We are all stars, but some of us are gazing in the gutter - ha ha ha.
Are we not clever dearest fops, in a fallen age of awfully logical angelic buttercups praying to a yellow cob of sun - ho ho ho: aren't we so dainty with our hair so flopped and fingernails manicured to mirror the transulence of rain in a verbal storm of moi moi moi - ha ha ha ha.
oh ! Oscar, darling, Lord Sloames is driving to Hyde Park in his hanson, would you like a lift?
I always find being transported in tradesperson's carriages, rather distatestful - it's like asking one's butcher for advice on interior furnishings.
ho ho ha, yes my dear boy, but have you not heard, asking one's butcher for advice on interior decor, is not unlike drinking champagne with one's footman - perfectly acceptable as long as one of you know where the sausages go.
ho ho ha, but Bunty dearest chum, knowing where the footman's sausage goes, is not unlike inquiring of a harlot at St Pauls cathedral, supremely tasteless unless the vicar's an actress and everything's onstage at the Clarion and the audience is occupied with the pieties of the common fawns, alright for holidays in Brixham, but not for bollockings of cocksmen - ha ha ha ha ha - and then, after turning into a politically correct puff - of air - ha ha ha - so wickedly, we should be strung up by the new artists of the post-millenium age.
Oh really Oscar my darling, and why so, pray tell?
Well, because have you not heard, everything's absurdly amusing as long as we stick to a script in which one affects the ticks and tricks of aristocratic micks.
You can't say mick, only that the sausages are thick - ha ha ha - Oscar you nob, deserving to tread that mill for all the teen rents you despoiled, and your memory can rot in that tent square peg for all we care, coz we are sick - sick of the spank-mags, mogs and boons, the wolly nogs and fools who say we've to hide our real thoughts on you bleddy bog trotting mockers of the one true grace, behind a consumate laureate bending in the breeze.
PL
God save the Queen
bumhole
Larkin abaaahhhhht..
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Friday, March 20, 2009
Live Poetry
This is a recording of me (Desmond Swords) made in Damar Hall, July 2006, when I was part of that years Poetry Ireland Introductions Series, an annual scheme in which emerging poets are given an opportunity to workshop and read their poetry under the aegis of Poetry Ireland.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Left - Right - Musical Prose
A traveller on the love-bus, fresh and high from reading Kristeva, Perloff and A Wild Salience by Rae Armantrout, told me of a theory which came in a dream when listening one day to the invisible stars above, calling them to account and make up the map of what becomes of love when roses fade and birds migrate beyond a realm of meaning, subverted, staid and losing faith in the pleasure of abandoning reason.
They said there is a musicality within we are born to hear and perform, pre-programmed in our pineal gland, where resides what Descartes identified as the Seat of the Soul that melatonin discharges and can be found in Eavan Boland's New Collected Poems.
Consciousness, the colleague stated, is where a universal metrical template forms, forged by vibrations, karma and emanations which surround us as we gestate within the womb, mirroring the process and progress we all experience prior to our birth as blooms born to wither in a brief flash of eternal light, before being snapped back into the vacuum of pre-existence.
Life, the colleague conveyed as we sat drinking coffee in an anonymous Victorian square, much like any other anonymous Victorian square, and through which a body of free flowing physical traffic tarried hither and tither in pale weak light of the overcast March evening - acting as a liquid signifier of the human lexicon contextualising what was being said at that moment, several hours since -- is spoken of at length in the celestial sonancy our listening for a cosmic voice can wrought.
The first observance of what's occuring in a piece of verse, is a pre-verbal tweet of what idea, afloat on an opaque signifier; alert and unspeaking of what lifts beneath waking the voice within, beginning in silence, surprises us.
They said there is a musicality within we are born to hear and perform, pre-programmed in our pineal gland, where resides what Descartes identified as the Seat of the Soul that melatonin discharges and can be found in Eavan Boland's New Collected Poems.
Consciousness, the colleague stated, is where a universal metrical template forms, forged by vibrations, karma and emanations which surround us as we gestate within the womb, mirroring the process and progress we all experience prior to our birth as blooms born to wither in a brief flash of eternal light, before being snapped back into the vacuum of pre-existence.
Life, the colleague conveyed as we sat drinking coffee in an anonymous Victorian square, much like any other anonymous Victorian square, and through which a body of free flowing physical traffic tarried hither and tither in pale weak light of the overcast March evening - acting as a liquid signifier of the human lexicon contextualising what was being said at that moment, several hours since -- is spoken of at length in the celestial sonancy our listening for a cosmic voice can wrought.
The first observance of what's occuring in a piece of verse, is a pre-verbal tweet of what idea, afloat on an opaque signifier; alert and unspeaking of what lifts beneath waking the voice within, beginning in silence, surprises us.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Pythagoras.
A supernatural sky sheathing stone
beneath time gods grant
within those of grace
embeds a sign in the spiritual
language of spoken love
and the electrical expressway
of an obedient divinity, to become
inspired and find the Muse
who knew wisdom hidden
from mortals, comes by divination,
water moving
cold and fast.
At the beginning
the home exact
the epithet illegible
Zenophan said you stopped
the whipping of a puppy
because you recognised the soul
of a friend in metempsychosis
is not a self-proclaimed wise man
but one who pursues wisdom
through friendship. A philosopher
with knowledge of Egyptian
Chaldean and Magi secrets
your constitution in the city
of Sybaris, taught the immortal
mystery and understood souls
return continuously
until harmonious peace is all
they construct. That art won number
is the universal law and unity
the law of God.
~
Hidden and heard, still between
a tick tocking eye unfurled
outside our ken
each blade, leaf, stalk, stem
and endless ratio pours into being
your template mirror subdued
in cerelium render of the Temple Bar
palm trees one instrument creates
and calibrates, to air in a square
reality marking time back and forth
parading people between
ornate hand-painted pale greens
and aqua-marines in the spectrum
of Cafe Bearg, pizza and ice cream,
hot dogs and coffee on southern quays,
where your world turns between gods
and the good, as a primal source mind
of existence in stock bill hand flyers
and sign-standing arrows that lick
flourescent light on black backings
painted on faces pointing to fortune
tellers and watchers in Crown Alley.
Your spiritual proof, home of the five
white beech in pale gold leaf, branches
ranging 30 feet, their boles
in cylindrical bar sheaths,
is the current of musicality in language
defining speech, something textured
with sumptuous heart - a warm book,
curling by the fire, the look of night
becomingly long, automatically warning
in the reach above a trickle of tourists,
rent boys and scangers scaveging
a Santa Claus cap wilting flaccid
on the head of an accordian player
asking, perhaps - for change,
for a hostel - utterly ignored
by his cilentelle wishing him away
comfortable with dog eared blankets,
and pressed between the leaves,
a happy ending
beneath time gods grant
within those of grace
embeds a sign in the spiritual
language of spoken love
and the electrical expressway
of an obedient divinity, to become
inspired and find the Muse
who knew wisdom hidden
from mortals, comes by divination,
water moving
cold and fast.
At the beginning
the home exact
the epithet illegible
Zenophan said you stopped
the whipping of a puppy
because you recognised the soul
of a friend in metempsychosis
is not a self-proclaimed wise man
but one who pursues wisdom
through friendship. A philosopher
with knowledge of Egyptian
Chaldean and Magi secrets
your constitution in the city
of Sybaris, taught the immortal
mystery and understood souls
return continuously
until harmonious peace is all
they construct. That art won number
is the universal law and unity
the law of God.
~
Hidden and heard, still between
a tick tocking eye unfurled
outside our ken
each blade, leaf, stalk, stem
and endless ratio pours into being
your template mirror subdued
in cerelium render of the Temple Bar
palm trees one instrument creates
and calibrates, to air in a square
reality marking time back and forth
parading people between
ornate hand-painted pale greens
and aqua-marines in the spectrum
of Cafe Bearg, pizza and ice cream,
hot dogs and coffee on southern quays,
where your world turns between gods
and the good, as a primal source mind
of existence in stock bill hand flyers
and sign-standing arrows that lick
flourescent light on black backings
painted on faces pointing to fortune
tellers and watchers in Crown Alley.
Your spiritual proof, home of the five
white beech in pale gold leaf, branches
ranging 30 feet, their boles
in cylindrical bar sheaths,
is the current of musicality in language
defining speech, something textured
with sumptuous heart - a warm book,
curling by the fire, the look of night
becomingly long, automatically warning
in the reach above a trickle of tourists,
rent boys and scangers scaveging
a Santa Claus cap wilting flaccid
on the head of an accordian player
asking, perhaps - for change,
for a hostel - utterly ignored
by his cilentelle wishing him away
comfortable with dog eared blankets,
and pressed between the leaves,
a happy ending
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
This date got me thinking of identity. The base datum made when rooting first our mind into place and culture. The signs we follow and/or connected with, which guide us along life's path.
Childhood would appear the most logical time for this to happen. When we consciously decide what to buy into. The base line Datum we take our bearing and measurement of self from. The one we trace back to and start from again if we decide to try a new track.
~
The Englishness i grew up in, was a one which defined itself in opposition to the notion of southern Englishness: a northern one. In this model, total Englishness was a duality I did not ultimately connect with, because my parents, like Morrissey's, are not English.
~
This is why we were unable to connect, because our home life meant it could never be. Most children reared in the Irish culture in England, have this confusion in their mind to various degrees. How can we connect to a place whose imperial past so colours our perception of what Englishness is?
England had a lot of colonies and some who come to England through this link, may have a fundamental beef with Englishness as a cultural force for good in their lives, depending on what vibe of Englishness was doing the rounds in their home nation. Often they have come from a place with a history of English subjagation.
~
It always seemed to me that the bottom line of being English, was being happy about being a subject of another person. I know that technically the english are not subjects but citizens; and it seems the contract between individual and nation went through a lot of change since the sixties, when everyone began wising up to the reality that English life as a citizen was preferable to being a Subject. improved Education made people see the truth, and improved standards of living -- whilst the technology boom meant the rituals, magic and theatre from a non-technological past stopped happening, once people got free of being the playthings of monarchy.
~
Some think we are the playthings of politicians and global business. Daddy's boy george the second, whose idea - some say - was to expand his familial business interests by becoming the pres. Tony on the fag end of his seventies sixties trip, sincerity slipping beneath the accumulation of cock ups. Plus his datum had a rock-star-messiah complex going on, but unlike the real thing, he had only the costume of political office in which to perform. Suits at all time.
He couldn't slip on a pair of wraparounds and slip into the oval office for a chat about third world debt like his template - Good.
~
This is what Morrissey could be doing if he returned home to his culture, instead of throwing gladioli about the stage his dream built, swapping faxes with Alan Bennet when he lived in the UK. Before he re-located to Los Angeles and became a hispanic icon in a bewildering twist upon his path. His innate quality of being to effortlessly astound all who follow his doings.
