Nollaig shona duit.

For next year. For this, happy St Stephen's Day.

I hope you had an enjoyable dinner on the big day, and i want to say, thank you very much to all here who contribute to making this mirror of literacy reflect successfully since August 1, Lughansa, end of summer.

And now, just passed the threshold of midwinter, darkening days lightening up and the first wave of fight and craic gone, recorded in epic battles between our verbal protagonists doing it for positions taken and took; played out in the arena of ID and ego with the intensity all committed campaigners find leads to eloquent voices, the early hard work is done and humanity has a chance of routing through here in 2008 to drive up parity between bloggers; now at an all time high; the elevated address of one way traffic hacking detached no longer, but slipping fast in a two way communication we alone have, each singular one of us within i, You it, us and them; one and Dr Strange love in the cleera wave coming home to us, cuchulainn's ice-kept Answerer culling the crud, copping on to sorrow in the acoustic proof between faltering syllables singing happy christmas, love and peace in the new year ahead of us, please be to God.

And if anyone's on a downer, talk here, say owt yer wunt, get it off your chest and reverse the vibe by writing out the sorrow for happiness to come.

I had a low key quiet day, waking in the attic to brilliant sunshine, feeling at peace. Yesterday I got a puncture at 4pm, just i was on the way to the supermarket to buy food, which scuppered my plans for cycling to my sisters the following day; but luckily, with help from a friend, i managed to secure a repair kit and managed to be on the road by 2.30pm.

By this time it had clouded over, an undecided squall coming in, the threaten and retreat of a light nasty wind taunting beneath a pearl grey sky of low cloud dispensing random spits and pulses of rain; proof of which was left in at least two of the distinct geometrical rain symbols i witnessed as i slogged, unfit under the chaos, en route yo my sisters house for dinner, seven miles distant via a curving path along the shoreline of Dublin Bay.

As i rounded the immediate corner from the seven bedroom townhouse whose attic is mine, i was struck by an almost perfectly formed four by eight patch of rain water, as though someone had taken great care to create it. Of course it was but a chance fall from heaven, and as i cycled into the city, i noticed another rectangle, its wing-brushed perimeter of sheer random art Creation left in almost impossible odds; eerie in a spiritually comforting way.

And at Christchurch, a wet patch in the perfect shape of Jesus's face..ha ha, naah, but another distinct rectangular deposit of water, the surrounding pavement, wind-dry, a fluke displaying the order of rhyme and reason for here being here.

And all the way on out from the city up to Sutton along the coastal cycle path, a sustained downpour hovered on the brink, and burst into a 40 minute storm the minute i went indoors.

I took my place at the table and began stuffing my gob wondering at the coincidence of these two symbols and one event, gifting faith in poetry if nothing else, and when i left a few hours later, the stars were out again, me in my imagination a fili doing psychic battle with the elemental material concern above, which the gods could tip anytime on my noggin.

Then, i weft off and met the friend whose compassion saved my Christmas with a rubber and glue innertube fix yesterday, and who came round for a few hours this evening for food and boring company, and after seeing them safely home and saying au revoir, am now ready to snooze...

But in the meantime, what have you been up to this day? Any tears and tantrums, superb prezzies, crap gifts, rubbish jokes, granda arrested for telling the kids the truth about father christmas, what's on telly, inside your mind, God or no god, deal it here..

grá agus síocháin.

BAD LADS

I met her three weeks ago in Delaney's in town. It was Friday night. She was with her sister. I'd just pulled a nice little number with Grebo. We'd had it away with five large off some old dear we'd done a bit of tarmacing for. It was a close thing though. We had to take her down the bank and loiter around outside. She was as good as gold mind, came up with the dough no problem. The son in law collared us just as she'd handed it over, but he knew there was no chance of getting it back. I'll give him his due. He did try, a bit anyway, just enough so he'd be able to tell the daughter he did his best. He said he was going to go to the cops, but I just laughed at him.

"What for dickhead? Tarmacing against the law now is it?"

"You know what for," he says, "ripping pensioners off is."

I told him to fuck off before he got a smack, but he obviously felt he had to put up a show for the mother in law. He tried to get his hand in my pocket. I swear to god. Absolutely no respect at all. I had every right to deck him there and then, but I don't really like confrontation so I left it.

"Proud of yourself are you? Two grown men preying on the elderly."

Well, that did it. I'm a tolerant man. I don't go round hitting people unprovoked, so I gave him a tap. Just a light slap really, nothing serious.

"Look, fuck off, before you get hurt. I could have you for slander. We did a bit of work and got paid, so go home and stop giving it the John Wayne."

I felt sorry for the old dear though, having to watch the fella embarrass himself like that, but he knew the score.

"Come on dear," she said, "lets go home."

To tell you the truth, I don't think she was all there. Probably going a bit senile. She wasn't bothered about the dough. At least she didn't say anything if she was, and that's what's important isn't it. It's not like he was shelling out. He was only thinking of himself anyway. At least we did a bit of graft for it. He was probably after tapping her for a few grand himself. Conning himself that he'd pay her back and then just hang on till she snuffs it. Selfish git.

We had a right laugh about it on the drive home, him going to the missus with a thick lip.

"They won't be going down the bingo tonight," I said.

Grebo went a bit quiet then, as if he was thinking that we might have been a bit harsh on them. He's only a kid really, still listening to his Mam. She goes the church a lot. Very religious Grebo's old dear. Likes to think that her hearts in the right place. That's alright, don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking her for it, but she shouldn't try and tell her lad what he can and can't do. To be honest I don't think she knows too much about what he gets up to. She must know a bit, but I imagine she probably just ignores it, blocks it out and says a few prayers for him. But as I say, he's only a kid and still a bit soft with his emotions. I told him:

"Grebo lad, you've got two and a half grand in your arse pocket. What's more important, that or some old dear whose only going to leave it to the grandkids. She can't have long left anyway lad. It's not like we robbed her."

She knew what she was doing, which she did. We didn't point a gun to her head. Grebo's a sensible lad though and he could see the logic in what I was saying.

Anyway, we go out into town to celebrate. Get a bit of beak, a few pills and go splashing around for some beaver. We started off in Yates's on the Aussie whites. A few lines in the bog and then we're ready to move on about 11.30pm. As we're leaving I bump into Toby and tell him about the job next week.

Grebo's lined up another widow in some posh little village in Cheshire. A nice little touch by the looks of it. She's tucked away in a secluded bungalow. The husband's only been dead a couple of months and her heads in bits. Perfect. Say what you want about Grebo, but he's got a fantastic nose on him for sniffing out the cash. He's got youth on his side see. That's why he's so useful. The old dears take one look at his mug and get all misty eyed, like they're remembering their sons or dead husbands.

We've got a polished little double act going. Good cop bad cop routine. Grebo softens them up, gets them to spill the beans about the savings and what not and then I come in as the heavy hitter after they've signed up. Grebo tells them he's just the guy who does the work, hooks them as it were. He keeps the price a bit vague, but we never lie to them. Never tell them that they're getting it cheap. He gets them to sign a piece of paper. Standard issue document we knocked up off the computer.

It doesn't mean anything. It's not a contract or anything like that, just something that they sign. It gets them in a right flap though. For some reason people think that if they put their name on a bit of paper then it's serious, like they've sold their soul to the devil. As soon as we've done the work I go along suited and booted. They see me pull up in the Merc. A big bloke, shaven head, a bit mean looking and then just hand over the moolah no problem.

You get the odd one who tries to get away without paying, but if the worst comes to the worst I just get on the blower to Toby. Not many people say no to him. He's a nice bloke, don't get me wrong. Do anything for anyone, but he does have an air about him. I suppose it's the bent nose that does it, but as I say, he'd give you the shirt off his back. Ruthless in business, but then, you've got to be in our line of work otherwise you'd have every two bit wide boy trying it on.

Anyway, I told Toby about the job and we gets down Delaney's for the back bar disco. We move in on Janice and her sister, buy them both a drink, give them a few lines and bingo, we're on for going back to the sisters for afters. Some birds love the bad lads. I don't know what it is, but a lot of women, and all ages mind you, they want someone who's a bit naughty and when they see me coming they know what to expect. I don't arse about, giving them all the bullshit that your straight goers go for. I'm just myself with them. I never lie to them and never say I'm going to do something and not do it. I'm no saint, by any stretch of the imagination, but then again I'm no wimp either and girls like Janice, well, that's what they go for.

The sister wasn't my type though. Stuck up. Thinks her shit doesn't stink. Perfect for Grebo mind. A good-looking lad like him gets the pick of the women. We toyed with the idea of getting them all ladled up on the sniff and trying for some group action going, but Grebo didn't want to blow it with the sister. Anyway, it was getting late and we couldn't have been sure of finding any spares, not at that time of night. All the half decent ones have been pulled late on and it's only the boots left. I've got quit high standards, even if I say so myself, and Janice looked as it she'd do a good turn, so we decided to play safe and keep it decent.

Janice told me she had a couple of kids once we were in the taxi. I don't usually go for the single mums, but at that time of night after a few beers and Persians it's not really too much of a sticking point. Not that I minded. I love kids. I've got a few of my own, so I know the score on that front, but ideally you don't want to be having too much to do with other fella's sprogs and anyway, to tell the truth, I only thought it would be a one night job. Grebo was chewing the face of the sister all the way back, having a right old time. Janice was doing a bit of talking, telling me what a wanker the ex was. Usual sort of stuff really.

Feels like i'm fighting tyson, yeah he heeh, wo ho whay.

