THE UNIVERSE AS A HOLOGRAM PART TWO
According to Einstein
Energy created the Universe.
I seem to have little of that these days
So my powers of creation are limited.
Should I try Vibrational Medicine?
Quantum Mechanics has the answers
Apparently.
Every cell, organ, arm and leg
Has an emergency frequency signature
Broadcasting whatever it needs
Moment by moment.
Now science is imitating nature
Creating a Holographic Universe
Where I can seemingly be in different locations
At the same time.
(a bit Doctor Who-ish, I know)
World-wide authentic native wisdom
Shares the sacred secret
In our understanding of the Quantum Hologram.
If it is not on the Quantum Hologram
It cannot manifest in the ‘real’ world
Quantum Hologram equals reality
And reality means
I am…
Something
TALES FROM THE BLACK LION…continued
TALES FROM THE BLACK LION…continued
‘Course, I realise this isn’t really about motorists or driving at all. It’s merely the thoughts that occur to me in my capacity as a driver. I wonder if they would be the same if I was sitting on a horse or riding a bicycle. You are probably wondering what I do for a living. I drive for a courier firm, delivering letters and packages around the Capital. (though I could use a horse or an elephant for all the difference it would make, seeing as traffic now moves slower through the streets than it did in the era of the horse-drawn carriage more than a hundred years ago) When I was young I wanted to be a fireman, but something stunted my growth. All that puffing behind the bike shed probably. But the biggest drawback was that eighteen months I spent in Wandsworth for arson…
The things people do to motorists! Look at this in my morning paper. A Mr Murphy had just driven his van into the courtyard of the block of flats where he lived, whereupon he was shot in the leg and relieved of his van and the takings from his shop. He managed to hobble outside and stopped a passing police car, which took him to the nearby Hospital. His wife, meanwhile, had seen his van arrive in the courtyard and began putting his dinner on the table. When he didn’t appear she decided to call him on his mobile phone. Imagine her surprise when the voice at the other end said; ‘I’ve just shot him so he’s probably gone to the hospital.’ Afterwards she said; ‘I was very annoyed with my husband and wanted to tell him his dinner was getting cold’…..
Yesterday afternoon I arrived home to a crescendo of banging. It was coming from the bottom of my garden. It was my neighbour, trying to demolish the tree that had taken over a corner of his patch. His method of felling it was certainly original; he was hacking away at it with a hammer and chisel. Perhaps this was how they felled trees in India. Nevertheless, I offered him the loan of my saw.
It seemed to me that my shed was directly in the line of fire, but he assured me there was no danger, and indicated the rope attached to his tree. I left him to his devices and went to fix myself a cup of coffee. I could see him through my window, squatting up the tree, about six feet above ground, sawing away. (I know, but don’t ask why…) Suddenly the tree began to topple…straight for the shed. I could see the guy-rope fluttering uselessly in the breeze. Fleet of foot, the intrepid lumberjack leapt on to the roof of the shed and diverted the tree into the garden instead. When I got outside he was dancing a jig of delight on the roof; ‘see, I am telling you it will miss the shed’. I looked at my flattened rosebushes and hardy annuals, and could only shake my head in disbelief…
This morning is a pleasant one for a change. The view from the top of Highgate Hill is wonderful, almost invigorating. What is it about high ground that lifts the depression and sets the senses tingling? Whatever it is it must be what seperates the brain-boxes from the mutton-heads. The intellectuals seek the high ground – moral and otherwise – of Hampstead, Highgate and Greenwich, while the proles are dumped in dives like Leyton, Poplar and Kensal Green.
There is a weak sun poking through the clouds, bathing Alexandria Palace in a soft glow, and a gentle breeze is rustling the fallen leaves. When I reach Acton I will see neither; just consumptive chimney-stacks belching their shite into the sky.
North Circular Road…Neasden…Stonebridge Park…Hangar Lane…Nightmare Avenue.Concrete above me, concrete below me, concrete to either side of me. Wembley Stadium in the distance; another concrete blob on the horizon. Regiments of cones guard acres of empty lanes. Whilst silent machines stare at gaping holes and mounds of battered tarmacadam. Unmoved, unmoving, I study this scene of desolation. One day all roads will look like this. Soon.
