The Not Brazilian Blog

Serbia

2010-06-08T12:05:00.001Z

It is June and I am moving again.
I have forgiven the broom its shortcomings
and allowed it to foul its old whiskers.
I have pardoned the own-brand sponges
which themselves permit the bathroom tiles to come
clean, drying out whiter and whiter
with each sweep. Now, with the furniture
pushed to the wings and calmly awaiting
their cues, I will exorcise the memory
of this place as I have those places
no respectable atlas still recognises.

It is June and I am eulogising
a country I never knew and owes me
nothing. And without any warning
but this one, my grandmother, herself
homeless, sweeps her way from one June
to another with all the lightness, the delight
in motion only moths and arrow-like
lapwings can know. Without stopping, she takes
my hand in her firm hand, and when she opens
her mouth to speak it is the sound
of water running from one place to another.

Netherlands

2010-05-31T11:38:00.001Z

After forging both our signatures - Mrs and Mr
on the hostel register, the hostel somewhere

between limbo and hell, but all we could muster
with sunrise already red-spattering the air -

we rose as if in worship of each other,
intoning in the tongue of lovers or lovers'

image, and if we already shared a language
pre-existing and only to be gouged

from us as from a stone, then her mouth
was a wellspring where air met earth,

and on her tongue that was every river,
or black-reflecting puddle we had earlier

tripped over, was every drop of sweat
or condensation from every dancer and bar-light,

and in the light of a new year we were hesitant to face,
her dim eyes, her Indias of spice

glanced down at the feet that were never my feet,
then the eyes that were only mine, and yet -

even as the doors of our twin cells closed
and sky paled to eye-blue above the clothes

we had discarded - I settled down in my casing
and simmered to the accent I still have trouble placing.

Greece

2010-05-26T14:35:00.002Z

I found him on the beach, half-starved on his driftwood
raft, barely able to form the sound of his own name.
Once he could, I heard his story, broke bread for him,
hardly gave him credence, led him to the palace
nonetheless. Nausicaa came later. But the day
I recovered overnamed Odysseus, naked
but for a leafy loincloth and flotsammed beard,
became the night I met you. Everyone we knew
crammed in a sandy cove, the bonfire's drowsy light,
the big man's susurrent tone, lulled me to agony.
I was ready to grab a bottle and vamoose

when I caught your steady, uninterested gaze
and the universal two-finger sign for 'smoke?'
You asked who he thought he was, whether his story
were fiction or recollection, his or someone elses,
what difference it made? And answer were overlong,
but mine was studied, earnest, and as far beyond
my recall as your pine-green shawl, your eyes pine-green,
even his raven-ish beard and his hands tucked behind
himself like a raven, weren't. These fragments coalesced
one night in dream as a sensuous whole. As for all
that happened next, you remember as well as I.

Côte d'Ivoire

2010-05-03T10:11:00.003Z

As if there were nowhere in the world
but the ten-or-so yards before his back line,
Kolo Touré might yet hold his position
(kitted out in orange and still more orange)
somewhat better than another Ture,
Samori, who, in circa eighteen ninety,
saw his French-styled legions driven
by French legions east and further east,
his turf not so abandoned as removed
from the place between two European stones
that had once been his own back line.

As if the whole story could add up
to more than a matter of lines,
as if a field of battle could become
little more than a field of play
marked by bunkers and fox-holes
that might once have been called home,
as if this scorched and salted dirt
might yet show signs of blooming,
Kolo, in a white-and-green change
kit, fills the hollow in his defence
as if he might yet hold his position.

Slovakia

2010-04-30T13:52:00.001Z

I followed the echoing voices and found the place
four teenagers, three boys and a girl, were skateboarding
in the august courtyard outside a bank, or an office-
block, the glass was too dark to tell. One skater fell
on his ass. Adam had taken our cash to look for food,
he’d return minutes later with salami and bread, cheese-
flavoured crisps, a cold fizzing bottle; I’d found a spot to sit.
I’m good at that. My cards didn’t work on the continent,
he doled out absurd IOUs, actual pocket money.
The kids hunkered in a bunch as one by one
they rumbled toward a staircase and by magic kicked

into silence, briefly, before the board skited off
on its lonely trajectory. Before recovering it
from the decorative bushes, hung low as if ready to ripen,
he shared a solemn high-five that cracked round the square,
holding on for a moment after the strike. I couldn’t read
his eyes. I couldn’t focus on the map I was pretending
to read. Then Adam returned with salami and bread
and I stung his hand with my own, he asked what for,
I almost said I loved him. We sat and ate,
a boy pushed off across the marble slates
and launched himself beyond what was under his control.

These Days by Leontia Flynn

2010-03-17T13:33:00.002Z

Leontia Flynn’s These Days is an exciting book. The opening poem, “Naming It” not only does the work of placing her immediately, but not subordinately, in the realm of Longley/MacNeice and their concern with lists and names of things, but grounds the collection in its self-deprecatory and curious voice that is comparable to no other writer I can think of. Granted, Jen Hadfield springs to mind, particularly in their interest in Morgan, but Flynn is far more steeped in urban (suburban?) life, more wrapped up in the elaborate mundanity of being (variously) a student, a godmother, a waiter, a lover, and – very strikingly – a clued-in reader of poetry. There is a cluster of four poems, “When I was Sixteen I met Seamus Heaney” (“I had read The Poor Mouth – but who was Seamus Heaney?”), “My Dream Mentor” (“don’t write about anything you can point at”), “Snow” and what feels like its partner poem, “Nocturne” (“Whaddya mean already written? What? / Louis? Louis who?”), that make up something not unlike a centrepiece to the collection, a kind of hub from which the others radiate. Behind the humour is a playful up yours to her poetic forebears, a desire to evade the long shadows of Heaney and the rest. Flynn handles her influences lightly – besides the impulse to name and include everything, she also adapts Longley’s preoccupation with extremely short poems: “Doyne”, “Bridges”, “April, 7 P.M.” and “The Morning After Ruth’s Going-away Party” all clock in at six lines or under, while the book's first twenty-four are variations on the Longleyean ten-liner, in which his otters and herons are subbed for pints and pick-up lines. They are no less lyrical or gracefully poised for the change in subject matter. The collection is also littered with poems of one or two long, syntactically complex sentences that throw the reader off at odd angles. Look at “The Furthest Distances I’ve Travelled” – “why, if I’m stuffing smalls / hastily into a holdall, I am less likely / to be catching a Greyhound from Madison to Milwaukee // than to be doing some overdue laundry / is really beyond me.” Lingering only briefly on how sumptuous a platter of rhymes is likely/Milwaukee/laundry/beyond me, this poem is probably the best, or at least most memorable, of the collection, and bears a closer look.

It cracks off with “Like many folk”. This is a lie. Leontia Flynn is not like many folk, no matter how she might try and signal it. The poem’s delicate play with rhymes, line-breaks/lengths, its exotic vocabulary of places (“Krakow / and Zagreb, or the Siberian white / cells of scattered airports”) make it tricky to take everything in at the first go – the impression remains of a landscape shrinking, becoming intimate, finding uncommon nooks and hideyholes after the initial motions toward escape and dispersal and anonymity. That the poem breaks that particular word over a line doesn’t seem like a cheeky reach for rhyme – “anony / mity” feels rejected as a concept in what becomes a strong tribute to home, however mutable that concept might become during the poet’s “routine evictions”. The last few stanzas are the most formally consistent in the poem, and look and sound more recognisably like metric quatrains than the slippery early ones. Here they are in full, again, just two sentences draped over multiple lines:

However
when, during routine evictions, I discover

alien pants, cinema stubs, the throwaway
comment – on a Post-it – or a tiny stowaway
pressed flower amid bottom drawers,
I know these are my souvenirs

and, from these crushed valentines, this unravelled
sports sock, that the furthest distances I’ve travelled
have been those between people. And what survives
of holidaying briefly in their lives.

“[A]lien pants” might be my favourite thing in any poem. While you could argue that the last couplet sounds just a touch neat, I think it earns it. It feels more like an addendum – the full stop (rather than a comma) after “people” should be the end of the poem, but it keeps going, makes room for the scraps and physical memories of time spent trying to escape.

The collection has a heap of great moments. On the other hand, the brevity of each individual poem (and maybe the collection itself – 54 pages) makes it feel occasionally, if only momentarily, bitty or shallow, or lacking in broader significance. But Flynn seems alert to this as a potential difficulty – in “Satis House” she describes “[her] usual gift for avoiding ‘the issues’ with humour” – and provides too engaging and energetic a voice, too various a critical mind to let these instances detract from the book at large. Who knows what’s coming next?

#regularupdatefail

2010-03-12T17:37:00.006Z

Gettin' fewer and further between these things. I'm on twitter now, of all things, @roxyreadings, and also shoutouts to Aiko who is going to be on the next SPL podcast which will update in the next day or two. While you're there, check out Stuart Kelly's cast, it will make you think. I have no idea what this poem is about, and while I probably say that about most things, I've got a much clearer idea that I've got no clear idea about what this one's about. Here it is.

Leith

The voice at night said, “Don’t
mind me. Don’t run each mistake
across your tongue like a spoon
of crème brûlée. Don’t slide open
the overflowing bottom drawer.

“Don’t unfold the neat green throw
that holds the red-wool plaits
from her hair as the air
of her scent expires, packed
with a snap shot of her smiling,

“flattered to be found. Don’t
go out. Don’t leave me here.”
I posted my keys through
my own locked door, walked
to the hilltop and eyed the spot

where the sea began. The water
tainted pink with the sunrise
as if bleeding from the strain
of making day. This won’t be
easily solved, or soon.

When we are rich, me and You –
you, still nothing but potential
until we decide who you are –
when sushi is not a reward,
when we’ll consume nothing but sushi,

we will raze to ashes each building
between our home and the sea, so
wading birds and otters will make
the trip unhindered to our door –
even otters have second homes –

when we’ll throw away our keys,
yes, and strip off our clothes
and our phones, our hair and skin
and dander, should the fancy take us,
to the spot where the sea begins,

then keep going, have the talk
that will take the rest of our lives,
and not drown – to drown is painful,
and pain too much like hard work –
but become that shadowy kingdom,

forgetful, forgotten, notched by
the claws of the herons on our skin,
admit the otters’ late retreat
to their hovers in our alcoves,
safe in the grass and close to home.

Thanks for reading,
Dave.

Suddenly! Three Weeks Later!

2010-01-27T14:01:00.004Z

I've given up on trying to give titles to these friggin things. I kind of feel like I'm letting my children down, but I just want them to grow into their names, let their names choose them. God.

Anyway, this was inspired by a painting by George Braques, which at this point down the creative road is almost irrelevant, but still just relevant enough to warrant mention. Check it out here. Poem here:

How many of those candles flashed their small semaphore
that night, how many tussled in a bag by the fridge
that night, when the fuses shot in the bar and by candle-
light we searched the shelves like Diogenes,
and the colour in the glass was only candle-made.

