The Poet Steps Out with Uncharacteristic Resolve
No free verse today
I’m taking my doggerel
for a long, long walk.
This haiku, by my good friend, Slim Volume, was short-listed in the non-starter category at the Mountmellick Haiku festival. Well done, Slim!
Exhibitionist
San Diego Zoo
a pink-arsed baboon presents
it’s late afternoon
Rooster
still dark, the rooster
starts his moronic complaint
damn pre-emptive cock
Retired Mathematicians at a Party (tanka)
there in the corner
reeking of stale calculus
old derivatives
life’s equation, the hard one,
still not balanced, still unsolved.
Participating in Open Link Night over at dVerse.
A Ghazal about Everlasting Love (and a rabbit)
like that rabbit on TV
our love will last
you know, the pink one with the drum
(our love will last)
and the dark sunglasses
(our love will last)
who sometimes hits a wall
(our love will last)
and sometimes stalls
(our love will last)
but he keeps banging that drum
(our love will last)
the rabbit keeps banging the drum
(our love will last)
but unlike our love
alkaline batteries are not everlasting
and eventually the rabbit falls
breathes his last
and we need another simile
one that lasts
like plastic in a landfill
our love will last
like craters on the moon
our love will last
like the power of the sun
our love will last
like the winds out on the ocean
our love will last.
In my previous ghazal , “Bucket List” I vowed to write a ghazal about everlasting love for the dVerse ghazal challenge. So there you have it, my first love poem, a big challenge – I’m the kind of person whose usual response to the words “I love you” is “right back at ya”.
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.
Slim’s Other Dream
3 a.m.
Slim returns to his dream
of pipes bursting in the attic
even though he knows
there are no pipes in the attic.
4 a.m.
Slim wakes
to the remains of a poem
crackling on the antic air.
A re-post, the weather is too good today to be indoors writing!
Stock Market
a bear is on the loose
the once priapic market
losing altitude
false hopes and false dreams for sale
nothing tangible.
This is response to the dVerse prompt to write about markets. It’s a haiku that I have upgraded (?) to a tanka, check out the poetry over at dVerse, some excellent market poems.
The photo is of an actual market in Sicily.
Walk (Dublin 2016)
In Iveagh gardens an exhibition promises:
Contemporary sculpture based on
Non-monumental ideas of the uncanny.
This phrase sticks like chewing gum
To the bedpost of my mind
As I walk through Stephen’s Green,
Replacing: One then offers the cat up to the aperture
Which, according to my brother,
Is the ultimate step in programming
One’s automatic cat door to accept
One’s micro-chipped cat.
Outside the Shelbourne Hotel
Tourists wearing horned helmets
Board a Viking ship on wheels.
I am in search of a pub sandwich
Two slices of white bread, ham, cheese ,
Toasted in a cellophane pack
Small jar of mustard on the side
Served with Guinness
In a quiet pub where I can sit
And think non monumental thoughts
And where the barman asks me
As we watch Lionel Messi
float past three transfixed defenders
Is he the best ever?
And I am surprised not at the question
But at the deference.
The challenge from Anmol over at dverse, is to write a poem on the subject of walking and observing. This poem was written after a trip back to my home town of Dublin. Walking around one’s home town is not so much about looking for the new as it is about re-discovering the past; it’s more about the memories that the place holds rather than the physical aspect of the place. It’s also about trying to recover a feeling or an experience from the past.
The photo is of Dublin from Sandymount Strand, and of course, Joyce’s “snot-green, scrotum-tightening sea”.
(The poem appeared previously in the Galway Review)
Hal The Halibunist Looks Back On His Long Career
halibuns about Haliburton
halibuns about halitosis
halibuns about Halle Berry
halibuns about Halley’s Comet
halibuns about Spiritus Mundi
halibuns about Rosamund Pike
halibuns about Solomon Grundy
halibuns just for the fun of it
halibuns at Sun Dance
halibuns in Halifax
halibuns about halibut
halibundance
halibundance
halibundance.
That Eternal Question
god’s old dilemma
exercise or exorcise
judgement or demons
The Stats
a recent survey shows
that sixty per cent
of all statisticians
suffer from
percentile dysfunction.
The Oscar of being George ( a hesitant haiku)
pride comes before a…….
without pride….one would never…
get up……off one’s arse.
The Tight Rope Walker
After John’s hamster died
he could not tell up from down,
he became a tight rope walker
tottering grimly forward
without pole or safety net
modern medicine is just a sham
couldn’t save one damn hamster
he never acknowledged
the gravity of his situation.