Nowhere man, that’s me. Slowly going nowhere. Even if there were no jams I would still be going there. Maybe that’s what I should call this … Thoughts Of A Nowhere Man. No ambition you see…least not until I began writing this.
Those boxes and packages, wonder what’s in them? Not that there’s anything valuable…nothing worth doing a runner for. Remember that guy a few years back, cab driver, who picked the fare with all that money in his briefcase? Hundreds of thousands there was. The guy needed a smoke so bad he asked the driver to stop at a newsagents. When he came back the cab had gone. Must be the most expensive pack of ciggies in history…
By the way, I have found out who Tiresias was. I thought he might have been some obscure Greek philosopher but the librarian thought it was the name of a poem by Tennyson. That is why she is a librarian and I am a courier. Tiresias was a blind seer – made that way as a punishment for seeing the Goddess of Wisdom naked – and in the poem is urging his son to commit suicide. The blind leading the blind? Probably an accurate description of British Rail.
DRIVING WHILE BLACK
DRIVING WHILE BLACK
Don’t drive while you’re black
‘Cos you may get stopped on the way back
From wherever you have been
Doing bad things to country and queen
Never drive when you’re black
Looking for white people to attack
‘Cos that’s a crime too
Though it’s okay to drive when you’re blue
Driving while black
Means you could get shot in the back
For turning left or failing to stop
By some trigger-happy, non-black cop
Some other ‘crimes’ while being black;
Smoking while black
Learning while black
Walking while black
Shopping while black
Eating while black
In fact almost any damn thing while black
THOUGHTS OF A STATIONARY WRITER
Thoughts Of A Stationary Writer
What about that Julie Burchell on the Box the other night? An opinion of herself so high that anyone kissing her arse would think it was a moonbeam. Who would ever have thought that such a squeaky voice could emerge from such a burly chassis? And what about the Gooners yesterday? Worst performance of the year. Come on lights,fucking change. Can’t see any ridges on those trousers. Bet she isn’t wearing any.
You’re probably thinking I’m a bit touched, rabbiting away like this about everything and nothing. But have you ever sat at the traffic lights waiting for the green light; drumming your fingers or picking your nose? It’s hard to think about nothing; thoughts come into your head whether you like it or not. Just because you are a stationary driver doesn’t mean that your brain is stationary too. The reverse in fact. I find that I get most of my better ideas when I’m waiting at the lights or stuck in long queues. Well, it’s either that or crack up. Huge jams are the best of all; you get more time to delve deeply into your subject matter. I almost feel a pang of regret when that log-jam finally breaks up.
I got the idea originally from reading a weird book called ‘Notes On The Overground’; all about the thoughts of a commuter who travelled daily between Oxford and London. Whilst others read their papers or did the crossword, he wrote in his diary. Tiresias, what a funny name to call himself. Must look it up. Anyway, if some civil-servant from Oxford could do it for rail users, why couldn’t I do it for motorists.
He said it, my God he said it!
Brazen-faced to the watching millions
‘They should not leak’, he ventured
‘After all, they are servants to the Crown’
Leaking in public? How revolting!
And where would it begin?
A seepage from the ears perhaps?
Or a welling-up from beneath
All those starched collars?
Perhaps it would occur in the nether regions
Visible only by a steady trickle
Down around the ankles
My telephoned enquiry brought no joy
‘I can assure you we have no
Leaking civil servants here
Why don’t you try MI5’
( Excuse the diversion, but this just popped into my head. My thanks to the gentleman from some branch of officialdom or other who appeared on TV and actually said, ‘civil servants should not leak’)
Tiresias described the train as a battleground. He is wrong. Maybe in its heyday, before the world was overpopulated by cars, there was some truth in his claim; but nowadays all the real battles take place in the streets, the roads and on the motorways.
I sometimes think London is one great big lunatic asylum and the lunatics are all us motorists driving around on the outside trying to get in. It is not for nothing that the M25 has been christened ‘The Road To Hell’. A Dante’s Inferno of screaming and wailing motorists; lost souls doomed to revolve forever on this damned circle.