How could we compete with that marbled darkness?
A man giggled as we totted change in the glisteny haze
and carried a gift of tea-lights to his girlfriend’s table.
And then the angles the candles lavished seemed to constellate
a new scene where the candle was a row of candles, and then a row

of rooftops candlelit, where we slubbed together for heat
and shared the icy fuzz of sweat on our cheeks in a gesture
as simple as the brocade on her duvet. I touched her hair
as I might a candle that catches but refuses to hold a flame.

Oh oh oh and and there's the Bowery/Roxy thing tonight. COME SEE COME SEE.
Thanks,
Dave.

2010 2010 its like a brand new yeeeeear

2010-01-06T17:01:00.004Z

So on Sunday Ida Mae and Gwen went to the Meadows and made a snowman and generally frolicked around. Ida is from the Tropics and had never made a snowman before. Anyhow, I'm just saying this because this poem has the snowman in it but neither Ida nor Gwen and I don't want them to feel left out. This poem does not have a title, but it really should. Some day I will come back and add the titles in.

I left you, dear, and your duveted warren,
your butter-orange french toast and darjeeling,
to crack my lips on the crispening air,
though, to be fair, I kept in mind your hair,
your mouth, your embellishing flanks
when I passed a patch of untouched snowbank,
untouched but for the orange of Irn Bru,
two neon cans. I blanked the Big Issue
man, his evangelic don’t be shy
come and buy, my less-than-sacred alibi
waiting in the Meadows. The floury snow
was barely wet enough for snowmen, snow-
cairn, Jabba the SnowHut. Another can
full of fag butts I stacked where I rammed
in his arms, angled for hosannas; a switch
and some leaves made his face a Buddha of kitsch,
shielded his eyes from the Irn-Bru-toned sun.

That night, we tottered home, cold-nosed and drunk
and saw yer maun alone and here’s you: cmon
and we’ll build a snowmate like the bride of fucken
Frankenstein and with just one broken stick
made arms eyes ears nose mouth and, with a twig
doused in muck, her sandy hair. We left them there
together with the dogs and orange stars.

More soon,
Dx

Merry Solstice!

2009-12-21T15:03:00.004Z

As promised, here's the second of them two poems I promised. Still haven't thought of a title. The lines should be staggered slightly, Mark Doty-style, but you'll have to use your IMAGINATION.

The music is skipping, then the radio
goes livid with interference. The waiter tinkers
with it briefly, then leaves it to its silence.

The tea is nut-brown and body-hot and on the wall
on what passes for a mantlepiece
is a mug, some candles, a wooden

mule, a vase with purple-black flowers
and above that the painting that caught
my attention: a single raven

silhouetted against something like
twilight, the oyster-blue of dawn or just after
sundown, between two splintered trees

and another raven half-
lurched into shadow. The first raven
- centre stage, our raven -

is peeking back across its shoulders at some
signal maybe, maybe some threat. No sign of you
yet, and in a minute you'll be late. It's nearly dawned

on me that ravens' eyes are on the sides
of their head, the whole body at an angle
when a draught shifts the fire of the candles

on the mantle and there you are
with your hair raven-black and silhouetted
against the silvery dusk outside the door

Thanks for reading,
Dave.

Yesterday there was snow

2009-12-18T13:54:00.003Z

I have a poem to show you! And another one that will come either tomorrow or Monday, depending on when I next get to a computer. Neither of them have titles yet.

She is watching for you from the tree-house.
Judging by the tulip-blackness of the sky,
the corona of moonlight, you are late.
The ginseng root in your hand has come alive,
and when you touch the tree with your other hand,
too patched and grubby to live, and all this
luminous scrub, these overdone set-props
seem too flat, too farfetched, will you filter

back to life where her snoring fills the morning
as if she's angry to have missed it,
and all things seem connected to that
one abrasive sound that breaks from dream,
because air would no sooner meet your lungs and leave
and not believe your body something sacred

than you would stop her goddamn snoring.
How can desire live in what's perfected? Root
yourself in the pillow, the wet jewels of her sweat,
when there is nothing between you
but the bundles and nooks
of the blankets and a little human sleep.

Thanks for your patience, it's been a while.
Dave.

CAPS 2: DARK VERMOUTH

2009-10-27T13:35:00.004Z

As promised, there is a brand new poem coming your way in just over four sentences. Also, if you are reading this today (27th of October 2009) or tomorrow morning, then might I invite you to the Bowery, 2 Roxburgh Place, tomorrow soir at 8pm? I think I may just have done. There will be poems and stories and all kinds of lovely drinks in teacups and cocktail glasses. Now it's time for that poem I mentioned!

Curtains

His cue is the flute.
There’s over a minute to kill, he’s thinking of food:
roast parsnips, turnip mash, all the trimmings
of Thanksgiving and the snacks in the dressing room –
the donuts that are there and the donuts that are not
her, mis-lit by the stagelights in the last rehearsal
and the meat of her limbs lithing in the boudoir
of his dreams, the seams of her crosspatterned dress
yet unable to release the last inches of her svelte
shifting thighs, a faint return of hair to her once-shaven pelt
was the last thing on his mind when the flute
started playing, and, at a loss for a script,
started mouthing
and thinking of nothing
except

now
no, now

no

Thanks for reading, and I hope the formatting for that poem works. Else I shall be sad. The next gap between poems will be much shorter.
Yours,
Dave.

THERE ARE NO CAPS BIG ENOUGH TO HOUSE MY EXCITEMENT

2009-10-26T17:17:00.004Z

HOLY

GODDAMN

SHIT

I'VE WRITTEN A MOTHERFRIGGIN POEM

here it is

Zion

What I learned at Church
is that the body is a Temple
and the Church too is a body,
and I have never been to Jerusalem
but I have touched your body
as the angel touched Jacob
and made him Israel,

and I have never been to Granada
but I have heard Spanish
read from Poet in New York
and with your English tongue
seen you light up like a little town
beneath where a star hung

like the carvings in Yorkminster
of the broad-tongued heads
with wide eyes and fig leaves
or oak leaves or banana leaves
or just leaf litter through their hair

though I have never spoken
in tongues or knelt before an altar
or carved pagan good-luck charms
in your Temple, your new-found land.

And there's another one tomorrow! :O
Thanks for still reading,
Dave.

done

2009-08-19T16:41:00.002Z

Whheeeeeeeeelll I'm done. Portfolio handed in and switched to relax/watch the athletics/play guitar hero mode. To mark the occasion, here is the last poem that I added to the manuscript.

Little Lucifers

The night is over and a gull has abandoned
a pigeon’s collarbone, or its splintered thigh-bone.

It skitters and skites by the daybreak lunette.
I am only a guest in my fourth-storey flat.

Did it see me behind the grey-clouded glass?
Did it have me in mind when it tore from the carcass?

Is there another bird so human as a seagull?
At the foot of the stairs is the bearable hell

of bottles, polystyrene, a pair of black heels
and a coven of gulls like the Morningstar’s angels.

Having balanced our garbage at the edge of the kerb,
I hear the screamed half-laughter of birds.

I will return soon. Thanks for reading,
Dave.

wahoo hoo hoo

2009-08-13T09:49:00.004Z

Look at widdle Wolvie there. So happy to be lobotomising that fishdude. With his disturbingly pregnant-looking bicep.

Another poem today, a reworked version of an old poem, as per the norm. I am massively hungover having slept on my own sofa last night. On the other hand I think I'm just about done with my portfolio!

:D

This means that after the next three or four updates I'll be taking a fair old break from the blog. Hopefully not too long, though, and I plan on coming back with a vengeance. As for now, I'm going to crawl back into bed, or just into the warm, welcoming bosom of that corner over there. Bad times.

Penelope

No gulls flock at the horizon.
Unadvancing, unreceding,
hiding riches in its folds.
My boat glides in a wash of stars.

The water has hoarded loam
and other shields from light.
The moon’s torn reflection
runs in a line from my feet.

Minerva, grey-eyed Athene,
there is no sweetness
in this grey serenity.

Send head-turning winds,
send rollicking water,
send earth to dirty my feet.

Thanks for reading,
Dave.

Edinbleurgh

2009-08-12T14:03:00.005Z

Edinburgh is currently full of needy, desperate twats like these hilarious people. No particular offense to them, they were just the first ones I found on google. Anyway, the whole city is swollen and bloated with talentless people making tits of themselves for £12/hour. Amazingly it is also full of people willing to pay for it. I'd been looking forward to the Fringe for some time and I struggle to remember the last time I was so disappointed.

LOOK AT OUR FUNNY HATS. LOOK.

LOOK

Poem to ease the pain. More tomorrow.

The Bridge

If I should lose myself in sleep and find myself
out of body and floating above the ocean,
may tidal winds take my nightshirt like a man-o-war
and make my mooring-place the Brooklyn Bridge,

and because this is a dream, let the bridge
stay empty and so broad New York dissolves in mist,
let one ship drift in below like a lily pad
on a sea turned doldrum-calm and silent enough

that I could whisper and still be understood
by the young man calmly discarding his suit-coat
and leather shoes and mounting the guard-rail,

and as he falls I will scream it is a joy to have a body
and as the sun rises on the bridge’s pitch-black rivets
let it catch a lily pad that blooms and quickly withers.

Thanks for reading,
Dave.

Edinburgh-related kind of ish

2009-08-04T21:09:00.002Z

Another poem, a day late. Time flies.

Beasties

Put in mind of a rollicking bonfire
we kindled with handfuls of bracken,
and our drowsiness in its quilting light,
I invite you to leave the rumpus and racket
of the city’s summer liturgy of flames,
to leave a legion of groping arms,
to leave behind even your blood-red
body-paint, your coal-black face-paint,
to find the burnt-out spot from last night
and to impress once more with our presence
the home of migrant barnacle geese,
oystercatchers, this perpetual sunrise.

nom nom

2009-08-02T14:37:00.004Z

The cricket is back on! There's a very slim chance that England could win this one - they need to make a high score (500?) and skittle the aussies (can they get all 10 in two sessions?), but it'll likely be a draw. Still, there's been some decent batting, though they've been making a score then getting out cheaply far too often. On the other hand, a 1-0 lead going into the last two isn't a bad position.

Poem? Poem.

Two Days Later

Don’t offer to store your squeeze’s junk.
Don’t schlep a scanner through town,
the cables are fried, you’ve nothing to scan.
Before you borrow her Rimbaud and Rilke
green-light-it that they’re both translated
and legible. By all means take the wine.
But for the love of Saint Christopher,
don’t unfold the neat green throw that holds
the red-wool plaits from her hair as the air
of her scent expires, packed in a grip with a snap
of her smiling, as grateful are you are to be found.
Don’t be surprised if you wish you’d taken more.

