Reading, but not seeing

This Banksy mural was in the news this week after the local council at Clacton-on-Sea in Essex had it removed because of  “offensive and racist remarks”.
(Report found on www.theguardian.com ).
If I was Banksy I would be bewildered; obviously any satirical comment not spelled out, (literally), needs accompanying notes.

Some tips for writing poetry

I have amassed a sizable collection of notes and files from various workshops/creative writing classes I've given. Here are five tips for people new to writing poetry. 

 

1. Be careful of lines you really like in your poems. If they appear to be outstanding, there’s a real possibility they do stand out too strongly in the poem.

2. One lazy line/word is enough to ruin a whole poem.

3. Speak your lines out loud to test the rhythm and find those clumsy-sounding words.

4. Keep all drafts of poems; constant reworking can result in losing your way, or, on the plus side, you may find you are developing a different poem altogether

5. Check out lines/phrases from unsuccessful poems. They can often be recombined in ways that  are fresh and successful.

Death and the Student

My grandmother and I were  the best of friends. However when her final illness dragged on, I, a student at the time, didn't have the time to spend with her. I think it's not unusual for young people at that age to be too self-centred, but that selfishness has rankled ever since.

Before the End

 

The bedside lamp shone

in the pool of her eye;

it made her teeth translucent,

runnelled her face.

 

Daylight and I were reluctant visitors;

the  room smelling of trapped breath,

sickness and decay made me anxious

that I might inhale her disease;

 

and all I loved gone,

all dwindled down to duty.

 

Private Companies Looking After Us?

I clearly remember the politicians stating that speed cameras would be located at accident-prone locations on the roads; their function being to minimise fatalities due to road accidents. I often pass one of these vans parked at a location where there is no obvious purpose other than making money.

How long will it be before Irish Water is putting profit before its raison d'etre of preventing wastage of water?

The brink

Once the wrong word said, I’m gone crazy ─

my smile snapped;

her ribbons & wheel & steel in my head whirring,

whirlicue;

a sick spinning,

nauseous flight. 

She sets off explosions; no punches spared,

nor tanks nor guns; pulls no punches.

Nor when I stop

is she stopped,

but pistons and steam chunnelling

to distraction.

 If peace is an option, I don’t think she’ll

take it,

but lobbing spanners in,

ignition flaming,

she likes to go to the brink;

like brinking is sex.

Spiritual Growth

Women, meat, all jaws, Hughie feared;

Church-fed fear.

Pruned Hughie rattling inside himself,

no rattling outside,

but bloated sensationless, bone-dry tinder.

 

All pray: feed the soul; Hughie feeds the soul

 ‘til his soul is ballooning  out of his body,

 and he giving thanks for spiritual growth.

 

Concrete-heavy Hughie, all aching,

walking the earth like a space thing.

Old Houses, Children Gone

A Stranger In The Townland.


In Autumn the farmhouse
with the sun-folded field beneath its chin,
traps the daylight in its spectacles,
then flashes it away.

A swing hangs among the orchard's arthritic trees
without stirring;
without remembering
a frantic liveliness now reduced
to the occasional commotion of a falling fruit.

Once songs of apples filled the farmhouse;
but the children became photographs,
the dust settled on their frames
and soon Autumns were flying uncontrollably by.
Today, between its curiosities, a bluebottle drones.

Now that the conversation with the hillside
is ended, the farmhouse
with the sycamore stole
has become an eccentric;
a stranger in the townland.

Pre-digital childhood

Remembering a pre-digital childhood; the, now, quaint pleasures of Autumn: orchards weighed down with ripe apples........ ripe for robbing, berries and damsons ready for picking. This was one of my first poems, I haven't seen it in a  long time.

   Held Apple High.

 

There's a place for me

up among the branches

of an ivy-draped lord.

 

Crab-appled;

golden treasures mixed

with stars of leaves.