There are fewer more uncomfortable modes of travel than the car. A camel perhaps. ( one hump or two?) Although a friend once tried riding on an ostrich and found it an awesome experience. ‘Give me a bucking bronco any day’, he said afterwards. But getting back to the car; Imagine spending one fifth of your life crouched over a steering wheel, knuckles white from being permanently tensed up, constantly having to be alert for kamikaze pedestrians, and you get the general idea…
Seven AM In The Smoke
‘No Surrender’
The motorists battle-cry
Echoing through the smog and fumes.
Furiously-pedalling cyclists,
Sinisterly masked,
Towing technology in their slipstreams.
Legions of static transporters
Slowly going nowhere.
Human perambulators
Reeling them in one by one.
Phantom headlines flashing before my eyes
FOUR PEDESTRIANS MAIMED,
BUT HE GAINED TWO CAR-LENGTHS.
Onward to the asylum!
to be continued…………………
IN PRAISE OF IRISH THEATRES
IN PRAISE OF IRISH THEATRES
For more than twenty years
I have emptied pens on virgin pages;
A million words at least
And many more chewed in frustration
Then spat into the dustbin of the ages.
Words are cheap and wordsmiths cheaper still
But we like our efforts to be appreciated
And performed ( better still)
Yet to Irish Theatres great and small,
I do not write plays at all;
You have ignored my work
Yet the English do not shirk
To place my plays centre-stage
And Americans too have premiered a few
Which makes me ask you nicely
Irish Theatres, what the FUCK
Is the matter with you?
MORE TALES FROM THE BLACK LION
MORE TALES FROM THE BLACK LION
We had a party the other night. A kind of fancy-dress do, where everybody came dressed as a pub. There were several Red Cows, three Spotted Dogs, a Lord Nelson, a Duke Of Wellington, several Queen Victorias and a Pig And Whistle. And of course a Black Lion. This, naturally, being the guvner himself.
Then John The Butcher arrived. He was carrying a placard which read, ‘repent all ye who enter here for the end of the world is neigh’. He was also carrying a bloodied parcel, which he slapped on the counter in front of the guvner.
‘There you are. Five pound of the best tee-bone.. Tender as a baby’s bottom’.
‘What would you know about babies?’, someone in the crowd piped up. John was a confirmed bachelor.
‘Plenty’, he said, without averting his eyes from the pint that was being poured by one of the Red Cows. ‘I was one once’.
The guvner, meantime ,was dividing his time between sniffing at the parcel and studying the placard. Eventually, satisfied with the meat, he shoved it out of sight and rescued a tenner from the till. This he shoved grudgingly in John’s direction, indicating the placard as he did so.
‘Am I missing something?’
John waited until he had lowered the froth on his pint to below the half-way line before answering. ‘Ha, ha. Got ya there, haven’t I?’ He flicked a hand at the sign. ‘It’s the world’s end’.
‘Is it? Not right this minute I trust? Not in the middle of my busy time’. He looked closely at John. ‘You gone religious or sumthin’?’
‘You berk. The World’s End. It’s a pub.’
‘Never heard of it’
‘It’s a pub I tell ya. Down the Kings Road’.
‘He is right. I myself have been there many times’. This was Artic Alice. ‘I can vouch for its existence’.
Alice always spoke in a clipped, formal way. A legacy of her upbringing undoubtably, which, it was rumoured, included some of the best finishing schools in the land. Alice herself never confirmed (or denied) these stories, but there was no doubt she was well-educated, and, from the way she conducted herself in company, well-bred.
Alice never got drunk. She was content to sip Martinis in her favourite corner, poring over a crossword or a book, being polite to everyone, never opening her heart to a soul. She participated in the occasional pub quiz ( at which she excelled), but she was still as much a mystery woman as the day she first appeared about five years ago. Hence her nickname.
‘There. If Alice says it exists that should be good enough for you’. John finished his pint and signalled for another.
‘Not so fast’. The guvner wasn’t going to concede as easily as that. ‘Anyone can invent a pub. How do I know it exists?’