Another tomorrow, then a break. Thanks for reading,
Dave.

Here's a real-life panel from Action Comics #377

2009-08-01T16:01:00.004Z

Yep, it's time for a whole new month of fresh material. Hand-in date for the final project is the 21st of August, so expect a fair bit of new stuff in the upcoming three weeks, then a good long sabbatical from writing bizniz. For now, here's a completely new poem.

The Night Before

Your hold was as strong on my arm
as mine was round your belly and breasts
when I woke in the night and, still dreaming,
saw a face between your pillow and hair
and made a noise like the heart inhaling
that half-woke you. The roll and rise
of your rest grew shallow, then crept back
like a cat or peaceful breeze. Your hold
was strong on my blood-numb arm.
I held my breath and dozed until dawn.

New poem tomorrow,
Dave.

Face/Off

2009-07-29T16:53:00.002Z

Check out me and my face at the SPL blog! Also this poem that I made!

Better Words

hear the melody of names
blood-streams incantations
sound them like a spell

shearwater meadow brown
cormorant yellowtail

go topless in saltwater
feel the blaze in the eyes

the breeze tangling your hair
fingers tangled in your hair

palmfuls of horse chestnut
explosions of jackdaws
love and grassy jeans

witch-hazel valerian
ragged robin lady’s bedstraw

god or a thing
for which there is no better
word than god

the word that says there is one life
and we are in it

on your tongue
and spreading like petals
in the palms of your hands

is this dwindling list of flowers
may it be forever autumn

One more tomorrow...
Dave.

Mo Poems Mo Problems

2009-07-25T13:12:00.002Z

I've moved flat! It is lovely and overlooks the quiet(er) end of the Royal Mile. I have also been busy and I will share with you the products of my business.

Here's an old poem re-written to fit better with modern times.

Solstice

It wasn’t the way the tree lit up
like a blush in the bay window,
or the way its arms spread like a household god,
glowing green and content with his work,

it wasn’t the way it pressed on the glass
that pressed against the darkest nights in winter,
or how at times it was less tree than beacon,

nothing is ever that simple. It wasn’t even the way
that by the solstice, the fairy lights my sister left
flickered like the embers and ashes in the fireplace,

then stopped, or the way my father and I
half-filled the half-lit house with midnight rites
over the burnt offering of the adapter, but
the likeness of the lights that burned on our eyes

then burned a little longer.

More tomorrow? Yes. More tomorrow.
Dave.

POST TITLE HERE

2009-07-16T19:25:00.002Z

So Quianna made me some cupcakes. They were good. Poem good.

Afters

This is a cupcake, not a muffin,
muffins have no icing – this has enough in

to make a grown man saccharine, or at least
a more excitable beast. This palm-span feast

of heavy cream, shortening, sugar and butter
and eggs and god-knows-what has me shudder-

ing across the line where words begin to falter,
where desire holds sway. The glisteny way the water-

lily-white frosting is bursting with the lush
insistence, here I am, its brush-

stroked largess and malleable lines
looming beyond its papery confines

and stippling, drippling from your skin-bare
wrists, enlarge your curlicue smile as you declare

here you are.

No poems tomorrow. I don't know what I'm gunna do.
Thanks for reading,
Dave.

Another Poem For Your Eyes And, Maybe, Your Heart

2009-07-15T18:08:00.002Z

Time for a quick blog: director's redux of an old old poem.

Oystercatchers

I’d clocked it earlier and not realised,
the chubby stroller on the loch-shore, duck-like
and energetic in flight, was the same oystercatcher
I’d imagined or remembered years before,

for whose thin bill I’d confused a cormorant portrait,
for whose chunky flanks I’d muddled a lanky heron’s
scything lift off. Now it sat, dumpy and peaceful
and bobbing to the ripples that tripped across the loch.

A corridor of hedgerows opens onto the rocks
and sand dusting the spray – so I’d written –
as the oystercatchers loiter in the shallows,
waiting for the water to offer its secrets.

Yeah, right. This one was loath to wet its feet.
As I inched towards the water, it turned
its head, showing its remarkable profile,
or just turning. I froze with a squelch.

It opened its wings like a shrug. “Oystercatcher?” it said.
“Yeah, right.” It sloothered leisurely away.
When I told this story later, no one believed it,
or no one said they believed it.

Thanks for reading, more tomorrow!
Dave.

2009-07-14T18:23:00.005Z

Above: Another great comic from Nedroid Check it out!

SO I promised more poems and by gum that's what you're going to get. No more shilly-shallying from me. Also, if you're reading this on the 14th of July, come to the Bowery tomorrow! There will be a load of fine poets and poems.

FYI that was dilly-dallying.

PS: OH MY GOODNESS I BOUGHT A NEIL GAIMAN NOVEL TODAY AND IT MADE ME SO HAPPY

POEM

Spring

Now that I’ve finished cleaning
all that’s left to clean away

is a jumbo tub of lemon Cif,
the meadow-sweet Febreze and Glade

Plug-In, a freshly-rustled bustle
of pot-pourri and Mr Muscle.

Perhaps it’s only the scented candles –
Camomile, Sage and Citrus, Evening Air –

but I am a child again
in my parents’ house, stamping dirt

and god-knows-what across the carpet
and my mother tuts and clicks and hauls

me to the kitchen sink and soaks
my fingers clean beside the feeding ferns –

Peace Lily, Narcissus, Mother-in-Law’s Tongue –
the scent of being young

and being one more thing to clean
is stronger now than it’s ever been.

See you tomorrow,
Dave.

Tycho Brahe Is Too Hot For TV

2009-07-13T17:22:00.004Z

Above: the funniest comic book frame of all time?

Three news poems coming up, stay tuned. This one is about a chap called Tycho Brahe, a Danish astronomer who studied Copernicus and taught Kepler. He lost his nose in a duel and wore a gold one to parties. He was one kickin' rad 16th century noble. There's an old pseudo-Donne love poem I tried to write that incorporated him, but it didn't work. So I handed the stage to Tycho.

How Tycho Brahe Made The Sky

The stars are laid out like a glowing stage
on the papers that litter his workbench.
Tycho is trying to see the whole picture.

He has grown old in observations,
spherical and uncertain and alone tonight.
Tycho places his pen on the workbench.

Outside, the night is quiet as a dead thing.
Mice, maybe. Maybe owls. The wind.
The stars are all laid out

like white specks on a huge black workbench.
This much is true: the stars wander,
Jupiter orbits the sun. But the sun

must orbit the earth, that much
is true. Tycho studies his papers,
tries to see the whole picture.

The stars are laid out like a story,
like a joke by whatever lies
behind them. His apprentice doubts him,

his skill, his work, his world.
But the world is too sluggish, too different
in essence to start working now.

Tycho takes his pen and looks outside.
The stars are laid out like the stars
on the papers that litter his workbench.

He steps to the window, bellows
at mice, maybe. Maybe owls. The wind.
The stars are all laid out.

Tycho tries to see the whole picture.

Thanks for reading,
Dave.

Better Late

2009-07-06T23:55:00.005Z

Gosh time certainly flies. I have sent off more copies of my chapbook with special messages inside.

This one didn't really work on blogger because it has some fancy formatting that blogger wasn't happy about. So I'm going to try attaching it as a picture because I am on the BLEEDING EDGE OF TECHNOLOGY.

[click for larger image]

Thanks for reading,
Dave.

Dammit Federer

2009-07-05T14:36:00.004Z

Andy Roddick is my champion.

I promised more poems so here is the fulfilment of that promise. One that has been pretty thoroughly reworked. Thanks to RVW for the first line.

Mutants

We were twins when she took my arm –
diabolists, naked dancers, a rucking swarm

clambered into sundown-spattered air
and I stared at her, my head stirred –

when I was there to see, to be her first kiss
and she was with me at home every Christmas

and her voice was the earth, so was mine,
and her mouth met the earth that was mine

and on her tongue that was every river
and the puddle we tripped over or nearly over

were the motions of every dance,
every dancer, street light and bar light

and in the shifting light of a new year
her tawny eyes, her Indias of spice, cold silver,

looked down at the feet that were not my feet
then the eyes that were only mine, and yet –

even as each door of our twin cells closed
and the sky paled to eye-blue over the clothes

we had discarded – I settled down in my casing
and simmered to the accent I still have trouble placing.

Til tomorrow,
Dave.

WHAT IS UP BITCHES

2009-07-04T07:00:00.005Z

Hey, how's it going? I have been away for an altogether too long length of time. Updates: I have begun my job at the Scottish Poetry Library, working at the front desk! Check out our adventures through poems and cake at the awesometacular Our Sweet Old Etcetera. In other news, The Forest Café have published a beautiful little chapbook of my poems, and a sister-volume of my buddy Fiona Morrison's fiction, which rocks many socks. I have rarely had so much fun as I have had wrapping up and posting things to friends near and far. Whether it's any good or not is nigh on moot.

Other news: I met Jen Hadfield! We talked about creative writing courses and I was an excited fanboy. Doubtless she will soon be blogging about the experience. Also in the month of June, I started reading Charles Simic, Wallace Stevens, Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. Americans FTW.

Also, the gorgeous Julez embarked with Anna on their mission to make the USA fractionally more awesome. They're intermittently blogging the experience here.

Here's a poem I guess. More tomorrow, and another the day after. RAISE THE FRIGGIN ROOF Y'ALL

How Jackdaw Made The Sky

Crouched among wet leaves
and looking up past streetlights
lining this car park, Jackdaw
waits, wings tucked in,
head tilted toward the tarmac.

Jackdaw’s haunches
clench and release, launching
those few pounds
of flesh, bone and feathers
away from concrete,
away from lamplight.

Feet, yards and faster,
Jackdaw’s wings spread
furlongs and further,
Jackdaw’s wings span
the breadth of the sky,
tearing wing from wing
feather from feather
Jackdaw’s beak
space-black, world-black.

Why shouldn’t the sky be a bird?
There is earth beneath the tarmac,
there is indifference in the stars.

This much is true:
shards of feather will turn
to the black and glinting
winter sky, all the stars
tangled in Jackdaw’s wake.

Hasta mañana,
Dave.

More exciting times ahoy

2009-05-29T12:09:00.006Z

Fantastic news! The folks at Forest Publications are publishing a pamphlet of my poems! If the others are anything to go by, this will be one good-looking piece of book. Here's a sneak preview, the new and improved "Descent".

Descent

Flying from Glasgow to George Best Airport.
Through the window, knuckles of coastline
reach out beyond the fallow piebald farms.

What to make of the rolling breakers, snow-
white foam? I think of my grandfather
flying from his home to work in Scotland.

He left his son behind to watch the sky.
What to make of the sun split in half
by the horizon? The light lasts longer

at this altitude. And what should I make
of the city where two rivers meet,
this strip of black we will suddenly hit,

the pilot’s lilting “BMI welcomes you to Belfast”?
My wings melt as the black hills drift into view.

