Stable Genius
O stable genius
keeper of the keys
the stable door hangs open
the horses are running free.
Taking part in open link over at earthweal.
Stable Genius (poem)
10 Replies
Pandemic (poem)
Pandemic
xenophobia
humming in the background
like a cheap fridge
the markets in a flop sweat.
The word of the week over at earthweal is “pandemic”
Home (from Oscar Wilde to Bono, because of the day that’s in it )
Because it’s St. Patrick’s Day (week)….some excerpts from my last trip home.
Conversation (hibernoku)
a low Dublin sky
a sentence hangs suspended
cut off in its prime
interrupt or die.
‘Hibernia’ is the classical Latin name for Ireland. A hibernoku is a haiku (seventeen syllables, 5-7-5) with an additional 5 or 7 syllable line, because for the Irish, seventeen syllables is a cruel limitation. The poem must contain an Irish reference and must allude to the weather in some way. In most parts of Ireland, ‘hibernoku’ is pronounced ‘hi-bern-o-koo’, except in West Cork where it is pronounced ‘hiber-nok-oo’.
Photo: Statue of the eternally quotable Oscar Wilde in Merrion Square, Dublin.
Weather
an easterly wind
clouds move in convoy ‘cross the blue dome of the sky.
Photo: A sunny mid September day in Sandy Cove, Dublin.
Family (haiku)
yep, had a few drinks
with my brother, my sisters
sibling ribaldry.
Photo: View looking south along the coast, from Vico Road. Dalkey, Co. Dublin. Bono owns a house nearby ……where all the streets have names….I checked.
Participating in Open Link Night over at dverse
Between (Everyone’s got something to bring..)…..Edit
Between
Between the caucus and the carcass
between the chaos and the calm
between the fracas and the ruckus
between the righteous and the damned
Between the priest and the sermon
between the singer and the song
no one can determine
why we all can’t get along
Between the question and the answer
there is a life time of space
between the dance and the dancer
there is beauty and there is grace
Everyone’s
got something to bring
affect one thing
affect one thing
Everyone’s
got something to bring
affect one thing
affect one thing.
It’s Open Link Weekend over at earthweal, so I thought I would re-post this one. Be sure to check out earthweal, always something interesting going on there!
Poetic Ailments
Poetic Ailments
irritable vowel syndrome
verbose intolerance
arrhythmia
pain in the assonance
acute enjambment
inflammation of the lower case
latinnittus
typographical dysfunction
fear of sonnets
halibunions
grammaroids
the irrational fear
that someone in the room
is going to recite a Robert Service poem.
The prompt from Bjorn over at dverse is “lists”, I thought I would add this one.
Storms
Storms
If it’s getting stormier
and it surely is
then we have to put a bit more work
into naming those storms
I mean to say, c’mon now,
Storm Dennis?
Dennis is a guy who wears cardigans
and washes his car every Sunday.
Margaret Thatcher’s husband
was called Dennis –
Storm Margaret
now there’s a storm,
a storm full of righteous certainty
levelling working class towns
circumnavigating domiciles of the rich.
How about Storm Boris
a tropical storm perhaps
full of hot air and bluster
a flatulent tail wind
or to switch professions and countries
Storm Janis
now there’s a storm to rip the roofs of houses
flatten whole trailer parks
transport cows to far off fields
or Storm Aretha
a storm that demands respect
sock it to me
anything but Dennis
side-parted, brilliantined, undershot Dennis.
The subject over at earthweal is “storms”.
The Toddler King (parts 1,2 and 3…re-post)
It’s Open Link Weekend over at earthweal and editor in chief , Brendan, is feeling a little down in an eloquent, acerbic and humorous way, so head on over there, check out his post and link one of your poems.
Here’s one from 2018, which is surprisingly current and is either cheerful or depressing depending on your politics.
The Toddler King
1
5 am. in America
the toddler king
checks his Twitter feed
a five hundred pound ball
of carbohydrate and grease
rolls across the parking lot
of a big box store
assault rifles take stock
the second amendment
thinks about making amends
the founding fathers
find themselves wanting.
2
5 am. in America
the toddler king
checks his Twitter feed
in the empty parking lot
of a big box store
a plastic bag pirouettes
on the halitotic breeze
national monuments
fear for their lives
the adjectives – good, bad, great-
drop in value again
the toddler king
picks a fight with himself.