~
Rupert Murdoch has a gas with the lads about how to keep the billions happy. If Morrissey's on page seven, ten, ignored - and what news to broadcast.
~
Morrissey's looking good on being a vegan. I saw him on on a TV chat show and it was clear his years had been well chosen. Maybe he could join me and you in our garden of Eden dearest?
Stephen felt excluded from the fun and games in Hulme. Spent all day dreaming of being himself, alone in his bedroom, one poster on the wall. Johnny Rotten - God Save the Queen and a facist regime Sid felt a part of before overdosing in the centre of his and Nancy's whirlwind. Died like her majesty's mother, an icon of englishness.
~
Sid James and Barbara Windsor.
~
Plurailty of tongue - come, speak of england and sound what is heard in anima mundi. Mint the noise of imperial coinage, pull from the purse, pocket and cauldron the spirit you control cover or stir. Spend it abroad with us.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Yesterday and today, when cycling up Dame Street to Lord Edward Street, I saw an elderly man I used to live in the next room to, when I was a resident at the Iveagh Hostel on Bride Street, pictured above. He is a schizophrenic with cancer, and has deteriorated significantly since I saw him last. He doesn't look like he has long left.
He is one of those people who we know to see but have never spoken to. Like in any town, some people we have known by sight from childhood, but never a word passed between us. Strange, and yet, entirely human. A common experience.
I lived at the Iveagh from July 2004 to December 2005. It provides direct access accommodation in single rooms for 70 single homeless men with low support needs and there are 125 single rooms providing long term accommodation.
I moved there in July 2004 a newly (2:1) Writing Studies and Drama graduate, right after finishing university in England, living in a small room in the basement for the first six months, where the 70 short-term homeless men are housed; and then on the first-floor for a year, in the room next door to where the man I saw on Dame Street yesterday has been living for many years. And as a lot of the other long-term residents there also have. Some have been living in their ten-by-six rooms for forty years. And happy to call it home.
I moved there with the practical and romantic notion that I would test myself as a trainee three-year old barely between bardic grade-one Focloc and two MacFurimid ('son of composition') student-poet in Dublin, whilst living with society's poorest, of which I was one. It was a practical solution to my then homeless situation. As though I eventually got educated, I was for extended periods in my twenties prior to getting educated, in a series of similar hostels and in the same boat as all the men living week to week in the Iveagh, who I lived with for the first 18 months of being in Dublin.
I moved out after Brian, an alcoholic in his fifties, on one to three bottles of Jameson a week, discovered he had inoperable secondary cancers throughout his body. Brian was a really kind man, who everyone liked because of his openly honest nature, and at this point, I instinctively knew it was time to move out and look forward with my dream, that decanted a kilometer away to a self-contained studio-room on the first floor in a Victorian terrace off the South Circular at Donore Avenue.
Long term the Iveagh hostel is not an ideal venue for inculcating healthy eating habits. And with minimal cooking facilities making your own food is the exception. If I am honest, I am too much of an emotional coward, and though my moving out had been slowly on the back-burner to-do list for some weeks, I was spurred to move out the second of those final few weeks with him facing a swift and sudden end.
I was too spiritually weak and afraid and had no intention of witnessing someone i shared alcoholic tendencies with pass on in such a sorrowfully tragic 'private matter' before my inexperienced eyes. My emotionally privileged existence, being a happy reader and doggerelist in the life-long swim to Segais Well, I knew couldn't handle well -what proved to be- the month-long terminal decline and his death within weeks of being diagnosed after going to a doctor with excruciating headaches.
Before this however, the Iveagh offered a perfect balance to my writing. The writing kept me sane and the homelessness helped me keep a balanced perspective after arriving at the height -and through the final four years- of a mass cultural delusion and toxically tragi-comic social ostentation and default crassly nouveau riche Celtic Tiger affections - when sporting in the then new literary form of pseudo-critical spontaneous online trolling/freedom fighting in the battle of Ideas and on inherently unstable and shifting speculative sands of the discourse with poets at various literary-topic talk-sites I stumbled across and began writing and publishing linguistically innovative conversational doggerel at straight after arriving in Dublin and becoming a resident in the Iveagh homeless hostel.
~
When a well known poet dies, there is a brief outpouring of condolence, but not for the homeless men in the Iveagh.
The poem below was occasioned with this man as the human agent propulsing to life the fictional Sweeney of the title. And on this day of all days I think it appropriate to remember the forgotten men like the one I saw yesterday.
A Stray
Sweeney spat flakes of monologue
to an invisible foe in room 108
before he took the plunge.
A flyer of thought
who'd lick round corners like a knife wind
sweep up shined steps
and cyclone through swinging doors
of the red-brick kip called home,
trailing an underbelly-aura of tramp-glamour
through the smell of pine-fresh floor-polish
lining corridors like the yellow smoke
of Eliot's Prufrock.
He'd wake to reality's nightmare
cursing in a feral wheeze or grunt
and shout about
"cunts....bastards....lazy wankers dying of cancer"
then bang a wall with his fist
and start the day dissolved in tears.
He never socialised
or idled with others
just the one time of a long chat with himself
in the communal area, before Oisin complained
to a warden, who shut him up,
stuffed him back in his dressing room
where he worked on the final scene.
A plasterboard box left whistling
as he stepped onstage at the shelter
deep acting
at 8 12 and 4,
dressed in a drab bundle of grey rags
clutching a mug
with a look to no one
and none to him.
What demonic cause sucked his life
away behind the eyes
and forced his lips to pucker gumward;
curdle twisted words in his mouth
and draw sweat onto the one shirt
he ever wore and never took off?
Years of liquid cosh and ECT
beat and drained Sweeney's blood-bound scrap with life
nuked his mind and buckled his passion
on an anvil of despair
razed thought to a desert, where a phantom's whisp
baked his nut to the brain-scrambled recipe
a frazzled garda scraped from the pavement
and time struck from the memories of residents -
this spirit passing to assemble at the House of Donn.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Arghhhh!!!!! mmmmnn... yummmy yummy yummy.. lurrvve, darlink darlink darlink,
squiffy super dooper... oh my god oh my god oh my god !! arghhhh
.. gimmie gimmie gimmie -- let me touch, let me touch, let me touch, let me touch - the hair, hair, hair, so so fantastically blowy blowy blowy...arghhh, arghhhh....ummmm, yah yah
come, come, come, need me need me need me. arghhh!!
yes, yes, yes -- want want want want - need need need...arghh!!!
oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.. arghhhhh!!!
..die, die, die dying darling darling
let me love you one more time, upright darlink be mine tonight
Mandy motion one more time
darling, darling, ummm mandzie
mandzie wimby womby bemby wemby
noh ! noh ! noh ! arrghhh !!!!
wickle mamby
darlink you poor thing, come mandz
let mwee make it becker wiv a wuvly wickle floral print
checklist --- hair, teeth, hotpants, esturay mahnday
dahrlink gonna gwiv yoo a B, B, E and moors of mockle main,
any day noo mah gwin yiz
twickle madnzie, twixle yiz iz soo intellectual that yiz iz
gonna git made into a star mandzie, darlink,
wiv a nickle tatterz caterpillar dwess,
ummm..
squiffy super dooper... oh my god oh my god oh my god !! arghhhh
.. gimmie gimmie gimmie -- let me touch, let me touch, let me touch, let me touch - the hair, hair, hair, so so fantastically blowy blowy blowy...arghhh, arghhhh....ummmm, yah yah
come, come, come, need me need me need me. arghhh!!
yes, yes, yes -- want want want want - need need need...arghh!!!
oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.. arghhhhh!!!
..die, die, die dying darling darling
let me love you one more time, upright darlink be mine tonight
Mandy motion one more time
darling, darling, ummm mandzie
mandzie wimby womby bemby wemby
noh ! noh ! noh ! arrghhh !!!!
wickle mamby
darlink you poor thing, come mandz
let mwee make it becker wiv a wuvly wickle floral print
checklist --- hair, teeth, hotpants, esturay mahnday
dahrlink gonna gwiv yoo a B, B, E and moors of mockle main,
any day noo mah gwin yiz
twickle madnzie, twixle yiz iz soo intellectual that yiz iz
gonna git made into a star mandzie, darlink,
wiv a nickle tatterz caterpillar dwess,
ummm..
Monday, December 15, 2008
I cannot go on anymore living the lie so, hello.
Ireland 3 - Sweeden 0
1 Mar 2006 ... Steve Staunton the saviour of Irish soccer, starts his reign in charge of the Republic with an impressive victory in a Wednesday night friendly in Dublin's Lansdowne Road.
~
What you are reading, is Seamus Kennelly and Brendan Heaney making believe, you too can dream of being the one who flies under night heron wings, blushing above memories and cemetries holding the fuse of they who came before and make us the people we've become.
Of course, I no longer know if this blog is a good idea. I have no readers, there is no chance, it seems, of a poetry editor snapping up and selling my work, so it is not as the worlds number one writer I must dabble, but as a bundle of breathe and brilliance from the outer making the inner real. The gods without are the cause, but the location is within this skin and bone container claiming:
Self and Imagination
war and peace colliding in a fictional realm of grace
sheer gliding linguistic citizen, invisible the crown
hidden within literacy, an owner, community, calm
verbal pathway belief leads you to - ruby lip lover
unseen juganaut of faith - dreams and freedom
bouyancy saviour v Ireland, happening printed
by inner sidhe, and the vacuum a language sailor
in shadow and shade, tree like in peaceful wooden
scenes, twig witchery bog breath druidical spacer
breathes. Magi gathering beneath stadium eaves
a night the saviour appeared in a friendly. Passion
play, coyote like shyness, the diametrical opposition
in essential flux, perfect harmony of itself, yourself;
friendly being and true native spirit - fair play, phwo-
of 40 thousand witnesses coopered to it, the love...
Next game, was a 0 - 1 drubbing in May at home by poorer Czech opposition, and in the stadium, the saviour's golden one-game honeymoon, ended in bitter recriminations, in what became an unceasing wave after wave of woe for the spirit of soccer on the island.
And when the man appeared pitchside, and not making it happen by a sheer belief alone, many fans lost belief that one game had given. It was a fluke, some said, the team played so well that first frozen March spring evening, dark and bitter, but still, the unexpected result. One voice roaring, home.
The on pitch action, spoke far far louder than the saviour getting it wrong.
The greek strain in the tragedy, appeared in the next match, Hera and her locks of woe in a three tri con of pure belief the saviour was before the fall. The consensus in the stadium was, the saviour was shown up for a chancer; and prophetic doom voiced in the Sun and stars on which the fans affirmed, gave rise to the belief that it had all been a cosmic jape, at their expense, and thus: none were happy.
Slowly, the underperforming saviour became subject to a vicious campaign of bile and brutal satire, some claiming of which, he was deserving, and the professional soccer pundits, jihadic hacks and windbags practicing their dark journalism, exhaled their crushed longings and hope on this man of tender years, in a relentless torrent of begrudgery and brooha.