Thanks for reading,
Dave.

Let's Dance or Drum or Windsurf or something

2009-05-09T18:33:00.003Z

So! More great news, the lovely webzine Spark Bright will publish the old poems "Cat's Eyes" and "Train to London" (which is now called "Trains" and looks different but that is how these things work) in their upcoming second issue. Amazing.

In other news, here's a poem! It is longer than most poems I write because it is secretly two poems.

Beasties

for Julia

i

He has fallen in again. His lessons pizzle
into the loch as he straddles the board
and breathes off the dead weight of the wet suit.
The others have blown downwind like Basho’s
folded poems. The sheet sears into his palms
as a jet fighter blazes overhead.

He heaves to his knees and steadies
himself. The rig is heavier
than when he set out. The waves
seem fixed on taking his footing,
even when the wind fills the sail
and crosses the loch like a godwit.

His feet are stuck in place
at the rudder and the burns
in his legs are ignored
as the board lifts over
the sloothering waves,
cutting its own new waves.

ii

She hoicks the djembe over a shoulder and skitters
down the stairwell, the heft of the wood
cutting bruises on her hip. Her palms
have grown callouses from beating tabletops.
She breathes the boom-tic passcodes through her teeth
and shoulders the wash of the breathy rain.

She listens to the rhythm turn
from aerobic blueprint into
something like bloodflow, like fire,
like water, a motion still formed
out of flesh, bones and the mind, yet
expressed with an ease that amazes.

The heat of her palms
where the skin is tight, hard
at the thumbs, is the heat
on the skin of the drum-
head: taut, smooth. It sounds good.
The drum sounds good to her.

Thanks for reading,
Dave.

Walking on Sunshine

2009-04-24T17:25:00.003Z

Holy shit! I mean, like, HOLY SHIT! I'm in Pomegranate! Jesus

In celebration, here's a new poem.

Back

When I handled the fine furze
at the back of her fresh-mown head,
sitting on the steps outside our building,
then nodded towards where the sky
had been yellow, then turned rust-red,
then damson, as if any different
from the hundreds of other sundowns
since we met, I couldn’t have imagined
how, weeks later, her eyes would glaze greenly
when I left town for the first time.

When I left town for the first time
we wrote letters like lovers, sent photos,
drafts of poems, postcards, newspaper clippings
as though our removal was only for now
and soon we’d be back in our best get-up
and she’d bubble over and we’d dance
or share a Stella as spring turned around
or sprawl on the grass between lectures
where she’d handle the fine furze at the back
of my head and talk about staying in touch.

Many thanks,
Dave.

Back on the Horse

2009-04-20T10:46:00.003Z

So portfolio is in and marked and now comes the four-month project I like to call 'write fifteen completely new poems (provided you can find twenty decent old ones)'. Baby steps, people, baby steps. Also thanks to Gwen for being good subject matter.

Day

Some new stars came from dead stars.
Five billion years ago the sun came out,
Ichthyostega grew legs,
Quetzalcoatlus grew wings,
glaciers, rock hungry, moved mountains,
mammoths grew fur and survived.

*

An old dog with its hindquarters hung
in a wheelchair lurches across a field
after a tennis ball and other dogs
like the golden retriever watching his man
do cartwheels, yoga, juggle batons
between the cycle paths and building sites –
a white crane, a red crane – green-brown
grass under the saltire sky, crossed
with white jet fumes, the jet howling like a baby
in a stripy red romper inspecting
the wild round crinkled buds that burst
from every nook and notch of the old oaks.

*

My pretty black-haired friend,
I’m glad you joined me under my tree
even for a few minutes with your green
khaki messenger bag and Yorkshire brogue
to look at the hot spring afternoon with me,
even for a few minutes, and to say ‘it’s nice out’,
‘are you coming to the pub later’, and go,
dodging the joggers who have been here forever.

*

A toddler stamps toward her father
is hoisted to his shoulders and rides away;
swallows swing in the thermals,
jet engines still filtering through the branches,
the evening full of violins.

*

And the moon, half-meteor, half-earth,
rises opposite the middle-aged sun.

Thanks for reading, expect more soon!
Dave.

hello poem how have you been

2009-04-01T19:11:00.002Z

I've been spending a heckload of time tinkering with an already-completed portfolio and then an enjoyable but time-consuming essay. And I think me and Michael Longley need a bit of time apart. On the other hand, here's my first new poem in a long time, which totally apes him. Woot?

Body Language

Since I will, some day, forget your face
this poem will celebrate your will
to keep talking, your ease in lip-reading
that switched our roles in crowded clubs,
and apologise for the time my hand
hesitated on your hearing aid as my hand
has since hesitated on pierced ears, healed piercings.

Thanks for reading!
Dave.

Poem, news

2009-03-25T23:25:00.005Z

POSE AS A TEAM, CUZ SHIT JUST GOT REAL

News! My poem "All Souls' Night" is going to be published in the next edition of Pomegranate.
HOT SHIT, SON.
There is also talk abroad of further readings in future, which I'm not going to jinx by giving details. SO! Here's a poem, about this exhibit.

Menashe Kadishman - Shalechet

I

You examined maps and counted
unfamiliar coins,
haggled with hostellers
in respectable German.

Jackdaws flitted on the pavement
pecking at apple cores
and brown horse-chestnut leaves,
retreating at our footsteps.

II

There was silence
in that room,
silent space
and a square
of clarity
three storeys above,
stressing the dust
that settled
on mountains of shoes,
mountains of luggage
chalked with
catalogues of names,
chalk drawing air
from the room
that had space
for more silence.

III

A jackdaw flapped away as we came to the surface,
apple core in its mouth, into peppery clouds.
Traffic droned in the distance. We walked home.

Thanks for reading,
Dave.

Change We Can Blog About

2009-03-14T13:13:00.004Z

So on Wednesday some folks from creative writing put together a poetry/prose night upstairs in the Meadow Bar. The guys did awesome, particularly Natalia, Struan and Niki, who were all doing a public reading for the first time (whoo!). The crowd was lapping that shit up. Honorable mention for Aiko's mad performance skills. I opened with some old poems and a couple of new(ish) ones, one of which is here.

Mutant

Taking my arm in the simmering buzz
of the crowd, through the diabolo-spinners
and gyring, half-naked drummers,
she led me under canopies
and curtains that climbed into sundown,
staining the air red and purple, stirred
with the neon bar-lights that awoke hot-
humming, weaving charms in the eyes.

Her mid-Atlantic accent melded
with the calls of rucking bodies,
reflecting soundwaves from London
students and New York sightseers;
she tripped among puddles
and the bedlam of dancers, her skin
highlit and spinning away
from my melding mid-British accent.

Once the band sent the crowd re-singing
the setlist through the streets I found her
hands, found her pallor under the moonlight –
her tawny eyes, cold silver, her Indias of spice –
and exchanged nights, eye-freckled and glowing
in the shifting light of a new year,
til our voices reflected in each other’s ears
and she might have been my twin.

Thanks for reading,
Dave.

Dang

2009-03-07T13:52:00.002Z

I was sure I had more material than I actually do. Shucks. Here's a rewrite of my first ever poem.

Giant’s Causeway

Mist crawled upwards from the surface,
the cluttered sky turned grey and we retired
from tectonic sea and gathering smirr
to a pub you knew. Only the birds knew
what the sea had said, what it kept to itself.

Earlier that morning a hundred feet above the basalt,
I caught my breath and followed you
a few steps behind along the machair.
You gave nothing away as you gathered
palm-sized stones from a cairn by the cliff-face.

I named haresfoot, razorbills, chimney-stacks,
causeway-tales. You sent skimmers over
the cliffs as I yammered, disguising
cover-stories in the tide’s howl and skirl.

Thanks for reading,
Dave.

Greeks

2009-03-04T12:16:00.001Z

Turns out I'm doing okay! Here's a new one based on the Odyssey. That's Sean Bean in the picture, being a legend.

Anticleia

I

Lacking options, he summons
the weak-necked dead,
hoping for counsel
and direction home
from long-winded Tiresias.

Lacking a spade, Odysseus hollows
out a sump with his sword,
sweetens the soil with honey-wine,
wheat-flour and water.

His mother, Anticleia,
breezes by his elbow
without meeting his eye,
as oblivious to their reunion
as any of the dead.
He reaches out to her
for the first time in years.
His arms pass through her like mist.

Anticleia danders on
among the crowd, still avoiding his gaze
like an embarrassed acquaintance.
With a sacrifice her eyes are opened. Heart
in bloodied mouth, she dithers for words.

II

Her voice barely holds long enough
to tell the whole sorry tale:
Penelope harassed by lechers;
Telemachus herding pigs;
Laertes nothing but skin and bone
in a miserable gardener’s get-up.
She stretches her ghost arms to his flesh
and bones and glides through them like air.

Odysseus gathers his nerves and speaks,
“What evil brought you here?
Some wasting disease? Artemis’ dart?”
“There was no violence about it, son.
I lost heart waiting for you to come home.”

Strong-shouldered Odysseus stumbles
to his knees and reaches for the hems
of his mother’s robe, which vanish like dew.

See you tomorrow,
Dave

Small poems are fun to write

2009-03-03T10:17:00.005Z

So in two hours' time I'll be going to a supervisor meeting to see how much work these things need before they turn into something awesome. I'm quite fond of a bunch of them, maybe because they remind me of a good time or someone I like. This one does neither of those things, it is about birds, snow, and seeds.

[Rolling back the blind uncovers]

Rolling back the blind uncovers
a courtyard changed by snow

(last night a loft of pigeons
patrolled a continent of seed,

baiting coal tits or blue tits
that hustled round their hindfeathers,

pecking at the scraps), breath melting
in rorschach blots on the cold glass.

Hasta mañana,
Davíd

Do-Over

2009-03-02T12:04:00.001Z

Today's poem asks what could have happened if things had been different.

Mulligan

She looks at him with a tender kind of sadness.
As she walks backward through the closing door
they grow unfamiliar through similar dreams
of things they may some day do. Fingers pulled
together as if by magnetic opposites
recall the times they will warm ill-heated beds,
crooked inside each other like lightning bolts.

Crosses fade from refurling calendars
that survey a systematic withdrawal
of tokens of affection, habits of speech,
a spreading air of innocence as they sleepwalk
into mutual ignorance.
A night will come
when the last rough edges are filed into smoothness,
as lips lean close, then further (much further) away.

Thanks for reading, more tomorrow!
Dave.

By golly it's that time again

2009-03-01T14:24:00.004Z

February has been obscenely busy. BUT it means I've backlogged seven brand new poems for y'all to have a look at. Also Ireland beat England and that makes me happy, even if the game was a lousy kick-a-thon. ALSO the new edition of Read This is available all over Edinburgh, and online here. This is a poem about getting it wrong. Or maybe not.