3
5 am. in America
the toddler king
checks his Twitter feed
an empty shopping cart
rolls across the parking lot
of a big box store
and wishes it was
a metaphor for something
rivers say goodbye
to their banks
the ocean
eyes the shore
the toddler king pardons
those great American dioxides
sulphur, nitric, carbon
they are quickly released.
The Town Of High Dudgeon Part 2
The Town Of High Dudgeon Part 2
He was a contrarian curmudgeon
from the town of High Dudgeon
an ersatz Hitchens
a Jordan Peterson lite
no god, no religion
a sower of division
but sometimes, yes, sometimes
he got things right.
Taking part in Open Link Night over at dverse.
Collectives (redux)
Collectives
A durante of toucans
A piety of soutanes
A woggle of scouts
A caveat of emptors
A torment of mentors
A loudness of louts
An agenda of schemers
A cumulus of dreamers
A Hamlet of doubts.
Todd and the Time Machine Part 2
Part 1 can be found here.
Todd and the Time Machine Part 2
Todd’s basement materialises
he sees the dark wood veneer panelling,
that tartan colonial sofa his uncle gave him,
the dark patch where his uncle rested his head
still glistening from the oil slick of his uncle’s hair,
in the corner, his wife is playing with an electrical cord.
“Don’t pull the cord, I’m not fully back yet!” Todd screams.
His wife’s voice comes back
a little garbled by the time lag
“I hope you’re going to clean up that damn dust this time”.
Todd returns to the present,
presents himself and sneezes into his sleeve
leaving a black smear on his plaid Mark’s Work Warehouse shirt.
Unknown ramifications
unforeseen outcomes,
that 21st century air
trapped in the time capsule
drops to a lower carbon dioxide concentration
as the capsule travels back in time
the surplus carbon dioxide
reverts to the original carbon
forming a black dust
which coats the inside of the capsule;
thing is, it’s a one way process
no one knows why
“You look like shit”, his wife says
“You look time-wasted, you look timed out,
what happened to your hair?”
Unknown ramifications
unforeseen outcomes
time travel messes with your hair
alters your DNA
deletes your vaccinations
the dangers of rushing a technology to market
too soon.
Todd’s wife grins
“I wasn’t really going to pull the cord”,
she hugs him, grinding slowly
“What did you bring back for me, this time?”
Taking part in open link over at earthweal, the poem was inspired by earthweal’s prompt “A Clockwork Green”.
Check out earthweal, a lot of good poetry and Brendan’s no-holds-barred editorials manage to be informative and entertaining at the same time.
Allergic (there is poetry in chemistry 2)
Allergic
there is poetry in chemistry:
dextromethorphan hydrobromide
pseudoephedrine hydrochloride
chloropheniramine
antihistamines
expectorants
decongestants
loratimide
netipot
rose hip
post nasal drip
post nasal depression
catarrh,
but no catharsis.
……another re-post, but ’tis the season.
Short Unsolicited Advice on Writing Poetry (redux)
Short Unsolicited Advice on Writing Poetry
write long poems on short days
short poems on long days
you don’t need a drummer
but you do need rhythm
avoid melodrama
your head cannot explode all the time,
there is uncharted territory
between ecstasy and despair
look after your images
they should splash like cold water
on the reader’s face
observe, always observe.
Caye Caulker (poem, take 4)
Caye Caulker
In the café below
the locals talk about the old times
about Eve and the apple
about Paradise lost
about how all the bottles
washed up on the shore
carry the same message.
pelicans plummet into the bluebottle sea
sting rays undulate
out on the coral reef
tiny organisms
fret about climate change
and that damn carbonic acid
I fink the pH is dropping, I really do
meanwhile, over in San Pedro
on the Redneck Riviera
hermetically sealed resorts
march north towards Mexico
and thin, blond soccer moms
mingle with sun-damaged matrons
dedicated to the preservation
of floral print muumuus.
in the café below, Bob Marley’s still jammin’.
This poem has had a few lives. Participating in open link over at earthweal. Head over and check out Brendan’s thought provoking and eloquent post .
Issue #17 Vapid Magazine
Issue #17 Vapid Magazine
In Issue #17, coming to a newsstand nowhere near you, we discuss..
The environment, it’s everywhere
Our environment correspondent, Jordan Shallowditch, is away on vacation so our celebrity watcher and gossip columnist, Simon Shallowpond is picking up the slack, he offers this twitter friendly poem:
Plastics? What Plastics?
no need to fret
no need to fuss
all is well
‘cos Kristen Bell’s
got a bamboo toothbrush.