Only in the sink of doings that is doorty dub can one such as i remain unmolested by the armies of sickos and psycho scum, scuzzed out of the firing line like a drop deed D4 doc of possession, oudle dye diddle doh wo whah so say what mister mammon will you be gluttonous in the fray of feast and...argh, can you tell love of bells and whistles when the jolliy dublin mob of begrudgers and die-hard transvestites toggling along without toga or wrap; yo lo ray me so far laah, wharra yers onaboot in the moment of whispering; doubt it was, was it deceitful, fruitful barren and without incident listless lover laden with mischief we'll ne'er be a mountain of laughing ladies if this state remained, elsewhere, elusive elucidate and remain stalwart overboard manly it is, sink nea never no more...?

Dewars

Follow me down to a rock far away, far rock
away, golden bard singing in strings loaded
with karma, naming the street an ocean of lovers
and night-choir whispering a turnpike turning
black coffee to fine gasoline rain. Clothing two
moon-watchers touching the road-finger,
counting the roadkill, uncertainly tipped to follow
us down to a rock far away; who star in the air
above a changing bay, in acid filled lullabyes
painting a rainbow on every guitar
in the neighbourhood's brownstone.

Fair is the saturnalian rock far away,
turning each hand to write our graffiti
like secret barstool rats,
understanding our home place is under
the subway track, where we walk
with each other carrying vowels
following you down to sidhe streets
far away from the consecrated rock.

Gun-city waiting for a train of love songs
and good will mixing, vote what is left
of the the dew, seek to kiss it today
in Far Rockaway, Far Rockaway.

~

I've run out of research. The last three years since leaving university, I have been an independant scholar, not through choice you understand. My initial post-grad wish was to get on the Poetry MA at the Seamus Heaney poetry school in Queens University Belfast.

It cost £10,000 or something equally out of my budget, with a very small chance of a scholarship, and i applied just before i left the grove for, what i hoped, but half knew would not be, only the summer of 2004. My other choice was to do the writing MA in Galway University, but that, alas, was also a dream too far.

My exit velocity from college had enough momentum to bowl me, along with a bicycle and two panniers containing all my worldly goods, onto the now defunct Liverpool-Dublin fast ferry, having decided that i would get to research the history of poetry in Ireland and try my hand at writing it in on the island, by hook or by crook. My rival bores waffle on about the homeward tug of the poetic instinct, and i had it bad. To return to the land of my mother and father and all the ghosts who made me from the time of Cúchulainn and the Connachta, was the only sensible option for a man with a three-year writing habit approaching middle age.

I alighted at the North wall and cycled along the coastal path to my sister’s house in Baldoyle: a beachhead from where to launch my assault upon the literary citadel of Dublin, to sparkle or burn in urban Ireland’s poetry flame HQ, and after a few days fixed myself up in the main homeless hostel in the city centre, run by the Iveagh Trust, and very well run i might add.

I immediately threw myself into writing and reciting, and instinctively felt i had slipped into the place i should be in, as everything seemed to go right for me here, and more by accident than design. I have always been a high grade spacer, away with the clouds and here, this thinking is not out of place or abnormal as it was in England, i understand now because of the huge cultural differences which aren't so obvious or apparent to the occassional visitor because of the veneer of a shared language, which can give the impression we are closer culturally than is the case.

The foundation stuff on which society is based, the abstract principles and political doctrines, are as similar as Canterbury in New Zealand and Canterbury in the UK. Effectively a world apart, and the hows and whys of this take a few years to suss out, but basically boil down to the fact that in Ireland, people are far less interested in the visual appearance of their fellow citizens, than their mental state, and there is a refreshing and total absence of "class" as it operates in Britain.

So there is very much a sense of not knowing who is who when you first arrive, but in a positive way which means you cannot immediately tick people off into cozy cultural stereotypes, which makes one question the assumptions held in England, of how to judge, behave and treat others.

~

By the time i heard i had not got into the Heaney centre, i had settled into Dublin and so did not take it as a rejection as such, as i would not have been able to afford the course anyway. By this time i had cottoned on that Dublin was probably the best place in the world for a chancer trying to be serious about poetry and i already had a couple of killer anecdotes about meeting prestigious figures in the poetry world who had only existed to me before in books and my imagination. The stars of the firmament in which i wished to shine, seen and spoken to in the flesh, on a "home" ground; or rather the first ground where i felt a sense of being at home poetically.

There is a magic about the place which i had only experienced previously in the depths of my creative inner mind, the dream world which was only an inner thing in England, becoming an exterior manifest reality in Dublin, in a totally effortless, natural way. My instinctive self which had never had much luck in England, here, did far better than i could have dreamt, and based on things occurring here in, what in England, would be the craziest and most un-happenable of situations.

The world my senses apprehended, began to mirror the secret inner fanatsy i held, which related to being a poet; as the bombardment of choice, the hurley game of living here, and the most passing whim, could be acted upon in a totally unique way one can only grasp by being here.

Dublin is the only place i have experienced where the residents understand that others elsewhere, we cannot explain the intricacies of how society here operates in a way the absent "others" who have no experience of breathing here, could fully cognise. The events of quotidian life, the Freudian observation that people from this culture are the only ones he knew who are impervious to his psycho analysis theory, as there really is a genuine psychic attachment, unbroken and still very live, which stretches back to pre-oral times and the closest one can call it is Poetry, or "the music of what happens."

Life is poetry here. It is so, all existence and people from a flea to the five million currently living here, their existence individually and singular, can be contextualised as poetry, if one has the secret books, the knowing to do this task. And so, my research reached a terminus and the six year slog to Anruth is over now I have written out the million words it took to contextualise my findings into a 500 word poetic philosophy none can top, based on the best. Amergin's forgotten text and holy grail poetic of any wordic schema. The equivalent of Horace's Ars Poetica in the bardic philosophy, which - along with the basic skeleton of the four cycles of irish myth - allows one to take a breather; and so I have been concentrating on composing in the "write-through" form, where one takes a text and rejigs the words to a different one.

I have been at this on and off for the last three years, starting with Sylvia Plath's The Colossus, and gradually ending up using the constituent letter parts of small blog deposits, as demonstrated below.

This one is only a rejig of words, the Robert Minhinnick translation of, Far Rockaway, by the Welsh-language poet Iwan Llwyd, the full of which is here.

Write through of "Rule Britannia"

ANN AT BRIL ERIU

Why picture loutish
eton craic
a fab lush brogue
patriotic anoraks,
and pride deserting
gentlemen at war
in eccentric sighs?

I slip bowless to
a sir free land
no snoot cockers
great knobs to hail,
cut the tie today
for a happiness few
feel,
aim high
hack
ask fate Howayiz
wah wah
is yiz
wib
us
hdhdwhb

~

This draft poem is an example of the "write-through" form, which is where the writer takes an existing piece, technically called in poetic circles, a - "found text" - and re-configures it to another one, using the same words and/or letters.

This is the original text, titled "Rule Britannia":

Out of the bus window I spy a white-haired gentleman on a bicycle wearing a pair of brown brogues, with white socks, khaki desert shorts, an anorak and a black bowler hat. He is a picture of English eccentricity as he whizzes past County Hall and I feel a surge of patriotic pride at the sight of him.

~

The woman who composed it is an ex-teacher, now pole dancer, from Kent, who keeps two blogs and writes under the nom de guerre of Glamour Puss. The found piece is from a blog called Clairvoyance, which she started in August of this year, 15 months after beginning her main blog The Pole Affair. The Pole Affair deals with her day to day work and personal life, whilst Clairvoyance (19c French, literally 'clear seeing'), is her ruminating a tad deeper about existence, what she writes as:

"Elucidating Everyday Wonder Made Manifest"

~

I first came across her several months back in the comment section of Kate Evans Bush, who blogs as Ms Baroque in Hackney. Glammy has an honesty and eloquence to her writing i suspect few pole dancers have. After 15 months of blogging about her work and private life, Puss, as she calls herself, posted a piece on Friday which effortlessly articulates, for even the most amateur armchair shrink to discern, the human reasons behind her decision to bin off teaching and twirl round a pole in next to nowt for a nine to five. She switched careers in the immediate aftermath of a disastrous relationship with an unsuitable man who treated her shabbily.

~

The write through form is at the opposite end of the compositional spectrum from strict metrical writing, but at least, if not more intellectually challenging, as it is like sieving ones mind through a tea strainer; knocking down an edifice of letters, and rebuilding an entirely different text with them.

No one told me of this form, as my first time creating in it was three years ago when i was in the third and final year of writing school, working on a poem, when my eye came to fall on Ted Hughes book, Lupercal, resting on top of Sylvia Plath's collection, The Colossus.

The poem i was working on i had just written and it struck me to re-write it, using the same words, and the creative flow was such that i ended up writing through Sylvia Plaths title poem from The Colossus, about the relationship with her father. At this point i only used the same words and broke down a few conjoining ones into their constituent letters, but in the few short years that have followed, have found that short pieces such as this, are ideal to take this exercise to the next stage.

It is a great exercise for homing ones intellectual fluidity, as i don't have to think of anything apart from the letters i have to play with, and i will post the Plath poem and write through tomorrow, and will probably be on this form for the next while, as i have run out of stuff to research, as the stuff i wanted to finds out about when i left university three years ago, i have done so, and am wondering..what next, as Plato said to Yeats when the coat hanger rapped in his noggin..

Lonliness Of The Moon

They live in the lamplight of dusk
riven shade, releasing souls
from the stone of dolmen beds
Diarmuid and Gráinne stretched
out on when fleeing from Fionn.