Souvenir

Sitting elegant above the mantle,
simple as silk, a crafted sword,
he fingers the blade, grips the handle

of beaten iron, as woven and tangled
as the history of his fathers, each of whom had sworn
allegiance on what sits above the mantle.

Renouncing roman decadence, their eagles, furs and sandals,
the chieftain keeps his clansmen, who, at the given word,
will finger the blade and grip the handle

to rout imperial menaces, whose angle
of attack appears absurd.
Sitting elegant above the mantle

is the rapine of his armies, every bracelet, every bangle
further proof – if proof were needed – of the prowess of his horde.
He fingers the blade and grips the handle

of the souvenir he bought in Reykjavík which may dimly hold a candle
to the real McCoy, or Thordarsson, or however it occurred.
Sitting elegant, unsullied, in a crook above the mantle,
he fingers the blade and firmly grips the handle.

See you tomorrow,
Dave.

Moooooovin'

2009-01-31T15:03:00.004Z

Moving house can be stressful, I hear.

Last pome of three, hope it's been a kickass January.

So

A short coffin on wheels
raised to rib-height by spider-wire legs
between the pulpit and the rows
of wooden benches.

Sarcoma
eating
into the books you’d read
your hard-headed sense of devotion
decades
planning holidays to America
decades
watching costume dramas and The West Wing
eating decades
of sacrifice and stiff-arming self-doubt
through decades
spent herding, corralling young minds.

A poet-saint
worth less faith than you offered
has his last say
on this dry winter morning
you might have loved.

Strange men
from the directors come
to wheel you from the church
in the short wooden coffin on retractable legs
we will later burn.

Thanks for reading,
Dave.

Steelers v Cards: Superbowl XLIII!

2009-01-30T18:22:00.002Z

As promised! Movin' flat today.

Riddle: What has two thumbs and an awesome flat?
[points to self with thumbs] This guy.

Reception

The CBS broadcasters cut to commercial
as the opening drive goes three-and-out,
and the defense – led by the six-four two-twenty
linebacker in his eighth year out of Syracuse –
mobilizes at midfield, where the hand-poised ball
is torpedoed to the punter whose name
the announcers have yet to fathom,
sent hurtling
end over end
deep into the floodlights
and falling snow – inside the ten, inside the five –
as returning cameras determine
where the next play begins,
where the quarterback sends
his rookie receiver on a fade route
(finding one-on-one coverage wide on the side
the safety wasn’t watching),
the ball arching,
falling across ribbon-white lines, interrupted
by black-gloved hands – complete in open field! –
and carried through an elation of noises,
thousands of voices,
into the snow-drifted
endzone.

A Bientot,
Dave.

Today's Clever Title is Re:Visions

2009-01-28T22:44:00.008Z

Over the next few days I'm going to be putting up a few workshopped poems, two that have been up already - Crags and Reception (formerly Catch) - and one new one...
Superbowl on Sunday!

Crags

And now I am a jackdaw alighted on a rock
above the city, bunnyhopping toward the cliff face.

I hoke at the wet stone,
shake the fine rain from my feathers,

and already my memories
are dripping off in runnels.

The castle, the highrises, the alleys
grow abstract with each fluttered heartbeat.

The river meets the sea and the wind
pushes me softly, suddenly over the edge

and I open my different mouth
and I open my different arms.

Til tomorrow,
Dave.

GUESS WHAT, BITCHES

2009-01-21T13:50:00.008Z

BOOM

New poem out of goddamn nowhere. What would happen if you could go backwards through a relationship?
So the inauguration poet sounded like Microsoft Sam. That's gotta be one tough gig. Great speech though, Obama was a hecka good support act.
Other news: Frank Vorassi is gonna publish "Homecoming" in the March edition of Bottom of the World! AW YISS

Mulligan

She looks at him with a tender kind of sadness.
As she walks backward through the closing door
they grow unfamiliar through similar dreams
of things they may some day do. Fingers pulled
together as if by magnetic opposites
recall the times they will warm ill-heated beds,
crooked inside each other like lightning bolts.

Crosses fade from refurling calendars
that survey a systematic withdrawal
of tokens of affection, habits of speech,
a spreading air of innocence as they sleepwalk
into mutual forgetfulness. A night will come
when those last rough edges are filed into smoothness,
as lips lean close, then further (much further) away.

Thanks for reading,
Dave.

Et Finalement

2009-01-12T13:36:00.006Z

I know it's been more like eight days than a week, but hey! Hope it's been enjoyable. It may be a little while before there's any new material up here, but I'll try and make it sooner rather than later.

Edit: OMIGODOMIGOD I got published by Gloom Cupboard Jesus

Root

Many Sundays ago I was carrying
pot plants from all corners of the house
to the kitchen, covering the sink and each flat surface
till the room was green and the air was thick.

(In a smaller kitchen in the early nineties
my mother measured the fertiliser
in droplets that billowed beneath the surface
in a muddy miniature watering can.

I stood on a stool and tipped the contents
round the roots, recolouring the soil
as water leaked out in dirt-clogged rivulets –
‘That’s enough now, David’)

The ivy creeper from the sill on the landing
had been overlooked in our shiny new home.
As I dropped it beside the compost heap
I wondered how I’d ever figured out
when to stop.

Ciao for niao,
Dave.

As I post this I am watching Mark Wahlberg in the 2008 classic "Max Payne"

2009-01-11T13:10:00.005Z

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_burial

Sky Burial

Hollow broken bones,
meat mixed with barley flour,
yak butter and tea;

vultures take the best of the spoils,
bones are left to ravens and hawks.

On this clear morning
our breath masses in fine clouds
as we remember

the one who offered himself
to the sky. Juniper fires

cleanse the air above
the charnel-ground, a tower
of silence stained

by sunrise. Later, man-sized
wings will carry altered flesh

across the mountains.
Nothing remains but dirty-
white feathers and memory.

Last poem tomorrow!
Dave.

Shh

2009-01-10T16:46:00.002Z

I am very quietly posting this then getting back under the blanket in front of the tv. Which is turned down. Ruddy absinthe.

Going Home

Sun hit the room through tall windows, painting shadows
in the slender, breezy light of morning, clearer
than your camera for picking your nestled brownness,
throwing mustardseed freckles on your cheeks.

Hair rippled like running water down the alleyways and canals
of places we’d never been. The door stuttered shut
where the carpet lay thick, or the door lay low,
leaving a pile of clothes spilling green from your suitcase.

There were more stairs going down than going up;
I couldn’t recall the frosted windows overlooking back yards
or the bikes locked up on each floor. The Edwardian front door
with the red plastic lock buzzed and shunted onto the street.

The concrete sat ordinary underfoot, the breeze from the sea
wheedling its way under layers of clothes.

Happier tomorrow,
Dave.

I'll Fly Away

2009-01-09T10:17:00.003Z

So my flat isn't perfect, but it does have an awesome view of the crags from the living room, and this time of the morning there are dozens of gulls flying around the buildings, screeching away. It's been a while since I've mentioned birds, and I'd hate to think I was becoming lax in my duties.

Crags

And now I am a jackdaw perched
on a rock above the city,
bunnyhopping towards the cliff face.

I hoke at the wet stone,
shake the fine rain from my feathers,

and already the memory of being human
is slipping away in runnels.
The alleys, the highrises, the castle

grow abstract with each
rapid heartbeat. The river meets

the sea and the wind
pushes me softly,
suddenly over the edge and I open

my different mouth and I open
my different arms.

Til tomorrow,
Dave.

Football with the hands

2009-01-08T13:13:00.004Z

I love American football. I don't care what anyone says, it can be one of the most dramatic games going. Its format practically requires a game to have at least one pivotal moment - 3rd and long, no timeouts remaining, yadayada - while each play (I don't think it a coincidence that such a dramatic game should be made up of individual plays) is rehearsed and refined and deployed with remarkable attention to detail. It's an underrated game on this side of the Atlantic.

Superbowl on the 1st of February. Hold my calls.

Catch

The opening drive goes three-and-out,
the defence – led by the six-four
two-twenty linebacker
in his eighth year out of Syracuse –
mobilises at midfield
as the white-stitched ball is torpedoed
to the punter with the European name
the announcers have yet to fathom
and sent hurtling end over end deep
into the floodlights and falling
snow – inside the twenty, inside the ten –
as mathematics and replays determine
where the next possession begins,
where the quarterback sends
his rookie receiver into single coverage
on an in-and-out route the safety
was only half-watching,
where the spiral of the ball will be
interrupted by gloved hands
and carried, screaming,
into the floodlit
endzone.

See you tomorrow, sports fans,
Dave.

O Tannenbaum

2009-01-07T10:36:00.008Z

It is lucky term has not started because it is 11am and all I have accomplished is weetabix.

Edit: My blog was two years old yesterday. Happy birthday, blog.

Solstice

We unraveled the fairy lights my sister
left when she moved out
and threaded them carefully
through the needles of our fold-out tree.

I jumped from switch to switch
until the room turned black and grey,
ushering the night through the big french window,

and the lights flashed and for a moment
your face glowed and your eyes were wide
til something blew and then silence.

I knelt by the socket with scotch tape and tried
to secure the shot wires with giftwrap.
Spreading my arms like a priest before
a burnt offering, I prayed against the dark.

Hasta mañana,
Dave.

New Year, New Poems

2009-01-05T18:25:00.007Z

First, some plugs: I'm an editor for Read This Magazine, a little Edinburgh-based publication for young and emerging writers, and our editor-in-chief Claire Askew runs a cool-as-fuck poetry blog at One Night Stanzas, more than just a witty name.

So! I've been fairly active over the holidays, and as such, over the next week I will upload a brand new, never-before-seen poem EVERY FREAKING DAY. Wowsa!

Today, a poem that is pretty darned straight-forward.

Train to London

The cloudline tears and sunlight spills out in streams.
Stars hide behind the two-way mirror of earth’s atmosphere,
the full-grown ash looking dwarfish as the motion of the train,
the motion of the farmer’s quad bike, throws us in centrifuge,
the vast brown field growing vaster.

A rickety wood-pole-bridge slants
across the bare-bark-reflecting stream. Sheep-trails and fox-trails
that line the woodland are not veins for plasma flocks of cotton,
and I cannot explain what makes the yellow digger such a good shepherd
though I can hazard a guess.

I give you birchwood. I give you the white flowers of hawthorn.
I give you witchhazel and alder with sunlight strobing through their branches.
You give me the fuzz-yellow buzzcut fields, heather like coral,
gaps in stone walls, a scarecrow, faces of cliffs like ellipses, the sea,
the sea,

a bluebell, seagulls following a tractor like seagulls following
a trawler, the soil deep brown, the summerhouse overlooking the water
where hawks hover, haybales like pigs in a blanket,
like an art exhibit, like the wheels of the sun, like morse code, like braille,
like the sign language I never learned,

the elm bare like handstanding roots, pheasant farm
net-roofed, sheughs of water left in train-wake;
horses graze by the river that curves out of sight,
branches reach out through reds, greens, blues,
white

Thanks for reading,
Dave.