 

There, inside the old elbow,

with Autumn breezes

close by shoulder,

 

quiet as an owl

I'd love to be.

from Above Ground, Below Ground

The  series of  poems for my collaboration with artist Elaine Leigh, Above Ground Below Ground, is getting its  final brush up.

This poem refers to the spookiness of the clusters of trees that often grow  around stone circles; even now the old superstitions weigh on those who would trespass after dark.

Inside the trees

is another place: unlit, uncharted.

At night even braggers refuse to enter

those grotesque tunnels.

 

At night boulders walk,

boughs flex their biceps;

high up, screeching necks

toss slicks of hair;

 

even the summer wind

squeals through like a hunted pig.

After dark  the trees stir cauldrons

of brains and guts.

 

A Dream Song.....Sort of

A number of years ago, I knew a man who drank too much, aged very rapidly, and died prematurely. It  was suggested to me that it all resulted from his coping very poorly with aging, and the loss of his active sexual life.

A Dream Song

Hughie’s bathroom mirror has informed him
that young women are no longer prospects,
except going the financial route. 

Cognizant of that barren future, he considers his options:
a.       Pubs (without bouncers)
b.      Theatre
c.       Restaurant
d.      Sky Sports
e.    Ballroom Dancing

In e, he recognizes suicidal desperation:
a suicide he’ll achieve most painlessly

by spending long hours in a.

Opening minds

 

 

 

A hugely inspirational talk by Sir Ken Robinson on an form of education that would elicit the very best from our children. Listen for 6 minutes, and allow yourself, (like me), to be utterly convinced. 

 

 

 

Getting to hell away

It's not often I'd feel happy that I got a poem the way it was intended; I was pleased with this. It gets what I wanted: a mean spirited, finger to the ex-lover ( "you folded up small"), vengeful little poem. It doesn't refer to anyone in my life, I hasten to add.

   

 

 

PASSAGE.

 

We were lovers;

now I'm off,

you're packed away;

you folded up small.

 

So with curving spine

and arms belting knees

tight under chin, I roll on;

a wheel from the accident.

 

Ahead there is space,

to wander in,

to kick up dust;

space where fires won't burn.

Readings of Dream Songs and Competition News

There will be a reading from the new anthology of dream songs, Berryman’s Fate: A Centenary Celebration, edited by Philip Coleman and published by Arlen House, on Wednesday 24 September at 6.30pm in the Irish Writers’ Centre. The anthology presents dream songs by a host of well-known contemporary poets; it will be very interesting to see the varying approaches to Berryman's innovative format (if you can call it a format). 
It will be formally launched in October at two Berryman centenary conferences in TCD and in Minneapolis. Other North American and UK launches are being planned.

Some competition news:
Ballymaloe International Poetry Award 2014 (closing date 312st Dec): http://www.themothmagazine.com/a1-page.asp?ID=5858&page=10 

Caterpillar Poetry Award (best poem for children, closing 31^st March): http://www.thecaterpillarmagazine.com/a1-page.asp?ID=7253&page=12

A death

Struggling for each breath

- mouthfuls of air for god’s sake -,

I said “stop working so hard;

take it easy, Mam”

 

Dying,

yet still forced to work;

take it easy.

take it easy.

 

Her hand, in mine, slackened;

she took it easy,

her eyes fell to the side.

Now I  ask, did I speed her on her way?

When all the world was young

            Oh for the days of childhood, when the sun was always in the sky, ice-creams came in wafers, we skated on the pond all winter long, men whistled on the way to work, Christmases were  knee-deep in snow and the neighbours invited you in for orange squash and bikkies. Nightime was curl up cosy in front of the blazing turf fire. Oh dear, if only!               

 

 

 

                            Eleven

 

          I am eleven;

my eyes are overflowing with light

from the spangling stream,

ears brimming with its chattering

sprays and runs,

my back lush with the magnificence 

of  Summer sun. 

 

I am in a field of cowslips,

the colour butter ought to be;

in the distance a bell is chiming

but I have no duties.

I’m lying on my stomach on a wooden bridge,

my eyelids shut, my fingers fishing for splinters.