The challenge over at dVerse is to write a quadrille (44 word poem), incorporating the word “up”.
The Age of Narcissus
how far we have come
twenty years ago
no one could spell narcissist.
Conveyor
I replaced a defective mechanical arm once
on the night shift at the Bird’s Eye factory
in Eastbourne, England.
The arm swept the green beans from the main chute into side conveyors
where ladies wearing hair nets
separated the good beans from the bad.
It was the top conveyor,
so I was in full view of the workers below
as I moved my arm back and forth
sweeping beans in a poor imitation of a mechanical arm.
My fellow student workers threw beans at me
and the ladies in hair nets shouted “get a move on, Paddy”;
my name isn’t ‘Paddy’
but that’s what English people called Irish people back then.
Time moved like molasses
time dragged its feet like a moody teenager
time passed like a wet Sunday in Belfast
On the way home in the early morning,
we stole milk bottles from doorsteps,
just because we could.
Taking part in Open Link Night over at dVerse, check them out here.
Of Hatches and Ports
batten down the hatches
any port in a storm;
I have to admit
storm or no storm
I have never liked port
it always seemed to me
to be a drink from a time
when men retired after dinner
to a separate room to warm their arses
at the fire, share a bottle,
and indulge in convivial chat –
the odour of old sweat rising from tweed
the ladies in the next room, discussing
what else: their husbands and their gout
Inspired by the prompt “batten down the hatches” over at Saturday Mix – Mad about Metaphor.
Faint Praise (Lai 2)
the lay of the land
a bird in the hand
stock phrase
a saint of a man
always been a fan
faint praise
something on your mind
that can’t be defined
malaise.
It’s time for another verse form over at dVerse, this one is called a “Lai”; learn all about it here.
This is my second attempt. Not sure about this one.
Small Bird
without caveat
fucks off, just like that
small bird
apropos of naught
the birch tree distraught
no word
from the bird, not yet
how soon we forget
absurd.
It’s time for another verse form over at dVerse, this one is called a “Lai”; learn all about it here.
Easter Monday Haiku
blue sky, scattered clouds
slow day at the pearly gates
not a soul in sight.
…… a repeat, because of the day that’s in it…..
Holy Scripture
when asked to
pick a font
he replied:
baptismal.
Photo Of Baptistry, Pisa, Italy.
So Long, Halong
As we ride out of Cat Ba
through a valley circled
by limestone crags,
a compilation of pop ballads
from the seventies and eighties
oozes from the speakers
and the affable English backpackers
at the back of the bus
groan in faux horror
as Aerosmith follows Bryan Adams
follows George Michaels
follows Michael Jackson
but when the Bee Gees launch
“How Deep Is Your Love”
the backpackers quieten down
and the driver stops honking his horn
at the dogs, children, women
in cone hats and cyclists
with finely balanced cargos
who drift carelessly
in front of the bus
as if it was an invisible
visitor from the future,
and we all strain against
the tug of the song’s chorus
far too cool to sing along
except for one backpacker
let’s call him Nigel
or Christian, or Jason, or Justin
who, in a high piping voice
declares his oneness
with the song’s embattled lovers.
This poem was first published in Oddball Magazine, and is a re-post from 2016. Participating in Open Link Night over at dVerse.
Why National Poetry Month Makes Me Anxious
It’s National Poetry Month
and all across the internet
poets are dutifully posting a poem a day,
the blogosphere is loud with words
like babble, ripple, burble, unfurl
glow, glitter, shine, glisten
winds are blowing
suns are setting
dawns are breaking
waves are crashing
on every available shore
and birds, yes, birds
are chirping, trilling, twittering, even singing
nature is under siege
but I have to admit
I’m not up to it
I don’t have the diligence, the discipline
the creative bandwidth
all I want
is to produce
just one clear image
and nail it to the page
like a proclamation.
Take-out Tanka
hopped up on pale ale
I’m heading to Akbar’s Own
for lamb rogan josh
prawn curry, alu gobi
vegetables jalfrazie.
A Tanka for the Memory
that familiar ache
the sun is a bawling fire
in the western sky
a grand stretch to the evenings
my mother would say, in Spring
Taking part in Frank Tassone’s weekly haikai challenge…….March Equinox
Also linking to Open Link Night over at dverse.
Stopdraggingthepanda 