Poetry
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Limerick
White House Poerty Every Wednesday evening at The White House bar in Glentworth Street. Wednesday night 12th December before
Christmas celebrates the Final of Desmond O'Grady Poetry Competition.
In this year of the 200th anniversary of the White House Bar in
Limerick City we are going to have a wonderful celebration of poetry
and of the outstanding poet Desmond O'Grady. We now invite all
of you to join us in this event and to read your poems in the usual
Open Mic session which is now in the 10th consecutive year. Start
at 9pm sharp.
The list of
the 10 finalist poems is online at: http://www.desmondogrady.com/poetrycompetition.html
CORK POET'S
PLATFORM AT Tigh Filí Arts Centre
Mac Curtain Street, Cork
no
details
Errigal
Writers OPEN MIKE POETRY
VENUE
EVERY
TUESDAY @ 8pm : Admission FREE Glen of Aherlow, 29
Emmet Road Kilmainham
Featuring, special guests, open mike, recordings, & video's
Buses, 78A, 51A, 51B & 51C stop at the door (from
Aston Quay). Also the Red Line Tram stops nearby at Suir
Rd. Bridge.
Read your work, catch up on the gossip and hear what's going down!
KINVARA POETRY NIGHT 9.00pm,
2nd Monday Every Month GREEN’S BAR, KINVARA No details
Galway
Java’s
Coffee House, Abbeygate Steet,
The Fiction Clinic with Susan Millar DuMars.
Tuesday
Fee: 8 Euro per session (6 Euro concession) for details 087-9428540
no
details
Mayo
No
details
Clifden
No
details
DUBLIN POETRY Dublin Poetry Revival
VENUE: The Left Bank (behind the Oliver St John Gogarty's
Bar, Fleet St;)
DATE: Every Tuesday night
TIME: 7.30p.m. ‘til 10.30p.m. Open Mic for everyone so come along!! For
more info contact Gerry Mc Namara at write_recite@hotmail.com
Galway The May 'Over
The Edge: Open Reading' takes place in
Galway City Library on Thursday, May 30th, 6.30-8.00pm. The Featured
Readers are Thomas McCarthy, Eileen Ní Shuilleabháin & Seán
Kenny. Sean was the over-all winner of the 2012 Over The Edge New
Writer of The Year competition and this reading is part of his prize.
This is the final Over The Edge: Open Reading before the summer break.
Seán Kenny's fiction has appeared in Crannóg ,
The Irish Times, New Irish Writing in The Irish Independent,
Southword and Wordlegs. He won the 2012 Over The Edge New Writer
of the Year competition and was shortlisted for a 2013 Hennessy
Literary Award.
Eileen Ní Shuilleabháin grew up in the parish
of Carna in the Connemara Gaeltacht. She lives and works in Galway
city as a social worker and psychotherapist. She has been attending
poetry workshops with Kevin Higgins this last two years. Eileen
contributed towards a group poetry anthology Wayword Tuesdays
in 2012. Her work has also been published by Emerge Literary
Journal, The Burning Bush, Aperçus Quarterly, Boyne Berries,
The Galway Review and Scissors & Spackle.
Thomas McCarthy was born in Co. Waterford in 1954 and educated
at University College, Cork. He has published eight collections
of poetry, two novels and a memoir. He has won the Patrick Kavanagh
Award, the American-Irish Foundation's Literary Award, and the
O'Shaughnessy Prize for Poetry. He has worked for Cork City Libraries
since 1987. He is a member of Aosdána. In a review Pat
Cotter has said of him: "McCarthy is a poet primarily concerned
with politics and family. His work's importance lies in its unremitting
and detailed examination of the Republic's failures and successes
as an independent state. Described by Eavan Boland as the first
poet born into the Republic to write about it critically, McCarthy
has done so from the perspective of a family dedicated and loyal
to the state's most successful and powerful political party:
Fianna Fail. But his poems are not eulogies to the party or apologies
for its policies; they are more like an exploration of the party
as an object of loyalty and devotion (like a lover objectified)
with all the potential such an object has for empowerment and
betrayal."
