XKCD?
What does XKCD mean?
Sounds like a disease
Or a secret organisation
But perhaps it’s an acronym
Or is it just a word
With no phonetic pronounciation?
Maybe it’s just a stupid comic.
BIG BANG THEORY
BIG BANG THEORY
‘Sorry sir, there is no more room for memories
The past is full up’
Just lately it seems to be turning out that way
Which, when you think of it, must make sense
How much history can be shovelled down one hole
Before it overflows with past events?
And what of the future,
Did it all start with a big bang in the past?
If it’s true, like they say,
How long can the present last?
Before the Expanding Universe swallows
Up all of time?
And nothing more can happen
Because something or other
Has crossed the dividing line
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tom-OBrien/e/B0034OIGOQ/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1388083522&sr=1-2-ent
DAWNING
DAWNING
‘Silly old fool’, someone
Shouts in your wake
And in the brilliantly-lit
Cube of time ‘old’ is dangled
Before your eyes
And won’t go away
She called you old! And
In the instant it takes you
To turn around and see
The solitary young woman
Bend down to retrieve her parcel
It dawns on you that you are
Nearer the end than the beginning
Much nearer
It comes, not creeping in the dark,
But galloping unstoppably
Over the horizon
And you never see it
Silly old fool
CITY OF LIGHT
CITY OF LIGHT
A disused rail track in south Paris;
A dark tunnel;
Crawling, wading, through water
To a dank chamber with vaulted ceilings.
This is where the cataphiles meet;
Lovers of catacombs
And all things underneath.
The walls are covered with art
Awash with glow-in-the-dark paint,
Egyptian black-and-orange devil faces,
A multi coloured parrot image.
One wall is encrusted with mirror shards
The centerpiece a glittering disco ball
The ghostly faces leering
Down the long subterranean hall
This is the City of Light
Where nobody sleeps at night
And the remains of six million Parisians,
Transferred from Paris’ overflowing cemeteries
More than one hundred years ago,
Dwell.
Now artists prowl these same catacombs
Sometimes unseen
Ghostly in their movements
The spectre of real ghosts always in their slipstream.
THE DINOSAUR DEBATE
THE DINOSAUR DEBATE
Malkey, have you got a chink in your armour?
I wouldn’t be surprised, Dave
The little blighters get everywhere
How many dogs did you keep in Cardiff, Malkey?
More than enough to fill the team when I was there.
Did you hear the one about the Brit, Malkey? And the Paddy,
The Jock, the Taffy, the Jew and the Paki…
That’s racist, Dave!
Cor blimey!
Are you sure you’re a Limey?
TRUE ENEMY
TRUE ENEMY
Those whom the Gods love mostly die young
For time is the true enemy of everyone
The beauty that time cherishes
Is the beauty that soon perishes
And when time and beauty meet
It is always high noon on the street
Something has got to give;
Beauty dies so that others may live
But all dawns prove false dawns
And the payback is still to come
For time catches up with us all eventually
And not just the unlucky some.
PADDINGTON BEAR ON AIR
PADDINGTON BEAR ON AIR
Paddington Bear
Appeared on the air
Looking a lot like Hugh Bonneville
He said oh dear
This place looks queer
I much prefer Maida Vale or Notting Hill
HISTORY LESSONS
HISTORY LESSONS
See the walking dead
And the carcasses piled high
Like wood on bonfire night;
Clothes, shoes, hair and jewellery
Neatly stacked in separate heaps
Gaunt history staring us in the face
Confetti droning overhead
Gently napalming young bodies
Flesh peeling
Delta-Mekong dots on the map
Where’s Daddy?
Gone to fight the yellow man
Burning deserts erupting
Below technology-laden skies
Push-button warfare
Timed for peak viewing.
Blind killing-fields
Scorched earth, scorched body;
What’s the difference?
BAD PENNY
BAD PENNY
This bad penny will not conform
Because my minds a blank
But then so is the penny –
At least on the reverse side.
It may not be a bad penny at all;
It’s edges are serrated
And it twirls when I spin it.
Ten times out of ten it lands
Fancy side up;
Perhaps there is a good side
To this bad penny
THE MISSING POSTMAN AND OTHER STORIES
Upcoming review:
SHORT STORIES REVIEW The Missing Postman and Other Stories
The Co Waterford-born novelist and playwright, Tom O’Brien is still on a very productive streak, and not only has he had two plays produced in London this year, but he has brought out another novel, a book of three Waterford plays, and now a new book of short stories – The Missing Postman and Other Stories. His output is impressive and the work paints a wonderful picture of an Ireland that is quirky and malevolent, as well as giving a wonderful sense of place and time. I am surprised he is not a tourist attraction, and that no Waterford theatre company has scheduled a production of his. What is it about a prophet and his home place?
These stories read like notes to plays, and some are charged with characters and menace, as in the novella-length, The Missing Postman, that looks at the crazy world of Zeb and Zoe, who come to Ireland (Co Waterford) to avenge, separate, unhappy childhoods, and go on a ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ robbery spree. They hide out in a curious cottage of Martin Og, who has surprises in the house of a high-tech nature.
In a chilling exploration that is full of tension and foreboding, the mysterious disappearance of Martin Og’s brother – The Postman of the title is remembered.
In Johnjo’s Tale, we get the sense of emigration and isolation, laced with the sickly nostalgia, for songs of an era of regret, heartache, and rights to property, keeping emigrants forever looking back to the old homestead. This notion of family possessions is forcefully brought home in a very short -The Dispossessed – where the message is driven home (pardon the pun) – you can never go back. Home is not and perhaps, never was, what you desperately wanted it to be.
The Homecoming, is another pithy story where the landscape of memory and the physical landscape of a Hill was quarried away to create a sense of false prosperity. For those who will come to know (and I sincerely hope so) Tom O’Brien as a fine playwright (which he is), these short stories will be viewed as source material into his themes and motivations. But they read as stories in their own right, full of human and bitter honesty, and full of dramatic tension and excitement.
My Writing Life 