Category Archives: Poetry

Four Lines That Kill Me Every Time (1)

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“There’s flies in the kitchen I can hear ’em there buzzing
And I ain’t done nothing since I woke up today.
How the hell can a person go to work in the morning
And come home in the evening and have nothing to say.”

This is from “Angel from Montgomery” by John Prine……a life in 4 lines, says more than some novels.
There are many versions of this song but one of the best is by Bonnie Raitt and John Prine.

 

The Daily Jolt Lives Another Day (but will England?)

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…..and the Daily Jolt word is “tumultaneous”, meaning “when two tumultuous events occur simultaneously”…

So, for example, if the Conservative government in England was to implode tomorrow over Brexit and at the same time, the English soccer team was to lose to Croatia in the World Cup, those two events would be considered to be “tumultaneous”.

Note: To date, The Daily Jolt (my cynical attempt to boost traffic on my blog) has not been a success that roars,  but still I am enjoying it because I appear to be inspiring myself, self-jolting, so to speak…..

If you are inspired by or use the jolt word, let me know through a comment or link.

 

Waiting for Slim/ Melania’s Cheekbones

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Waiting for Slim

Sunday afternoon in late June
I’m sitting outside The Post-Coital Beetle
watching the traffic on Broadway,
at the next table, four bearded guys
wearing flat caps and plaid shirts,
looking like the bastard sons of Mumford,
are downing pints of over-hopped pale ale.
At the traffic lights, an eighteen year old Asian kid
checks his hair in the rear view mirror
while his Lamborghini growls
like a panther on a leash.
And who is this slouching along Broadway
his bald head shining in the sun?
No, it is not an image out of Spiritus Mundi,
it’s not one of the boys of summer,
it’s Slim,
a man with all the charm of a pit bull with distemper;
his remaining hair is scrunched into an angry man-bun
he’s carrying a magazine
which he slams down on the table in front of me
“Look at this bullshit!” he whines.

Later, as the sun goes down over Point Grey
and automatic timers turn lights
on in empty Styrofoam mansions,
we settle in to a plate of nachos
and one pitcher follows another
until we find ourselves face to face
trading lines like Lennon and McCartney (well, not quite)
and driven by our shared admiration
of Melania Trump’s granite cheekbones
we compose this maudlin cri de couer

Melania
his megalomania
don’t let it stain ya
don’t let it restrain ya
don’t let it contain ya
and if he should fail ya
remember this:
you know the size
of his hands
and his……..

(the last line is drowned out
by the roar of a feral Ferrari
tearing down Broadway).

there is no stopping us…

Ivanka (a slimverse)

Ivanka
no offence
but your dad’s
a wanka.

there was more, but I can’t remember…..

Pigments of the Imagination

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Pigments (2)

Pigments of the Imagination

black crow, a
chunk of white
bread, becomes
an eagle,

pigments in
flight, flying
pigments, yes,
imagine.

….the return of slimverse* after a month of haiku.

* A verse form in which each line can contain only 3 syllables and each verse can contain only 4 lines. In its purest form, there is only one verse, a poetic morsel.

The Daily Jolt Returns for a Day

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The Daily Jolt Returns for a Day

And the Jolt word of the day is: “frumpet”.

This word comes courtesy of Eilene Lyon and is an actual word, she explains it all in her excellent post “La Concion es la Cosa” .

The challenge is to use the word in a post, make up a meaning for it if you like, for example:

A Soccer Hooligan’s Diary

11p.m., a pub somewhere in England

Kev says he fancies a bit of frumpet
says he’s tired of skinny fit girls
says they’re all angles, bone and gristle;
comfort is what Kev wants, comfort.

 

Daily Jolt Update

Response to the last jolt world, “brattitude”, did not exceed my expectations, although the incomparable Steve Simpson did inadvertently use it in a comment on the post. “Incomparable”, see that’s the kind of publicity you get if you participate in The Daily Jolt. So muster up a bit of brattitude and give it a go.

Link your post to this blog or post a comment  with a link to your post, if you like.

Waiting for Summer/Vincent Buckmaster

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Waiting for Summer

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Vincent Buckmaster

At school,
Vincent was known as either “Vince” or “Vinny”.
He does not currently like to be called either.

“Vince” is too rockabilly and rhymes with “wince”.
“Vinny” is too mobster and rhymes with “skinny”.
He is not even that sure about “Vincent”,

but the sonic collision appeals to him
– the chain saw screech of “Vincent”,
the Germanic boom of “Buckmaster” –

This is the way he thinks.

 

The Daily Prompt is dead, long live…..

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The Daily Prompt is dead, long live…..

Suddenly at the end of May, the Daily Prompt disappeared from the blogosphere just when I was getting to know it. Frankly, I miss it. I didn’t respond on a daily basis but every now and then, a prompt would fire my imagination (I can’t get no..) and I would write a poem that I would never have written without that prompt. So here is a haiku to lament the passing of the Daily Prompt.

In Memoriam: the Daily Prompt

left bereft, promptless
stalled and stumped and paralysed
how can we go on?

But all is not lost, I have noticed a few bloggers out there are trying to fill the gap, and I would like to throw my hat into that ring. The difference is I will be offering prompts that are not actual words, but words that I have made up. Today’s word is “brattitude”. As in…..