Thus a failed saviour, he had to be, and the talk turned to ..hey, get real and sack the turnip breathing thick git, before michael barrymore nicks his job...
However, in the hour of need, when all was lost and the saviour had took to taking long walks to ponder his next move in the intolerable hot house of highly volatile public opnion, an even greater act of supremely divine intervention occured. The random miracle everyone knew in their most secret of selves - it is clear now - and collectively held similar pictures within the immediate and central same border or dernier or some such natural tide mark of anarchy this island has -- manifest in the exterior form of events which made reality seem but a handmaiden to the saviour's Fate.
The soccer magus and saviour from Drogheda was delivered a galactic intervention needed to rescue him from the off pitch antics that stemmed from the underperforming players who he was unable to motivate. The human man behind the saviour mask, appeared; after a comatase drunk - in clear dire straits beyond the one the saviour was facing - drew a replica firearm within the saviours personal space when he was pacing the Louth shoreline in deep professional turmoil, the night before the next game, wondering what woe was to appear on the morrow in his war with the hacks.
And what did was so bizzare, it was a miracle of sorts, because at the next press conference, on the morn before that fateful August match, after the fake gun had been pulled on our saviour by an irrate - not fan; but bewildered fellow countryman with lunatic tendancies when in drink - the saviour was very upset, but his deeper spirit not only flickered, it flamed....
He, actually - couldn't care about the personal trauma, of the imitation arm in his space being wove around by an inebriated upset person, which the saviour properly copped onto sharpo, but the grief it gave his parents and family, the press intrusion had caused...
But that night in August 0 - 4 Holland at Landsdowne Road and post 1 - 0 away in Suttgard to Germany, the saviour was doomed to a long drawn out goodbye in a war of attrition with the armies of enemies ranged against him. Alas he was slowly sacraficed, for underperforming, some say, in his role as a miracle worker with shorts, shinpads and ball.
Eight fair years, honest blooms, if you ever find us
bleeding, declare by the dead generations that give
the living their claim, the pipes are laid square, gutter
spout pointing downwards, a temple of telling tales
by the door post and stories most tender, border lying
straightlines drifting to the very terminus of an image
amazing to see, the under-line current that will affirm
the island queen of memory's annointed Her leaders,
following the straight bowled knowledge from Tír
na Og, in the name of god and of the dead generations
from which we receive an aul tradition, land of eternal
youth, a mythical place existing on pages time forgot
the singular straight line, visible in a captioned image,
lives and will prove with nought but light and air,
no roman came and smashed the altars, but the native
men and women aways here. And so the transition from druid to fili and the bardic to soccer culture, was not a renty one of heart break and pain, but joyous, some say. In the dark ages, Ireland - renowned for being the beacon of light, hope peace - for peace light and hope, is nought but belief..
A four square canon of greats the rest of the globe may shake their head in bewilderment at. GB Shaw? Heaney? Doyle? And the others?
For all our faults, to give hope to others not resident here, we must do good things; be putting hope into the world.
The globe is full of men mongering doom, but none have a right to fix the boundary of another's intellect in the quest to stop our heart beating, cuisle, so declare the right of us to a belief in oursleves and control of our destiny.
None can make us believe a book is any good but our eyes alone; and of the best irish poets ever to have practiced, and who did so in the - now forgotten - bardic culture that existed for 1200 years, Gofraidh O Dalaigh is an arch ollamh, William Carleton the son of a seanachie, so read and believe a mind crossing can place de facto dictator at number one, any it wants.
gra agus siochain.
1 Mar 2006 ... Steve Staunton the saviour of Irish soccer, starts his reign in charge of the Republic with an impressive victory in a Wednesday night friendly in Dublin's Lansdowne Road.
~
What you are reading, is Seamus Kennelly and Brendan Heaney making believe, you too can dream of being the one who flies under night heron wings, blushing above memories and cemetries holding the fuse of they who came before and make us the people we've become.
Of course, I no longer know if this blog is a good idea. I have no readers, there is no chance, it seems, of a poetry editor snapping up and selling my work, so it is not as the worlds number one writer I must dabble, but as a bundle of breathe and brilliance from the outer making the inner real. The gods without are the cause, but the location is within this skin and bone container claiming:
Self and Imagination
war and peace colliding in a fictional realm of grace
sheer gliding linguistic citizen, invisible the crown
hidden within literacy, an owner, community, calm
verbal pathway belief leads you to - ruby lip lover
unseen juganaut of faith - dreams and freedom
bouyancy saviour v Ireland, happening printed
by inner sidhe, and the vacuum a language sailor
in shadow and shade, tree like in peaceful wooden
scenes, twig witchery bog breath druidical spacer
breathes. Magi gathering beneath stadium eaves
a night the saviour appeared in a friendly. Passion
play, coyote like shyness, the diametrical opposition
in essential flux, perfect harmony of itself, yourself;
friendly being and true native spirit - fair play, phwo-
of 40 thousand witnesses coopered to it, the love...
Next game, was a 0 - 1 drubbing in May at home by poorer Czech opposition, and in the stadium, the saviour's golden one-game honeymoon, ended in bitter recriminations, in what became an unceasing wave after wave of woe for the spirit of soccer on the island.
And when the man appeared pitchside, and not making it happen by a sheer belief alone, many fans lost belief that one game had given. It was a fluke, some said, the team played so well that first frozen March spring evening, dark and bitter, but still, the unexpected result. One voice roaring, home.
The on pitch action, spoke far far louder than the saviour getting it wrong.
The greek strain in the tragedy, appeared in the next match, Hera and her locks of woe in a three tri con of pure belief the saviour was before the fall. The consensus in the stadium was, the saviour was shown up for a chancer; and prophetic doom voiced in the Sun and stars on which the fans affirmed, gave rise to the belief that it had all been a cosmic jape, at their expense, and thus: none were happy.
Slowly, the underperforming saviour became subject to a vicious campaign of bile and brutal satire, some claiming of which, he was deserving, and the professional soccer pundits, jihadic hacks and windbags practicing their dark journalism, exhaled their crushed longings and hope on this man of tender years, in a relentless torrent of begrudgery and brooha.
Thus a failed saviour, he had to be, and the talk turned to ..hey, get real and sack the turnip breathing thick git, before michael barrymore nicks his job...
However, in the hour of need, when all was lost and the saviour had took to taking long walks to ponder his next move in the intolerable hot house of highly volatile public opnion, an even greater act of supremely divine intervention occured. The random miracle everyone knew in their most secret of selves - it is clear now - and collectively held similar pictures within the immediate and central same border or dernier or some such natural tide mark of anarchy this island has -- manifest in the exterior form of events which made reality seem but a handmaiden to the saviour's Fate.
The soccer magus and saviour from Drogheda was delivered a galactic intervention needed to rescue him from the off pitch antics that stemmed from the underperforming players who he was unable to motivate. The human man behind the saviour mask, appeared; after a comatase drunk - in clear dire straits beyond the one the saviour was facing - drew a replica firearm within the saviours personal space when he was pacing the Louth shoreline in deep professional turmoil, the night before the next game, wondering what woe was to appear on the morrow in his war with the hacks.
And what did was so bizzare, it was a miracle of sorts, because at the next press conference, on the morn before that fateful August match, after the fake gun had been pulled on our saviour by an irrate - not fan; but bewildered fellow countryman with lunatic tendancies when in drink - the saviour was very upset, but his deeper spirit not only flickered, it flamed....
He, actually - couldn't care about the personal trauma, of the imitation arm in his space being wove around by an inebriated upset person, which the saviour properly copped onto sharpo, but the grief it gave his parents and family, the press intrusion had caused...
But that night in August 0 - 4 Holland at Landsdowne Road and post 1 - 0 away in Suttgard to Germany, the saviour was doomed to a long drawn out goodbye in a war of attrition with the armies of enemies ranged against him. Alas he was slowly sacraficed, for underperforming, some say, in his role as a miracle worker with shorts, shinpads and ball.
Eight fair years, honest blooms, if you ever find us
bleeding, declare by the dead generations that give
the living their claim, the pipes are laid square, gutter
spout pointing downwards, a temple of telling tales
by the door post and stories most tender, border lying
straightlines drifting to the very terminus of an image
amazing to see, the under-line current that will affirm
the island queen of memory's annointed Her leaders,
following the straight bowled knowledge from Tír
na Og, in the name of god and of the dead generations
from which we receive an aul tradition, land of eternal
youth, a mythical place existing on pages time forgot
the singular straight line, visible in a captioned image,
lives and will prove with nought but light and air,
no roman came and smashed the altars, but the native
men and women aways here. And so the transition from druid to fili and the bardic to soccer culture, was not a renty one of heart break and pain, but joyous, some say. In the dark ages, Ireland - renowned for being the beacon of light, hope peace - for peace light and hope, is nought but belief..
A four square canon of greats the rest of the globe may shake their head in bewilderment at. GB Shaw? Heaney? Doyle? And the others?
For all our faults, to give hope to others not resident here, we must do good things; be putting hope into the world.
The globe is full of men mongering doom, but none have a right to fix the boundary of another's intellect in the quest to stop our heart beating, cuisle, so declare the right of us to a belief in oursleves and control of our destiny.
None can make us believe a book is any good but our eyes alone; and of the best irish poets ever to have practiced, and who did so in the - now forgotten - bardic culture that existed for 1200 years, Gofraidh O Dalaigh is an arch ollamh, William Carleton the son of a seanachie, so read and believe a mind crossing can place de facto dictator at number one, any it wants.
gra agus siochain.
Friday, November 07, 2008
Baraka
Hallelujah, wow ! wow !
Hallelujah, Wow ! Wow !
. everthing goan be different after we die
we aint goan be hungry, aint goan be pain
aint goan be sufferin, won't go through this again
after we die.
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, wow ! wow !
This is a circa 1978 recording of Amiri Baraka reciting Dope.
Born in Newark New Jersey in 1934, 74 year old Baraka was the Poet of the Black power movement and one time Greenwich Village beat poet whose slave name was Lee Roi Jones, but which he changed upon becoming radicalised after Malcom X's assassination. When Baraka was New Jersey poet laureate in 2001, he caused a storm of outrage with his poem Somebody Blew Up America - written within a month of 9/11.
~
I first heard Dope in the final year of university when Robert Sheppard, the linguistically innovative poet who instigated and runs the writing degree at Edge Hill University in my home town, which i stumbled onto by accident, almost - brought in a set of recordings for us to listen to during the final semster of six, of a wholly Modern American Poetry course spanning three yrs.
One Friday afternoon in the NW of England, in a non-descript classroom with the seven or so on the final poetry module -- only three of whom had elected to be there by their own volition (Robert having to shang-hai three out of the heavily oversubscribed Short Story class on the first day in order to legally carry on) - we listened to the series of poems Sheppard had brought, two of which were by Baraka.