Well done, Simon!
The Oscars
Our movie critic, Georgina Shallowglass, discusses the Oscars and asks the question:
Why would anyone divorce Adam Driver?
Plus, she describes that epiphanic, that life-altering moment when she realised that Jane Austen didn’t write Little Women (it was those American accents).
Politics
It’s been a busy year so far in politics and our political correspondent, Jonathan Shallowpit, asks the controversial question:
Did the founding fathers fuck it up?
..and if not, how come the semi-literate son of a billionaire, with bad hair and a genius for marketing dumb ideas could destroy the whole shebang , the whole house of cards by simply saying :” Nah, I’m not going to do that”.
Footnote
Jonathan, I’m afraid, will be leaving Vapid Magazine. A number of his co-workers have complained that he is making them think too much, resulting in headaches and a toxic working environment.
Vapid Magazine, home of all things vapid!
Participating in Open Link Night over at dverse , check them out!
2 Poems in Cyphers Magazine (“Ascension” and “Prairie”)
Cyphers magazine has published two of my poems – “Ascension” and “Prairie”– in their Winter 2019/2020 issue. I am really pleased as always to be published in Cyphers and in particular this time as my poems appear on the same pages as a poem by Fred Johnston, a poet I have long admired.
…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.
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 $42.00 for three issues including postage
The Influencer (tanka)
The Influencer
sometimes we travel
a long, hard road, to arrive
at the obvious:
the unbearable flatness
of pancakes in the morning.
The Influencer (tanka)
The Influencer
sometimes we travel
a long, hard road, to arrive
at the obvious:
the unbearable flatness
of pancakes in the morning.
Solastalgia (tanka)
Solastalgia (an alternative etymology)
solas in Gaelic
means light, solastalgia,
a longing for light
hidden under a bushel
at the end of a tunnel.
The challenge over at earthweal is to “Write a new poem on the theme of Solastalgia” which is “a form of emotional or existential distress caused by environmental change.”
Fracking Song (2)
Fracking Song
You’re standing on the corner
Watching the trucks go rolling past
Pumping out their diesel fumes
Pumping out that carbon gas
It’s the middle of winter
And it’s twenty below
And that gas just sits there
With nowhere to go
Something’s wrong in the valley
Babies stillborn
Ten in one year
And they call that the norm
Something’s wrong in the valley
Something toxic in the ground
Something wrong in the valley
Since the frackers came to town.
That rock’s been down forever
With its hydrocarbon payload
When they blow it all apart
They can’t control where it goes
And that water that’s left standing
Evaporating in the sun
The residue will be with us
Long after they are gone
Something’s wrong in the valley
Babies stillborn
Ten in one year
And they call that the norm
Something’s wrong in the valley
Something toxic in the ground
Something wrong in the valley
Since the frackers came to town.
You can blame the politicians
The special interests groups
Blame the fracking company
They all don’t give a fuck
There’s only one thing they understand
One thing that they know
Keep riding that fossil fool train
As far as it will go.
There’s something wrong in the valley
Babies stillborn
Placentas like ribbons
And they call that the norm
Something’s wrong in the valley
Something toxic in the ground
Something wrong in the valley
Since the frackers came to town
Taking part in Open Link Weekend over at earthweal
Machu Picchu (poem)
Machu Picchu
I
Backpacks
bucket lists
smart phones
selfie sticks
altitude pills
attitude pills,
sun hats
sun block
Lonely Planet Guidebook,
don’t drink the water
don’t eat the salad
no ice please
this is our tribe
this is our tribe.
II
The Incas long ago
left for the valley
to grow their quinoa,
wheat and corn
but we keep coming
to look for something
that may have been left behind;
we are a benign invader
a tad earnest maybe
mild-mannered to a fault
but hand us a weak wifi signal
and we go ape-shit.
There are those among us
who have already abandoned
the physical world –
I see them
sitting in restaurants
heads bowed and thumbs
working beneath the table
connecting by radio waves
to a digital stream
of consciousness and banality.
I am he as you are he
and we are a river of electrons.
Photos by Marie Feeney
This poem was originally published in The Galway Review.
Taking part in Open Link Night over at dverse
Greta Thunberg at Davos (haiku)
Greta Thunberg at Davos
Pharisees, temples
the young lecturing the old
wilderness, a voice.
