beer and polishing his assault rifle, this gives him comfort.
Not that he’s afraid, he ain’t afraid of nuthin’, he ain’t afraid of AOC he ain’t afraid of Antifa he ain’t afraid of that girl from Sweden the one that never smiles he’s vigilant, that’s all; vigilance is of the essence. He likes the sound of that, maybe get a T shirt made put that on the front, ‘G.I. – God Incarnate’ on the back.
No, he ain’t afraid of nuthin’, but sometimes in the early hours of the morning he lies awake his gut gurgling like a drain as it processes the Outback appetizer of deep fried onion rings that the waitress piled high on his plate like a jumble sale of used Olympic symbols; he lies awake stalked by a fear he will not name the fear of being left behind, left in the dust, by the twenty first century.
This week I’m hosting the weekly challenge over at Earthweal (Title “Fiction? Don’t be a Stranger”). So head on over there and prepare to be challenged.
This bar’s insured by Smith and Wesson Says the sign upon the wall Vern studies his empty beer glass Time slows down to a crawl
Audrey, the lank-haired waitress Watches from the bar Order something soon, she yells Or get the hell out of here.
There’s a special on at Wanda’s Ranch Tuesday night 2 for one But Vern doesn’t have the appetite He doesn’t have the wherewithal
There’s only one thing that he wants And he’s going to get it soon High Plains Sushi High Plains Sushi Hot Sake in a cup Five thousand feet above the ocean And he just can’t get enough
Two guys from the goldmine Old Arsenic and Rock Face Have journeyed up from the centre of the Earth To join the human race
But no matter how hard they try No matter what they do In the glow from the pool table They’ve still got that subterranean hue.
Something’s warming beneath a heat lamp Looks like deep fried road kill Beside a tub of mashed potatoes It’s making Vern feel ill
There’s only one thing that he wants And he’s going to get it soon High Plains Sushi High Plains Sushi Hot Sake in a cup Five thousand feet above the ocean And he just can’t get enough.
I spent a little time once in Elko, Nevada. There was a sushi restaurant in the town which served individual portions large enough to feed a small Japanese village. Elko hosts an annual Cowboy Poetry Festival. Interesting place. The theme over at dverse is food poetry.
This version of this poem appeared before as a dizain, one of those poems that keeps changing shape.
Rapiers and Pistols and the Sequencing of (Whiskey In The Jar – A Deconstruction )
I have often wondered why when he encounters Captain Farrell while going over the Cork and Kerry Mountains* the protagonist first produces his pistol and then produces his rapier. Surely the rapier is redundant once the pistol is produced.
(*In the Dubliners version, it’s “the far-famed Kerry Mountains)
Whack fall the daddy o.
Apparently people occasionally wonder what “whack fall the daddy o” means. Well it does not mean anything, it’s kind of like Irish scatting, what singers do when they run out of words.
I once wrote a sea shanty in which I used a variation on whack fall the daddy o. Here it is :
Sea Shanty
Oh. the herring were running wild and fast as we sailed out from St. John and the cod were plump as Mary’s arse on a Sunday morning after early mass with sausages on the griddle-o and rashers in the pan whack fall de diddle dairy oh whack fall de diddle dan.
Scenes from a Restaurant in the Time Between Variants
the guys from finance hold their wine glasses by the stem and every now and again they do that swirl and sniff thing
the girl in the tight dress is two drinks away from feeling comfortable
a couple out on their first date have discovered too late that they have nothing to say to each other the long evening yawns before them
the bathroom door bursts open two bros wearing dark suits and built like refrigerators emerge, their eyes pulsing with guilty energy
it’s happy hour
cocktails are fifty per cent off and all the cocktails have jokey names Insane Moose Milantini Rogue Zamboni
nothing on the menu escapes description the Market Crashin’ IPA has a dry hopped finish with a touch of citrus the Failed Priest Sauvignon Blanc is full bodied with gooseberry and melon grace notes and that beet and feta salad we’ve ordered just happens to be a personal favorite of our waitress she loves that hint of sourness the cheese brings to the dish
she’s a dancer, by the way, lived for a while in Saskatoon.
This book, on the surface, is a standard murder- in –the- big- house whodunit but underneath it’s a commentary on the state of the nation, the Irish Nation in 1957. Ireland (the 26 counties at least), has been free of British rule since 1921 and the Catholic majority now rule the roost. The sleuth, Detective Inspector St. John Strafford, is a the son of protestant landed gentry, burdened by the curses of his class – good manners, left handedness and hemophilia. He’s an outsider now that the caste system has been turned on its head and Banville, like the good writer he is, shows this in a variety of subtle and amusing ways.
Archbishop Mc Quaid, the archbishop of Dublin, is one of the characters in the book and his long and sanctimonious arm reaches into every aspect of Irish society. He serves as a reminder that the Irish traded one oppressor, the English, for another more subtle oppressor, the Catholic Church. There is a chilling chapter about abuse in Irish residential industrial schools which brings to mind what happened to indigenous children in Canadian residential schools.
On top of all that there’s a dead priest, an intricate plot and sex scenes you will not find in Agatha Christie.
a ghostly whoosh echoes down the open pipe a toilet flushing
in a neighbor’s house uphill yes, we are all connected.
I hardly ever do this but here’s a challenge to all you poets out there: write a poem about plumbing. There are no rules, write about anything – an ode to your favourite plunger, a sonnet about a dripping tap, a haiku about flexible hoses!
Link back to this post if you like, so I can read your poems.
At night, the rotund tourists roam the street below drinking light beer from plastic cups and watching the river flow.