The first poem I heard Baraka read, was Black Dada Nihilismus from 1964, which i thought sounded like an inarticulate racist, and then Dope (link leads to download) - from his Revolutionary Marxist period during the Carter administration, and which i thought was as viscerally powerful and gripping to listen to, as Black Dada Nihilismus was not.
The 1964 recording struck me as the voice of an inarticualte man with a chip on his shoulder, but 12 or so years later, he had learnt his craft of live poetry, by plodding on, reading, writing, and non stop recital, and it is a tour de force damning of the whole American political process, as it was then, in relation to the rampant inequality black people were subjagated by.
. it can't be capatilism.
Jimmy Carter wouldn't lie,
you heard him at the state of union address
swearing on Rosalynn's face lift:
I wouldn't lie.
Nixon lied.
Haldeman lied.
Dean lied.
Hoover lied --- Hoover sucks too, but Jimmy don't
Jimmy wouldn't,
Jimmy aint lyin.
It must be the Devil, must be the devil
put your money on the plate
it must be the devil
in Heaven we'll all be straight.
It can't be Rockerfella
he gave Amis poot-booty a scholarship
to behaviour modification university
and Genivive almost-white works for his foundation.
It must be niggers.
It can't be Mellon, he gave Winky suck-ass
a fellowship in his bank
put him charge of closing out mortgages
in the low-life Pittsburgh Hill nigger section.
It can't be him,
Yes sir - Yes sir - Yes sir - Yes sir - Yes sir
yes sir - yes sir - yes sir - yes sr
put your money in the plate
don't be late, don't have to wait, all goan be in heaven after you die.
~
This is the link to a great and lengthy interview with Baraka from Black Collegian.com, in which he gives advice on writing.
Baraka studied philosophy and religion at Rutger's University, Columbia University and Howard University and left without obtaining a degree to join the US Air Force in 1954, from which he was dishonourably discharged for violating his oath of duty, at the rank of Sergeant - as a result of three anonymous letters to his C.O. accusing him of being a communist, lead to the discovery of Soviet writings in his possession.
But it was in the air force he did much of his early reading, as there was nothing much else to do, and it was here he was part of an informal self-educators reading group of young black men reading the classics for the first time and talking philosophy. But the one thing I got from reading the piece is that Baraka was very much aware of the responsibility he had been given through his upbringing, to stand fast and remember the history of black America.
When he was a child before the civil rights movement he recounts a story his grandmother told him as a boy, about a black boy who had had his genitals cut off and stuffed in his mouth after being accused of raping a white woman, and he rhetorically questions why she would tell him this at such a young age, and replies:
"Sweet little old lady from Alabama.... Why would she tell you that story? ...you still got it in your mind, sixty years later, you still remember that story? -- "yeah, I remember it" -- in detail? --"absolutely" -- well that’s why she told it to you.
I don’t know if y'all still have that in your homes, I can’t speak on that, but I know that is what we as writers have to do, continue that tradition. The only way I can see that tradition being extended is through the role and function of the writer in the community."
And so Baraka obviously views his work as being part of a tradition greater than himself, the one singular person, and which I take as the main sign of his integrity as a poet.
Baraka ingested a lot of reading and created his own world view, which constantly changed over the course of time as a result of the changing social conditions, which to some extent his poetry brought about. So rather than being a poet reacting to circumstances he has no control over, Baraka actively seeks a poetry of impact. Poetry which will have an effect, and which comes out of his basic stance rooted in the little black boy from an educated family growing up in unfair times.
And his live power is a direct result of his sincerity, as he has steered his own course to a point of understanding where he is clear of his role and the historical foundations of poetry from which that role came.
. goan get all you need, once you gone. Yes sir - I heard it on the Jeffersons,
i heard it on the Rookies
i swallowed it home on Roost -yes sir !
wasn't it nice, wasn't Slavery nice
wasn't it so cool
and all you had to do was wear derbies
and dress and train chickens
and buy your way free if you had a mind to.
Must be the devil
it wasn't them white folks
~
He argues that poetry is nothing but music and rhythm. He thinks that "words fly on the rhythm" saying that the rhythm comes first, words second. I can relate to this, as there is a pre-verbal music and we can tune into it, and at the rarest alignment, the words fit not because of their properties of sense and meaning, but because no other words will. The sound is specific to such a degree only those explicit words link into what chain Shakespeare through the mask of Caliban has as - sweet sounds knitted together, and air which does not trouble or cause discomfort. And once s/he has the nack and know of how to do it, the words are not laboured over, but come on the fly, not consciously chosen - in a process of attuning our instinct by the vehicle of experience through practice, leading to what (if any) eloquence others may (or may not) discern, which connects or moves their inner music-world, as a result of our interior world outing in a fair semblance and accurate reflection from our pool of self-song sung sweetly flowing from one human being, to another.
Straight Criticism we learn at college, begins with treating a text as a non living body of words we intellectually dissect, cut apart and state the author wrote such a string to evoke a mood, make a point, link to some other part or stream of links in a chain flowing before us - and describing the reasons we think an author was impelled by, grasp the creational process which a text/poem arises out from. Created not wholly by reasoned intellect, but a mix of faith, surrender, cunning and trust in moments of satisfaction Heaney speaks of - that we have learned to recognise, instinctively, to yield our belief to that. And though others may look on in bewilderment, shaking their heads at the seemingly reasonless decisions our art impells us to take, at the end of the text, something of Art will appear and pass the finish line on only a hunch, hint, pre-verbal sense of knowing when to end, and a seemingly methodical laying out of words will be the result.
The smooth author's mind, as though the narrative had already been written and just needed excavating.
...lazy niggers, chain they-self and threw
their own black ass in the bottom of the boat.
Come to think of it, there was a certian king ass Bawaki to help throw yo ass in the bottom of the boat
your mama, your wife and you never seen them no more.
It musta been the devil.
Give me your money, put it here in this plate
heaven'll be here soon, you just gotta die
just gotta stop livin
close yer eyes, stop breathin and Bammo !
heaven'll be here.
Bammo ! you'll have all of what you need
a wow wow
Wow ! Wow !
Hallelujah, Wow ! Wow !
. everthing goan be different after we die
we aint goan be hungry, aint goan be pain
aint goan be sufferin, won't go through this again
after we die.
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, wow ! wow !
| Amiri Baraka - Dope |  | |
 | ||
 | Found at bee mp3 search engine |  |
This is a circa 1978 recording of Amiri Baraka reciting Dope.
Born in Newark New Jersey in 1934, 74 year old Baraka was the Poet of the Black power movement and one time Greenwich Village beat poet whose slave name was Lee Roi Jones, but which he changed upon becoming radicalised after Malcom X's assassination. When Baraka was New Jersey poet laureate in 2001, he caused a storm of outrage with his poem Somebody Blew Up America - written within a month of 9/11.
~
I first heard Dope in the final year of university when Robert Sheppard, the linguistically innovative poet who instigated and runs the writing degree at Edge Hill University in my home town, which i stumbled onto by accident, almost - brought in a set of recordings for us to listen to during the final semster of six, of a wholly Modern American Poetry course spanning three yrs.
One Friday afternoon in the NW of England, in a non-descript classroom with the seven or so on the final poetry module -- only three of whom had elected to be there by their own volition (Robert having to shang-hai three out of the heavily oversubscribed Short Story class on the first day in order to legally carry on) - we listened to the series of poems Sheppard had brought, two of which were by Baraka.
The first poem I heard Baraka read, was Black Dada Nihilismus from 1964, which i thought sounded like an inarticulate racist, and then Dope (link leads to download) - from his Revolutionary Marxist period during the Carter administration, and which i thought was as viscerally powerful and gripping to listen to, as Black Dada Nihilismus was not.
The 1964 recording struck me as the voice of an inarticualte man with a chip on his shoulder, but 12 or so years later, he had learnt his craft of live poetry, by plodding on, reading, writing, and non stop recital, and it is a tour de force damning of the whole American political process, as it was then, in relation to the rampant inequality black people were subjagated by.
. it can't be capatilism.
Jimmy Carter wouldn't lie,
you heard him at the state of union address
swearing on Rosalynn's face lift:
I wouldn't lie.
Nixon lied.
Haldeman lied.
Dean lied.
Hoover lied --- Hoover sucks too, but Jimmy don't
Jimmy wouldn't,
Jimmy aint lyin.
It must be the Devil, must be the devil
put your money on the plate
it must be the devil
in Heaven we'll all be straight.
It can't be Rockerfella
he gave Amis poot-booty a scholarship
to behaviour modification university
and Genivive almost-white works for his foundation.
It must be niggers.
It can't be Mellon, he gave Winky suck-ass
a fellowship in his bank
put him charge of closing out mortgages
in the low-life Pittsburgh Hill nigger section.
It can't be him,
Yes sir - Yes sir - Yes sir - Yes sir - Yes sir
yes sir - yes sir - yes sir - yes sr
put your money in the plate
don't be late, don't have to wait, all goan be in heaven after you die.
~
This is the link to a great and lengthy interview with Baraka from Black Collegian.com, in which he gives advice on writing.
Baraka studied philosophy and religion at Rutger's University, Columbia University and Howard University and left without obtaining a degree to join the US Air Force in 1954, from which he was dishonourably discharged for violating his oath of duty, at the rank of Sergeant - as a result of three anonymous letters to his C.O. accusing him of being a communist, lead to the discovery of Soviet writings in his possession.
But it was in the air force he did much of his early reading, as there was nothing much else to do, and it was here he was part of an informal self-educators reading group of young black men reading the classics for the first time and talking philosophy. But the one thing I got from reading the piece is that Baraka was very much aware of the responsibility he had been given through his upbringing, to stand fast and remember the history of black America.
When he was a child before the civil rights movement he recounts a story his grandmother told him as a boy, about a black boy who had had his genitals cut off and stuffed in his mouth after being accused of raping a white woman, and he rhetorically questions why she would tell him this at such a young age, and replies:
"Sweet little old lady from Alabama.... Why would she tell you that story? ...you still got it in your mind, sixty years later, you still remember that story? -- "yeah, I remember it" -- in detail? --"absolutely" -- well that’s why she told it to you.
I don’t know if y'all still have that in your homes, I can’t speak on that, but I know that is what we as writers have to do, continue that tradition. The only way I can see that tradition being extended is through the role and function of the writer in the community."
And so Baraka obviously views his work as being part of a tradition greater than himself, the one singular person, and which I take as the main sign of his integrity as a poet.
Baraka ingested a lot of reading and created his own world view, which constantly changed over the course of time as a result of the changing social conditions, which to some extent his poetry brought about. So rather than being a poet reacting to circumstances he has no control over, Baraka actively seeks a poetry of impact. Poetry which will have an effect, and which comes out of his basic stance rooted in the little black boy from an educated family growing up in unfair times.