Taking part in open link weekend over at earthweal.
Down and Out in Idabel (redux)
Down and Out in Idabel
How Myron found himself in the parking lot
of the Holiday Inn in Idabel, Oklahoma
looking out at the road
on a Saturday morning in April
– after a breakfast of brittle bacon,
sausages slick with grease,
dry fluorescent scrambled eggs –
is not important.
The road pauses, a skittish dog roams.
Myron’s eyes are drawn to a dead armadillo
upside down on the hard shoulder
an empty beer can in its claws:
Old Milwaukee, prehistoric drunk,
someone’s joke.
A pick up truck passes
a pick up truck passes
a pick up truck passes
over the fence a cow chews grass
and makes a meal of it.
Dogwoods bloom.
The cow moos like a reluctant foghorn.
Myron’s mood turns
he thinks about the cow,
Manifest Destiny,
the plight of the bison
our lust for red meat
while greenhouse gas
shimmies upwards
ice caps melt
glaciers retreat
and looking down
the road to Shreveport
buoyed by the prospect
of seeing Idabel
in his rear-view mirror
he quietly resolves
to recover what he was
before sadness lodged
like a wet sack
in the back
of his head.
This poem originally appeared in issue 38 of The SHOp poetry magazine (print) which was a fine magazine, unfortunately they closed up shop a few years ago.
Taking part in earthweal open link weekend, head over there and read Brendan’s very eloquent and comprehensive post on climate change.
This is my third in a series of climate change related posts, it wasn’t planned that way, but I guess that’s the way the wind is blowing this week!
Water (off a duck’s back)
Water (off a duck’s back)
What’s that?…….no, no, it’s all rubbish,
climate change is a Deep State hoax.
By the way, forgot to mention
I have some ocean front for sale in Florida,
are you interested?
I hear you’re a good swimmer.
Ha, that’s just a joke,
God controls the climate
the rivers, lakes and seas.
Look what he did for Moses.
Our local preacher has a direct line,
just send a donation
before he gets arrested.
Joking again! Those rumours
are just not true.
Besides, our supreme leader, Donald, says
we are going to have a great climate
the best climate ever.
Do you know any Dutch people?
They’re good at handling all this water stuff.
Another thing, does anyone else
really miss the dinosaurs?
I had this rubber brontosaurus
when I was kid, I kind of liked it,
a velociraptor too…where was I?
Yes, this oceanfront property in Florida
it comes with a row boat.
The word of the week over at earthweal is water. Got the idea for this poem while reading Sarahsouthwest’s poem “Water Again”.
Also participating in open link night over at dverse.
Woke (a slimverse)
Woke
He’d not yet
gone to sleep,
he was that
far from woke.
Watching CNN (a sort of rant)
Anderson, Chris and Don and their assembled pundits are discussing the assassination of General Soleimani, the Iranian general. They all agree that he was a “bad actor”, a “bad guy”. They don’t say “bad hombre”,but it’s knocking at the door. This appears to be sufficient to warrant execution, it’s the timing and ongoing strategy they are concerned about.
Why I ask myself are they talking like characters in a 1950’s western?
Why are they talking like school kids?
Bad guys, good guys – “goodies and baddies”.
Back in the Classroom:
Teacher, by the end of the major combat phase of the Iraq war, 7,419 Iraqi civilians had been killed, primarily by U.S. air-and-ground forces, is George Bush Junior a bad guy, a bad actor, a bad hombre?
No, child, every American president is good.
Teacher, were those innocent civilians “collateral damage” or “victims of terror”?
That is a complex and morally confusing question, child. Here in America we do not like confusion.
Teacher, why do the American media continue to refer to the Canadians killed in the Ukraine Airlines crash as Iranians.
It’s less confusing that way, see above.
Teacher, is President Trump a bad guy, a bad actor, a bad hombre?
No, child, President Trump is a liar, a racist, possibly a crook and possibly a sexual predator but he is not a bad guy, a bad actor, a bad hombre.
Teacher, why are Anderson, Chris and Don so angry with him? Why the sanctimonious, po-faced editorials?
Because he is un-statesmanlike and because they have become lazy and are content to trot out the same tired outrage every day of the week. Their ambition is limited, they are happy just to be “not Hannity”.
But teacher, they seem like nice guys.
Your point is?
Stopdraggingthepanda 