by Jim O'Leary
© 2010 JIM O'LEARY
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic
or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or
information storage and retrieval systems—without the prior
written permission of the author.
ISBN: 978-1-908024-08-4
A CIP catalogue for this book is available from the
National Library.
Published by ORIGINAL WRITING LTD., Dublin, 2010.
Printed in Great Britain by MPG Books Group,
Bodmin and Kings Lynn
RE-BIRTH
A scent of fear
but knowing no fear
or knowing no need for fear,
I floated in embryo
en-wombed in a swim for life.....
..... I was a miracle,
a wonder of the world,
I know that now.
Creation manifest in me
a Master’s touch, whatever called;
No chipped technology ever had such skill;
My parents did,
embraced,
split the atom, so to speak,
and made me;
Now they’re gone
and I must live with memories.
I was a wonder once
close to drowning and then born,
a miracle, I know that now,.......
............................How have I done?
BITS & PIECES
A DREAM...
Golden strands
Flowing
Past shoulders
To her waist
Almost
Shimmer
In a passion-
-Flow embrace
Begging for
Response,
She looked,
Did she
Or was she
Thinking,
Smiling,
Wondering
Perhaps,
Or not
But she looked
And smiled
Or did she
And was I
There at all,.....
......I wonder!
BRING GRAN!
Stranded hair,
ridged face,
frayed legs,
the old lady
tensed her way
through a family
holiday meal
of three generations
in Blarney,
County Cork,
Ireland
and I wondered
who the outing was really for!
C’EST LA VIE!
I came
When Fate allowed
And left the past behind;
I looked
Accross the wall
And saw a stone-way through;
I stepped
Over the wall
And landed
In a heap of shit;
I came
And saw
And stepped
And wanted to go back
But I was stuck again!
CASABLANCA
Shag off, you asshole,
The stage is mine
And the piano is for Sam
As in the film;
If you don’t,
I’ll play your death
In Casablanca,
An end-song,
Play it again, Sam;
Beat the keys
And flap your fingers,
Sit at the piano
Like a tin-pan alley-man
Playing a tune of death,
A distant drum,
A song for me and Sam
And I am there
In black and white,
A dream,
And we’re all dead
But I will watch the film again!
DEEP BREATH
“Kitchen help wanted,
apply within”,
the piece of paper
in the window said;
the restaurant was Italian
and posh enough,
too posh for him
in his track-suit bottoms
and flip-flops,
but he went in;
his gut quivered
as he faced the place,
the waitress and an alien menu
daunting him for a second;
he funked
the application
for a while
and ordered lunch
to help his cause...
...and then he asked.
CANCER
She fought the battle and the war
And I looked on from the beginning;
I never knew
There was a war
Only a battle;
The question-mark
With no solution
Arrived unwarned
With unrelenting haste
And hunger
Discounting her at will
And me;
I watched
Unarmed to meet the test
Took no part in the battle
Merely looked
It seemed forever.....
........then she lost the war.
E.T.
I heard the rumble in the distant night
And wondered;
It was strange
No plane could make that noise
And this is not the San Andreas fault
So there’s no earthquake coming;
The sound came close,
The ringing in my ears
Became a turbined pressure
Singling out my mind
From room and body
Taking over consciousness;
My first thought was to say
It can’t be them.
Why did I think so.
What a stupid nightmare;
Then I lifted from the chair
And floated
To an endless dream with them.
ALCOHOLISM
It’s alright
I’ll have
another
one
Tonight,
Just one
And then
I’ll go to bed
for now!
DON'T FORGET THE PEOPLE!
Walk on the path of fortune to the end of emptiness;
run to the bank of hope, a misguided dream;
take a journey to the world with the promise of its trappings
and the winds of time will tell the story of a failed endeavour.
Take the path of Freedom
on a People journey-dream
and a tempered doing;
walk on the fringe of Hope
and forgotten Dreams
and the Sun-face of the World will turn;
give
and the dream-face of the World,
of Real People,
will return the coin;
stay
with the Heart and Soul of you,
of Value,
and the Real-World will live,.....
.....where is the human-world without the Human?
HAPPY PEOPLE,......NOW?
Set in the fall-below
Of a world-decline,
A couple spar for another day;
Sleep is lost
In a desperate
Scream for ease
But nothing comes,
The power-boys
Have had their way;
No room to move,
He shoves, she shifts
To find a glimpse of light,
A glimmer even,
That will soften
Their tomorrow
But the lads,
The biggest guns around,
Have stripped
The cupboard bare......
.....Slowly in a wearying world,
They sink
Through a quagmire of despair
Where life cannot be kept intact
And happy disappears
Into a chasm.
HONK OFF!
The nose is a strange appliance,
a projection of flesh
picking its way
and leading its bearer
on a preoccupation
with an idle finger;
“He’s having a pick”,
they’d say,
pretending not to look
but unable to resist
his enjoyment,.......
.......they do it too!
HOOKER
“Fuck off....
...What do you think I am?”
She knocked
On the car window
Others lingered
Posed on the street,
Exposed;
“Do you want.....”
“What” I asked, not hearing
as I opened the car window;
“Do you.....I have a place nearby”.
I look to side and back,
The car in front has moved,
I move a few feet,
Not more.
“I’m clean and cheap” she said,
“and I’ll go with you now”;
I look again
To left and right and back
Who knows me here;
If she sits in
Who’ll know
But what about my car,
The hidden cameras, maybe,
And the other drivers;
I look again,
Head down to hide my face,
Take off my steaming glasses,
Ask how much
And quickly take her in......