And his live power is a direct result of his sincerity, as he has steered his own course to a point of understanding where he is clear of his role and the historical foundations of poetry from which that role came.
. goan get all you need, once you gone. Yes sir - I heard it on the Jeffersons,
i heard it on the Rookies
i swallowed it home on Roost -yes sir !
wasn't it nice, wasn't Slavery nice
wasn't it so cool
and all you had to do was wear derbies
and dress and train chickens
and buy your way free if you had a mind to.
Must be the devil
it wasn't them white folks
~
He argues that poetry is nothing but music and rhythm. He thinks that "words fly on the rhythm" saying that the rhythm comes first, words second. I can relate to this, as there is a pre-verbal music and we can tune into it, and at the rarest alignment, the words fit not because of their properties of sense and meaning, but because no other words will. The sound is specific to such a degree only those explicit words link into what chain Shakespeare through the mask of Caliban has as - sweet sounds knitted together, and air which does not trouble or cause discomfort. And once s/he has the nack and know of how to do it, the words are not laboured over, but come on the fly, not consciously chosen - in a process of attuning our instinct by the vehicle of experience through practice, leading to what (if any) eloquence others may (or may not) discern, which connects or moves their inner music-world, as a result of our interior world outing in a fair semblance and accurate reflection from our pool of self-song sung sweetly flowing from one human being, to another.
Straight Criticism we learn at college, begins with treating a text as a non living body of words we intellectually dissect, cut apart and state the author wrote such a string to evoke a mood, make a point, link to some other part or stream of links in a chain flowing before us - and describing the reasons we think an author was impelled by, grasp the creational process which a text/poem arises out from. Created not wholly by reasoned intellect, but a mix of faith, surrender, cunning and trust in moments of satisfaction Heaney speaks of - that we have learned to recognise, instinctively, to yield our belief to that. And though others may look on in bewilderment, shaking their heads at the seemingly reasonless decisions our art impells us to take, at the end of the text, something of Art will appear and pass the finish line on only a hunch, hint, pre-verbal sense of knowing when to end, and a seemingly methodical laying out of words will be the result.
The smooth author's mind, as though the narrative had already been written and just needed excavating.
...lazy niggers, chain they-self and threw
their own black ass in the bottom of the boat.
Come to think of it, there was a certian king ass Bawaki to help throw yo ass in the bottom of the boat
your mama, your wife and you never seen them no more.
It musta been the devil.
Give me your money, put it here in this plate
heaven'll be here soon, you just gotta die
just gotta stop livin
close yer eyes, stop breathin and Bammo !
heaven'll be here.
Bammo ! you'll have all of what you need
a wow wow
Wow ! Wow !
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
A Poetry of Belief, Faith & Hope.
There is an article in today's NY Times by Adam Nagourney: The '08 Race: A Sea Change for Politics as We Know It - who speaks how this election has fundamentally upended the way presidential campaigns are fought and how the paradigm got turned upside down and truly became bottom up instead of top down - citing the internet as the instrument making a brand new relationship between our leaders and ourselves.
Adam O'Riordan writing on Barack Obama's inner poet in todays Guardian books blog, speaks of the freshness of his conversational style, which (I think) appears to be the forthright human honesty of a seemingly normal person who has plucked the day by harnessing new medias and making them the vehicle for a message of hope and change by inclusion.
Instead of detached multi-millionaires relying on a rhetoric of agression and using one way monologic publishing to instil the fear of unseen forces amongst us, we now have (on the face of it) human normality wrapped in a message of hope; opening the vent of our hearing as we awake and cop on to the simple act of Communication, on the human level.
They who seek to rule by fear, do not like people talking to one another, and in the past in the press, politicians had it this way and we had to take their word that certain dangers existed which didn't. WMD etc. But now, with the net, we can speak amongst ourselves, check facts, pulll up information that would before have taken far longer.
Thus, the cute rich who had us running around chasing ghosts, mist and fabrications whilst staying one step ahead spreading untruths and confusion that manifests in a false fear of others - no longer hold civilisation to ransom.
~
Charles Bernstein who set up the world's first internet Poetics discussion group Buffalo Poetics list - which began as a small band of Robert Creely, Susan Howe, Pierre Joris, Alice Notley, Marjorie Perloff, Silliman, Keith Tuma and numerous other liberal American poetic greats -- is the man for accurate internet prophecy in relation to poetry and the web.
In his seminal I Don’t Take Voicemail paper, first delivered orally as “The Art Object in the an Age of Electronic Technology” -- presented at a symposium, sponsored by the Parsons School of Design, at the New School in New York, on April 16, 1994 - Bernstein lays out his vision of how this then, very new communication technology, will pan out and his poetical prophecy was accurate in many respects:
'So ask tonight
return and say a prayer for the family
-- Yeah, it's true -- but more important
say a prayer for our own country,
Which all of us love -- understanding
and compassion can do the country good
In difficult times
...the majority of people in this vast
country who live together,want to improve
the quality of life and see justice for all
Human beings that abide by peace in our land.
So let's dedicate ourselves to what a Greek poet
said many years ago:
"tame the savageness of man and make gentle
the life of this world."
Aeschylus
And my own humble prayer:
Strong is the power of our light.
The spiritual armour of goodness
Resisting rulers' wicked wiles
And the cult of men in darkness.
Within us beastial faith lies,
Learning truth in a 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."
Adam O'Riordan writing on Barack Obama's inner poet in todays Guardian books blog, speaks of the freshness of his conversational style, which (I think) appears to be the forthright human honesty of a seemingly normal person who has plucked the day by harnessing new medias and making them the vehicle for a message of hope and change by inclusion.
Instead of detached multi-millionaires relying on a rhetoric of agression and using one way monologic publishing to instil the fear of unseen forces amongst us, we now have (on the face of it) human normality wrapped in a message of hope; opening the vent of our hearing as we awake and cop on to the simple act of Communication, on the human level.
They who seek to rule by fear, do not like people talking to one another, and in the past in the press, politicians had it this way and we had to take their word that certain dangers existed which didn't. WMD etc. But now, with the net, we can speak amongst ourselves, check facts, pulll up information that would before have taken far longer.
Thus, the cute rich who had us running around chasing ghosts, mist and fabrications whilst staying one step ahead spreading untruths and confusion that manifests in a false fear of others - no longer hold civilisation to ransom.
~
Charles Bernstein who set up the world's first internet Poetics discussion group Buffalo Poetics list - which began as a small band of Robert Creely, Susan Howe, Pierre Joris, Alice Notley, Marjorie Perloff, Silliman, Keith Tuma and numerous other liberal American poetic greats -- is the man for accurate internet prophecy in relation to poetry and the web.
In his seminal I Don’t Take Voicemail paper, first delivered orally as “The Art Object in the an Age of Electronic Technology” -- presented at a symposium, sponsored by the Parsons School of Design, at the New School in New York, on April 16, 1994 - Bernstein lays out his vision of how this then, very new communication technology, will pan out and his poetical prophecy was accurate in many respects:
"The most radical characteristic of the internet as a medium is its interconnectivity. At every point receivers are also transmitters. It is a medium defined by exchange rather than delivery; the medium is interactive and dialogic rather thanOne of my favourites is the poetry of politician Robert Francis Fitzgerald Kennedy, a full blooded American with eight Irish great grandparents, along with his brothers, all poets. And it is in a brother Francis Fitzgerald's extemporised address in Indianapolis, breaking to a black audience the news of Martin Luther King's murder, that living poetry is as History itself:
unidirectional or monologic.....The potential for discussion and collaboration is appealing–the format mixes some of the features of correspondence with a discussion group, conference call, and a panel symposium such as this one (with the crucial difference that the distinction between audience and panel is eroded)."
'So ask tonight
return and say a prayer for the family
-- Yeah, it's true -- but more important
say a prayer for our own country,
Which all of us love -- understanding
and compassion can do the country good
In difficult times
...the majority of people in this vast
country who live together,want to improve
the quality of life and see justice for all
Human beings that abide by peace in our land.
So let's dedicate ourselves to what a Greek poet
said many years ago:
"tame the savageness of man and make gentle
the life of this world."
Aeschylus
And my own humble prayer:
Strong is the power of our light.
The spiritual armour of goodness
Resisting rulers' wicked wiles
And the cult of men in darkness.
Within us beastial faith lies,
Learning truth in a 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."
Monday, October 20, 2008
Sunday Night Live
Hep cat Jack and Al in Vegas, two high balls no hookers, Greg and Ginsey at it like bonobo pygmy chimps with a couple of dwarfs purchased in Walmart - discount for poets - no, no make that a brehon to go, de-capped lower case no need for titular bullshit. Jack was like that, a Kerouac from New Ross, French-Wexford-Canadian, African American, Amergin through and through. Top of the world ma, made it to the cover of a Rolling Stone back when Neal was on the road -- Frisco, circa 1952.
Three bottles later, we sorta sorted out the thoughts in our head into some kind of insane order, got the ball rolling before Obama stepped up to the plate at the railroad, the town hall, the campus, the community and a couple of Sarah Palin's with two John McCains, garbled, frozen eyes in a war on horror, the lies love and truth, well yer hadda be here to prove it, to know what moved us, caught the tune that's now in the music of what passing between us, happened as Setanta prior to becoming Cúchulainn - fought at the ford in Ardee, with the state line Ohio, stump at the railroad, the oval office of Sean and Francis Fitzgerald filling out space with the air so eloquent; only a trace of humanity, irish, low key, democrat-republican lover of the deepest nuance, lives in our history, and man could Jackie blow.
Three bottles later, we sorta sorted out the thoughts in our head into some kind of insane order, got the ball rolling before Obama stepped up to the plate at the railroad, the town hall, the campus, the community and a couple of Sarah Palin's with two John McCains, garbled, frozen eyes in a war on horror, the lies love and truth, well yer hadda be here to prove it, to know what moved us, caught the tune that's now in the music of what passing between us, happened as Setanta prior to becoming Cúchulainn - fought at the ford in Ardee, with the state line Ohio, stump at the railroad, the oval office of Sean and Francis Fitzgerald filling out space with the air so eloquent; only a trace of humanity, irish, low key, democrat-republican lover of the deepest nuance, lives in our history, and man could Jackie blow.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
How Dare you K!!!!
YouWriteOn.com
This is outrageous, truly a bad, bad and dangerous development.