I forgot to mention that the reason for dressing up is this competition the guvner dreamed up, in which the winner can drink as much as he or she is capable of over the weekend. It occurs to me he might have a good reason for not wanting John to participate. With his capacity for unlimited guzzling he might easily drink the place dry.
Alice, who was to be the judge, wouldn’t be denied. ‘Of course it exists.’
‘That may well be. But it still isn’t proof’.
‘Proof you want, is it?’ It was the first time I had heard Alice raise her voice. ‘I’ll give you proof’. She snatched her handbag from the counter and rummaged through it for a few moments. Eventually, she produced a cutting, dog-eared, and yellowing ,and spread it out before us on the counter.
‘Hey, that’s Georgie Best’. The guvner poked a finger at the picture staring up at us. A look of something approaching awe appeared on his face. ‘Is that you pulling him a pint?’
‘It certainly is me. I was much younger then of course. What does it say on that banner behind me?’
We could all see it now, in letters that must have been a foot high. WORLDS END PUB …GRAND OPENING BY GEORGE BEST…FREE BEER ALL DAY
‘I knew I could rely on you Alice’. John clapped her on the shoulder. ‘You deserve a large drink after all that’.
‘Thank you John. My usual will suffice’. Alice carefully folded her cutting and placed it in her bag between the pages of a loose-leaf note-book that looked filled with notes. ‘By the way, the word is nigh’.
‘Eh?’
‘The end of the world is nigh, John, not neigh’.
More tales from the Black Lion soon…
POEM FOR THE PECKER DUNNE
Poem For The Pecker Dunne
Gather round this cold night by the campfire,and i’ll tell you a Tinkermans’ tale,
All about a great singer of Ireland,who triumphed where many have failed.
Born into a nomadic lifestyle,a horse drawn trailer it was his abode,
And he travelled the lanes of ould Ireland,and he travelled the dusty old roads.
“Sullivans John” to the road you have gone,Pecker Dunne wrote at eleven years young
And that was the dawn of his music career,and his wonderful story begun.
For he travelled the byways and highways,and could be found on a bright sunny day,
Playing songs down at Croke of the travelling folk,at the games of the old G.A.A
Well he sang of the Myxomatosis and he told of the ould Morris van,
And the tale of the Thirty foot trailer,and the songs of the travelling man.
And he gave us the songs of his people,where others had feared for to speak,
And he spoke out ‘gainst discrimination,and equal rights for his people did seek.
Well you’d find him not far from O’Callaghans Mills,in the famed banner county of Clare,
Down among all the horses and trailers at the world famous Spancil Hill fair.
And you’d find him out west into Galway and on the road up to Ballinasloe,
With his banjo and fiddle always close by at hand,for he always would put on a show.
Pecker drank with the great Richard Harris,a world renowned actor and drinker,
And starred in “The Good,Bad & Ugly”,not bad for an old Wexford Tinker!!
And he knew Eli Wallach and Oliver Reed,and he acted with the man Stephen Rea,
But he never denied that great traveller pride,on the open road Peckers’ heart lay.
Christy Moore never met with Bob Dylan,but he sang with the great Pecker Dunne,
So won’t you come now to me little daughter,won’t you come now to me little son.
For Pecker played with those brothers The Fureys,and Luke Kellys’ own Dubliners’ band,
With his own unique style that old banjo he played,and the greatest respect did command.
So always remember his music,and never then forget his face,
For he brought such joy unto his people,and he brought such pride unto his race.
For we are the Romany people,and in that we should suffer no shame,
Dunne,Barrett,Ward or other,travelling sister or brother,you should always take pride in your name.
So farewell to the tent and the trailer,and farewell to the old caravan,
And join me in praise of the great Pecker Dunne,of the Legend,Musician and Man.
For he shall be forever remembered,and his name it shall always live long,
Carried on by the travellers of Ireland,in their poems and in story and song.
(C)ProvoRhino. 9th June 2010.All Rights Reserved.
My play PECKER DUNNE – LAST OF THE TRAVELERS, is a musical biography of one of Ireland’s last great travelling musicians.