We live as water, their lair’s
underground and we listen
to sea shells for sounds of their life
crowding in on us.

Now their memory is lost, dream
stealing and tossed by love,
bent by Manannán’s whim,
we steer the world, a spinning top
of life, the merry go round
they draw still, and watch
collecting in the ether, the air
of humanity’s ghost,
its shadow dissolving their light,
and our rough thought, swept
gentle in the grain of speech
a hue of Áine and Aengus Óg.

Stay upon our rock and set love
free, be gentle and kind
whilst remembering life
is precious, breathing invisibly
still, hear?

Angelic Deer Cry

Strong is the power of ones light.
The spiritual armour of goodness
Resisting rulers' wicked wiles
And the cult of men in darkness.
Within us our beastial faith lies,
Learning of truth in the fearless
Charm composed to invoke divine
Defence against all manner of evil
And inscribed upon Saint Patricks
Breastplate. A loricae. The snippet
Below, in druidic protection meter.

"I arise today
Through the strength of heaven
Light of sun
Radiance of moon
Splendour of fire
Speed of lightening
Swiftness of wind
Depth of the sea
Stability of earth
Firmness of rock.

I arise today
Through God's strength to pilot me."

Peace we shod in the feet of faith
Standing in light with a shield
Of truth. Damnation we quench
By prayer. No devil fire awaits
Above; all wickedness is here
On earth. Salvation - in the end
Is down to us, flesh and sword,
The word our blood, and spirit
Gods writing it hear our belief.

Cherish Mon Amis.

I recently read a book on Yeats. The Yeats We Knew, which are the texts of five Thomas Davis Lectures, first broadcast on RTE in 1965, as part of the centenary celebrations of his birth. These short memoirs in this 100 page slim book, give the reader a glimpse of the man behind the mask. And the impression we are left with is, he was a lonely man. He made it his business to strike the poetical pose, and really i am just riffing now as my energies are gone somewhat.

After a brief flood and flash,
lead the evening dance to a goal
he has

the verse king of Kilmainham, free
to sing, made reality a webbed light
of October mist withering in pale grey
cloud that dimmed to a soft cool
breeze, chilled as night drew in.

And the ghost of William Yeats said:

"Then what?"

Did the words he write solve any wrongs
or slights his loved ones suffered
as they fled? And what cold bed
of mourning found the arch beneath
which i awoke, dawned on heather,
left in rann, a rambling man waffling on,
head sieved to a million bits
as instructors came, speaking
of this and that to him?

Of how silence persecutes
a void of knowing calm
in setting sun, as a brief flash of solitary
life leaves us, all and one, all alone,
the ghosts who sit on Yeats's throne
and count the hours before morning
in moon lit mists that wax on wrongs
we suffer when the cold grey gun
- pulled to shoot a dream that blew
a brothers head wide open -
makes a splash for cameramen
who catch the brain seeping
as critics tell you of us, jangling on
and on, calling for the glow to spot,
shine upon one mind alone?

An audience anonymity dressed,
freedom dead so we can sing
of our concealed sex, saying,
what of it?

Tell the mob to name
what isn't in the hat and then, after
that, to rhyme the hours we have took
and speak, without a cursing call
or backward look, goodbye, adios,
the world released us mon amis,
to a vacuum of knowing, and the slow
sharp pull of bestowing one cloak
we made as humanity leaped in crawing
song. And men and women hiding
there, who believed in freedom once,
will ask, is it here to sing again?

Of course said A to B to C
we only wanted to be free
in our anonymity. What's our name,
tell us quick, let them keep invisible
irrelevance in heavy hints, our wish
in clever words revealed a sinning
truth kinking time, in wrought
thinning sloped grace of a moon
facing West.

They jangle on faery friends and sing
of what lies eloquence make behind
the grey eyes of a grey ghost
and the hooded caul of a thousand
broken lives left blowing in the laughter
of songs sung anonymously that sing
and strike the blow; tell us
of yourself, oh invisible host, again.

And really, it was a good read.

Shock and Bore

Someone asked what had happened to Peter Hitchens, the man who advocates genoicide for muslims, brother to Christopher the Daily Mail fascist, both of whom have made a life out of professional moaning.


What's happened to him?

I think he has detached from humanity. I saw him on the British TV programme, Question Time and he looked fighting fit, much more well scrubbed than his brother who was also on the same show. He struck me as very arrogant. A very "important" air about him. I haven't read any of his stuff, and so can only respond to him as an intellectual construct and printed entity. Detached from the real humanity of him, as i have only experienced Hitch via an electronic image, talking on a TV show to a crowd of people.

Many who asks questions, this is there moment in the spotlight. Imagine the tales of the audience, the bungled question say for one unused to public speaking. The tongue tied and shy and the unique individuals, all of them, just like Hitch and his bro. Hitch struck me as a very articulate person, and a great sense of conviction about what he said. That he believed what he was advocating, was the main point i got from this experience.

And reading the blog Rosen links to about Hitchen doing his warmonger act to a provincial American audience, was struck by how the writer also interpreted him in person. Basically saying that what he advocated was genocide of a billion people who have a faith in a fiction he trashes as such, but very unintelligently, and selfishly, i suspected, as what he promotes is linked to his own financial position.

The book he wrote, from what i gather, however clever the arguments in it, also promote what he is known for saying, which is to address what he sees as a problem which has not materially affected his own existence, with great physical force. I think he may have carved out a very well paid career for himself, as a man who causes controversy in order to benefit financially from the hoo ha.

A very selfish and ultimately unintelligent thing really, as he is basically advocating world war, just so he can fly round the world and feeling important as he winds up the masses. He doesn't advocate a solution to the problems his own mind alone puffs up - magnifying a threat and blowing it out of proportion, for the selfish reasons of making himself money, i suspect - and thus he displays supreme stupidity; as the ultimate logic of what he is saying, would cause his golden laying goose and jet set life to disappear, and it would be only then the daft git copped on.

When the financially lucrative rhetoric he espouses, talking in a very confrontational way and offending the fundamental sensibilities of a culture not his own, returned materially at its most terrible logic consequence, and forced the silly twit to live in the material conditions his stupidity seems intent on creating for others he does not know personally and who play no part in his life, except as the fictional fodder feeding his golden goose.

I would suggest we laugh at him, as there is nothing more effective than deflating the ego of a self important bore like this person..what's his name? Hitchens hitching his soul to the dark side we all have the hate of a fighting fit hack whose cause is getting cash, whose love is imperial, whose books sell by the shed load, feeding on a wave of fear and causing it to grow. One man, one dickhead who calls people stupid to their face when they ask him a question, as the linked article states. If one person calls another stupid, surely it means they too understand and are capable of stupidity?

A good rule of thumb is that anyone who flies round the world profiting from a rhetoric advocating genocide, making lots of lolly, insulated completely from the worlds they speak of, knowing them only as a specialist self righteous bore who passes through gathering evidence for his one sided crap arguments many find distasteful, the rule of thumb is these people are dangerous talkers doing it, not for a Love of humanity, but money. Speak of the daft git, but his arguments are rubbish and he has had a lifetime sat on his arse thinking in print, and anyone can sound reasonable and clever, if they find out how to.

The real responsibility a writer has once they have reached this state of eloquence, i believe, is to try and make the world a better place, not worse, and by the sounds of it, he wants muslims to suffer, so he can have a few quid. And so i hereby propose Hitchen be known from now on as the man who scratches for hate, itching sore points and if he really wants to help, to go and help as a charity worker in a third world country and get a dose of humanity, like right now, and give the thick cu.. a cutting quip, quick, hitch him to Love and forget the guy, man, male macho posturing...is he a bricklayer, a carpenter, and artist of the flesh? No, so picture the thicko as a man in a dress, visualise it and laugh.

Call him an idiot sat on his arse for a living, thinking..wow aint he the clever dick, a sissy, a big girls blouse who hasn't got the courage to fight the physical battles his doom and gloom, but very financially lucrative texts call for. So what does that say?

He wants to be cock of the world, but is a coward who does it with a clever hating mind, as he feels physically inadequate, obviously. Silence the gob by seeing him for what he is. A prickle ickle dickie wickle boring git..we love you hitch, please, we beseech you, stop being such a miserable git, bluddy moaning all the time for cash, and surprise yourself and us by doing summat good for a change...learn Arabic and tell us then what you do know, i bet you bloody can't be arsed to speak of the muslim world in a language it understands instead of all this phoney baloney hack speak that is so last millennium man, aint you heard, humanity has been restored, should you choose to believe it.

I do and earn nowt from my pronouncements but the good feeling i get from working hard and not going for the easy kicking. We can all moan, but the true pros know the real gift is speaking of goodness, the .00001% who learn how to control their gobs and direct poetic goodness to come, with nought but the mind and a belief in whatever fiction it takes to float. Ascend, transcend the quotidian and reach the enobling stream, in order to lead by example..

Sidhe Lennan

Eye the chasm of a heart.
refuse to look past
a pool, cloud drawing
love to force a tide of will.

Storms of white horse water
whip the dawn and
sleeping the beggar
scattered his dream.

Love is a neighbour
in this mirror of broken
blossom rippling in night
scented silence and divinity
crying within us, rises
in the remembrance of a ghost
flickering beyond love,
the momentary illusion of a lost
son who fled when passion
beneath his hooded caul web
wrapping the night above us,
enmeshed her fragrance
of memory tapered
to what passed between us,
what drop from the scaffold
befell us and why the platform
will claim a green glow.

