NOISE

Decibelisation was old
When Dresden’s china charred the ashes
When the war to end all wars
Turned Flanders fields to mushy poppies
When Cromwell’s convoys rattled on
The cobbled streets of old Kilkenny
And still, today, those echoes throb
When walking down some quiet lane, I hear,
The rumbles of some distant noisy mob.

 

 

KILLER
The cigarette smoke hangs like tear gas
In the mean little honky-tonk
But nobody really gives a shit because Jerry is in town.
He arrives without fanfare and seats himself down
Gimme my money and show me the piano
And don’t try and act the hound,                                                                                                                                  This is rockabilly, baby
Forget about Elvis and Johnny
Jerry has just kicked the door down.

Jerry can conjure a thousand songs
And play each one seven different ways
He can make your high heel sneakers
Dance the legs off every other cat in the place
I ain’t no phoney, I ain’t no teddy bear
And I don’t talk baloney ,as I say to my bass player
I ain’t no goody-goody, but I was born to be on the stage
It was all I ever dreamed of, from the very earliest age.

Jerry plays it slow and mournful or hard and fast
He once told Chuck Berry he could kiss his ass
And across the arc of bad-boy rockers
Who have come and gone
Jerry is the only one still rocking on
Sure, there were some bad times that caused his
Rocket ship to sputter
Like the year he crashed a dozen Cadillac’s
And was heard to utter
You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain
Too much love drives a man insane
You broke my will, oh what a thrill
Goodness gracious great balls of fire

 

 

 

When the Milesians conquered Ireland, c 1000 bc, Amergin invokes the powers of the Land here upon first stepping ashore in Ireland. These words came from Amergin’s “imbas” (‘poetic inspiration’) and they marked the start of battle over sovereignty of the Land. With the words of this poem, Amergin claims the elements of Ireland. This gesture displays his Otherworldly wisdom and power over the elements. Here, he is actually “becoming”… all of these elements, or “duile” as they were called by the Druids. He joins himself (his “Fein” and internal “duile”) with the spirit that controls the elements of the Cosmos. This could be looked upon as merely symbolic, but however you wish to see it, it got results. The wind died down and the Gaels claimed sovereignty on Ireland .

SONG OF AMERGIN

I am a stag of seven tines,
I am a wide flood on a plain,
I am a wind on the deep waters,
I am a shining tear of the sun,
I am a hawk on a cliff,
I am fair among flowers,
I am a god who sets the head afire with smoke.
I am a battle waging spear,
I am a salmon in the pool,
I am a hill of poetry,
I am a ruthless boar,
I am a threatening noise of the sea,
I am a wave of the sea,
Who but I knows the secrets of the unhewn dolmen ?

Review in Munster Express on 16 Aug 2016

now available on Amazon in paperback & ebook

LETTERS TO MOTHER AND OTHER DEAD RELATIVES
The Waterford-born writer
and playwright, Tom O’Brien,
has a new semi-autobiographical
book out and he uses the literary
device of letters to dead
relatives to retrace growing
up in the cruel poverty of the
fi fties and sixties generation.
Circumstances and a ‘jackthe-
lad’ existence of bravado
and dipping into the collection
basket as an altar boy sets him
on a rocky road to seek work,
good times, fame and a place
in the world.
His previous books and
plays refl ect on a grey, unforgiving
Waterford, where
youthful ‘divilment’ was not
only frowned on but actively
and forcefully hammered out
of him. Yet there is hardly a
trace of bitterness in this book
with the long title – Letter To
My Mother And Other Dead
Relatives. He was a product of
a secretive time where ‘least
said, easiest mended’ and ‘keep
yourselves to yourselves’. He
clearly didn’t have a happy
childhood and you sense the
painful ‘distance’ between him
and his mother and relatives.
The death of an aunt in
London who died intestate
caused O’Brien to seek out
his family history and the revelations
became the subject
matter of these ‘Letters’ and
some of his London produced
plays.
The opening sentence in this
book says it all: “Dear Mother,
we never had much to say to
each other when you were
alive”. Within these letters,
there is not only a chronicle
of as possibly misspent youth
from job to job, from digs to
digs, with midnight fl its and
bills unpaid. A lot of drink
is consumed, dodgy deals
attempted, gambling scams
and a wonderful period when
he was in partnership with the
Mean Fiddler owner and childhood
friend, Vince Power.
I am not sure how much
O’Brien has embellished the
aspects of his ‘jack-the-lad’
existence, and his deportation
from England at one stage.
He is an excellent and colourful
writer, as his London successes
will attest to. I suspect
he dresses up the truth to keep
the reader attentive but, in the
process, he reveals a lot of hurt
and possibly regret. He seems
to need not just recognition
and affi rmation in London but
also to be accepted in his home
place. This ‘dislocation’ and
realisation that, in a sense, ‘you
can never go back’ to the past
yet you cannot shake off that
past is evident in these Letters.
Sometimes, writers reveal
more than they might wish or
realise and that is the fascination
of Tom O’Brien’s story. I
suspect that fame in London
does not compensate for a lack
of recognition in his home
county.

Liam Murphy

 

TIGER BAY

 

How long have they sat there,

Unnoticed?

Granite haunches

Tensed in the sand

Brunting the snarling sea

Washed over again and again

Licking endless salt wounds away.

 

From these high cliffs I see them clearly

Wild creatures

Waiting patiently for prey

Yesterday it was desolate;

Now there are tigers in the bay

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

LOOKING FOR GOOGLE

Driverless cars

Headless chickens

Oops! mind that blind…

Oh, what the Dickens!

The lingua franca

In Google we trust,

In God if we must.

Look, no hands!

It’s not a boast

It’s a statement of fact,

I don’t drive, it’s all an act.

The phone on my table

Speaks in eighteen different languages if tasked

And can answer questions

(Sometimes before they are asked).

Now they have sent ten thousand

Helium balloons into the stratosphere

Seeking all the disconnected;

Wi-Fi for all – and soon

They could – in theory – I guess

Set up shop nowadays on the moon

This is their ‘toothbrush’ test;

“Focus on the user and all else follows”

Culture and success go hand in hand;

If you don’t believe your own slogan

You’re already in no-man’s land.

 

FULFILLMENT

Oh yes

I am fulfilled,

Four children to date

Extra marital sex

At the going rate;

A house of my own

Well, the council’s really

But they also pay the rent

‘Cos all my time and energy is spent

No working – and keeping up the pretence

That being a lazy bastard

Is not all it’s cracked up to be,

‘Cos it is and more

Though it would be much more rewarding

If I had six children

Instead of four.

 

 

 

 

MORE CYCLISTS

 

Why do they cycle in the middle of the road,

Or hog the white line,

Go when the lights are red

And sometimes stop when they are green,

And steer with their knees

While their hands are doing something obscene?

Most don’t wear helmets

For when they land on their heads;

They constantly harass pedestrians

Slithering in and out like pavement Teds.

They don’t have bells

So you need eyes in your poll

And when you tell them get lost

Shout ‘I will in me hole!’

I think they should be banned, tarred and  ‘departed’

And from their wheel-mobiles  seriously parted