Category Archives: Photography

Thanks (for Paul Durcan)

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Thanks

Thanks for Jeff Tweedy
Thanks for Annette Bening
Thanks for Michael Stipe
Thanks for John Lennon.

Thanks for Lucinda Williams
Thanks for Jurgen Klopp
Thanks for Paul Durcan
Thanks for Roger McGough

Thank for Sally Rooney
Thanks for Saul Bellow
Thanks for T.S. Eliot
Thanks for Elvis Costello

Thanks for Billy Collins
Thanks for Bob Dylan
Thanks for Linda Ronstadt
Little Feat and ‘Willin’.

This is an edit of a previous post. The Irish poet, Paul Durcan died on May17 and he gets a mention in this poem along with Roger McGough and TS Eliot.

Paul was a quintessentially Irish poet and yet he was very different from contemporaries like Seamus Heaney in that his poetry was urban rather than rural, and he was witty, fiercely satirical and at times painfully honest about his personal life. He was not afraid to show vulnerability. I’m just now re-reading his collections “Daddy, Daddy” about his fraught relationship with his father and “The Berlin Wall Cafe” about the breakup of his marriage. Both collections are funny, sad and complex and the twin ogres of church and state are there on every page. It does not get more Irish than that! Rest in Peace, Paul!

Taking part in Open Link over at dverse.

Tales from the Gym (I love the smell of nostalgia in the morning)

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And your gravity fails and negativity don’t pull you through….Bob Dylan

Know your gym……Slim Volume

Gravity, Don’t Fail Me Now

two geezers
pink and steaming
towelling down
after a shower
discussing gravity
how it is not fixed
how it decreases
with distance from the earth’s core
how, if one was to climb to the top of Everest,
since weight is the product of mass and gravity
one would weigh less at the top of Everest
and Slim’s thinking
this is one fucking erudite conversation
and he wants a piece of it
so he points out that
one would regain that weight
on returning to sea level
and one of the geezers replies
yeah but you’d probably burn 10,000 calories
climbing up and down the fucking mountain
and a nearby jock encased in breathable fabric
says shit, I’d burn that in 40 minutes on the rowing machine
and Slim fires back wryly
keep telling yourself that
and the locker room erupts in laughter
and in that moment
basking in the unbearable lightness of banter
Slim defies gravity and levitates
above the bacterial swamp
that is the locker room floor.

“A man who is tired of the gym, is a man who has been to the gym”. Slim Volume

Two Bros

Two bros on a mat
one on his back
hands clasped behind his head
legs bicycling like a capsized fly;
the other,
the one with the green hair
and the tattoos of a religious nature
is grunting weights .
Fly bro, it appears,
is having girlfriend problems
and is experiencing
some kind of vague existential crisis,
green hair bro listens carefully to his tale of woe
and after some reflection says:
It’s life, man,
stop trying to understand it,
no one can
and then, as if startled by his own profundity,
he repeats: no one can.
Out of the mouths of bros….

in the background a bearded jock
in a tight black T shirt
his muscles packed with powdered whey
his eyes a steroid yellow
is down on his hunkers
knees akimbo
moving sideways
across the  floor
like a slow motion crab
across packed sand at evening.

A Scarecrow Looks Back on his Life (Redux)

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A Scarecrow looks back on his Life

Before Oz
I had control of my life
I had a purpose
a reason for existence

a modus operandi:
stand in a field
and scare crows
that’s it, that’s all.

It was lonely at times,
I admit, particularly
at night, but occasionally
a farmer returning

drunk across the fields
would stop and tell me his life story
then fall asleep, snoring
and farting at my feet

and yes, oh yes
I listened in on
acts of intimacy
on hot summer nights

and heard sounds
that made my straw curl;
then Oz occurred
and it was no longer

about presence
it was about absence
the absence of a brain;
children would circle me

and sing that stupid song
suddenly I was pathetic, forlorn;
what got me most was the
sheer illogicality of it all –

to yearn for a brain, one must
have a brain to begin with,
sometimes, I think the sole function
of a brain is to yearn…..

hang on a minute
I’m sure I saw that same crow yesterday
Look! He won’t come within twenty feet of me!
I’ve still got it! I’ve still got it!

My Dad and Flann O’Brien

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My Dad and Flann O’Brien

Mr. O’Brien, Flann,
Myles na gCopaleen
Myles of the Little Horses,
this is not about a bicycle.
My dad once told me
you were a regular
on the last bus out of the city,
heading home to Booterstown
langered, stotious,
three sheets to the wind
whether this was an observation
or a judgement or an exaggeration
I could never quite figure
but if you should meet my dad
in that section of heaven
reserved for former residents of South Dublin
please say hi from me
and I hope it’s always late June up there
and the evening is stretching its legs
and the light is like filtered longing.