The red lipped lady envisaging
Ballsbridge and Tara, marching
the ancestral flow of his heart less
rendered to hate; shocked to the state
of bemused imitational grace.

Flit free soul
steal the shadow of my home
and make love with none but
your own, cool breeze we move
through in sandy cove, moss
siding on the wall, complicit the windless
sidhe is here.

Strike up the tune, smith
bellow and humour, the spiritual show
before last moon drop, first rain falling
is lost now in wetness, the cool slow rock

No longer will i wait for the sensuous skin
of a princess who held an image for me
trembling to turn and leave, fading
as a wheat field waves beneath an August
moon, the lip red life of her i will discover,
the eye beholden to no other.

Who loves me and shows wonder
in the words making love for her, hear? Us
an illusion, we the air and world through
which sidhe move, and the girl
i will become when the womb of life
surrenders and sea claims my energy,
releasing the feat of gods who craw
no longer on Fodhla's shore for humanity
to come.

Sidhe told first, of love blind in a silly verse
sincerely writ which hit me, stripped me of anger
and now we learn together as man and wife,
split no more, the goddess unseen
devoid of flaws and a soul of grace,
a heart who cares, a women who made me
believe again.
You.

Angel, voice in the head.

Angel is a person online who is a regular voice in my head and i learnt today s/he smashed up the telly:

"I wouldn't advise anyone else to do this as I was surprised how thick the glass is and had to hit it a few times and the splinters fell around the place."

Angel is a real force promoting literacy, and s/he fears for going mad, as s/he feels like a number. I think s/he lives in Manchester, near the Derbyshire side and s/he has been a force for good in my life. I met this person first on the Guardian books blog when i was researching my po-mo practice based on the ogam alphabet and David, who i fancy coz he looks like he might bin posh off and settle down wiv me in my bedsit, now the voices have come, to instruct me how to send orders to my butler in the intellectual womb of the anima mundi, which the heavy user of cannabis, william yeats, details in the distillation of his own research, the head crunchingly baffling and superbly logical book, "The Vision".

This was never finished by Yeats as it was his bible of self, the seriousness with which he took his life and work, all there for the reader to enjoy, or rather, shake their head in bafflement at, for yeats was gyre mad, going on about them like angel does boom boom and the bbc being gitz.

Angel sent the governement a letter, but they fobbed angel off, after s/he had told them s/he wasn't paying it, and would smash the telly up if they demanded money with menaces gain. Angel is a very cultured and civilised person with a few pet hates; one being the aforementioned "boom boom" music that anti-social people play when doing drive bys and gangstering about wiv da faeries, like posh and rebecca, who fancies me coz i am the worlds most successful nail extension practitioner on the planet. The voice in my head Angel wrote:

"The letter said they would call so I wanted to leave them in no doubt. I had told them I'd smash it if they didn't give me time to sell it as I just would not pay again for what has become a pain in my ears and a phobia. I took a few pictures of it to send to them but I think they're going to call and torment me."

So why do they do it, the BBC gitz? Do the boom boom? and the bbc wiv all that rubbish they put on the telly.

The poor quality and declining standards of the official apparatus, is another bedbug of Angel's; and is the reason i do not watch, as most of it has no point beyond having a rubbish excuse to pay photogenic people who can appear to be interested in what the rational mind says is rubbish; lots of money. Why do attractive chefs, gardeners and other bores get paid thousands a day by the tax and licence payers, when a less photogenic but better candidate does not? Sheer prejudice based on the most shallow of human whims. A desire to see only nice lookers. Why do airheads get lots of lolly for being stupid and convincing the rest of us this behaviour is worthy of imitation?

"I hadn't switched the thing on for months from a phobia that developed as a result of the drumming that invariably accompanies every programme. I've had to drop my favourites one after another from the drumming soundtracks. Then I wrote and told them."

The bbc are hounding my Angel and it's not on and s/he is the victim of a conspiracy between the bores who pay themselves ridiculous amounts of cash to have people fawn over them for doing what we do for free. Create. And they create boom boom bull..ahem..pimping up playschool next they will, getting jackanory on the go, reading Hunter Thompson and William Burroughs to five year olds...

"Some times I wish I had the courage to hang myself because once these civil servants get a hold on you they never want to let go.

I hope I won't go mad when they start poking their noses around in my home; that I'll be able to stay sane because they way they treat me is nothing less than persecution and I don't know what it is that sets them off. But I'll be living on a knife edge until this torment and ordeal is over. I just don't want any more BBC, or any others, in my life anymore."

Angel likes having civilised conversation, reading, writing, hot baths, cooking and basically enjoying life as a normal person without any weirdos ramming it down our gobs; da bling and moan manly macho stuff, that life is crap and that we should all kill one another to get what we want. The pimp my life bbc reality presented to us wiv da hoes and playas in a forest of weeds. A thick and doomed Male mindset i find offensive as a femminist spokesperson.

I do not have a tv licence, coz i do not have a telly and and the one thing i notice is the dearth of bad news. Even the radio is not listened to, or newspapers bought. I was buying the irish daily mail for the first few months of it appearing, as it was only 20 cents or summat daft, and quite a lot of text, and as it was new, the editorial team would have been wanting to appear different than the rest of the comics like the irish star and irish sun; and when the irish daily mail came, i was surprised as the one papaer in england i bought, was the mail.

And some of my irish friends reckon the mail was a good thing to happen, even though i was moaning it was just another step for the west brit mentality to be twisting our heads.

Carol Malone, i think it's her, i'm not sure, but the editor, nolan his name, unsure how to act, what tenor to go for. I mean this is as brit as it gets innit, the mail; and now i don't have a telly, or listen to the radio, when i pop to the shop, i only have to glance at the headlines to get the picture. But nolan the ed, he is a young fella and does the regular grave address to the nascent readership which its parent paper promoting the british agenda of tip toe tally ho aul chap, does. But it's has gone up to 70 cent now, so i stopped buying it, so i don't know if nolan is getting it any more irish or not.

The commentating hacks are D4 headz moaning about the school run and try to sound exciting, and the one thing i love about here, is that all this new west brit act, of aping the english mores, for a tip ho jolly chap, is too comedic to take seriously, and cannot root really, the materialism which will see us being greedy gitz and inhumane to one another; in the sense of shared cultural currency being no more than a tip ho jolly nice mansion there biffo me beano laah, and really when i think about it, i don't fancy carol any more, not since i learned about her obsession with how posh looks and a hopefully soon to be single dave, who fancies me.

Carol i always admired a bit, for looking good, having her make up on in the right way, and generally, being a hack who photographs well, but nolan, well, he fancies me i reckon, and after i saw the cricket match at trinity between the theatricals and the teflon headz, that was it, i cracked the code of how to make Englsih an acceptable cultural fling on the lawns of Oxford, who also fancies me, i think, but either way, once cricket gets took up by us, and we start all getting behind it, once we we start winning stuff, then that is the culture cracked and tara stands...

H.E. Bates: Fair Stood The Wind For France.

1979-1983 were my secondary days, from childhood to ones youthful coming of age in a time, just like todays.

The kids, as they are now. Some bookish and studious, swottish and "stiffs". Some smoking and swearing at the square ancient gitz over 16, who just didn't get it; could never be hip, as one being young whose horizon of time was eternal and wrongdoing didn't exist.

As a teenager who knew Duran Duran were really nought but a flash in the pan. And words, came at my command, as "king of the one liner" who dispatched all with a quip off the cuff that came from ...only God knows where..verbally dueling and never beaten or bested; until the first flush of full beauty had gone, as i turned 31..32..33 and slipping into forty, facing down the OAP barrel, i never thought i would live to see today, but did so; and for this i give thanks to God.

A good looking gob no longer, alas, O woe is moi, with only a costume of masks to prove ones humanity and bluff with in the search for a soulmate who'll Love being a pensioner with me, when all's said and done.

For this is all i have. Literacy, dear readers, colleagues in Love looking for peace to move us prosperously forward, no longer looking down the barrel of a gun, needle or bottle, but wallowing in September sunlight.

And as one casts back to the time in class, one can hear a work of Literature that moves my hand here, now.

Fair Stood The Wind For France. The characters were a RAF crew who crashed and got sheltered in a farm house by a family with the Resistance, and the central love between Franklin and Francois. She with an unshakable faith in goodness and God. He, an agnostic loner, detached from all around him and trusting no one, till she came along. Frankie was a philanderer, losing himself in the bottle during a brutal wartime England.

His untrusting and world weary assumptions on humanity, challenged for the very first time when coming into contact with the French family, trusting still, faith in God and the moral duty of acting on the side of goodness in a treacherous time of collaboration and resistance to the nazi foe, which was the perfect scenario for Bates to explore the fundamental nature of humanity. Between the material and spiritual.

The gun Frankie keeps with him at all times, is the symbol Bates used to convey the essential intellectual core of Frankie's mental world view. One were the ultimate power resides with man, and the gradual dissolution of this psychological state came as he fell in love with Francois, and is exposed as a mirage in this passage:

"Frankie looked to the revolver and saw it suddenly as a useless and pathetic thing. He had become so used to handling a weapon as big as a house, and carrying enough power to wipe out a small town, that he had forgotten there were other sorts of power. He looked at the three people sitting in the lamplight waiting for a sound. He saw them, the three generations of one nation, as part of a defenseless people, as part of the little people possessing an immeasurable power that could not be broken...He knew it clearly now as a more wonderful thing, more enduring, and more inspiring power than he had ever believed possible: the power of their own hearts."

The story's surface had terror, war, drink and yet was not in yer face wound sharing, but deft storytelling, revealing an intelligence at work and the author, calling on the ineffable light of human goodness within, to maneuver the eternal.