As usual there will be an open-mic after the Featured Readers
have finished. New readers are always most welcome. The MC
for the evening will be Susan Millar DuMars.
2013 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year competition OPEN TO POETS & FICTION
WRITERS WORLDWIDE Closing date: Wednesday, August 7th
In 2013 Over The Edge is continuing its exciting annual
creative writing competition. Since its inception in 2007,
it has grown to become one of the most important competition's
for emerging writers in Ireland and internationally. The
competition is open to both poets and fiction writers worldwide.
The total prize money is €1,000. The best fiction
entry will win €300. The best poetry entry will win €300.
One of these will then be chosen as the overall winner
and will receive an additional €400, giving the overall
winner total prize money of €700 and the title Over
The Edge New Writer of The Year 2013. The 2013 Over The
Edge New Writer of The Year will be a Featured Reader at
Ireland's leading literary reading series, the Over The
Edge: Open Readings in Galway City Library, on a date to
be scheduled in Winter 2013/14. Salmon Poetry will read,
without commitment to publish, a manuscript submitted to
them by the winner in the poetry category. Doire Press
will read, without commitment to publish, a manuscript
of short stories submitted to them by the winner in the
fiction category. In two new additions to the prize this
year the overall winner will receive a hamper of books
from the famous Kenny's Bookshop of Galway, Ireland and
the winner in the poetry category will have one of the
poems from her or his winning entry published in the January
2014 issue of Skylight 47 magazine.
Entries should be sent to Over The Edge, New Writer of the Year
competition, 3 Carbry Road, Newcastle, Galway, Ireland with an
accompanying SAE. Entries will be judged anonymously, so do not
put your name on your poem(s) or story. Put your contact details
on a separate sheet.
Criteria: fiction of up to three thousand words, three poems
of up to forty lines, or one poem of up to one hundred lines.
Multiple entries are acceptable but each must be accompanied
by a fee. The fee for one entry is €10. The fee for multiple
entries is €7.50 per entry e.g. two entries will cost €15,
three entries €22.50 and so on. Fee payable by cheque or
money order to Over The Edge. To take part you must be at least
sixteen years old by September 1st 2012 and not have a book published
or accepted for publication in the genre in which you enter.
Chapbooks excepted. Entries must not have been previously published
or be currently entered in any other competition. The competition
is open to writers worldwide. We accept payment in Dollars, Sterling,
Australian Dollars, Canadian Dollars and so on. Writers from
outside the Euro area can calculate the payment for their entry
here http://www.xe.com/ucc/
The closing date is Wednesday, August 7th, 2013. A long-list
will be announced at the August Over The Edge: Open Reading in
Galway City Library on Thursday, August 29th, 2013 (6.30-8pm).
THE LONGLIST WILL BE AVAILABLE, BEFORE THAT, AT CHARLIE BYRNE'S
BOOKSHOP FROM 5PM ON THURSDAY AUGUST 29TH. The shortlist
will be announced at a special Over The Edge Culture Night event
at Kenny's Bookshop & Gallery, Liosbán Retail Park,
Tuam Road, Galway on Friday, September 20th, 7pm. The winners
will be announced at the October Over The Edge: Open Reading
in Galway City Library on Thursday, October 31st 2013 (6.30-8pm).
This year's competition judge is Sarah
Clancy. Sarah Clancy has
been shortlisted for several poetry prizes including the Listowel
Collection of Poetry Competition and the Patrick Kavanagh Award.