And Chuck, he’s in a restaurant playing his guitar for the plaid shorts and polo shirts and salesmen at the bar.
And life is neither good nor bad it’s somewhere in between Chuck thinks that one day he should leave this river scene.
Time’s a slowly burning fuse time’s a disappearing muse in time you feel every wound time’s a slowly burning fuse.
Karla’s in the house again trying to catch his eye her hair is blond and crinkled makes Chuck think of frozen fries
and when he hits another chorus she stands upon her chair chugs back her mojito and punches the empty air
and he knows that in this deck of cards we all can’t be the ace and if you’re going to take a fall then try and fall with grace.
Time’s a slowly burning fuse time’s a disappearing muse in time you feel every wound time’s a slowly burning fuse.
Jane, the late shift waitress her husband’s out of town Chuck thinks that later he might ask her around
and he’ll forget about alimony and the rent that he owes he’ll forget just about every thing if Jane comes around.
Time’s a slowly burning fuse time’s a disappearing muse in time you heal every wound time’s a slowly burning fuse.
This is based on a short poem I had published in Cyphers magazine. There are other versions of it, even a sonnet, but I think it’s finally settled down.
Myron volunteered once as a caretaker on an island in the middle of a lake in the High Andes, North of Puno, the Altiplano.
The top of the island was as flat as an anvil and every day he would climb up there from his lake side cottage to study the funerary towers of Silustani over on the mainland, using his large binoculars.
It was never quite clear to Myron what exactly he was taking care of. He had a house, a dread-locked alpaca and three guinea pigs. The guinea pigs were housed in a wired compound, inside the compound was a miniature mud hut with a thatched roof and three open doorways which the guinea pigs retreated through every time he approached. He thought that, perhaps he was supposed to eat the guinea pigs it was clear that they thought this also.
Located close to the funerary towers were the remains of an Inca temple worshipping the Sun God, at that time in his life Myron was losing faith in atheism and the Inca worship of the sun god had a certain logic to it. Without the sun where are we? Where are we, indeed! He wasn’t overly keen on human sacrifice but he had to admit that the Incas dealt with the blood well, channels and drainage being an Inca thing, knowledge they acquired along the way. Subjugate, assimilate, and so it goes forever.
Myron thought he would use this time to write but mostly he sat looking at a blank page listening to the tinnitus in his left ear roar and in the absence of his fellow human beings he began to think that the alpaca was judging him, the way it stared at him from under its matted fringe and down its long nose.
One night he found himself shouting abuse at the alpaca.
The next day he left for Puno and got drunk on gassy lager in a pizzeria on the ragged, dusty town square
NaPoWriMo eleven days in and I have nothing to show last night I rummaged through abandoned shoeboxes in the dusty attic of my mind (I apologize for those last two lines) and there’s nothing there, bro there’s nothing there………bro I’m moving in slow mo I’ve lost my mojo my get up and go I have met my Alamo or is it Waterloo? I’m running on empty no quid pro quo NaPoWriMo NaPoWriMo nineteen days to go nineteen days to go.
In the city of Nha Trang, Vietnam at the National Oceanographic Institute among tanks cramped with circling neurotic fish (Hit the glass. Stop. Turn around)
there is a multi-colored specimen whose toxin, according to the description, renders its victims
“unconspicuous or even dead”.
Conspicuous behind glass further north in the Hanoi War museum
lie the dog tags of dead American soldiers
to a man young, buzzcut and hopeful.
This poem was written a number of years ago, after a visit to Vietnam. The news out of Ukraine this week, for some reason, made me think of that visit and what happens to a whole generation on either side of a conflict when leaders decide to go to war.
It appeared in Open Link weekend over at earthweal.
I’m sitting in a café smoking a Gitane yes, I’m sitting in a café smoking a Gitane I’m reading Jean Paul Sartre and wondering who I am.
Existential boogie do that existential thing you can do it in your armchair summer, autumn, winter, spring.
If you’re looking for an answer don’t ask Albert Camus yes, if you’re looking for an answer don’t ask Albert Camus that dude’s been dead a long time he can’t tell you what to do
Existential boogie do that existential thing you can do it in your armchair summer, autumn, winter, spring
And don’t talk to me about Immanuel Kant yes, don’t talk to me about Immanuel Kant well I know that you want to but you can’t
Existential boogie do that existential thing you can do it in your armchair summer, autumn, winter, spring
and some people like to quote Martin Heidegger yes, some people like to quote Martin Heidegger well, all I can say is go figure
Existential boogie do that existential thing you can do it in your armchair summer, autumn, winter, spring
Rene Descartes said I think therefore I am yes, old Rene, he said I think therefore I am well, I call that a beginning I sure don’t call that a plan.
Existential boogie do that existential thing you can do it in your armchair summer, autumn, winter, spring.
This is classic laconic Tom from his Highway Companion album. The song was produced by Jeff Lynne of ELO and that’s Mike Campbell of the Heartbreakers on guitar. It’s an uncluttered production and a simple enough song, but ,of course , “simple” is hard to do well. What makes it for me is the lyric.
The first line of each verse ends with the phrase “down south” and the next three lines rhyme with each other. It’s what Tom Petty does with those rhymes that makes the song stand out. For example:
Create myself down south Impress all the women Pretend I’m Samuel Clemens Wear seersucker and white linens
Women, Clemens, linen…..that’s about as witty and clever as lyric writing gets. Or this:
Spanish moss down south Spirits cross the dead fields Mosquitoes hit the windshield All document remain sealed
So take a listen and look out as well for Mike Campell’s tremolo guitar figure