Quality control gone by the wayside for some tin pot scheme which will bring 5000 books into the world that will not sell, that will not lead to commercial publishing for all but the most talented of authors, who will not sign up for it, because there is no one there to give them feedback and tell them what they have to do next to become a published author in the real sense of having an editor-author relationship, which underpins the very edifice of Publishing.
i am very very concerned about this and have written letters to eighteen different organisations about it, demanding it be stopped, that the arts council staff who came up with this stupid idea, and all those responsible, be immediately dismissed from their jobs.
i am starting a campiagn against it, and if any of you sensible people are concerned enough to get involved, there will be a demonstration in ten cities across the world, where we will be demanding this outrage cease. please get involved, please, please write to the arts council and your local TD, MP, Congress-person, Senator, and representatives for the bodies which conduct the political life of yr area, please, please, this runs against all natural law and i am very very concerned, consumed with fears, and am totally and utterley appalled.
if this venture has not been called off by Friday 3rd October, i will be chaining myself to railings of the arts council and beginning a hunger strike.
This is no laughing matter, this is pathetic, stupid, reckless, wanton and - if not criminal - certainly should be.
Come, come with us and let us show the world, we are intelligent, thoughtful, human lovers of literature which at least has some quality control checks and balances at the entry point.
already i have lost quite a lot of sleep about this, unable to work and am starting to suffer from depression. if my mental or physical health deteriates to the point where i am unable to conduct my lawful daily business, i will be suing the arts council for damages.
i have already engaged a barrister on a retainer of 5000 and a daily fee of 500 sterling, to make sure every legal avenue is explored for this reckless, entirely innapropriate venture to get stopped.
And whatever you do, do not buy a book called Ovid Yeats - Love Poems, by Desmond Swords.
Desmond Swords book, if it comes out, will corrupt the very fabric of eternal space and time (if such a state exists) and will corrupt our loved ones, make clever people stupid, take away the voting rights of the appalled and cause others great distress in their professional and personal lives, due to his disguise of grey hair, five ten, very very superficially compelling onscreen when reading live poetry, which has been enhanced with computer graphics to make him appear attractive to both men and women of all ages, and there is a very real danger, should this book
Ovid Yeats - Love Poems
by desmond swords, with a deep passion, nay addiction for bardic lore, the voice appearing out of nowhere, happy to have in a shop window speaking all new.
. can make your children, cleverer, happier, stop them getting bullied at school, make them lose their spots, become a millionaire at 12, just by looking at this book
Love Poems - Ovid Yeats
confer a cloak of invisibility upon anyone within six yards of it, make you a better ballet dancer, to olympic standards, just by touching the cover, and live forever should you read one line of the first poem, and become ...
you get the picture, stop
Desmond Swords, be appalled with me, come, come, let us strap up, this rougue intellectual poet.
. i am appalled!!!
Free Publishing for 5,000Absolutely appalled!!
YouWriteOn.com Will Publish 5,000 Writers For Free!!
Arts Council funded YouWriteOn.com will publish the first 5,000 writers who contact us for Free - Fiction & Non-Fiction.
This is outrageous, truly a bad, bad and dangerous development.
Quality control gone by the wayside for some tin pot scheme which will bring 5000 books into the world that will not sell, that will not lead to commercial publishing for all but the most talented of authors, who will not sign up for it, because there is no one there to give them feedback and tell them what they have to do next to become a published author in the real sense of having an editor-author relationship, which underpins the very edifice of Publishing.
i am very very concerned about this and have written letters to eighteen different organisations about it, demanding it be stopped, that the arts council staff who came up with this stupid idea, and all those responsible, be immediately dismissed from their jobs.
i am starting a campiagn against it, and if any of you sensible people are concerned enough to get involved, there will be a demonstration in ten cities across the world, where we will be demanding this outrage cease. please get involved, please, please write to the arts council and your local TD, MP, Congress-person, Senator, and representatives for the bodies which conduct the political life of yr area, please, please, this runs against all natural law and i am very very concerned, consumed with fears, and am totally and utterley appalled.
if this venture has not been called off by Friday 3rd October, i will be chaining myself to railings of the arts council and beginning a hunger strike.
This is no laughing matter, this is pathetic, stupid, reckless, wanton and - if not criminal - certainly should be.
Come, come with us and let us show the world, we are intelligent, thoughtful, human lovers of literature which at least has some quality control checks and balances at the entry point.
already i have lost quite a lot of sleep about this, unable to work and am starting to suffer from depression. if my mental or physical health deteriates to the point where i am unable to conduct my lawful daily business, i will be suing the arts council for damages.
i have already engaged a barrister on a retainer of 5000 and a daily fee of 500 sterling, to make sure every legal avenue is explored for this reckless, entirely innapropriate venture to get stopped.
And whatever you do, do not buy a book called Ovid Yeats - Love Poems, by Desmond Swords.
Desmond Swords book, if it comes out, will corrupt the very fabric of eternal space and time (if such a state exists) and will corrupt our loved ones, make clever people stupid, take away the voting rights of the appalled and cause others great distress in their professional and personal lives, due to his disguise of grey hair, five ten, very very superficially compelling onscreen when reading live poetry, which has been enhanced with computer graphics to make him appear attractive to both men and women of all ages, and there is a very real danger, should this book
Ovid Yeats - Love Poems
by desmond swords, with a deep passion, nay addiction for bardic lore, the voice appearing out of nowhere, happy to have in a shop window speaking all new.
. can make your children, cleverer, happier, stop them getting bullied at school, make them lose their spots, become a millionaire at 12, just by looking at this book
Love Poems - Ovid Yeats
confer a cloak of invisibility upon anyone within six yards of it, make you a better ballet dancer, to olympic standards, just by touching the cover, and live forever should you read one line of the first poem, and become ...
you get the picture, stop
Desmond Swords, be appalled with me, come, come, let us strap up, this rougue intellectual poet.
. i am appalled!!!
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Has Anyone a Pen?
In the warm womb of August
a bold trace drew within the night
a self-sleight of tongue, by silence
behoven to what force surrenders
a flat plate by the sun.
Silver, strange and yet it was some
stranger star our eye met, stalling
above leaves of grey mist which awoke
in the depth of a New York dawn
the ermine pulse of a swirling red
flicker and blue lit shawl below
the hollow mouthed source of our
alternative terminal view
caught turning on the radar
as an absent oyster shell -
shifting information some
place else.
The draíocht dawned in hazel of all
coirí filíochta music, and a trinity of light
configured eo fis from fizzing imbas
forosnai, nimble, swift and a tuatha
speck swirling nut-salmon
on an immram, connected to the borders
of our wisdom source six grades above us -
tong a toing mo thuath - throne of ollamh
the Réalta na bhFile: in Abraham's
hebrew the she brew ban-draoi, faced
two cliffs and streaming down, three
cauldrons, sourced its integral ability
within a mind and heart from the ridge-pole
the Cli to Anrtuh gap, dicating what wyrd
will come.
a bold trace drew within the night
a self-sleight of tongue, by silence
behoven to what force surrenders
a flat plate by the sun.
Silver, strange and yet it was some
stranger star our eye met, stalling
above leaves of grey mist which awoke
in the depth of a New York dawn
the ermine pulse of a swirling red
flicker and blue lit shawl below
the hollow mouthed source of our
alternative terminal view
caught turning on the radar
as an absent oyster shell -
shifting information some
place else.
The draíocht dawned in hazel of all
coirí filíochta music, and a trinity of light
configured eo fis from fizzing imbas
forosnai, nimble, swift and a tuatha
speck swirling nut-salmon
on an immram, connected to the borders
of our wisdom source six grades above us -
tong a toing mo thuath - throne of ollamh
the Réalta na bhFile: in Abraham's
hebrew the she brew ban-draoi, faced
two cliffs and streaming down, three
cauldrons, sourced its integral ability
within a mind and heart from the ridge-pole
the Cli to Anrtuh gap, dicating what wyrd
will come.
Sunday, September 07, 2008
The talk at the latter part of this week, has been about the removal of a poem by an education examining board of a poem by Carol Ann Duffy OBE, whose career has been built on controversy.
She was born in Scotland and moved to Staffordshire, before starting a relationship with the now deceased Tranmere - Birkenhead - Wirral born poet Adrian Henri, when he was 39 and she sixteen.
Henri was born in 1932 and moved to Prestatyn in North Wales when he was six, studied at St Asaphs grammar school and took part in the Rhyl arts scene, before going to Durham to study fine art and in 1955, relocating to Preston, Lancashire, for a one year teaching job, where he met his first wife - Joyce Wilson - in a jazz club.
His summer job in Rhyl, brought him into contact with people from the Liverpool scene and he opted to go there, marrying in 1957, two years after Duffy's birth. He had his first exhibitions in 1958 and 59 at the Bluecoat in the city, and he held a variety of jobs, starting as a scenic artist in the Liverpool Playhouse and then teaching jobs in Manchester (1961-4) andLiverpool colleges of art (1964-8).
He and McGough met in 1960 at the Streates coffee bar on May Street Mount Pleasant and the rest is history, as he became part of a trinity of Liverpool poets whose work came to prominence caught in the slipstream of the global phenomena of John Paul George and Ringo.
Everything in Liverpool became cool overnight and half the planets young girls collectively fell in love with their chosen poster boy, four to choose from, and like pop stars now, these crushes as much about vicarious expression of their personalities in the social groups young girls cluster in, as any real affair of the heart.
Their work brought an idiom previously unheard to prominence in the UK as the working classes had their first artistic flowering, but unfortunately, much of it has not stood up to the test of time, and now its inherent weaknesses ioverlooked in the first flowering, glare at us unsophisticated and naff, as only the dated does.
The whole notion of being a working class poet, was a brand new concept, and there being no precedents, a DIY extemporisation, a pose, a mish match of the French Symbolists, obscure verse writers and home grown names all mixed in at the first attempt by men more in tune with chasing women and boozing, than applying themself to any tradition. A jazz riff and make it up as they went along'ness, which time has exposed as weaker than what the cheerleaders of the time blindly loyal and championing it as the birth of some anti-nazi, all inclusive third reich of UK poetry, next school run by and for the prolateriat mass from the anonymous estates of post war Britain and facing a thousand yrs advance on the untested and tried strength of two mop top jazzed up scousers and a woolyback from Presatyn.
And it was to this artist, Duffy decided to set her sixteen year old cap, by all accounts a girl who knew she wanted to be a poet at fifteen, independant, a steely will and as Henri said, appearing fully formed in Liverpool, seeking out her male muse.
She was born in Scotland and moved to Staffordshire, before starting a relationship with the now deceased Tranmere - Birkenhead - Wirral born poet Adrian Henri, when he was 39 and she sixteen.
Henri was born in 1932 and moved to Prestatyn in North Wales when he was six, studied at St Asaphs grammar school and took part in the Rhyl arts scene, before going to Durham to study fine art and in 1955, relocating to Preston, Lancashire, for a one year teaching job, where he met his first wife - Joyce Wilson - in a jazz club.
His summer job in Rhyl, brought him into contact with people from the Liverpool scene and he opted to go there, marrying in 1957, two years after Duffy's birth. He had his first exhibitions in 1958 and 59 at the Bluecoat in the city, and he held a variety of jobs, starting as a scenic artist in the Liverpool Playhouse and then teaching jobs in Manchester (1961-4) andLiverpool colleges of art (1964-8).