This is an edit of a previous post, it’s Father’s Day here in Canada, and it’s also Bloom’s Day in Dublin, so here are some photos of Joyce’s “scrotum-tightening sea”.

Two Poems involving a Rooster

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 Rooster on the Beach

strutting like a populist

cocksure, cock of the walk,

ruler of the roost

ready to crow

dawn, or no dawn.

Hacienda Merida (Ometepe)

It’s 5 AM and still dark as the lake
when the rooster starts his clownish complaint

damn pre-emptive cock.

He is quickly joined by the village dogs,
the gecko on the wall behind the bed
birds and more birds

and finally Fiona the donkey
whose hoarse and outraged heehaw
signals she is not ready for another day

tethered to a pole in fickle shade.

Taking part in Open Link over at dverse.

A Poem that references Jake Tapper (The Unbearable Lightness of Verse 3)

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The Unbearable Lightness of Verse 3

he was a white rapper
she was a gift wrapper

at Crate and Barrel

they loved that whippersnapper, Jordan Klepper
and the affable, unflappable Jake Tapper

and yes he’s also dapper, that Jake Tapper.

Thought I revive this one, since I’ve started to watch CNN again..

The Winter Solstice (No Time for Solipsism Now)

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The Winter Solstice (No Time for Solipsism Now)

Solstice, a sibilant word
except for that L in the middle
lolloping around like a Christmas drunk.

There’s solace in there too.

A compression of days
a primeval huddling against the dark
that low December sun
illuminating the dust under the sofa
and that kid’s toy from last Christmas
that no one could find.

The promise of longer days to come.

Taking part in Brendan’s solstice challenge over at Desperate Poets

Not Every Crisis is Existential

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Who’s That Knockin’

It’s early in the morning
you’re sitting on the can
who’s that knockin’
who’s that knockin’
at your front door, man.

Well it could be Jesus
it could be the Pope
it could be Barrack Obama
carrying a message of hope

who’s that knockin’
who’s that knockin’
who’s that knockin’
at your front door, man

It’s early in the morning
you’re eating your raisin bran
who’s that knockin’
who’s that knockin’
at your front door, man

Well, it could be Elon Musk
it could be Jonathan Cope
it could be that kid from across the road
the one that smells of dope

who’s that knockin’
who’s that knockin’
who’s that knockin’
at your front door, man

Taking part in Open Link over at dverse.

Botero Awareness (in memory of Fernando Botero)

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Botero Awareness

I was not

aware of

Botero

until I

visited

Medellin

where he is

famous for

his art and

his largesse,

one could say

his largesse

is nigh on

bottomless

but his art

it is not.

 Fernando Botero, the Colombian artist, died on Friday. He was 91.

The photos were taken on a trip to Colombia.

Haiku written while painting a room…..

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Haiku written while painting a room…

haiku written while painting a room
searching for a transcendent metaphor
thinking someday maybe I could write
inspirational poetry like rupi kaur

you are
what you
are meant
to be

that kind of thing
do a book signing at Indigo
start a line of greeting cards
anything’s possible, really,
if once, just once I could resist
the impulse to be a smartass
……the haiku:

classic grey, cloud white
super eggshell for the walls
flat for the ceiling.

For John D. (a Poem and a Deconstruction) …again.

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For John D.

fecund, moribund, quincunx

fecund moribundity

moribund fecundity

rhizome, rissole, piss-hole in the snow

phenom, pheromone, genome

lissom, blossom, possum.

This poem is all about sound, association and perhaps, memory. The first three lines are an homage to the sound of ‘un’. The phrase -“fecund moribundity, moribund fecundity” –  was uttered by my friend, John Damery (John D.) during a discussion about the music of Neil Diamond – his oeuvre, his place in the pantheon. This was some time ago but it has always stuck in my head, it has a brevity and clarity  that could only have been brought on by the consumption of 5 or 6 pints and the ingestion of greasy chicken. After a long legal battle (not really) he has recently granted me permission to use  it in a poem.

The fourth line is the workhorse of the poem, the engine, the poem’s midfield general. It inverts the ‘mo’ from the first 3 lines to create the ‘om’ that dominates the last two lines. it also introduces ‘iss’ which makes an appearance in the last line. As for “piss-hole in the snow”, I defy anyone to find a finer example of bathos . The fifth line is all about ‘om” but note the clever inversion back to ‘mo’ in ‘pheromone’.

The sixth and last line has a slick softness to it like blancmange. As promised the ‘iss’ from ‘rissole’ and ‘piss-hole’ makes an appearance  before morphing into ‘oss’ and in a final stroke of nothing that remotely approaches genius, the transformation of ‘om’ into ‘um’.