I think that my passion for English as a child, was pot luck, as i had a great teacher, and played Malvolio at 13; the high point of my theatrical career thus far. It was downhill all the way since then, but still, introduced me to the joy of language. And i suppose mastering the intuitive nuts and bolts of it, depends on how much effort one puts in to acquiring "true" linguistic knowledge; which is..?

I suppose if prose is the light ale of writing, poetry would be the heavy proof gear, which most writers would agree is the creme de la creme profession, and the reason it attracts all sorts of chancers, deadbeats and those looking for the easy option.

And I admit, I was the same, as when i started writing i looked at it logically, thinking there are roughly four genres

Short story

Novel

Script

Poetry

And thinking the first three beyond me on a purely word-count basis, first opted to have a dabble at the fourth one, poetry. My reasoning being that, though the intellectual feat of juggling multiple characters and narrative involved in churning out the thousands of words needed to create a novel was beyond my ability, the creation of a hundred or so word poem; even an idiot like me must be capable of that.

Obviously this was in the mind of an untutored man approaching middle age; and to balance out any charge of amateur intent as a writer of poetry; my first ruminations on this topic led me to the decision, that i would rather write one formal sonnet whose quality was on a par with the worst of Shakespeare, than a thousand poems of disposable free-verse.

To this end i began a poem - still unfinished, in the sense i am not happy with it - which represents my very beginning in the dark art of bluffing in print that i am a poet.

Always in the mind, dreams and abstract thought
Just beyond where our conscious grasp can reach
And seldom is a complete meaning caught
When we try to give these glimpsed fragments speech.
If I, awake and able held a dream
In place so long that reason cuts the form
Would then the mind reveal through nightly stream
All of the inner truth with which we're born?
Would daylight's waking hours to us bring
Reality as such when slumbered warm?
Or would dreams be mute without voice to sing
And stay unlocked to keep a constant form?
Such thoughts as these have often been before
And leave our mind to ever search the more

So this is one of my semi-stone poems, its companion piece not yet written (hopefully) will be the final one i ever write; and casting an eye back six and a half years later, the most obvious technical point which betray this piece as the work of a beginner, is its lack of enjambment.

The syntactic sense of each line, ending at the terminal point of it, like a ship or train labouring along in regular and predictable short bursts. But still, this is the truth of my beginning and whatever the aesthetic properties of the piece are, I do take the tiniest crumb of artistic comfort that my desire to write was not occasioned by the negative impulse of jealousy and/or arrogance.

Twice i have come across people who began their foray into the poetic Art after reading, what they considered to be, weak and unaesthetic specimens written by another, in their opinion, less talented, fellow human, and being in some way offended, decided to re-dress the aesthetic balance in favour of Culture; which - rightly or wrongly - strikes me as another form of snobbery and an exclusional artistic rationale.

I have heard this argument twice now, the last time a couple of days ago, when someone told me, of the few poems they have ever written, the first was done so after reading an attempt by someone, which they thought so poor, they decided to write one in reply, to balance up the inferior art with what they considered to be the real gen, from their own mind.

I have always been suspect of this argument, no matter how convincingly it is presented. That the origins of ones Art can legitimately begin in this way.

Though i suppose the theoretical nuts and bolts will allow it in some form; it's just that it always smacks of a desire to write which is first occassioned by the impulse of jealousy. And again, as I write this i become aware that it may not be as cut and dried as my thinking would have it; seeing that there is such a thing as very poor poetry, and the collision of time, chance, and an individual life, the gods may conspire to arrange in such a way that a poet's career can begin in such circumstances. Who knows?

Can there ever be an answer to such a question?

I suppose at the final cut, we are all unique and have a singularly original path into the Art of verbal mimesis, the making of - what most would agree, on the face of it appear to be as - incredibly pointless acoustic objects; which serve no purpose in existential affairs.

Except perhaps as a spiritual stay, a psychic plea for Love and peace, and it is the level of logical, demonstrable faith the individual artist has about their "poetic" or critical blueprint on the whole shaboodle, which will imbue their work with what sense of gravity the reader detects or decides it possesses.

And poetry being the archest Art of the linguistic chancer, where several poems a year can be got away with; indeed bluffed up to being the output of a shamanic magus of the spaciest order, so the heights of self and public delusion are at their greatest within this - to my mind - laughably monickered; "profession."

A profession whose majority of contemporary practitioners have no unifying thread of technical agreement. Indeed there are a plethora of schools and cliques, all claiming bragging rights for possessing a hot line to a linguistic messiah, to speak from the pure poetic source of shade and light, and to be connected to shadows flitting in Plato's cave where the eternal Muse exists as the cosmic vibration detectable to only the most highly trained of instinctual artists bestowed by a divine Bard with the otherworldly gift as rare as hot snow.

Save Tara Gigs 29 September.

Dear Diary.

Another sunny day saving Tara. Cycled up the coast to Howth in the morning and then back to the homeless canteen for lunch. A small piece of pork and spinach and chick pea curry with rice and mash, and a slice of carrot cake, 1 euro ninety cent.

Spent the afternoon writing e mails and catching up with who is saying what in the various poetical chat joints from which i am barred for speaking of bardic lore. A name none dare speak, for fear of having to acknowledge a poetic truth too complex to cognise without much study.

Sad, but we all need our campaigns to keep us in active service at the front line of WaR, the writing and recital which forms the basis of a serious bores career in creative unemployment and a full time life of total work avoidance.

Then to the Royal College of Surgeons for 6.30 to the Denis O'Driscoll launch of his new book. It was in the ballroom and packed to the gills. I was on the lookout for a big fish after nearly finalising the bill for the Save Tara gig on 29 September, which I am organising the poets for as part of my MC duties. I was three short and had a feeling the real job would be finished there.

One of the female poets I had written to but had not got back as she only checks her e mail once a week, Bernadette O'Reilly, was there and agreed to do it, so two more to go. At this point i had four women and two men, the idea to have an equal balance of sexes..

I asked one poet I knew, but he wasn't keen to do it without payment, then asked Pat Boran, RTE's answer to Ian MacMillan, but a much savvier and gifted operator. He immediately agreed, until told the date, which clashed with another gig he has booked, there in black and white, printed in the Poetry Ireland newsletter.

He suggested asking Peter Fallon, and Gabriel Rosenstock, Ireland's premier Irish language poet, with over 100 books to his name, and at this point got speaking to Tom Conaty, who was advocating Rosenstock also.

I met Gabriel first at an IMRAM event in 2005, which is the Irish language poetry festival, and his method of introduction was very novel. He waved his hands around my aura chaunting a bardic Ohhmm, and said a few words in Gaelic, and i spun him one of mine when he requested me to, after which he took my hand, solemnly looking into my eye saying that our meeting had been written in the stars and was meant to be.

Rosenstock was only one of three poets I have spoken to who know of the Amergin Cauldron of Poesy poem, Conaty bumping up the number to three tonight. I said to Paul Casey, who is co-ordinating nationally, that I thought O'Driscoll's launch would be the place things were nailed down, and that the list would come by bardic methods, as we wanted poets who care about Tara, not the ones with books to sell first and Conaty is perfect as he is very modest; proposing i ask Rosenstock do it when i first spoke with him. And it was only when he started talking of myth and i asked him to do it, i realised he was mad keen to do it in the first place.

Conaty is a Cavan poet and senachie/storyteller and childrens' writer, who is as mad on the myth as i am, and we had a good long chat, and just as Boran re-aired his thought about asking Peter Fallon, Fallon came through the door with Heaney, and i decided against it as the two heavyweights stopped at the top of the stairs and shay and i made direct eye contact for the very first time, on the fourth time of our orbits intersecting, a number the bardic mind could go to town on as regards interpreting the psychic foundations of this whole shaboodle; the just meant to be'ness of it, saving Tara. And it is fitting that the bill was finalised in this space, where all the Irish mob from the Mossbawn magus down were milling about.

Heaney threw his hat in with the agitators on Thursday's independent and any true poet, as Boran and Conaty did, would immediately recognise the worthiness of such a cause. Not to promote the selling of books is this, but to keep the dream and keep the memory, tell how the throne room there at Tara was called the "Réalta na bhFile", "Star of the Poets."

The four cycles of myth can be poo pooed, but in a wider context, the global one, this island is the HQ of poetry and we are rightfully proud of the true ones who spend six years swimming home to the Well of Siegas, the source of the Boyne, as no other country has the poetic we do, and learning to be a bardic poet, takes the same effort and length of study as to become a doctor, and just as difficult.

Don't confuse the real Irish poet with their English equivalent, a pointless rent a bore employed to hang around libraries or infant schools chanting the cat sat on the mat to disinterested five year olds. We are the best in the world, with the most respect. Look at Heaney, Yeats, Kavanagh, all touched with the otherworldly crush the English mob can only dream and get green about, so Love and peace, the toxic shock has gone and so think on, Save Tara from they who believe it is worth trampling on 2000 years of culture to shave an hour off their journey to the commercial centers they only want to accrue material wealth in, and for what? To have two houses instead of one? Three cars instead of none?

Three generations ago, we were all in the bog, and look at us now, greedy bastards pretending we are connected to they who did have it tough, my mothers great grandmother tossed on the roads of Bohola, Mayo, in 1847, she herself hearing second hand the tale, of they who dies in their millions, and for what? So we can sup in Starbucks and moan about the weather and what shit is on telly, what material goods we deserve? I am a poor man and always have been, never had a penny, never missed it, and on 29 September in seven locations on the island including Dublin, Derry and Achill, Save Tara gigs will be happening.