What kind of a year has it been

2008-12-04T19:04:00.006Z

Some things ended in York, some things have started in Edinburgh. I'm thankful that there's more of the second thing than the first. Here's some new stuff, workshopped this week.

Homecoming

These black waves belong to fish
and those spirits whose rumours disturb
our sleep. I lie and imagine myself
among bogland, or watching the rocks
drift into our kenning; but the song
of Oisín flits around in the darkness –
taunting my ears with deep rhythms –
I curse my heart-weakness.
Never again did man see Eden,
and I may never see Achill again.

Memory begins to blur and distort.
The face that sent me to sea
turns to the fatal cast of Moses
still in Moab, Canaan left untouched.
And now I have a book, for my sins,
though I fear that my brothers may forgive
more than Him. I have burned true words,
enraged in my ignorance, and those flames
have enlightened every marvel I’ve seen;
yet I pray in His name I’ll see Achill again.

Tonight I dreamed. I heard
Him call me: Brendan, come home.
No more than a man may measure the ocean
may he see all My wonders in his life.
Come home to the monks of your fatherland.
We have crossed the last time this horizon;
black cliffs rise up and gulls whisper
in the distance. I see the glow of white
blossom, hear singing from the shoreline,
and I know I may never see Achill again.

You! Me! Dancing!

It barely matters
that our morningwatch
of major chords
sweeps away the ghosts
of thorn-woven ruins.
Our smallness remains.

Sun chases grey into black,
houses rise like bruises
from the sickly patchwork
of hesitant string-picks.

Dust rises and towers rise
as starlight forges factories
from the shadows, building
furious momentum
from a frenzy of dischords.

Our dancefloor of nuclear beats
remind me of no earthly
thing more than your eyes
under the flashing blue
and violet light.

Cat’s Eyes

A stray reclined in the garden, beneath
a rare open sky in a gloomy summer
which deepened the glamour of its starbath,
untanning itself in the distant glimmer.

It shot off into the hedgerow, torchlight
hot on its tail. The night’s only variety
was the blue-red blink of a red-eye flight
weaving through Orion en route to the city.

That was all; goodnight to woods.
Reeled indoors by the sluggish hum
of my plasma TV, I felt the certitude
of the right thing done. Up next was some

documentary: On our tiny planet
life was created; if this delicate
balance has just once been repeated, as yet
we don’t know. It seemed something like fate.

Thanks for reading,
Dave.

Sea Legs

2008-11-30T00:35:00.006Z

Writing poetry is fun partly because of the way it gets round to what it's "really" about. I'm writing about an empty house but I'm talking about say isolation or exile or what have you. So it lends itself well to insular kinda folks. But it also indulges that insularity, which is not only generally intolerable but leads to shitty poems. Poetry is written primarily for other people.
This poem is part of an exchange with the Edinburgh College of Art, and is based (loosely) on the picture above, by Toby Cook.

Sea Legs

Maybe that’s all that there is.
Maybe he runs through the streets
along roads over bridges on railway
lines that fly over sleeping cathedral
towns lit up blue green like swamp
mushrooms tra-la like coral like Christmas tree
lights like the Forth Road Bridge a frame
over night-bound trawlers young man finding
his sea legs tra-la cutting shadows
in the sky far beneath the feet of a man
on the moon-blackened bridge
regarding all that there is.

Thanks,
Dave.

It's you! It's me! And there's dancing!

2008-11-13T17:30:00.005Z

Check this out first:
You! Me! Dancing! by Los Campesinos

So I wrote a little thing about this music video.

‘You! Me! Dancing!’ by Los Campesinos!

I

It barely matters
that our morningwatch
of echoing major chords
will sweep away the ghosts
of thorn-mingled ruins –

our mutual smallness remains.
Sun glares over the mountains,
houses rise like bruises
from the sickly patchwork
of hesitant string-picks.

How can you understand
the sunrise forging warehouses
from the shadows, building
inevitable momentum
from a frenzy of dischords?

II

Draw back from our disco of nuclear beats –
blasting this sphere to a cosmic glitterball –
which reminds me of no earthly thing
more than your eyes under the flashing blue
and violet light.

Thanks for reading,
Dave.

Welcome to the WORLD of TOMORROW

2008-10-31T00:21:00.004Z

Soooooo it's been a while since I paid attention to this here thang. Ima put some poems up that I've been working on, hope you enjoy em. Gosh, this whole page needs a little housekeeping. The junk in the right margin... seriously.

This one is a re-worked old one, the title refers to where the poem might be situated. Dreams are weird.

Anywhere but Vienna

The night is alive with drones.
The hum of the streetlight,
the infant cry of a far-off ambulance,
stillness enough to hear blood flow.

If I opened the curtains I might see
the moon pass between clouds
like the last train out of Vienna,
and the courtyard dyed blue-grey.

If I opened the window I might hear
dogs yelp as they doze,
or the murmur of an exchange
in a language I don’t recognise.

But if I sleep I might dream
an off-white room full of saints
praying for distillation from the physical
into one solitary, confident note;

a theatre of bunk-beds,
curtains and moth flight,
and a pebble of dream-stuff
I can hold until morning.

Next one I'm pretty sure has been around here before, but I wanted it a bit more sparse. Less is more.

Anaesthetic

The valve turns and releases graceful
sleep. Daffodils circle the tree
among patches of foxgloves.

Satellites beam through
space, miles above the surface,
shinking the landscape.

The daffodil in my hand
braces to the wind
that once blew over foxgloves.

Names are fun! So is romantic longing. This is a renga, which is a Japanese poem consisting of pairs of stanzas; the first has three lines of 5-7-5 syllables, the second has two 7-syllable lines. The basic idea is to make a poem that can be easily read then just as easily forgotten.

Better Words

Hear the folk song of names,
blood-lines, incantations.
Sound them like a spell.

I hold your name behind my teeth.
I hold your name beneath my tongue.

I call up spirits
far gone in time and geography,
that one afternoon –

shearwater, meadow brown,
cormorant, yellowtail,

stitchwort, iris,
meadowsweet, herb robert,
lily, vetch, foxglove –

for better or worse, time let
them live, like a kiss goodbye.

Ruddy with wind-catching,
we walked through the streets
with grassy knees.

A towel, old shorts, summer sun,
touching my face with loose blades.

Topless in water,
feel the searing embrace
of airlessness,

watching the sun set on the glens,
glowing like you wouldn’t believe;

god, or a thing
for which there is no better
word than god;

the breeze tangling your hair,
fingers tangled in your hair.

Palmful of horse chestnut,
floor glazed in green shells,
smell of muddy shoes,

witch-hazel, valerian,
ragged robin, lady’s bedstraw,

bay window,
the ever-dwindling
list of flowers.

I knew you less than a year.
We never saw winter.

I write about birds a lot. They're weird and fantastic.

Magpie

From a standing position
in the wet-leafed car park,
magpie waits, wings furled, head
tilted left, right, square
to the ground.

On legs of hooped birch
and dirty lizardskin,
its haunches tighten
and release, launching
those few pounds of bird-
flesh, bone and feathers
inches from the concrete
where wind twirls magpie
in somersaulting spirals.

Feet, yards and faster,
magpie wings spread
farther in the blank
winter night –

Yards, furlongs and further
magpie spans the breadth
of the sky, tearing away
its animal sutures –
shards of feather turn
in diffusing whirls
to the scattered light
of the black, glinting
winter sky, all
the stars tangled
in magpie’s wake.

Thanks for reading!
Dave.

Ay Oh, Let's Go

2008-09-26T21:53:00.005Z

These two go together, one is set during the day, t'other at night.

Whose Garden Was This?

Resting like idle violin bows.
Birds in their dialects;
Keys of a typewriter, squeaking
Sneakers on polished wood,
Muted ruffling of blackbirds in unison.

Cirrus smudges like finger paintings
Roll like surf;
I lie stretched long in soft grass.
Listen to the code of magpies,
One from the aerial, two from the chimney stove.

Clench your feet on the prickling fuzz,
Leave behind foot prints,
Take home with you a gloss of loose blades
And remember the sun,
Lying on your belly on a towel on the grass.

Cat’s Eyes

My father’s cat had escaped on my watch.
Shortly before the midnight clock-chime
I laced up my trainers and switched on a torch,
Shuffling through darkness half-blind.

Sadly for Saffron, the night was all stars.
A sudden clear sky in an overcast summer
Had sharpened the glamour of the lights in the air,
Dusty grey grand-stars and the shooting white glimmer.

I thought about naming the cosmos like clouds:
“Three in a row, like a belt!” “Okay.”
Black canvas resistant to fathoming out,
A map without compass, no index, no key.

I remembered a book then: “On this tiny planet
Life was created; whether or not this delicate
Balance has been repeated, as yet
We do not know.” It seemed something like fate.

Thanks,
Dave.

Hi.

2008-09-03T13:20:00.002Z

Whale Watching

A cargo of sightseers draws
sedately clear
of Bar Harbour, watercolour dawning
and gull-filled air

whips across the prow, drains
the flushed colour
from faces weighed haggardly down
by matted hair.

The flock of terns the lighthouse draws
in their silence clears
my mind enough to make it dawn
on astonished ears

that a mournful wail gently drowns
out the low-geared
thrumming engines; echoes and resounds
beneath us, where

the whale basks, singing. As if drawn
up by a clear-
minded artist who'd ordained
such unwary

carelessness, its cragged, drawn
forty-odd-foot glare
is half-dreaming, half-drowning
in air and water.

Thanks,
Dave.

Oddyssey

2008-07-04T21:28:00.004Z

It's that time again! I've been doing some editing. Some are totally re-written, some just tidied up a little. Plus one new, never-before-seen DVD extra poem! Here!

Penelope

No gulls haunt the horizon, unadvancing,
Unreceding, a line that hides its riches in
Its folds; constellations orient my view.

The sea soon learns to hoard loam and flot and barm –
Protective filters from the light – to turn obscure,
Safe, dulling the full reflection of the moon

Into torn bandage ribbons waxing, waning
Over sable molten glasswork that encircles
This vessel. I watch reflections touch my feet,

Fill my lungs, my eyes; I meet its gaze at last.
I regret this. Minerva, Pallas Athene,
Queen of grey-eyed purity in this black and

White serenity. Her eyes were often blue;
More likely they were simply indescribable.
Tonight the feeling is not so Greek to me.