“The dress has that swaggering catwalk brattitude we have come to expect from a Karl Aufderfelt design.”

Since I do not want to sully the memory of the Daily Prompt, I have struggled to come up with an alternative name. I thought maybe, the Daily Prod, but some of my friends in Belfast might mistake it for a sectarian bulletin. I toyed with the Daily Prick but abandoned it for obvious reasons. I finally settled on the Daily Jolt, like a shot of caffeine, a creative laxative. (This post is like a bowling ball that keeps veering towards the gutter.)
So give it a go, hit me with your best shot, post something inspired by the jolt word “brattitude”, link back to this blog and I will list a link to your post here. Or simply post a comment here.

By the way, it’s very unlikely that I will have the imagination or application to do this on a daily basis, so the Daily Jolt will probably be occasional.

 

 

The English Goalkeeper Reflects (2 World Cup haiku’s)

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(in the England-Tunisia World Cup game which England won 2-1, the Tunisians had one shot on the English goal, 4 attempts.)

The English Goal Keeper Reflects…..

It’s lonely back here
hoping nothing will happen
that fear when it does

(how does my hair look?
are these gloves too big?)

 

The Story So Far

Messi’s misery
the agony of Neymar
Christiano’s joy.

Landline (for Dad)

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Landline (for Dad)

Sometimes, I think
I should text my dad
give him an update
tell him where I’m at.
Not that he would answer
he’s been gone a few years now
and even if he were alive
texting would hardly be his thing;
at the turn of the century
he was still approaching
what we now call a ‘landline’
with some trepidation.

Landline: a rope
uncoiling towards the shore.

He once told me
that when we have children
of our own
we begin to understand
our own parents better
so I think my text
would be an attempt
to let him know
that, yes, dad
I have found this
to be true.

 

Samantha Bee (a delayed reaction)

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A flashback to pre-history when I first started drinking in pubs………

It’s closing time, Saturday night, Dublin, the rest of the evening is stirring like a patient emerging from a coma (sorry, T.S) . I’ve had a few pints and got a nice buzz going but now I’m standing in the men’s washroom (toilet, bog, jacks) staring at the white tiled wall trying hard not to make eye contact with the guy beside me whose eyes are drilling into the side of my head. I eventually cave in, turn and look into his bloodshot eyes….”what are you looking at, cunt?” ….he slurs. He’s pissed, langered, hammered, plastered, three sheets to the wind and he’s angry. Why is he angry? Could be he doesn’t like the length of my hair, could be he recognises that I’m a student and considers me a member of the elite whereas he is a member of the noble working class who earn their daily bread with their hands (although, back then, the word “elite” was not typically used to describe educated people with liberal views, it was more likely to be a found on a box of chocolates – Cadbury’s Elite, save the soft centers for your mom) but mostly he’s angry because he’s a miserable cunt and the ten pints he’s consumed over the course of the evening hasn’t made him any less miserable.

So when I hear Samantha Bee call Ivanka Trump a “feckless cunt”, I think of closing time, urinals, drunks and I wonder, how in Trump’s name, did the level of discourse get this low.

 

Dog in a Tartan Skirt (Edit)

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Dog in a Tartan Skirt 

There’s a dog wearing a tartan skirt
outside the window of Starbuck’s;
a tartan skirt, a belt, and a knitted white sweater.
Its little dog legs are moving frantically
on the wet pavement,
while across the slick road
and the sodden green park
the ocean sits
like a slab of lead
having clearly decided
to take some time off,
no crashing on the shore today.
South of the border
America blunders around
trying to remember
where it parked
that big ass car
that everyone admired
and envied.
The people look to God
but God, once again,
is moving in mysterious ways;
I, for one, wish He would knock it off,
enough already with the mystery
could He not for once in His eternal life,
clarify something?
I mean, for fuck sake,
there’s a dog wearing a tartan skirt
outside the window of Starbuck’s.

Two Poems (Machu Picchu, The Sun God) up at The Galway Review

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The nice people at The Galway Review have published two poems of mine (Machu Picchu, The Sun God) . You can check them out here 

(I’m not sure about the photo, one of my daughters tells me that I’m out of focus like “that guy in ‘Deconstructing Harry'” and I should get rid of that “serious poet face”).

 

Poem (Stiltwalker) in Cyphers Magazine

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Issue 85

 

Cyphers magazine has published one of my poems – “Stiltwalker” – in their Summer 2018 issue (issue#85).  I am really pleased as always to be published in Cyphers.

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. The current issue includes an appreciation of the Irish poet and novelist, Philip Casey. In the piece, there is a quote from the poet,  Michael Hartnett, which I think is not a bad guideline for writing poetry: “things that please me in poetry are precision, compassion and images that surpass the common run of language: also that the poet must have an ear for language as the musician has an ear for music….”

Cyphers can be found at http://www.cyphers.ie

If you want to subscribe to Cyphers magazine, you can do so by writing to the following address:

Cyphers Magazine, 3 Selskar Terrace, Ranelagh, Dublin 6, Ireland.

Subscription rate is €21.00 for three issues including postage

In Britain £20.00 for three issues including postage

US $36.00 for three issues including postage