Her first book of poetry, Stacey and the Mechanical Bull,
was published by Lapwing Press Belfast in December 2010 and a
further selection of her work was published in June 2011 by Doire
Press. Her poems have been published in Revival Poetry Journal,
The Stony Thursday Book, The Poetry Bus, Irish Left Review and
in translation in Cuadrivio Magazine (Mexico). She
was the runner up in the North Beach Nights Grand Slam Series
2010 and was the winner of the Cúirt International Festival
of Literature Grand Slam 2011. She has read her work widely at
events such as Cúirt and as a featured reader at the Over
the Edge reading series in Galway, the Temple House Festival,
Testify, Electric Picnic, O Bheal and at the Irish Writers' Centre,
she was an invited guest at the 2011 Vilenica Festival of Literature
in Slovenia and in Spring 2012 her poem "I Crept Out" received
second prize in the Ballymaloe International Poetry Competition. Her
second poetry Thanks For Nothing, Hippies was published by Salmon
Poetry last year and has been a poetry best seller.
Without a doubt
A Limerick’s about
To burst from my soul and go Yonder.
Now if any can tell me
What my Limerick will be
tis sure I will no longer ponder
u
There once was a pigeon
with vertigo
Who always approached a long drop slow
And thought what a bind to be in
For a pigeon it must be a sin
To be frightened to fly anywhere that you go
Unplanned Escape on the 3:15 It had never existed
right from the start
but what would you expect
from an introverted fart
As it lay there in wait
it dreamt of the day
when nothing any longer
stood in its way
It had survived all assaults
from brute force to Epsom
and now it was ready
to break free from the tum
It slithered through the gate
with not even a sound
dozens of victims
were there to be found
Its beatiful invisility
said it could not be felt
but you could tell by the faces
it was certainly smelt
The carriage heaved a sigh
as the people spread out
It was determined to prove
beyond any doubt
that it was more than just wind
more than just smell
it was a demonic aroma
from the very gates of hell
<H
THE
UNICORN Awake
he sleeps a dreaming
as the rains fall quick and slow
his thoughts they fly a speeding
from whence he cannot know
The
moment lasts forever
yet though lingering still is gone
a distant echo in the forest
a song from way beyond
To
stir the breeze with gentle fingers
and sing forever would be sweet
to slide toward the rainbow's end
a reckoning to meet
'Tis
there all pastures wander
thru the everlasting storm
to that place where pots of gold
are souls entwined in shapeless form
<H
29/11/01
THE SPUNKY MAN POEM I knew a spunky man
Who slept in a spunky bed
Everything was spunky
Including everything he said
There was spunk all over the ceiling
There was spunk all over the floor
and every time he went and came
there was spunk a little more
I knew a spunky man
Who lived in a spunky house
There was spunk between the rafters
and spunk on the resident mouse
There was spunk upon the balcony
And spunk all down the stairs
You never would see such a spunky house
If you travelled the world everywheres
I knew a spunky man
who longed for a spunky wife
to take care of all the spunk
that was cluttering up his life
There was spunk inside his bankbook
There was spunk just everywhere
The only place there was no spunk
was in Mrs Robinson’s chair
Mrs Robinson was
A friend of the spunky man
She didn't seem to mind at all
she even bought him a spunking can
But there were certain conditions
Mrs Robinson set
and one of them said there'd be no spunk
on the chair in which she sat
Yes I knew a spunky man
who lived a spunky life
perhaps by now he's found himself
a lovely spunking wife
But the house in which he lives
is a terrible site to see
its been leaking spunk from the windows
since 1953
Oh there was a spunky man
the spunkiest of all
who said spunk this
then said spunk that
then said hell well spunk 'em all
The last I knew he was still
spunking on his way
heading down the spunky road
to another spunking day
<H
Longing
Lay my head in your lap my love
So that I may know your longing
Let my lips speak silent whispers
To caress your ceaseless wanting
As your body lies a trembling
Lay your head in my lap my love
So that you may know my longing
Let your lips speak silent whispers
To caress my ceaseless wanting
As my body lies a trembling
Lay your hand in my hand my love
Let my fingers feel your passion
Walk a while besides me