Notes:

quincunx (a word that flirts with obscenity):

an arrangement of five objects with four at the corners of a square or rectangle and the fifth at its centre, used for the five on dice or playing cards, and in planting trees.

rhizome:

a continuously growing horizontal underground stem that puts out lateral shoots and adventitious roots at intervals.

Both words were used in an article in the Irish Times on the poetry of Seamus Heaney, sent to me by John D; ‘Cartesian dualism’ and ‘Binarism’ were also mentioned (and Jesus wept).

rissole:

a compressed mixture of meat and spices, coated in breadcrumbs and fried.

My mom used to make them, although I remember them as being more like a hamburger patty without the bun…thanks, mom!

Photo: English Bay, Vancouver, A-MAZE-ING LAUGHTER, by Yue Minjun.

Taking part in Open Link over at dverse.

This is also for Glenn Buttkus who passed away recently. Glenn was a regular contributor to dverse. He was an excellent poet and a man who liked edge.

The Best of Slimverse, 2016 (a blast from the past)

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When 2016 began, slimverse was an obscure 12 syllable (3-3-3-3) verse form, standing in the shadow of its older sibling, the seventeen syllable (5-7-5) haiku and now that 2016 is being carried, battered and bruised, out of the building, slimverse is an obscure 12 syllable (3-3-3-3) verse form, standing in the shadow of its older sibling, the seventeen syllable (5-7-5) haiku. This is a collection of the best of 2016, compiled by Slim and I in the early hours of the morning following “the Poet’s Circle” Christmas Party which was held at the Accomplished Poet’s house.  It was a fun-filled night of poetic over-indulgence and excess. The Accomplished Poet read a poem about pruning as a metaphor for the editing process involved in writing  a poem, it was tortuous but accomplished. The Upper Case Poet had a minor shoving match with our newest and youngest member, who edits an edgy E-zine called “Capslock Off” – no prizes for guessing what the argument was about. Slim hung around the buffet all night like a dog that had come across a bag of pork chops while walking in the woods, then later insisted that he had an invented a new word : “tumultaneous” – when tumultuous events occur simultaneously. He was met with benign indifference.

Here’s the List:

Bison

Like an old

Christian

Brother, an

unkempt monk.

***

Golf

 the one sport

that demands

blandness from

its heroes.

***

The Stack (remix)

And what a

beautiful

plume we have

here, Nigel,

 

a plume with

time on its

hands, look at

it loping

 

across the

sky like a

giant Chinese

dragon, let’s

 

hail a cab

to find the

plume’s end, where

the last wisps

 

of vapor

drift upwards

and a blue

mist hangs, yes,

 

there it is

in the sky

to the west

stalking the

 

cars in the

parking lot

outside the

big box mall

 

while the sun

bawls and the

sky gets all

indignant.

 ***

Holy Scripture

when asked to

pick a font

he replied:

baptismal.

***

And No Tom

 Danger Mouse

Modest Mouse

DeadMau5. It’s

all Jerry…….

***

Vancouver Jazz Festival (Re-Mix)

 a humid

lion house

hogo hangs

on the air

 

dogs and trees

dogs and trees

free jazz, jazz

for free, the

 

bass player

leans like a

drunk around

a lamp post.

 ***

Names 

those that can

stand alone

those that can’t

hyphenate.

 ***

Old Cowboy

bowed legs

straddling a

ghost horse, beef

jerky thin

 

Holiday

Inn, buffet

breakfast, far

from the range.

***

When the Twittering Stops

it’s all fun

and games ’til

the body

bags come home.

 

***

On Hearing that Justin Trudeau had approved the Kinder Morgan Pipeline

there are 3

certainties

death, taxes,

corrosion.

 

Photo: Cranberriment

 

 

Why did Yeats need Nine Bean Rows??

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I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

Why did Yeats choose nine bean rows? Can’t say I know for sure, but let’s give it a try….
So let’s say that any number below five would not be enough bean rows for W.B.’s bean needs, then how about ” five”:

Five bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

It works, the “five” rhymes with “hive” and half –rhymes with “live”, but to my ear, there are too many “v’s”.

So let’s discard “six” because of that “x” and “seven” because of the two syllables and “eight” because it doesn’t chime with any of the other words, except maybe the “t” picks up the “t” in “there”. How about “ten”?

Ten bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade

We’re getting there: “ TeN, beaN, hoNey, aloNe,…….that “N” sound repeating but …..

”NINE ” wins !!! It has the consonance of the “n’s” and it also has that half rhyme with “hive” and “live”.

It’s almost as if Yeats knew what he was doing.

Footnote: A friend of mine told me recently that he had no recollection of studying Yeats at school. When he said this, those  opening line from The Lake Isle of Inisfree, sprang in to my head “I will arise and go now, and go to Inisfree”, which I have heard  so often that it has now taken on an orotund, stage Irish plumminess.

Our  English teacher, Mr Courtney, loved that “bee-loud glade”.