He and McGough met in 1960 at the Streates coffee bar on May Street Mount Pleasant and the rest is history, as he became part of a trinity of Liverpool poets whose work came to prominence caught in the slipstream of the global phenomena of John Paul George and Ringo.
Everything in Liverpool became cool overnight and half the planets young girls collectively fell in love with their chosen poster boy, four to choose from, and like pop stars now, these crushes as much about vicarious expression of their personalities in the social groups young girls cluster in, as any real affair of the heart.
Their work brought an idiom previously unheard to prominence in the UK as the working classes had their first artistic flowering, but unfortunately, much of it has not stood up to the test of time, and now its inherent weaknesses ioverlooked in the first flowering, glare at us unsophisticated and naff, as only the dated does.
The whole notion of being a working class poet, was a brand new concept, and there being no precedents, a DIY extemporisation, a pose, a mish match of the French Symbolists, obscure verse writers and home grown names all mixed in at the first attempt by men more in tune with chasing women and boozing, than applying themself to any tradition. A jazz riff and make it up as they went along'ness, which time has exposed as weaker than what the cheerleaders of the time blindly loyal and championing it as the birth of some anti-nazi, all inclusive third reich of UK poetry, next school run by and for the prolateriat mass from the anonymous estates of post war Britain and facing a thousand yrs advance on the untested and tried strength of two mop top jazzed up scousers and a woolyback from Presatyn.
And it was to this artist, Duffy decided to set her sixteen year old cap, by all accounts a girl who knew she wanted to be a poet at fifteen, independant, a steely will and as Henri said, appearing fully formed in Liverpool, seeking out her male muse.
Friday, September 05, 2008
Pestford Wives
Now I’ve experienced McCain's daughter at her blogette and seen the photos of the lovely tee shirts, simple designer duds and gee, really cool stuff.
She’s in a car, with a phone, smiling, and it says soo much about how we can all be quick to judge others based not on lipstick and fighting dogs, but on the character of their content, and i realised i was wrong to instinctively judge Sarah as a shallow self centred and hollow hockey mom who Anne Kilkenny, from Super Sars home city of Wassila, Alaska (pop 6-9000), a close fellow mom who says horrid, horrid things about her time as mayor in this vast megatropolis of; what may be only 6000 people, but home to the billion make up artist of make up artists, happy wishes, kisses and straight up canine makeup shops, beauty parlours and not like Michelle, who has been surgically re-sculptured by Barry Manilow's personal magician; in an e mail of blatant lies based on nothing but jealousy and which found it's way to the local rag the Anchorage Daily News .
she is not a true believer in the holy power of God and dutiful Christian who doth not judge on the colour of her dress, but on the content of the blog John’s daughter keeps, which i understand now i have found the power of the Lord our Holy Father, Buddha, Krishna and Allah, who i know God is a little pissed off with, and especially the Russians threatening the security of Sarah’s family with their illegal behaviour going into OMG..it’s Frankia, right?
Yah, radical offspring, who i know could be a real friend to me and all my friends, and if that Obama just stopped trying to kid us; actually said what he is for, and stop attacking blogettes dad, and Sarah (i think her husband soo much more dishier, don’t you) came up with his own ideas, instead of just running round after John, imitating his strategy, of saving the planet by eradicting the fraudulant spongers in the third world using their new found economic wealth, like with all the overtime they are getting, like all the easy unfair trade deals they do with UN-AMERICAN terrorist groups masquarading as underwear companies, soft porn retail outlets, abortion clinics selling DIY Devil worship kits and using back-engineered bad-alien Grey technoligies to harm AMERICAN business, health care taxes, adding to the welfare budget, lazing around all day, sponging off AMERICA, taking our oil in Russian, being ANTI-AMERICA and taking advantage of US the AMERICAN people, closing our factories, stealing our jobs, AMERICAN jobs, which ppl like John went to Vietnam as a Freedom fighter dropping napalm to clear the drug crops, to protect, fight for fair play, create new energy resources, to harness, protect, spread democracy in places where terrorists had in a stranglehold, using fear and scare tactics, trying to intimidate US, the billions of us American loving peacable ppl, who never seek war, but sure as heck aint afraid of standing up to those who would blatantly seek to spread terror to the very soul of the country i love, the land of the brave, home of the oldest democracy in the history of the universe.
An ancient noble land John died for several times at the hands of Russian and Chinese torturers, but who God brought back to life, to save us from the lunatics threatening our every waking move, following Sarah, looking at her inappropriately, Obama, coming on to her daughter disguised as Obama Bin Laden, hiding in the bat cave, trying to corrupt Bruce Wayne, stealing the first ladies underwear, and with the oil industry and big business in his pocket, covering it all up, Blogette is here exposing the hypocrisy, using her brains, and not her looks, to save AMERICA, to stop the madness of rougue dictatorships, like Venuzala, Amerstam, Germany, France, Sweeden and undermine the democratically elected alien governemnts of Mercury, Saturn, Pluto and Disneyworld, who seeks to undermine the elected government of Zimbabwe and our good friend mister Mugabe, who is stopping the African continent from descending into anarchy.
GOD BLESS Bloggete, please donate what you can to the hugely imporatnt work, help the John McCain save the Moon for US fund.
The Russians as we speak are plotting to seize territorial control of Mars, an American colony our future generations will colonise, build new businesses, hosptitals for our poor and sick, bring new prosperity to our citizens on welfare, give second chances to the disadvantaged, ppl who never got a break under the last Democratic president Obama, who invaded Poland and spent all the federal budget on shoipping for his wife.
Please, please, don’t fall for their slick lies.
While there are some who go to washington for themselves and ask, what can America do for the environent, it takes a brave honest man like John to ask, what can the environment do for US the American ppl, the cleverest, oldest culture to have ever existed, and for this we thank God that his son, John McCain, died for us ten times and walked on water, to break the new water walking speed record, for you, selflessly for US the American people.
And Remeber, a vote for a convicted underwear thief, is a vote for reason and peace.
She’s in a car, with a phone, smiling, and it says soo much about how we can all be quick to judge others based not on lipstick and fighting dogs, but on the character of their content, and i realised i was wrong to instinctively judge Sarah as a shallow self centred and hollow hockey mom who Anne Kilkenny, from Super Sars home city of Wassila, Alaska (pop 6-9000), a close fellow mom who says horrid, horrid things about her time as mayor in this vast megatropolis of; what may be only 6000 people, but home to the billion make up artist of make up artists, happy wishes, kisses and straight up canine makeup shops, beauty parlours and not like Michelle, who has been surgically re-sculptured by Barry Manilow's personal magician; in an e mail of blatant lies based on nothing but jealousy and which found it's way to the local rag the Anchorage Daily News .
she is not a true believer in the holy power of God and dutiful Christian who doth not judge on the colour of her dress, but on the content of the blog John’s daughter keeps, which i understand now i have found the power of the Lord our Holy Father, Buddha, Krishna and Allah, who i know God is a little pissed off with, and especially the Russians threatening the security of Sarah’s family with their illegal behaviour going into OMG..it’s Frankia, right?
Yah, radical offspring, who i know could be a real friend to me and all my friends, and if that Obama just stopped trying to kid us; actually said what he is for, and stop attacking blogettes dad, and Sarah (i think her husband soo much more dishier, don’t you) came up with his own ideas, instead of just running round after John, imitating his strategy, of saving the planet by eradicting the fraudulant spongers in the third world using their new found economic wealth, like with all the overtime they are getting, like all the easy unfair trade deals they do with UN-AMERICAN terrorist groups masquarading as underwear companies, soft porn retail outlets, abortion clinics selling DIY Devil worship kits and using back-engineered bad-alien Grey technoligies to harm AMERICAN business, health care taxes, adding to the welfare budget, lazing around all day, sponging off AMERICA, taking our oil in Russian, being ANTI-AMERICA and taking advantage of US the AMERICAN people, closing our factories, stealing our jobs, AMERICAN jobs, which ppl like John went to Vietnam as a Freedom fighter dropping napalm to clear the drug crops, to protect, fight for fair play, create new energy resources, to harness, protect, spread democracy in places where terrorists had in a stranglehold, using fear and scare tactics, trying to intimidate US, the billions of us American loving peacable ppl, who never seek war, but sure as heck aint afraid of standing up to those who would blatantly seek to spread terror to the very soul of the country i love, the land of the brave, home of the oldest democracy in the history of the universe.
An ancient noble land John died for several times at the hands of Russian and Chinese torturers, but who God brought back to life, to save us from the lunatics threatening our every waking move, following Sarah, looking at her inappropriately, Obama, coming on to her daughter disguised as Obama Bin Laden, hiding in the bat cave, trying to corrupt Bruce Wayne, stealing the first ladies underwear, and with the oil industry and big business in his pocket, covering it all up, Blogette is here exposing the hypocrisy, using her brains, and not her looks, to save AMERICA, to stop the madness of rougue dictatorships, like Venuzala, Amerstam, Germany, France, Sweeden and undermine the democratically elected alien governemnts of Mercury, Saturn, Pluto and Disneyworld, who seeks to undermine the elected government of Zimbabwe and our good friend mister Mugabe, who is stopping the African continent from descending into anarchy.
GOD BLESS Bloggete, please donate what you can to the hugely imporatnt work, help the John McCain save the Moon for US fund.
The Russians as we speak are plotting to seize territorial control of Mars, an American colony our future generations will colonise, build new businesses, hosptitals for our poor and sick, bring new prosperity to our citizens on welfare, give second chances to the disadvantaged, ppl who never got a break under the last Democratic president Obama, who invaded Poland and spent all the federal budget on shoipping for his wife.
Please, please, don’t fall for their slick lies.
While there are some who go to washington for themselves and ask, what can America do for the environent, it takes a brave honest man like John to ask, what can the environment do for US the American ppl, the cleverest, oldest culture to have ever existed, and for this we thank God that his son, John McCain, died for us ten times and walked on water, to break the new water walking speed record, for you, selflessly for US the American people.
And Remeber, a vote for a convicted underwear thief, is a vote for reason and peace.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Simple Vidz
During the final weeks of university four years ago, i purchased a video camera after seeing a show at the National Student Drama Festival in Scarborough (which won best show) that used pre-recorded footage the two performers interacted with, flawlessly.
Ian Shuttleworth the theatre critic said it was easily the best of its kind he had witnessed and this was a spur for me, seeing the possibilities. I got the camera but hocked it to raise the ferry fare, because money was tight and I only thought it would be for a short time. And now after 48 months, i got it back and have finally arrived at the point i intended to four years ago.
Soon after coming to Dublin, I saw Seamus Heaney deliver a lecture on Patrick Kavanagh, the central thrust of which was the Kavanagh idea of a Poet's journey being the way "from the simplicity of going away to simplicity of return"; which has been a consistent and central critical plank in Heaney's own poetic.