A play with music about the travelling musicians of Ireland, mostly concentrating on Pecker Dunne and Margaret Barry. They were both from travelling families, Tinkers, and were marginalised by Irish society. Looked down on, indeed persecuted for their way of life. Both were great singers and musicians, and along with the great Johnny Doran, did more to promote Irish traditional music than almost any other person of our times. Both are dead now and the play is set in a kind of imaginary ‘halting site’, where departed souls are temporarily resident while awaiting transport to somewhere permanent.
AUTOMATIC WRITING
AUTOMATIC WRITING
by
Tom O’Brien
(written in a two-hour against-the-clock frenzy one summers morning in …. a long time ago)
Why is me? Why is god? Bad grammar I know, but syntax isn’t everything, is it? Syntax…must look that up, not too sure what it means. It’s as if this pen has a will of its own – I am merely sitting here watching it trace outlines on a virgin, amazed at what I am reading. I wonder if Trollope employed this technique in his writing? It sure seems like it; he wrote 3000 words every morning before work. But why go on about it….everyone knows that old chestnut. Duncan McDaid, who was he? A footballler in Askeaton? No, that was the McDaid clan from Northern Ireland. Good footballers, but hard to stomach. Shits, every one. Still, one humoured them. ‘Now is the summer of fucking content.’ Something like that would have suited the Bard better. ‘Not to be at all’ sounds better than the other one. It was a dark and dangerous hour…why do I keep changing the words before I write them? Good practice for later, I guess. Scott Fitzgerald liked to try this form of writing; get all this shit down on paper and see what resulted. Nothing much ever did. However, it’s a discipline that has got to be tried – see what comes out apart from shit.
Shall I begin a new paragraph? Go on, treat yourself. Buy a few pages of crap; spout it all out here at this end-of-page feeling. This life is but a dot on a far horizon…a blank dilettante….almost faltered there… doesn’t blank dilettante almost rhyme? – and if it doesn’t does it matter? Now this plate on my table stinks; old dog-ends mashed up in rasher grease, and outside cats-nip that some should nick. The old shed at garden’s end was nicked too. Oh, not in totality; but layer upon layer, chopped down with a buzzz-saw, and then nailed to the cross that bore it. What crap you say, and of course you’re write (right), but then you always are my dear. Never known to be wrong, for long are you crucified, eh? Maybe that is right too, but you hammered in the nails yourself. No martyrs for me, but you – you – you stood there screaming – it was him – him who brought the house down – stood there ankle-deep in shit telling everyone our secret. Secret? That was no secret; it was written in italics on every cinema wall in the state. She loves you but she daren’t admit it, not even to her fairy godmother, who happens – and this is true – to be the biggest fairy in dog-land. I don’t know where dog-land is, but by God it is rough. Ha Continue reading
SUPERMARKET IN CALIFORNIA – Alan Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg, born in Newark, N.J., June 3, 1926, is an American poet and leading apostle of the beat generation.
Supermarket In California
What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I
walked down the streets under the trees with a
headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went
into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your
enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families
shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the
avocados, babies in the tomatoes! – and you, Garcia Lorca,
what were you doing down by the watermelons?
walked down the streets under the trees with a
headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went
into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your
enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families
shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the
avocados, babies in the tomatoes! – and you, Garcia Lorca,
what were you doing down by the watermelons?
I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber,
poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing
the grocery boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans
following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary
fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy,
and never passing the cashier.
Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets?
The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we’ll both be lonely.
Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past
blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher,
what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood
watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?
Alan Ginsberg
THE DANCE OF THE CRANE
THE DANCE OF THE CRANE
Long-necked and longer-legged
They shimmer among the reeds
Crazy-dancing in the breeze
High-stepping, wing-flapping
Bouncing high in springy leaps
Then a pause
To step lightly here,
Tread gaily there
Duets in the sun
Heads bowed.
Balletically symmetric
It ends in a crescendo
That is electric
It is love they are dancing about
This joyful abundance
Knowing no bounds
Feeling no pain
You and I, my love
Shall soon learn
To dance like the crane
My Writing Life 