As though somehow it still is fashion
Lay my hand in your hand my love
Let your fingers feel my passion
I'll walk a while besides you
As though somehow it still is fashion
<H 2007
Defence
I stand embattledamid the throng of j’ai accuse
Pen drawn and sharpened ’gainst bullet and sword
Unflinching they do not hesitate to use
Their weapons against me and the word
In the name of justice and of what is right
The legions gather preparing to fight
In a still place of silence the
albatross soars
Fearless and bold as his wings wide unfurl
The clamouring hordes so far below
are but memories from long long ago
A blanket of cloud eclipses the
sun
Divorced from the light the free bird is one
Unfettered, released, the free skies to roam
A star in the darkness in a world that is home
They shout and they holler, j’ai
accuse j’ai accuse
Answers too clear they twist to confuse
I stand embattled ’gainst the throng yet I muse
On differences ’tween right and wrong they abuse
Is dream an illusion or could it be real
j’ai accuse, j’ai accuse, I lodge my final appeal
<H
UNTITLED
Lonely people line the street
the fanfare of the common man
a whistle blows
a church bell tolls
a vessel leaves the harbour
salvation's prayer
a moment's glory
a smiling face remembered
a reaching hand
a dream denied
the pages of life's story
<H
Old Penis Poem
My nookie days are over
My pilot light is out
What used to be my sex appeal
Is now my water spout.
Time was when, on its own accord
From my trousers it would spring
But now I've got a full-time job
To find the blasted thing.
It used to be embarrassing
The way it would behave
For every single morning
It would stand and watch me shave.
Now as old age approaches
It sure gives me the blues
To see it hang its little head
And watch me tie my shoes.
anon
Instant
The poems of life
a horse in a breeze
an honest wife
the lies that deceive
flesh on the bone
yet nothing to chance
companions alone
in the looking glass
where the face of illusion
stands proud and tall
lies only deliver
truth to us all
<H
BARFLY
I am just
a fly in a bar
Nobody knows me and
I don't know who you are
I
land on hanging clothing
I examine covered food
I believe my life has meaning
even though you think me crude
Yes
I am just a fly in a bar
my life is over before it gets far
I watch the correlation
of father, mother, daughter, son
though you may swat me down
who knows who may have won
I
am just a fly in a bar
you might see me someplace near or far
and if you do then this I ask of you
see my wings of gossamer
see my thoughts of silken thread
see my vision as I see you
and stop a while to ponder
this world in which we live
for just like you, I too
have something to give
I
am just a fly in a bar
my friends are scattered wide and far
this karmic burden
I carry on my frame
for I am a fly in a bar
that's the nature of my game
<h 9.6.02
SUMMER Summer
is like
a Whore
as she raids
herself from the higher
God, but who's to say
she wades
herself through
the human race
M.Michelle 3-1-02
WINTER As
she rides
the storm she
fades out
You
see her
coming as
she yearns her
way forward
for a month or two
that's
why she
begins at
the end of each year
M.Michelle
3-1-02
Hyperion's song of destiny
You stride
up there in the light
on soft ground, blessed spirits!
Luminous divine breezes
touch you gently,
as the fingers of a woman player
touch holy strings
Freed
of all fate, as the sleeping
infant, breathe those in heaven:
chastely preserved
in a modest bud,
their spirit
blossoms eternally;
and their blessed eyes
look out in peaceful, perpetual clearness.
But
to us has been allotted
to rest at no abode;
vanish and fall
will a suffering mankind
blindly from one
hour unto the next,
be cast like the water
from cliff unto cliff,
through the years, down into the uncertain.
Friedrich Hölderlin
FAMILY
Family is family it is said
but mine is not
sometimes I swear
we is the worst o' the lot
MY LOVE
She came
She went
She came, she went
She came
She went
my love
<H 1-10-2001
THE BOSTON STRANGER—an English recollection From Donkey Town to Dummer
through the Fairleigh Wallop hay
From Alfred's Tower to Croydon Hill all along the Brendon Way
I wandered as a pilgrim bent on feckled mare
never knowing what I'd find
whensoever I got there
I took a turn at Battery Hill bound for the Freedom
Trail
to find myself a peddling head on agin a gale
I set myself one mighty fight
to task that vicious storm
knowing I would some day find my way back home.