Edit edit edit

The Island House

A cricket rubs its legs, wild percussion
Close to the house; close to the house
Are silent valleys and crazy-form mountains –
Slieve More – big mountain; Knockmore – big hill.

Hives on the arms are tattoos of honour,
Though the houseflies’ days are numbered;
They emerged, days later, from behind the curtain,
Overdosing on the quiet peace of the living room.

Over the fence, the donkeys tear grass free
With blunted teeth. There is space to hear breathing,
Air brushing cold between the lips,
Steady silent prayers to the island.

Sorrow Burns

A vesperal flare in the reddening night,
Curled on the floor, half-naked, we lie
To each other, beautiful half-truths, delight
Daubed freely across the northern sky.
Drifting for now, asking nothing but the world
Leave us, all fingertips and tales,
Sun-fled and tight-lipped, too fleetingly held
To the warm, dull thud, too livid and pale.

We have long overslept as rainfall returns
Us our respective lives. We fight but concede,
And memory directs a distinctive reprise
As our parts are usurped, sensationalised
In Merchant-Ivory grayscale, the starring leads
In an alien picture. Unheeded sorrow burns.

The Mountain

I

At mountain’s peak, I stayed a while.
The pines rolled out to vanishing point,
In sanguine breathless stubbornness,
Shouldering neighbouring canopies
That hold in line the skyways and
Sanctuaries now strewn to the four corners.
Verdant canvas of vital greens.

II

On mountain’s side, I climbed ahead:
Massive fauna reminisce,
Serene and solid, delving deep
Into moss-stained soil, carbon
Engravings dwarfing my hands.

III

At mountain’s foot, my fire, ablaze
Beneath browning kettles, I hold
My pilgrim’s victual, bathed in embers’
Glow. Green bed under the clouds,
The mountain watching the pale, rising smoke.

A Staircase in a Foreign Country

It wanders up from stonework river-walls,
From the old town’s cobbled lanes
Where skateboarding kids work magic feats,
From the tourist traps and pork knees,
The sweet lager and plastic half-crowns,
A timorous, frayed-ragged stairway
That holds the best seats in the house.

No market marble coolness
In these newborn office courtyards,
No fleet-foot street artists with coterie crowds
(And no box-office) will welcome me here,
Counting the hours and watching the city’s
Heart harden. With each failed landing
I draw closer to the balcony haven.

There seems stability in these hills;
Peace at the precipice, a house of God,
Veranda over the clay-tiled canopy,
Where sunrise tries to catch my shadow
And send it out across the skyline.
Fingertip metronome counts off the beat
For skateboarders in the shimmer of dawn.

So, Then, Tycho Brahe

On the hillside that overlooks city and sea,
I lie in your hand’s reach, nestling in
The soft grass, sheltered by branches,
Black blanket sky lit by freckles of light,
On the hillside just angled to lie and look up.

I haven’t anything to say, not really,
And the blathering stream and the bass-chorus
Owls seem more eloquent anywho, night-
Watchmen with three-sixty vision; I tell you that
I haven’t anything to say, and you’re quiet.

So I turn back to the stars, moving too slowly,
But moving, ancient light that confounded
Astronomers, fearing eccentricity, or punishment
For it, burning away their distance from God;
So they turned back on the stars, and you squeeze my hand.

If truth is heresy, Brahe can hardly be blamed
For his universe model that set sun and Mars
Toward fiery discourse – I say, and you smile.
Perhaps I imagine the peace in your eyes.
I can hardly be blamed if truth is relevant.

Errantium syderum – wandering stars
That threw the world into error, only needed
Correction, but correction eternal.
The tent-bed is warm on the hillside.
Mountains and skyline, errantium syderum.

Anaesthetic

The valve turns, and releases cold and graceful
Sleep, though night fell long ago.

Daffodils circle the tree, March-blossoming,
Standing in stubborn fealty against squall and shower
For a spirit that has shed its need for dead places
With the vigil-keeping foxgloves in the garden.

Satellites and transmitters shrink the open country
And open sea to the space between mouth and ear.
Ethereal baritone braving midnight storms,
Undaunted by distance, bringing news from
The garden to my hands. The daffodil in my fingertips
Braces to the wind that blew over foxgloves, miles away.

Illusion

III

The day-old sun caught the spinning edges
Of the Diablo, reddened the white masquerades
Of the Marceau-faced jugglers, settled and
Lingered in the fallen haze of the evening.
I dodged crowded faces, screaming and vomiting,
And stood in silence like a sole grave-visitor
Beneath the canopies and curtains that climbed
Into the twilight, eclipsing what brightness remained;
The neon bar-lights stirred, wakened, hot-
Buzzing with lures that left burns on the eyes.

II

The raven-haired harlequin half-danced
Among puddles now gilded by humming streetlamps
In the anaesthetising gloom, ridding
Your strange flesh of what few flaws there were.
Green hair in spotlight, tawny eyes of cold
Silver: Indias of spice enlightened in your blood.

I

Last order of honey-wine quite gently tipped
Its hat in esteem of my wettening shoes.
Coins became yellow blossoms, enchanted
By the gold and silver cloth of the circus awning.

Descent

Flying in from Glasgow on the eighteen-fifty
To Aldergrove; out through the thick-glassed window
The frayed knuckles of coastline, reaching out with gnarled hands
Beyond the fallow piebald farms, swooping and diving
A thousand feet below. The sun touches the horizon
With a feathered fingertip, hissing as it meets
The waves, settling in for the night under a blanket of
Flourescent algae, the unfathomable sea-dreams of fish.
I wait to be informed of our descent, patient angel
Entranced by rolling breakers, snow-white foam,
Trying to feel something. Awe. My grandfather flew
Once a month to his work in Scotland, leaving his
Son and wife in the capital, watching the sky.
My wings melt as the black cliffs drift into view.

Thanks for reading,
Dave.

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

2008-06-04T16:00:00.004Z

Viva Ozymandias!

I

A few hours later, through Babylonian desert
And confluent arteries, pilgrims blown by trade-winds
To the fusion of inert gases and electrical tension
That ignites one word, appearing and disappearing,
On a pedestal of plastic and dark bolted steel.

Two vast and pointless pylons shoot searchlights
Into the restricted airspace stars have neglected,
Where angels dare not venture, holy creatures blinded
By the fire-fly desert city whose refracted visage
Glowers into the darkness, a glowing eye from space.

A labyrinth of temples complicates the surface
That perspires through the night and mocks the dawn,
Mocks the works of the dead, a masque of death,
Parody of life lived apart from sweating masses,
The great pawns of history tread their faltering paces.

At the pulsing heart of the teeming desert city
The twin ziggurats are counting, one by one by one,
The blurring roll of tributes to unknown emperors,
Counting the germinating souls sacrificing
At the altar no man-god will deign to forsake.

II

Too hot for outdoors and with nothing on the telly,
I sneak to the toilet-stalls and inscribe the words of Shelley.

Thanks for reading,
Dave.

I can't get enough of this shit

2008-05-30T14:49:00.004Z

Oystercatchers

The road beyond the house stretches
Out around a field grown wild with oilseed,
Tarmacadam sweating rainfall into gutterways
Before turning east in search of seashore.

The road lies low, and silent this early,
Mist and light rain holding indoors all but
The swallows, herons, swifts, cormorants,
And any one else who never wanted for roofs.

A corridor of hedgerows opens into the rocks
And sand (smaller rocks) dusting the spray
As the oystercatchers loiter in the shallows,
Waiting for the water to offer its secrets.

Thanks for reading,
Dave.

Love Poetry Almost but not Exactly

2008-04-21T15:40:00.004Z

Illusion

III

The day-old sun caught the spinning edges
Of the Diablo, reddening the white masquerades
Of the Marceau-faced jugglers, settling and
Lingering in the fallen haze of the evening.
Dodging crowded faces, screaming and vomiting,
Corner-pissing in silence like a sole grave-visitor
Beneath the canopies and curtains that climbed
Into the twilight, eclipsing what brightness remained;
And the neon bar-lights stirred, wakened, hot-
Buzzing with lures that left burns on the eyes.

II

The raven-haired harlequin half-dancing
Among puddles now gilded by humming streetlamps
In the anaesthetising gloom, ridding
Your strange flesh of what few flaws there were.
Green hair in spotlight, tawny eyes of cold
Silver: Indias of spice enlightened in your blood.

I

Last order of honey-wine quite gently tipping
Its hat in esteem of my wettening shoes.
Coins had become yellow-blossoms, enchanted
By the gold and silver cloth of the pissing-corner.

Thanks for reading,
Dave.

Romance de la Luna

2008-04-01T13:26:00.006Z

Lullabye for a Sleepless Night

It's late. Outside, cities sleep,
Or wake up, or do whatever it is
People do to pass the time. It's late,

And the moon passes between clouds
Like the last train out of Vienna
In the final reel of an old movie.

It's late. And yesterday's waste
Waits by the roadside to be recycled
Again. The old dogs howl in dreams

Of endless summers of haystacks
And drowsy-polleny-buggy sun-days
And energy that burns and still lives...

It's late. And the last goodbyes draw close,
Link arms and lock eyes and pose and smile
For the images I will carry with me

Til I forget them. They can wait.
Tomorrow's players are rehearsing
Already, butterflying for

The rising curtains. Outside, the cities
Dream, or pull tight to their lovers' heartbeats,
Or whatever people do to pass the night.

Thanks for reading,
Dave.

The Shortest Way Round

2008-03-18T20:38:00.005Z

Anaesthetic

With a swift gesture, the tired-eyed local nurse
Opens the valve under the IV a crack wider,
Freeing a nullifying rush of cold and graceful peace.
She hikes up the sheets on a diminishing soul.

Daffodils circle the grave-tree, March-blossoming,
Standing in stubborn fealty against squall and shower,
For the spirit that has shed its need for dead places,
Standing with the vigil-keeping foxgloves in the garden.

Satellites and transmitters shrink the open country
And open sea to the space between mouth and ear.
Ethereal baritone braving midnight storms,
Unfazed by cold, undaunted by distance, bringing news from
The garden to my hands. The daffodil at my window
Braces to the wind that blew over foxgloves, hours ago.

Thanks for reading,
Dave.

A brief recap.

2008-03-11T13:58:00.010Z

I've been looking back over previous posts, checking out how my writing has changed over the past year. It's worth pointing out that there are a number of poems currently posted here which I now find clumsy and heavy-handed, particularly the early ones. So, with that in mind, I've decided to post the full back-catalogue, in their current incarnations, a kind of director's cut, as of March 11th, 2008. They are ordered as they would be in a hypothetical collection, rather than chronologically, which would be a difficult way of defining them anyhow.