Have pride in your island and attend if you can, voice support for the real Ireland, not the millionaire mindset, the expectations of our dead generations, ran to a full belly and a roof over their heads, a song in their hearts and ...yeah, simple life untroubled by a mass of material wealth

Official Poetry: Ireland.

This is a section of the dán díreach ('strict-straight verse') anamain ('glorious profit') praise poem by arch poetry professor and Ard Ollamh Eireann, Gofraidh Fionn Ó Dálaigh, (Godfrey Finn O'Daly).

Written when in the literary-legal service of the Earls of Desmond, composed in honour of Maurice Fitz Maurice Fitzgerald junior (Muiris Óg), the future short-lived second Earl of Desmond, and addressed directly to Edward III.

At whose court in Windsor castle Maurice Óg, the eldest son and heir of the third baron and first earl Maurice Fitzthomas Fitzgerald Sr., and his first wife, Margarete De Barry, was briefly fostered/hostaged; spending time learning the ways of a Hiberno-Norman aristocrat serving his king in Ireland.

Edwardian Old Irish expert and the poem's translator, Osborn Bergin, has dated the poem to between 1356, when the first earl, Maurice Fitz Thomas Fitzgerald, died and Maurice Óg succeeded him; and 1358, when the second earl, Maurice Óg, drowned crossing the Irish sea.

Maurice Óg was succeeded by his youngest half-brother, son of their shared father's third wife, Aveline Fitzmaurice, Gearóid Iarla, Gerald Fitzgerald Desmond the Poet earl.

Who leapfrogged his older brother, the eldest son of Aveline FitzMaurice, Nicholas Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald, who had been classified (in the language of the time) as an 'idiot'.

Gerald had a lot more luck in the hot seat than Maurice Jr., spending forty years in Limerick before snuffing out in 1398. Gerald's most famous poem is "Mairg adeir olc ris na mnáibh" ("Speak not ill of womenkind"). Legend has it he was a shapeshifter and got hitched in a diabolical union with the Tuatha Dé Danann and Munster earth goddess, Áine.

A throwback to the iron age practice, when the Kings of Munster married the sod itself. What truth there is in this, one can only speculate, but certainly he was the first of the Hiberno-Norman aristocracy to become a partially qualified literary Filí poet, writing poems in Gaelic and Norman French.

Indeed The Fitzgeralds of Desmond "Deas Mhumhain" - South Munster - were the immigrants who went most native with most gusto, and whom the phrase Hiberniores Hibernis ipsis - "more Irish than the Irish themselves" - sprung up around. Though this 350 year old dynasty rent apart in the Desmond Rebellions which kicked off the Tudor holocaust.

~

Áine was a granddaughter of Manannán mac Lir, the pyschopomp sea god and son of Lir, the oldest deity in Irish myth and ruler of the waves himself. And behind Lir therefore, a void of knowing. But we know the myth that sprung up around Gerald is that he sleeps beneath the horse shoe shaped Lough Gur, at the foot of Knockadoon Hill in county Limerick, and that one day he will return on a silver shod steed, to "save Ireland."

And water features prominently in the history of this once most romanticized, famed and august, now wholly forgotten clan of Geraldine aristocrats. That rose from being the hired muscle of an invading Strongbow's Norman army, through three barons, fifteen earls, and ten uninterrupted generations of brutal physical force politics; to end up Munster and Ireland's most culturally and politically influential and militarily powerful Medieval family.

A rum bunch and mixed bag, ranging from men of high culture, Lord Justices and Chief Treasurers  dispensing judicious and stately wisdom that maintained the cultural peace and socially prosperous harmony, to nephew, uncle, and cousin-killing nihilists and victims wracked on the tide of their own ego, greed, hate, history, hubris, humanity, love, religion, and the whims of a wicked Queen whose own hired muscle hunted down and exterminated the final tragic, Gerald FitzGerald, the 15th Earl of Desmond.

Whose decapitated head was sent and spiked on London Bridge, his half a million Munster acres were escheated, and planted with, among others, the poet Edmund Spenser. Who wrote the epic verse which birthed modern English poetry, The Faerie Queene, in one of Desmond's castles at Kilcolmon. That he had bagged for himself as Secretary to Lord Grey's mission, and near silent witness to the extermination of this line by the understated two word 'rough work' Spenser recorded his fellow man of letters and mercenary, Walter Raleigh, eagerly set about during the Smerwick Massacre, that signaled the ignoble tragic turning point of the doomed Second Desmond Rebellion.

But back to water. Poet Gerald the third earl's son and successor, John Fitzgerald, the fourth earl, lasted only a year before drowning, according to the rolls, in Bel-atha-an-droiched, a place google gives no return for.

A 2000 year language, lost. Yet the ancient poetic knowledge and Coimgne, there still, on the pages time forgot, in black and white for all and any to possess who are interested and have the focus, thirst, grit and grá to will the words in letters struck lying scattered surely reanimated back to eternal life upon the modern electronic page.

Gofraidh Fionn Ó Dálaigh, died in 1387. He also experienced the heavy weight of profound spiritual tragedy; losing his own son, and writing a poem expressing inconsolable bereavement for his child, which appears in the seminal introductory lecture forwarding the book from which the Desmond praise poem also is taken. Irish Bardic Poetry: Texts And Translations.

First published in 1970, and with 66 poems residing between the pages.

The verses below make up the middle section of this long praise poem. The portion of it buttering up Edward III, in which the eminently educated courtly poet, Ó Dálaigh, likens Maurice Jr. to Lugh, the Tuatha Dé Danann god who was the son of Tuatha Dé Dannan father Cian and Formorian mother Ethniu (Enya)-; daughter of Balor; a pirate-raider whose stronghold was Tory island off the coast of Donegal, and who kept her locked in a tower after a druidic prophecy that he would die at the hands of his grandson.

Needless to say a long tale of his birth involving shenanigans with a stolen cow and Cian disguised and helped by the female druid Birog, dressed as a women, tricked his way in to the tower and got jiggy with Enya, who had seen no man except the one in her dreams, who was Cian, naturally, this being a completely mythical tale.

And when she gave birth, to triplets, Balor ordered they be slung in the sea, but Lugh was saved by druidess Birog and given to Manannan mac Lir, who passed him on to be reared by his foster mother Tailtiu, final queen of the Fir Bolg, a Connacht based outfit of gods and goddesses. And when it was time for him to become the star, as was written in his "dán", another name for Art and poetry, which carries a much deeper connotational valency, with a core meaning of "fate"; Lugh went to Tara, at Samhain.

Where he is turned away, as the door is closed for the night, and cannot be opened till daylight.

The doorkeeper says he can't come in, as they have "a man of your art" in there. But undeterred Lugh reels off a list of what he can do, the various arts, crafts and and skills he has. Still no dice. Until he asks, if any of the Tuatha De Dannan flock inside the walls of Tara, possess all the arts he has claimed to have.

And with that, Lugh jumps over the walls, thus negating the need for the door to be opened.

Basically, he was not going to be turned away, as he was the best and knew it was meant to be because of his dán his poetry, his fate. Written in the stars, the same as Balor's dán/poetry/fate was that he die at the hand of his grandson.

And it was Hubris that got Balor done, coz he stole the cow from Cian, and thus the reason why Cian was on Tory island dressed as a women in the first place. So if Balor had not been so greedy and covetous, he would not have written his own fate in that way.

And this tale, The Coming Of Lugh To Tara, is precised down by Ó Dálaigh, and we read in the line:

"The like of Maurice, who exalted bards, was Lugh Longhand"

The stock trick, of likening the subject of the praise to the ancient most noble and famed Irish gods. This particular Earl was not noted for anything so deserving of such extravagant praise, and would be dead by the age of twenty-three; but that was by the by.

The job of a poet in bardic-filidh Gaelic literary culture was a universe away from what the job of a poet is today; because their Tradition was linked unbroken to the living druids, and had been around for 2000 years by the time the Tudor monarchy pro-actively rent the island and all life on it apart.

Cromwell of course, who came less than fifty years after the death of Liz 1, being the antichrist figure in Ireland. A mentally ill person who believed he was some kind of messianic instrument - as his insane scribblings prove - and thus his policy of terror, scorched earth and famine, that Cromwell believed should be, and was, visited upon the Irish, as the will of what terrible God his poor deluded brain conjured during his bouts of clinical lunacy, commanding him to slaughter the Gaelic sinners, professing spiritual fealty to Rome and speaking a language he did not understand one word of and wished to only eradicate from the face of the earth.

But this was still 250 years away, and Ó Dálaigh was a cut above the average Ard Ollamh, one of the top three to have ever practiced in the whole 1200 years bardic-filidh poets' literary tradition.

~

It was no marvel that he did good, so excellent
was his training. No marvel men envied his fortune

so great was his gaiety. A merry tale will be found
with the skillful youth; so tall and bright, elegant

and white-footed; this leader of the fair host who
excelled in understanding, comeliness and success.

Who - in short - won all the varied excellences
with the excellence of his sweetness of voice.

His prize for valour, his prize for wisdom, for beauty
or generosity, were not granted to any heir of his age.

Strength in luck, luck with success, a modest heart,
understanding to keep him, curling tresses he had

gotten. When he was injured, the sod that
chanced to be under his white foot, certified it to be

the handsome brown haired prince. The planets

declared it to his curling hair.