It was then and there I smelt it like a vat of rhubarb
wine
that old familiar Holborn air where me granddad wasn't born
or was it no me granddaughter, well I'm really nay so sure
it must have been but one, but it might have been t'other
cos I duzna have no sister and I's only got one bruvver.
The doctor said he couldn't help
I had a solid head
no matter what he pumped at it
’twould cure nowt all he said
So I took to eating sawdust pie every Saturday afternoon
with a kind of hopelessness, every bite the taste of doom
that stretched just like the avalanche of a tidal wave at sea
oh gawd look out now christ — here it come again
I woke at Effingham Junction and missed the last damned train
The cleaning woman looked at me at a little after five
my ankles in the urinal where I smelled more dead than live
I wouldn't have been as stinking if only the flushing would stop
but then she started swabbing me with her evil smelling mop.
And would you believe it was Sunday, the worst bloody
day of all
no trains leave from Effingham Junction and its miles to any watering
hole
there's a train that leaves on Monday, but it goes the other way
and the next one's not till the Monday next, and when it comes in it
don't go away.
Really there's nothing for it, the cure is so fatal
a dose
that the very thing that's curing simply prefers to give up the ghost
and return again to Donkey Town and the Fairleigh Wallop hay
to take up residence on White Sheet Hill and be mistaken every day
for the memory of somebody who long ago once passed on close by there
upon the gentle dappled back of a sprightly feckled mare
<H 10-11-2001
POEM 831 A passing
smile
Wide as the memory
Of a byegone mile
Irreparable damage in the constant
While epochs pass
my love dreams irrecoverable
dreams of the lonesome whippoorwills
So
where do I go
And what do you want
Are we not just Eternity
infinite scree
A ripple in a fountain
Mist on the mountain
Calling to you in the jewel of morn's dew
So
where is this wonder
A teardrop and leaf
And where the boundary
to love become grief
The
valley of laughter
the comedy of pain
Insecurity's fusion
of pleasure to gain
And mirrors of belief
reflect the deceit
but the window is silent
Always
<H 1/1/01
THE REVISED The face
of anticipation
The surgeon's knife
The crowded isolation
The hungry wife
The dream of riches
The ignorant elite
This window of witches
This civilised street
The
sidelong glance
The hand that would paint
The feet that would dance
The eyes of a saint
The unhappy smile
The forgiving frown
This familiar style
This inescapable gown
The
lonely saxophone
The desert awash
The wonder of home
The cold winter frost
The swell of the tide
The warmth of the sun
This pain we abide
This is all but one
<H 17/7/01
The Man With The Wart On His Glans The Man
With The Wart On His Glans
could think of nothing to say or do
or write
The Man With The Wart On His Glans
was a lonely man
with seven warted daughters
and one completely wartless wife.
The
Man With The Wart On His Glans
hated having a shower and hated baths more
because warts float.
The
Man With The Wart On His Glans
hated his best friend who one day
told how he had a wart on his hand
until he bit it off.
The
Man With The Wart On His Glans
had to get a divorce because
he could not wear a condom.
The
Man With The Wart On His Glans
spent his time poring over mirrors
because
he was
The Man With The Wart On His Glans
Oh
The Man With The Wart On His Glans
had no friends
except his English hedgehog
because the English hedgehog liked
The Man With The Wart On His Glans
The
Man With The Wart On His Glans
<H
Some poetry from Limerick poets
COME NEAR by James Anthony Kelly
Come
near me now
breathing lonely to my breast
when light softly vanishes on the bow
or on the rims of a nest
Come
near me now
oh my weak weeping child.