He said that the development of a poetic soul is one whereby we start out knowing little and after a few years, rack up a lode of knowledge and reach a point where we think we are a bit handy on the poetry lark, and then, as we cast out into deeper intellectual pools, certainty deserts us as our learning increases and we realise that, in the grander scheme, the sureness we thought we were heading toward is merely an illusion and we know little.
And once this is accepted, there is a return, another cycle of learning with the simplicity of knowing we can never know it all. And eventually
"In the final simplicity we don't care whether we appear foolish or not" as Kavanagh said.
This is what we work towards, to follow our own star and dance as if no one is looking, like an actor in the magic circle who blots out the audience and behaves with a child-like simplicty.
And poetry being as it is, with nothing ever forced into the frame by a person's will -- indeed the more we try to engineer a poetic career with the resolve and style of a banker or careerist, the less likely it is to happen; so we trust what will be will happen and if it's meant to be, so be it, and now after four years delay, the gods delivered and the next space is ready. Live poetry on the vidz. Have a gander here
Ian Shuttleworth the theatre critic said it was easily the best of its kind he had witnessed and this was a spur for me, seeing the possibilities. I got the camera but hocked it to raise the ferry fare, because money was tight and I only thought it would be for a short time. And now after 48 months, i got it back and have finally arrived at the point i intended to four years ago.
Soon after coming to Dublin, I saw Seamus Heaney deliver a lecture on Patrick Kavanagh, the central thrust of which was the Kavanagh idea of a Poet's journey being the way "from the simplicity of going away to simplicity of return"; which has been a consistent and central critical plank in Heaney's own poetic.
He said that the development of a poetic soul is one whereby we start out knowing little and after a few years, rack up a lode of knowledge and reach a point where we think we are a bit handy on the poetry lark, and then, as we cast out into deeper intellectual pools, certainty deserts us as our learning increases and we realise that, in the grander scheme, the sureness we thought we were heading toward is merely an illusion and we know little.
And once this is accepted, there is a return, another cycle of learning with the simplicity of knowing we can never know it all. And eventually
"In the final simplicity we don't care whether we appear foolish or not" as Kavanagh said.
This is what we work towards, to follow our own star and dance as if no one is looking, like an actor in the magic circle who blots out the audience and behaves with a child-like simplicty.
And poetry being as it is, with nothing ever forced into the frame by a person's will -- indeed the more we try to engineer a poetic career with the resolve and style of a banker or careerist, the less likely it is to happen; so we trust what will be will happen and if it's meant to be, so be it, and now after four years delay, the gods delivered and the next space is ready. Live poetry on the vidz. Have a gander here
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Ulick O'Combover
Thursday 28 August 23.52
Hi M.
No probs if this is not the sort of caper appropriate for yr page, but we have just got a new computer and the camera purchased four years ago before we came to Dublin and which i hocked for the ferry fare, has returned and, thus this new direction on-stage here in the guttered back-lit glow of a dark Augustian soul hamming it up.
The days of spamming high on legal head shop hash are gone now, and spamming legit again after 18 months interruption, in a final five year push into that ollamh zone gods above, below and there, beyond the tube that place we'll never go, may ho ho ho for us, has thus begun.
The next five year study-jag jangling in free-play at the intellectual arena within, came after ten freakin novels worth of text took us there, 95 percent of our output we wrote last year was the worthless write-off Yeats did when he was high on blow and donuts dipped in opium, back in the golden days of our beginnings, and remember, as this is just an attempt to detach,
peel back the pith of light
as a s/he mind/intellect closing in on what god-head we have as the sidhe split gender God i read has just been located in the earliest Torah texts, as genderless s/he..
WARNING HIGHLY EXPERIMENTAL PROSE
LROVSE
was the name of a poem you wrote in the third yr, after a session with BS the Sheppard of verse, in Ormskirk, after a class where we had to use the Edmund Waller poem
Go Rose
as the piece impelling our response.
We all wrote parodies, of course, as voicing our deepest thoughts on the eternal theme from four to five on a Friday afternoon, in a small class of six or so, five young people and a man nearing fifty with a full head of grey and a broken potential long since gone south, was not really gonna happen.
LROVSE
You will always live
buried in a deep beyond
and beckoning to me...
this was the first of it and from that day, a standard in the canon from a course of which well, i do not know, but there some sidhe bell rhymes explorative still in what stood-chance rough pledged, and a stolen part imitation, part half yearning to sing, stitching itself inward and learning to trust
spoke of rhyme
wheeled throughout a throat and made it onto our page
Dear married M
I think i have fallen in (out of?) love with your imagination, due to quitting drugs, for which i wish to sincerely re-apologise and ask a big ask of you and yr very important colleagues over there on the NE seaboard where superbly synthetic united fakes faffing about with my head, smother me here in Kilmainham.
Please can i have my talent back?
I know you stole it in Cork the night of PC's fortieth. I conferenced with him at Dumb Leary festival of World couture in Seapoint last Sunday, the first and only day of summer here in the place i know you think i stole from under yr nose, but you had re-located by then ms M.
Do you remember the days far gone and the life we had?
The extemporised rants into the ollamh zone with Amergin Bergin shaman of the sally oak grove gardens where AE had the visions and WB spoke of then, later, much later, after he and M fell out over John Mac B, dearest cipher.
Hear too modest for a simple sum, innovatively singing the score of what may be when Sean MacBride comes back, back, from the grave of postmodernity dearest MG, managing director delivering us:
AE MB 3:1 DS WB 18:17?
Do you remember the time we made love in the goal here? The night before they took you out and shot me for ripping off Fat Frankie the Drimnagh drug lord under contract by dissident Ruskies, for depriving them of a stash his accidental labours wrought to insignificance by acts of de-cap latte, huddling in cloves and behoven to trouve for mystic trove on Eustace Street, Focus for the one euro fifty dinner the day s/he became homeless, invisible above us with sidhe gods complictly winging their wee way through air to the Gweedore and Donegal Daniel crooning of it all, mythologising eternity and a chap down and out in the jiggers of Temple Bar, Maud?
You lived a well ordered life with barley fed horses to sport with, in far flung revolutionary days back when George and Bill rustled through the night high on hash pills, armed and dangerous intelligentsia to the old leary faux fools and slow druidical silence saying it all, dearest M, let us love again.
Hi M.
No probs if this is not the sort of caper appropriate for yr page, but we have just got a new computer and the camera purchased four years ago before we came to Dublin and which i hocked for the ferry fare, has returned and, thus this new direction on-stage here in the guttered back-lit glow of a dark Augustian soul hamming it up.
The days of spamming high on legal head shop hash are gone now, and spamming legit again after 18 months interruption, in a final five year push into that ollamh zone gods above, below and there, beyond the tube that place we'll never go, may ho ho ho for us, has thus begun.
The next five year study-jag jangling in free-play at the intellectual arena within, came after ten freakin novels worth of text took us there, 95 percent of our output we wrote last year was the worthless write-off Yeats did when he was high on blow and donuts dipped in opium, back in the golden days of our beginnings, and remember, as this is just an attempt to detach,
peel back the pith of light
as a s/he mind/intellect closing in on what god-head we have as the sidhe split gender God i read has just been located in the earliest Torah texts, as genderless s/he..
WARNING HIGHLY EXPERIMENTAL PROSE
LROVSE
was the name of a poem you wrote in the third yr, after a session with BS the Sheppard of verse, in Ormskirk, after a class where we had to use the Edmund Waller poem
Go Rose
as the piece impelling our response.
We all wrote parodies, of course, as voicing our deepest thoughts on the eternal theme from four to five on a Friday afternoon, in a small class of six or so, five young people and a man nearing fifty with a full head of grey and a broken potential long since gone south, was not really gonna happen.
LROVSE
You will always live
buried in a deep beyond
and beckoning to me...
this was the first of it and from that day, a standard in the canon from a course of which well, i do not know, but there some sidhe bell rhymes explorative still in what stood-chance rough pledged, and a stolen part imitation, part half yearning to sing, stitching itself inward and learning to trust
spoke of rhyme
wheeled throughout a throat and made it onto our page
Dear married M
I think i have fallen in (out of?) love with your imagination, due to quitting drugs, for which i wish to sincerely re-apologise and ask a big ask of you and yr very important colleagues over there on the NE seaboard where superbly synthetic united fakes faffing about with my head, smother me here in Kilmainham.
Please can i have my talent back?
I know you stole it in Cork the night of PC's fortieth. I conferenced with him at Dumb Leary festival of World couture in Seapoint last Sunday, the first and only day of summer here in the place i know you think i stole from under yr nose, but you had re-located by then ms M.
Do you remember the days far gone and the life we had?
The extemporised rants into the ollamh zone with Amergin Bergin shaman of the sally oak grove gardens where AE had the visions and WB spoke of then, later, much later, after he and M fell out over John Mac B, dearest cipher.
Hear too modest for a simple sum, innovatively singing the score of what may be when Sean MacBride comes back, back, from the grave of postmodernity dearest MG, managing director delivering us:
AE MB 3:1 DS WB 18:17?
Do you remember the time we made love in the goal here? The night before they took you out and shot me for ripping off Fat Frankie the Drimnagh drug lord under contract by dissident Ruskies, for depriving them of a stash his accidental labours wrought to insignificance by acts of de-cap latte, huddling in cloves and behoven to trouve for mystic trove on Eustace Street, Focus for the one euro fifty dinner the day s/he became homeless, invisible above us with sidhe gods complictly winging their wee way through air to the Gweedore and Donegal Daniel crooning of it all, mythologising eternity and a chap down and out in the jiggers of Temple Bar, Maud?
You lived a well ordered life with barley fed horses to sport with, in far flung revolutionary days back when George and Bill rustled through the night high on hash pills, armed and dangerous intelligentsia to the old leary faux fools and slow druidical silence saying it all, dearest M, let us love again.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Gavin Turner Video Diary
Please turn the volume right up to hear the sound on the video below.
It was made in the final days of my time at Edge Hill College (now university) in my home town of Ormskirk Lancashire, but I only managed to get my camera out of hock a few weeks back after going to the Ledbury poetry festival and meeting Neil Astley and Michael Schmidt at an orgy of the imagination and receiving a sixty euro advance after a bidding war (for me to not send them stuff) ensued at the Prince of Wales open mic slam on the final night; in which I came last.
It was made in the final days of my time at Edge Hill College (now university) in my home town of Ormskirk Lancashire, but I only managed to get my camera out of hock a few weeks back after going to the Ledbury poetry festival and meeting Neil Astley and Michael Schmidt at an orgy of the imagination and receiving a sixty euro advance after a bidding war (for me to not send them stuff) ensued at the Prince of Wales open mic slam on the final night; in which I came last.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