~

The like of Maurice, who exalted bards, was Lugh
Longhand; equally great in knowledge was this

valiant compeer equal in sway. At the age of
Maurice, the earl's son, he delivered Banbha,

when he, the mighty tree of Bladhma, defeated
the race of the Formorians. At Eamhain in the east,

Lugh the darling of Tara beheld Tara - Rampart
of Té - when he reached it after searching the whole

earth. Lugh, champion of our choice, finds the door
closed: he goes to the smooth even-surfaced wall;

he strikes the knocker. "Where have you come from"
The doorkeeper said

"O young red-cheeked man; tall, smooth, strong
and bright?"

Answered Lugh, who sought nor shirked no fight
"I am a poet from Eamhain, of the Apple trees,

of swans and yew trees."

"It is not lawful for you" said the doorkeeper,
"to come to our good house. There is a man

of your art in our stronghold, bright and ruddy one.
The House of Miodhchuairt belongs at this time

to the sons of Ethliu; we must tell of the qualities
of the fair curved house. One of the qualities of the

House of Miodhchuairt, whose borders are smooth,
is that two of one craft are not admitted, fair

and furious one. So many are the arts
of the Tuatha Dé Dannan, bestowers of cloaks,

that you must bring to them an art they do not know."

"Among my arts - conceal it not to the company
beyond the gate - is leaping on a bubble without

breaking it. Go recount that. Snámh ós éttreóir,
arrying a vat on the ridges of the elbows;

these two arts are in my power; go declare it. Ask
whether there is one of the vigorous throng

that can outrun any steed on the fair soft green,
we promise a race. What i recount is here as an

extra beyond them, and in their own arts, none
is so expert as I. I speak not in anger."

Patrick Kavanagh Celebration 2007

Upstairs in The Palace Bar - Saturday 8 September - and a mad great night of Inclusional collective affirmation, all poets from across the divide, from Paddy Finnegan to David Lordan, Galway to Cork.

Sweeney - Leinster finalist All Ireland Slam Championship 2007..

Dave Lordan - Patrick Kavanagh Winner 2005 - amazingly A1 Live.

Orla Martin - she speaks a superbly luscious language of verbal honey.

Fintan O'Higgins - filidh bardic stock. The O'Higgins dominated Irish letters in Connacht for 500 years, and he has it in his psychic dna, transmitted through the blood of his poet forebears, as much - but probably less - than his belief in the good of Poetry and the peace it can bring

Dr Jessica Peart - Maynooth English expert, brilliant work, and only been going a couple of years on the page, yet seriously gifted, in the most modern way of a highly intelligent mind - certainly in Boland territory, with in the capacity of her imagination that is simply and uniquely, herself.

On the corner of Fleet and Westmoreland Street' the spiritual home of irish writing since english took over and Irish hacks got delivering the rant and praise strangely mixed in some Yeatsean con-trick of smoke and mirror; still blent in the place English language can be suppressed to express a deeper, more human spirit, magic will happen.

And not only in the sense of the spirit of Love, but also for the capacity of taking on human sorrow, to offer as some faint hope, to oneself as others, the collective psyche of the irish poetic experience, connecting in the most terrible of beauty and such, but still, wo/manity first and the spark of wit, evident for all to see and experience.

One of the most unknown poetic lore - containing the most complete and real poetic - is the four cycles of Irish myth, the mystical knowledge therein constituting what the druids called

On Coimgne - A spiritual term, whose eytmology is unknown but which stretches back and connects to flitting shadows in the cave Plato talks of as being the poetic omphalos of all verse.

Knowledge held in trust for the common mob, by their druidic betters, the Nemed (aristoi) status of the top dog lot, intellectual mandarins in an ancient culture, probably beyond the comprehension of modern wo/manity to grasp, such was it so all encompassingly different from what goes on today.

And this knowledge was effectively contained in the four cycles of Irish myth. The Fianna cycle, Historical cycle, Mythological and Ulster cycles. A compact myth pack where all the narratives are completely domestic, with the odd brython or pict making an appearance, but essentially the islands very own system equal to, and in some cases we can argue goes beyond, the graeco-roman system on which the modern English poetic tradition founded itself 400 years ago.

An imititive act of copying; unlike the goidelic lore; still purring like a bunch of kittens, in full working order, oiled and ready to be took on and used in the bardic sense of the word, to express whatever one wishes, any whim and it can convey still, the deepest of spiritual swirl within ones most secret inner self, in any spelling yer wunt.

For there is little awareness or understanding of this 1200 year tradition of gaelic writing, which began with the proto-old Irish ogam alphabet - based on Latin glyphs - around the 3C and which ended 1300 years later.

And by ratio, it has been dead - wrong word - for but a third of the time it existed; first murdered during the cultural holocaust the Tudor monarchy pro-actively rent upon the island and all life on it. cromwell being the antichrist, the man who believed he was some kind of messianic instrument - as his insane scribblings demonstrate - and thus a policy of total scorched earth and famine - cromwell believed - should be visited upon the Irish, as the will of what terrible God his poor deluded brain conjured during his lunacy, commanding him to slaughter these gaelic sinners, speaking a language he did not understand and wished to, only destroy.

And i do not wish to sound like an embittered racist who has the mind set

"I can't speak my language coz of them britz, british b.stards..i can't speak gaelic, coz of them britz, british b.stards, blah blah blah" - But i was tossed off the Guardian books blog at the weekend, for contravening their talk lore - rightly so - for being too windy, in effect, for being a poet and for writing in a register which sought to speak of Love. Daft perhaps, but my take is that poets have a responsibility to promote Love and peace, not war.. This was after a four month full on trolling exercise that saw my word count go up to 5000 a day, and i realsied in reptrospect that that was the final ascent to Anruth - Enobling stream level in the bardic tradition.

The editor, her drippy staff and i had been dancing a pretend game of poetical mindplay, and they outed themselves as cultural facists after four months of me working there as a troll seeking to speak only to promote a love for Literacy and not the marketing and spin of commercial activity a poet must engage in aside from the act of poetry.

And thus, was I tossed off her rag, for being too windy - rightly so - for contravening the talk lore there. I had 800 pages of sheer wind come out over four months and knew i was learning something at the time, as this is a natural occurence, the white hot tide of constant language-gushing out as we ascend to the next stage of our poetic attainment.

I knew what i was doing, even if some of the spacier stuff looked odd; and i do not mean in an aggressive or threatening way, just odd. This is because i am a poet, who is quite individual in my approach, though naturally I understand why they who conform to a normal consumerist, commercial notion the collective poetic brain defines as poetic identity, do so.

Basically now, the consensus is that a poet is someone who writes stuff they call poetry, publish it in a book and do a bit of moaning in the rags now and again, about how untalented most other people writing what they call poetry, are. The odd one being nice and human, but these, unfortunately, few and far between, in the sense of them being able to be happy to talk wo/manly and choose friends from the lower orders, date a bin man or dine in a canteen for drug addicts and the homeless on a regular basis, perhaps.

And thus after four months at work, effectively learning how to become a better journalist than the pros in the guardian, at the final, when i had out-faced the hacks, i got carrried away and probably said stuff that was too satirical and upset a drip or two, the moany ones who love writing in to complain to, someone, anyone, it doesn't matter, as long as the target of their culturally facist wangst stops spieling their dream on the page because drippy aint happy wiv 'em.

But another compelling reason, was after four months a bloke called Mr Bomber, who bombed in trolling two months ago, below the line, appeared above the line, plucked from the dregs of the commentating classes, and at this point an ossification and clearing of mental mist occured, as it collectively dawned on us long termers and heavy users of that board, that ..hold on..if Mr Bomber can go above the line, so can we.

And compounding this was Jo Ridgwell - bomber - his piece was effectively the manifesto for a loose collection of his dring and drug pals, only three of whom where personal freinds, the rest a rag bag sort of dissaffected writers unhappy at the no-chance they stood with normal publishing routes, and the manifesto for these writers, poets etc, was "F.ck You" I kid ye not.

And i ended up setting up a lit site and a few of the grandie mob came on board, which the ed did not like, stealing her thralls and getting them thinking of not being a muppet for others all the time.

And so i was cast out, banished, ComBod snipped me, and yet i managed to return under a different guise and posted within the limits, on an irish thread that turned into the usual book list; which - after 200 deposits - had no mention of this gaelic bardic past, the 1200 and more years of the native island language, on which the 200 years of english is thus spake.

For some reason ComBod lost the plot and totally excised any and all trace of my writing, leaving mesages of "deleted by ComMod as this poster mentions one who is no longer here", and several other bits of text that made it clear his head was completely done in and he was taking it very personal; acting like a wronged wo/man cutting up their ex-lovers clothes, scrubbing all trace of a chavvy oink who dared view this gaelic past.

Who had the cheek to point out that there was not one reference to the gaelic bardic culture, and sought to remedy it with a few lines from one of the most highly respected poets in the 1200 year tradition. Three times longer than the English poetic tradition and based - not on an imititive graeco-roman metrical lore - but a native one.

So, as i say an all, forgive me for bringing certain psychic baggage and sense of injustices to this forum, but it is within the broad scope of what i wish to address here today..

The literal meaning of On Coimgne, is elusive and not fully known, lost in the primordial spume of the oral tradition on the island where memory is queen, and the poets from this tradition, we can pretend to believe its trace is distilled into us at our conception.

The aul irish cod of it being our collective psychic dna, a way of out-facing the charge of being racist about poets from different cultures; though the truth is this island is one of the few places in the world who could get away with such a claim; or rather, the rest of the world will go along with our cod of being natural born poets.