Let us end this sensitive row
for we are no longer so wild
Come
near me now
for life is sad
searching the colours of the rainbow
and wasted dreams we had
Come
near me now
for the poet feels too much
come near me now
with your gentle touch
FREE LOVE by James Anthony Kelly
I believe in Free Love
I could never afford it.
Louse Woodward Maybe, Maybe Not
by Tom McNamara,
2001
Beyond a
Doubt was it
No I Guess Not
Jury Deliberating
Mind To Make Up What
Guilty Not Maybe
Not Guilty At All
And Then Why Convioct Her
Is The Worldly Bawl
Release
Now Release Her
Let Her Go Free
Beyond A Doubt No Sir
She Is You See
Not So Or Maybe
Did Maybe Not
And For That Reason
Set Her Free "Off"
Positive
Be Positive
Don't Grope In The Dark
Eveidence Is Evidence
Not Hearsay Lark
What She Did Telling
I Did Not Do
What I Am Sentenced For
Do You Know For Sure?
Justice
Is Justice
When It Is So
Done In This Case
Looks More And More
Like A Mixed Conviction
Can't Make Up Their Minds
And Doubt As In Doubting
Convictions In The Blind
HORNUCOPIA
?
The Extended Luimneach Version
By
Jangle Laureate
Changes
there must be
I’m sure you’ll agree
to laws letting car alarms sound in the city.
‘Coz if they don’t set ‘em right
they disturb someone’s night
and intrude on the thoughts of the witty.
Ne’er
mind the gas it might be green but it’s gas
and okay might somehow fit in here
If car alarms had been then Ilyiad would never
and I know that sounds strange but it’s strange sounds that matter
to a crazed car alarm city dweller.
You
know we just might if we put up a fight
get a fine brought in for the offender.
500 I am sure would silence the cur
and get car alarms fitted far better.
But then where would we be
well asleep, yes well maybe
in dreams of a car alarm free perfect city.
Sometimes
I declare
That without them then there
Would be no one awake with this ditty.
If Karma was cool and not such a fool
And those who were wrong were right all along
Then those who weren’t right might wrong better.
But Karma sneaks in and you know when its been
‘Coz you end up a car alarm hater.
Outside
in the street and stuck there all week
Is a bloody great big expensive Mercedes.
It shrieks day and night
And you’d think someone might come along and make it feel better.
But no one appears and I’m a little afeared
I’ll turn into an alarmed car destroyer.
So
I’m sure you’ll agree Changes there must be
to the laws that let car alarms sound in the city.
When they don’t set ‘em right
they disturb someone’s night
and intrude on the thoughts of the witty.
Final Dawn They say I ran away.
Just like the day you told me
Not to leave our garden.
Do you remember Mother?
They captured me;
I was court-martialled.
You captured me;
All cross you were.
Smacked my legs, so hard,
Then hugged me, so close.
Do you remember Mother?
I stand in my prison, staring,
Just staring at the wooden post.
The one they'll tie me to.
You shut me in my room,
I stared out then too,
Crying, watching kids out playing.
Do you remember Mother?
I remember it all.
I remember you coming for me,
With milk and biscuits.
Now I hear them coming.
Please,
Hug me again, Mother.
You Call Me A Coward You call me a coward
You who sit in judgment here
That's easy for you to say
When no enemy shells fall near.
You call me a coward
You who want an example made
You say I must have run
And thrown away my gun
You say I must have fled
For all save I were dead.
My version of events
You reject out of hand
You say it’s good I survived
The hells of no man’s land
For it means I lived to die again
In front of true and trusting men
Who've swallowed all your lies
And would just as soon
Shoot one of their own
Than swat at bothersome flies.
It is dawn behind the battle lines
The daylight’s blossoming hour
And many of your own you murder
So no cowardice here may flower
You need to teach a lesson
To soldiers one and all
They’re fighting for King and Country
But their fate lies in your hands
If they fail to fall in battle
They’ll be shot against a wall
Seed
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