.........Fuck them!
DRAGGING FEET IN THE HEAT
Footsore
In a City jungle
I looked at my feet
And wondered
If they were meant
For this;
Morning
Was a good time
But the mid-day Sun
Crept through my veins
And gorged my energy;
I was spent
Before I started,
A crippling trek
Was more
than I could face,
So I sidled
Back to the hotel
And went to sleep!
SPECIAL NEEDS IN THE RESTAURANT
Nowhere, or else not here,
The boy, a welcome spasm-attack
On the shabby fitters-in,
Put his simple imagination
To a riddle foody-test
As those shitty-people
Posed at a party-plan
And rehearsed their precious world;
The boy, an embrace of Mam,
Sprang here and there
With eyes that did not look
But with enthusiastic grace
Took the whole world
In his limit-look
A manifest
Of his affliction
And enlightened
A bewildered world
With his grasp of reality,
The wonder-boy was real!
ITS ALL THE ONE
I wanted to be
The one
Who carried
Cowdung on my shoes
Into the Four-Star Restaurant
But I didn’t
And I brought my friends
Instead for dinner......
,,,,,,SHIT.
KEEP IT FOR YOURSELF!
A dog-shit landed
On the beach
And the dog-man
Walked away;
Dog Shit,
I hear a scream
Unheard by him
As he left for home;
Don’t shit on the beach, dog,
For me or anyone,
Take it home for the dog-man
To embrace;
It is yours and his, not mine
And not for me
Or for the beach,.....
.....Shit athome , please!
LAST ORDERS
He squeezed
the last drop,
spat and pissed
enjoying the process;
Pissed,
the thought
became
a sobering glimpse
of sanity
but he pressed on
and puked
to make more space
and later
pissed for pain
and squeezed the last drop,
spat
and hoped for more,...
....he was the last to leave alone!
MALE MENOPAUSE
He sits
And travels in his mind,
Beautiful faces haunting him
Young faces drawing him
To interludes of emotion
None complete
But each with promise,
Vague,
And still he sits alone;
He is free
But bound unfree
And yearning
For lost-time fulfilled
He travels,
Mind unbound,
Through stretches of imagined
And complete consuming
And, without the fetter
Of a dulled emotion
Chaining him,
Makes love
Without the love
To be still free.
MURDER ON THE MED
I sat by the pool,
Something I rarely do,
And viewed the rock-face
Leaning upward to its edge;
At the top, I saw a couple,
Young-entwined
but somehow prickly,
Sharp-words coming
In the breeze,
Floating down to me below;
He, a swarthy
Sallow-colour,
Held her arm,
His eyes on her
Enthralled with spite
Coupled for a second
Or so with hers
To press to her
His need,
Then I saw him push;
She fell the distance
To the rock below
Yards from my face,
A shocking thump,
Then he was gone
And she and I were left alone!
PARTY TIME
Party time
Screams abounding
Lapses waiting to embrace
The limpid drunken forms
Of a world in sickness
And the People wait
For the Puking
Sick to come;
In the dark light
Waiting moment
Settled people
Wait to take their bait
But, alight with flame,
Their dung-breath dream
Of sodden shots
Regurgitates
And chokes alive
Their menace;
Snuggled down
In an adept cover-space,
Home-based Party-People
Who know the form
Slam the window, close the blind
And leave their sick to them;
The night is a dark place
For many with the fear
Of noise and night is filled
With the dread
Of the worst of it
That's still to come
And come they will
Determined with their
Puking savagery
To rape our well-earned sleep;
I will take revenge
On the sick-mind pukers
Of my world, the place
Where I must live
Until they're gone
Or I have Ki
lled them
Or until I've sucked
Their Souls from them,.....
.....It is for that I wait,
And I’ll survive!
SPELLBOUND
She is the daytime hare,
A beauty of the dark;
He is an eagle of the night
Mortal by day;
As sunlight dims
The hare becomes the beauty
And the man soars delta-winged
into the sky;
Condemned, they search
Through endless time
For unbewitching spell
And failing,
The eagle steals the whisper of the wind,
Fly-dives into her comfort-breast of earth
And no more pain....
......And they live on in dream.
PUPPY LOVE 1
A still-new ache
And pulsing sharp,
A poignant pain
Eroding common sense
Yet not rejected,
Clings instead
To trauma-burden
Prolonging hurt intense
Vainly, perhaps,
But borne,
Mind’s dream,
Yearning
A kindred-dream reply.
PUPPY LOVE 2
The bell proclaims
A time for fleeting ardour
When soul meets soul
In silent-hope exchange;
The time is short
And silence suspends tension
But not enough
To quell the pain;
When silence breaks
A dialogue of sharing
Cleaves to the core of privacy
Then lapses to another calm;
This cameo-succession
Of silence touching silence
Preserves a cycle of enquiry
With a longing-hint implied
That the next call might herald
The return of sharing;
But time is gone
And waiting yields
To apprehension
Logging days by hour
The hours by minute
Waiting in a harsh uncertainty
For the next call
A promise
Of awaited balm,.....
.....But there’s no call!
AN ENCHANTED CYCLE
Clasped safe within a steep-walled cove
The world outside is somewhere but not here;
A sheer rock-face
On either side
Presents a cushioned
And embracing screen
Meeting one end in apex
And opening a triangle to the sea;
The rock-walls frame