A perfect piece of linguistic avoidance, of not getting bogged down in the contemporary PC side-show of shout and counter shout by thought cops and mind sheriffs seeking out potential wrong-thinkers, patrolling and bossing about in the madness of a divisive western culture based on the - essentially roman - Penal concept of a binary understanding; where the shades and grey subtleties of existential reality are ignored in favour of opting into a mediatised hygenic fiction that this is good that is bad, and even when one is believing they are doing things impulsed for and by love, as in the Love poet; some nasty troll chancers will try to point out why you are actually the devil for saying the most innocuous and harmless of utterances.

And thus the druids held the knowledge in trust for the people, this On Coimgne, and in reality, it meant learning the four cycles off by heart and the various meters that sprung up and were invented over the course of the tradition, and there is an old quote that has come down to us, believed to be of druidic origin, as it is used in conjuction with this slippery, grey, almost invisible On Coimgne word none can say for sure they know what it means.

S"he is no poet who does not synchronize and harmonize all the ancient knowledge."

And so poets from the island, the descendants of this mythic bunch of mad-heads, can learn from this neglected myth system, what knowledge the druids and fili held in the oral tradition, or at least attempt to learn of the On Coimgne, the four cycles. For as the saying goes that

S"he is no poet who does not synchronize and harmonize all the ancient knowledge." The On Coimgne effectively, the four myths. And whilst i wouldn't hold this as a truism or a must for the irish poet, what a larf it would be if someone actually did try to work, or rather, engage with the world as a poet on this one base premise?

And at this point, i have to admit i am addicted to irish myth, and the more i study the easier it gets to talk of poetry and verse with a certain knowledge few other poets possess, even though this myth system is supremely compact compared to the sprawl of european myth; ultimately all connected, as there was no sea and thus no narural boundary or terminus where european myth could safely be said to stop.

But the gaelic myth is not like that. It is all there on the pages time forgot and should one choose to try and re-connect, or just browse through with no intention but to pass an idle five minute, it is there, purring and ready to be took on; in around six years or so, should on possess the thirst and focus to take on the full of this knowledge, contained in a voluminous four cycles.

And it was only in the sixth year of study, once one had progressed from the fifth grade of Clio - ridgepole - to Anruth, or Enobling stream, one could practice publically for material reward. A great system to talk of poetry with, as it is a one founded by druids - the ultimate poets - and evolved along soley poetic lines.

1200 years uninterupted poetic culture, name me one poet from it Dave?

Exactly, mad and proof that the purest source of poetry, containing the most answers - or certainly as productive as any other - few poets practicing today are even aware of; preffering instead to make up and cobble their own from a mix and match of various cultures poetics.

But one can liken this collective ignorance to the metaphor of silence we need for true gravitas. For the really important things in life aren't "tidy yer bedroom", but the murdering of people and the killers to be the state. The cop in the street who kills ones brother, father, mother, sister, whoever, with everyone knowing and unable to do nada, whaddya say dave? Exactly, the worse the crime perpetrated by the state, the bigger the silence as the truth is supressed by the idiots who haven't copped on that life is much more civilised and enjoyable in the long run when people are straight with one another instead of seeking to be great all the time, to possess the arogance of a Great briton. And indeed it is only because they have stuff to hide, dishonest intent wrapped up in a christian ethos, as bush and blair did in Iraq ..that it's actually all your fault dave..the middle east..

But i digress, the fili/poet had to take on the full of it, and the whole thread, the entire history is there and can be read, understood, the lineage and pedigree, all there in black and white, with no missing portions, no centuries unaccounted for; right back to the ogam; invented by and used for 150-200 years during the time the druidic culture was crossing over to christianity and they devised a system of writing with an orthography all their own, based on the latin alphabet.

The annals state goidelic to be a mixed combination of the three best areas of langugae in greek, hebrew and another one which slips my mind. Clear and total myth, but this particular tale is very thorough and worthy of further inspection..but not now dave..not now..later, after we've got to know each other a bit better..

The detailed myth for its invention involving 72 scribes who were sent round recording the various langugaes that came to be after the tower at Babel collapsed and speech fragmented.

And so, what of the poet who has the dream, of being the poet according to the above quote? Indeed if followed to the letter this quote would exclude every poet who did not study their native myth.

But for the perfectionsist of verse, the prize one can plan to acquire in a pretty empty field where all other irish competitors are connected more to the graeco roman mythos, is ones very own universe, become as influential as Cromwell, but for Love dave, love...

And it is only now the bones of it have ossified in my mind, in my sixth year of full time 14 hour a day study, i know how to use it; as once one has their own personal myth kitty, one can say owt thee wunt, effectively, when we learn how to initial and upper the case of i and strike the most important glyph:

I

you is the writer.

But i suppose what i've learnt is that we all need a myth system, be it self created using 50's American cartoon lore or the four cycles. I prefer the cycles and after six years have took the skeleton of it on board; though it do be very daunting when my eyes first apprehended the ogam, and various names in the mythos.

Indeed, it excludes all but the highest of poetical minds and is a year - two really - before you even find you feet, such is the strangeness when first met, reconnection to a forgotten and criminally ignored tradition, that does hold answers for all poets, should they chose to gamble on finding poetic answers there.

Welcome to my gulag dave..Let me be your reader, please, all welcome.., the real irish bard..a plastic shaman, a pretend mick, an English git, british..b.stard, i can speak my language coz of the british gits, i hate me..just get chatting..everyone's bleeding resigning anyway. Ditch this board and come wiv me..

Rule no 1 - post something back, even if it's just one word.

Thank you very much, Love..peace go slag them hacks off

http://literaturelover.createforum.net/literaturelover.html

"..the believer is no longer under the dominion and control of law, but under the dominion and controlling influence of grace. The believer has left the kingdom of spiritual fear for a kingdom of spiritual freedom. Saying that is enough to start a revolution!"

Stephen Davey

Hail the main bore!!

Greetings Literature lovers. Welcome to my gulag.

And for all my fellow competing colleagues who hate and wish a holocaust upon me, i apoligise for being rubbish in print, please go here. I hacked into the Pentagon slush fund account for some CIA work - deniable op fund. Just type in yer bank account number and 50,000 dollars gets transferred straight away, no questions asked, completely deniable to the crooks who put it there in the first place, coz it don't exist see, except in my universal ...blah blah tada yaah..

For your eye is apprehending - as one speaks -

www. irishpoetry.blogspot.com

I decree that all who like to read and talk of it in print, please feel free to c'mon and be as windy or silent as yer wunt, at the one all islands' talk-shop spoken of by such eminent verse experts and supremely self-important personages as Schmidt in the London Times, Ricks in the Telegraph, Carol Anne Duffy and Sharon Oldes in Hello, Roberto Potts in Guardian and Dan Gioa in Washington; as the most troll free of places with the most loving chat, and nea a ComBoddie about to be the drippy wan git stopping the flow, the natural Irish way of languid conversation, on books and writing.

Be you purely a reader or Stephen King, it makes no odds in the cyberspace nation of a million welcoming eyes; they who Love in the shack of pure Literacy an all, being contemporary; poetry apprehended and nea a man bag in sight with which to dip in and pull out a pen in order to record its happening, just the full on in yer face'ness of it, a nation of windbags, not listening, nea no never no more, but waiting for us to shut up so they can butt in..tell of its passing by them an all..fievin my dream..so c'mon in and be yerself Dear reader.

Being a new dictatorship based on Inclusion and nea fear - and thus silence - but true Free speech, on any and all news. Indeed the reason the press got hold of this site is because we broke the news about Brown, being in Iraq and all wiv george and that, and have writers posting from Guantanemo and Berlin. Putin's PA is secretly talking to me, of the next scoop, during medication time an all

http://literaturelover.createforum.net/literaturelover.html

Olé

Certainly we star, and when our trajectory and kink is traced,
when the heat of ones current and career-currency is such
as it is when entering the second mythosic phase, all prophets -
true dub souljahs - have when seriously messing about with
ancient myth kitties and such. we will be recorded on black
onyx, the plinth of all cognomen cased upper, nea lower like
some meff of verse kiddas..c'mon, nea never no more, all true
bores sing wiv me now, O let me be your reader, Ahern, ebda
blerté..olé, olé olé olé, get lost bog witchery broomstick breath,
nea the sidhe moves in phantasmagoria and shade, le market
purr as lé singer Sadé does dans le grandé..ta ta laaah..chime
on souljah dub prophet of the straight bowled knowledge from Tír na Og...

For the geasa tuten-kah-moon and the crazee gang, did not remember - the curse of a certain protaganist in a tale being outed, the story becoming spoken by printed voice alone, doing the work of projecting narrative an all..- what can it be but pure instinct..i love it when a plan comes together in the morning, napalm wounded window slats tap an acorn crop, black oil shines beyond a raven blue, look..phwoar..eye the silver fox, see the staggering stumbling wan heavily drinking;

and yet all thread of momento move there, tracing to him and the dodge in a perfect environment for which to practice ones drinking wiv a certain je nous say wha..found in dub only, the right to be a different shape, whatever bleeding colour one so desires, no racism when all the race is but a mass of spacers fighting in empty armchairs and all..best when dreaming, for whatever it is, that 1200 year connection, that edifice of gaelic letters, needs a fully certed lore wo/man, it is i who struck the glyph

I

you are moi amouré..leader..let me lay down rules in rann; i am not here in anger, i speak as a concerned bore, nosey and a bit lonely, wanting just to be the star, at any cost, any sacrifice and any betrayal, here at hq - imagination - a joke the buzz it is, a trail of ghosts, crossing over, c'mon in, please all speak and be..