Posts

KILLER

/ gorgeousgael / Leave a comment

imagesCAKRH6VSuntitled

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 aint 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

SEE ALL MY BOOKS ON AMAZON; http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tom-OBrien/e/B0034OIGOQ/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1388083522&sr=1-2-ent

LACKENDARA

/ gorgeousgael / Leave a comment

untitledimagesCABGUPM0
LACKENDARA

Ah Lackendara
You heard the voices too
At Paschendaele where you
Cowered as the big guns
Bombarded your world to silence
Blasted your thoughts to kingdom come
And left you forlorn
On that ragged outcrop
In the foothills of the Comeraghs
The fox and the curlew your only companions
The gurgling Mahon Falls
All there was to quench your thirst.
For thirty years you trod those hills
Taking little notice
Of ordinary life around you going on
Your presence on the mountain a constant reminder
Of mans’ inhumanity to man.

FALL

/ gorgeousgael / Leave a comment

untitledimages
FALL

Autumn mornings are best;
The sun smiling low over the gasworks
Flighty leaves browning the common
Kites lark-high over the tree-tops
Coffee and a roll in the old rectory
And you by my side

NO THANKS

/ gorgeousgael / Leave a comment

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

NO THANKS

If I left you now, what would you miss?
Grumpy mornings, silent evenings
And taken-for-granted pause between the emptiness;
And hidden behind the tall tales, adultery;
Mental maybe, but real nevertheless

You dazed me in the park one Sunday’s summer afternoon.
Your smile was electric.
Later, you hid your patience well
When freedom was dragged from under my feet.
You ticked of the (waiting) time
And I repaid you with monologues of deceit

There are those more deserving of your kindness;
Less selfish, less angry,
And less possessed of my bloody-mindedness.
You bore your cross to the edge and beyond.
Always hauling me back to the fold.
Snatches of love were your only compensation,
Were I a better man I would cloak you in gold

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!

/ gorgeousgael / Leave a comment

images
I love this poem; Walt Whitman’s 1865 eulogy to Abraham Lincoln. Whitman lived through the American Civil War, and being so close to the founding of the country knew many people who were part of the revolution.The main political and social issues during his time were slavery and rights for African Americans. He admired Abraham Lincoln immensely, sharing his commitment to the Union and his opposition to slavery.
Robin Williams makes repeated references to the poem in the 1989 film DEAD POETS SOCIETY

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!

O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! My Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores, and ring,
O bells! But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

MY LATEST POETRY COLLECTIONS

/ gorgeousgael / Leave a comment

17-06-2014 19;58;55

28-08-2014 11;23;06

NOW AVAILABLE @ http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tom-OBrien/e/B0034OIGOQ/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1388083522&sr=1-2-ent

NORTH CAROLINA TREES

/ gorgeousgael / Leave a comment

134113

NORTH CAROLINA TREES
Tall pines, straight as railway sleepers,
Stun me with their skinny beauty
Some of these were old
When Abraham Lincoln was barely knee high.
And it is even possible that George Washington
Touched one or two as he rode by.
Durham was young when these pines first sprouted life
As were Raleigh, Charlotte, and Queensboro et al
Perhaps it was the Redcoats who seeded this lush terrain
Beauty shipped all the way
From England’s green and pleasant land
To conceal the carnage of their long and murderous campaign.

PLAY ON

/ gorgeousgael / Leave a comment

65a16c5300342edcf7be79cc819e15b4

PLAY ON

Ensconced here in contemplation
Your presence overwhelms me
Arms outstretched, yet never chiding
Even knowing my ways were wrong

Burning both ends speeds up damnation
I can see that now;
Lust living in the wings
While the songs sang themselves
And courage dredged from the bottle
While the melody lingered on

Music was my life
But you changed it all;
Your song will still be nectar, Lord
When all this is gone…

ZOO TIME AND CHANGING TIMES

/ gorgeousgael / Leave a comment

imagesCA5B08UR
Some writers should be avoided like a swarm of mosquitos. I am thinking of the likes of Martin Amis/Will Self/Salman Rushdie etc. I would probably have put Howard Jacobson in that category until I read my first book of his – ZOO TIME – recently. Brilliantly funny, waspish, and with prose so sharp you could cut yourself. Ostensibly it is about writer Guy Ableman and his obsession with his mother-in-law, but really it’s about writers and their obsession with the writing profession. No one reads any more according to Guy; his publsher, fearing the same, has committed suicide, his agent is in hiding, and his wife, Vanessa, is writing her own novel, which together with his unruly passion for his mother-in-law combine to make this the best novel I have read in years. 5*****

CHANGING TIMES
We are murdering time
Now is no good
Maybe what happens next will be better
Life is someplace else
Perhaps on our poncey phones;
It’s like eating in a restaurant
And discussing the menu
From somewhere else;
Everyone is on edge
Like we are slipping a cog
Or like musical chairs
When the music stops
You change your life
Doesn’t matter if you get it wrong
It’ll be shit whatever you choose