poetry

GIGGS BOSUN COLLIDER

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GIGGS BOSUN COLLIDER

Yeah, I met Giggs
He was a bosun wasn’t he?
Plying the East India route
Yeah, that’s right
Rebooting the particle smasher he was.
I saw him doing it once;
Not much scope for that kind of malarkey out here
I thought at the time.
And what did the rebooting do?
What did it find?
Nothing that I could see.
Maybe because there something else on his mind
And now they call it the Bosun Giggs Collider.
Large Haddock Collider, I think you will find
So what happened to Giggs?
Giggs? Oh he disappeared somewhere in the South China Seas.
Now he tells me! Do you mind if I sing?
If I die tonight bury me
In my favourite yellow patent leather shoes
With a mummified cat and a cone-like hat
‘Cos I’ve got the Giggs Bosun Blues…

WIDE, WIDE WOMEN

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WIDE, WIDE WOMEN

What is it with young women with buggies?
Both seem to get wider with each passing day
And use the pavement as a playground
Where their feckless children can play
Skateboards, scooters and other diverse playthings
Are added to the cigarettes – usually Kings,
That hang permanently from pinkified faces,
Beneath this rainbow gathering of hairpieces
Adorning those many empty spaces.
The pavement, somehow, seems smaller these days.

REALITY CHECK

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REALITY CHECK

Busy hips and pouting lips
Powder the streets of cruel illusion
Sideways smiles and dark alley wiles
Add spice to the confusion
Of the boy who thought sex in the park
Might be a bit of a lark
Until he got unpleasently surprised in the dark
‘Hey! My heels are longer than your dick,
So put it away you scurvy little prick’.

DAMN YOU ENGLAND

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One of the best books I have read on the theatre, and on the people who people it,
is John Osborne’s DAMN YOU ENGLAND. He doesn’t suffer fools gladly.
Surprisingly, he has plenty of time for Brendan Behan. Here he is on their first meeting;
“Brendan Behan lurched into my life early one Sunday New York morning. Pounding on my hotel
room door. ‘Is anyone in this fucking cathouse alive?’ he roared. ‘My name is Brendan Behan.
I don’t smoke, I don’t eat and I don’t fuck, but I drink. You can always tell the quality
of a country by two things;its whores and its bread. And neither of them are any fucking good here’.
Brendans life was a ballad, the wild outpouring of a pure, forgiving heart. Who is there in Ireland
or England to take up his matchless song now?

HE DREW FIRST

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HE DREW FIRST

He drew first
But I drew better
Then, he always did fire blanks
While I put my trust in French Letters
C’est la vie

INSPIRATION

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INSPIRATION

The midnight muse does not wait
For the lure of silver at someone’s gate
Nor the rattle of chains in rust-red splendour
As the moonlight beams on the night so tender.
The midnight muse has something strange to tell;
‘Silence is violence’
Say the damned in hell
To speak is to live not bound by chains
An ’empty silence’ is all that remains

all my books are available on http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tom-OBrien/e/B0034OIGOQ/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1388083522&sr=1-2-ent

ARTIST

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ARTIST

I must paint or die
I wake early
I meditate
God gives me strength to lead this double life
Milk! Please, I need warm milk
I must paint at first light
When the colours are not too bright.
What is Buddha,I overhear in disbelief
Then three pounds of flax, please
Is the paintbrush really mightier than the sword?
Did Gallipoli fall just because of a word?
Give me your fucking Giro
Before I shoot you with my Biro

OH, FOR THE DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES

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OH, FOR THE DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES

Falling in love with a poet
May be the closest you will come to living forever
Be the wild card in his pack
In a world where lonely queens never say never
Go live in the desert rather than a fancy hotel
Eat with rusty cutlery, drink cider instead of Muscatel
Visit no mans land, but once only
Then come back and you will never feel lonely
Remember that underground city that once glowed
Red in the dark
Go limber up in hilly Montmartre
Then go barefoot in Gaudi Park
Dance with demons and devils on some remote island
Then go toss some cabers in the godless Scottish Highlands
All this you must do, while your poet’s mouth opens and closes
As you dance along some cobbled street singing
Oh, for the days of wine and roses.

I AM CHARLIE

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France Newspaper Attack

I AM CHARLIE
I dreamt I saw Charlie last night
Alive as you and me
Charlie, I said, you’re surely dead
I never died says he
I never died says he

From Paris out to New Orleans
From Rheims to San Jose
The lousy bastards shot you dead
I never died says he
I never died says he

It takes more than guns to kill a man
Let freedom be the key
When working men stand up to them
That’s there you’ll find Charlie
I never died says he
I never died says he

(with apologies to Phil Ochs/Joe Hill)

SMOKING WITH JOE

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SMOKING WITH JOE
Joe said it was rubbish
I agreed, but then he said –
No, I meant it was rubbishy.
What’s the difference?, I asked
But he didn’t reply.
I need a cigarette, he then said
Who is going to oblige?
They stunt your growth Joe,
I replied, measuring him casually
With my trained carpenter’s eye
Tall he was, a redwood among men
He could do with some stunting, I thought
Pulling a pack from my jacket pocket.
Here, take two, I said,
They’re very small
Do you know something? he said
When he had one going –
The other one stuck safely behind a rather large ear
If I had a pound for every fag I smoked
I’d be a very wealthy man.
OP’s you mean, I remarked.
OP’S, he looked insulted
I wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole!.