Giant’s Causeway

Back on the path, its gravelled lustre
A reminder, overwhelming, that I hid
Skillfully, pretending the rough sea
Wind had blown dust under an eyelid,
And walked on, a few steps behind.
I made jokes about the cliff face, and
You pointed out primroses, designated
Them spots in the garden, and I feigned
Interest, and pointed out Fairhead.
We took a wrong turn, what harm?
Shuffling past luminous anoraks
Half-drenched in the coastal storm
Like we owned the place, and far more
Rightful to barge down the stairwell
In half-hidden mirth. By a crumbling
Hand-rail with a red-rusted warning fell
Palm-sized stones a hundred feet below,
And after all these years I shouldn't've been
Surprised that you still had the better arm.
They stirred the spray. The ocean
Refused entry, the cluttered sky gone grey,
We retired from rain and glaring clouds
At a pub you knew. For once, I thought
I knew what you felt in your blood.

Descent

Flying in from Glasgow on the eighteen-fifty
To Aldergrove; out through the thick-glassed window
The frayed knuckles of coastline, reaching out with gnarled hands
Beyond the fallow piebald farms, swooping and diving
A thousand feet below. The sun touches the horizon
With a feathered fingertip, hissing as it meets
The waves, settling in for the night under a blanket of
Flourescent algae, the unfathomable sea-dreams of fish.
An hour earlier, on the crystal waves of cumuli,
Propelled by the eerie thrumming of astral turbines,
I wait to be informed of our descent, patient angel
Entranced by rolling breakers, snow-white foam,
Trying to feel something. Awe. My grandfather flew
Once a month to his work in Scotland, leaving his
Son and wife in the capital, watching the sky.
My wings melt as the black cliffs drift into view.

Three Nights

An angel, like an angel, clothed in white
Strides across the field on the attack
His antagonist stands quaking at the sight.

October’s dress, embroidered in delight
Heaven-witnessed honouring a pact,
An angel, like an angel, clothed in white.

One drizzling evening, nothing but polite
In her appraisal of all the things I lacked,
Her antagonist stands quaking at the sight.

A desperate prayer, the forlorn hope I might
Restore to you a life made whole, intact;
An angel, like an angel, clothed in white

Should patrol above your headboard, shine its light
To ward away the demons at your back,
Its antagonists stand quaking at the sight.

A man sits by the bedside, tries to fight,
And, pleading for a gem that sickness cracked,
An angel, like an angel, clothed in white,
Your antagonist stands quaking at the sight.

El Tres de Enero [For Garcia Lorca]

Nieve cae, tranquilidad sagrada,
La zumba baja de la caldera
Está la ruida sola.
Media-luz de la madrugada,
Nieva por aire negra.

El cielo cerrado tiembla,
Deslumbra la luna miedosa.
Quiero que quede oscura
Por siempre; esta noche plata
De relámpago y nevada.

[Snow falling, cathedral silence,
The bass hum of the boiler
The only sound for miles.
Half-light of the small hours,
Snow falling in black air.

The blanket sky rumbles,
Obscuring the timid moon.
I would it stayed dark
Forever; this silver night
Of snowfall and lightning.]

Burns

It was divine providence, synchronicity,
Along those lines. Fate made me miss
The appointed time, we met by pure chance.
Not that that means anything of itself,
But my mind likes painting over cracks.

I signed my name, detailing my confession,
A dim-lit night of bad wine and worse blood,
Delicate serration –
Not that it matters. That was someone
Younger than me, unwelcome in my hearth and home.

We took hour-long excursions to quiet places,
The wood-sheltered rivers I’d forgotten
Becoming their own tributaries as memory
Worked its home-surgery, witch-doctoring
Tattered parchment to smooth river-skin.

Each meandering Charles, each low-lying Lagan,
Each Feirste and Quinobequin curved
Away beyond kenning, carrying ballast downriver,
Confluences of babblings and rapids
Recollecting stony strands at my feet.

At this turn in the river, in this auburn-tipped clearing
Where cardinal and blue-jay fade to heron and gull,
I reach my hands into the clear-dark freshwater
And wash the stale blood. Tent pitched on the littoral,
Water flowing past us, on its way to everywhere else.

The Mountain

I

At the mountain’s peak, I stopped for
A while, cast an eye over the pines,
Rolling out towards vanishing
Point, layer over layer, rank
And file, phalanxed shoulder height,
Mottled units toiling under
Sylvan dictat. On north-eastern
Slopes, a fallen mount gasping for air,
Pleading with avian windpipes,
Tree-cacophony, crushed larynx,
Wilderness howl in falling twilight.
Suddenly the tree-pier did not
Seem high enough.

II

On the mountain’s side, verdant canopy-
Shelters, tree-grounded, gigantic fauna
Remembering Triassic brothers
In serenity and sanguine nostalgia.
The earth has ears, a heart, a mouth, bait;
Unrooted feet striding wordlessly, turn to
Constituent carbon, clawing through meat,
Unnamed vital organs, blood and carbon;
Hair falls out, turns carbon, nutrients,
Teeth fall out, carbon (calcium?).
Eyes, tongue, brain. Carbon.
Soul.
Flight through treetips dancing on leafstages
Outstretched and dissipating further
Boundless offerings and earthtunes
Earth.
Knees soiled, hands caked in fecund soil;
Disgusted, croaking eyes observe my retreat.

III

On the foot of the mountain, my little fire
Cooks, browns tender meat, fresh loaves
And fresh produce for my pilgrim’s victual.
Lying on green mattresses, bathed in ember’s glow,
The mountain looks down on the pale, rising smoke.

Franconia

There is an old farmhouse, north of Boston.
I stopped by once. Its peaceful aspect caught
The scarlet sun’s swansong, the Appalachians
In silhouette as cricket-music fell.
Rocking chairs paced their motions, a little
Out of synch, still looking to the horizon.
An empty pantry, rusting range, wooden floor,
Wooden bedframe’s crafted skeleton, curtains drawn.

I read about death in an old comic book once.
It said that it wasn’t like a thief in the night,
Snatching you from your bed, leaving no trace but
A faint depression in the mattress and the smell
Of stale sweat on the pillow. It said it was more
Like someone you’d known forever, an old friend
Who stopped by every night, a loyal old friend
Who picked up every thing you’d forgotten
You even had, so that it wasn’t there next time
You wanted it. And, that, over time, there just
Wasn’t anything left to keep you there;
You were the last thing death would take home.

There is an old farmhouse, north of Boston.
No one lives there now, the old man was famous;
But there is a clearing outside, and a path
Through the woods, passing cairns for forgotten
Little gods. You may find old photos,
Small foreign coins, footprints in the mud,
Roots weaving their stories in the earth;
And the spot, at a fork, where footprints end.

She Held a Daisy in Her Fingertips, the Bitch

She had a camera, capturing the coast through a daisy
Held up to the lens. Her friends sounded German
Or Swedish, she looked French, or at least like
The ones I’d seen in the movies.

There she was, standing at the edge of the world,
Taking photos, through the tint of her travels;
Maybe the reality of Ireland clashed with her dreams,
Maybe it didn’t. Either way,

A month later, I was wandering through Amsterdam,
And met her in the red light district, taking photos
Of the girls in the windows, selling wet dreams.
But I hadn’t the nerve to say hi.

The Island House

A cricket rubs his legs, wild percussion
Close to the house; close to the house
Are the valleys with crazy-form mountains –
Slieve More - big mountain; Knockmore - big hill.

Hives on the arms are tattoos of honour,
Though the midgey convicts’ days are numbered.
They emerged, days later, from behind the curtain,
Overdosing on the quiet peace of the living room.

Over the fence, a donkey tears the grass free
With blunted teeth. There is space to hear breathing,
A steady brush of air between the lips;
The tips of the leaves twitter in the breeze.

A Staircase in a Foreign Country

It wanders up from stonework river-walls,
From the old town’s cobbled lanes –
From tourist traps and pork knees,
Sweet lager and plastic half-crowns –
A timorous, frayed-ragged stairway
With the best seats in the house,
A skybound place to level out.

In the market marble coolness
Of a new town office courtyard,
Skateboarding kids work magic feats,
Fleet foot street artists with coterie crowds
And no box office, ticking off the seconds –
Anticipation of each moment –
Ollie, bail and second chance.

There seems stability in the hills;
Peace at the precipice, a house of God,
Veranda over the roof-tiled canopy,
Where sunrise tries to catch one’s shadow
And send it out across the skyline.
Fingertip metronome counts off the beat
For skating kids in the blaze of dawn.

Shalechet

Leaves had started falling outside
In the late summer gloom of fledgling rainclouds
Reflected in foggy puddles underfoot.
We trooped on through, out of step,
Packs on our back and foreign coins
In our pockets. The first discarded leaves,
Big five-fingered horse chestnuts, face down,
Showing waterlogged veins in the inch-deep pool.

Jackdaws fluttered outside the gates,
Hoking at dirt, pecking at apple-cores,
Flitting off as we arrived. We ventured in,
Catching the moment in digital memory:
An irregular holding cell, walls that towered
At the end of a hallway that withered and shrank,
Through a door that led into sky-scraping judgement,
And the window that spoke of Saint Daniel;

There was silence in that room, space for silence
That loomed and condensed three stories overhead,
That rained ash-snow, staining the railway lines,
Unholy blend of hair and ground thigh-bone,
Snow on a mountain of odd shoes and lost luggage,
Marked in fading chalk with its last destination,
Deep darkened snow, overwhelming, drawing
The air from the room that had space for more silence.

I managed to open the door. Disorientated,
I took a breath to regain my bearings. Upstairs,
An exhibit that asked to be walked upon.
Gently stepping between grotesque iron faces, frozen in
Wordless death-masks, turned to iron and concrete;
I lost my footing, and the faces, disturbed, screamed,
Awakened, echoing off high walls, reverberating;
As I escaped I heard iron crunch and cry out.

A jackdaw flew home as we escaped to the surface,
Apple-heart in mouth, into the sunshine.
I put the camera away, resting easily between
Victuals, tour maps and a handful of foreign coins.
I couldn't help looking back. It was still there,
A multi-story building under receding rainclouds.
We walked home, out of step, in uncomfortable silence.

A Sorrow Burns

A vesperal flare in the reddening night,
Curled on the floor, half-naked, we lie
To each other, beautiful half-truths, delight
Daubed freely across the northern sky.
Drifting for now, asking nothing but the world
Leave us, all fingertips and tales,
Sun-fled and tight-lipped, too fleetingly held
To the warm, dull thud, too livid and pale.

And down, as needs must, as rainfall returns
Us to respective lives. Frail memory concedes,
And sentiment directs a crowd-pleasing reprise
Where our parts are played, sensationalised
By our favourite actors, the starring leads
In their picture. Somewhere unheeded, a sorrow burns.

Lucifer’s Song

God must be lonely; his only love
Proved temperamental,
Unfaithful, distracted by bright lights
And dreams that turned to sacks
Of yellow flowers at dawn.
God must be beautiful; Inconceivably
Beautiful, blindingly, hypnotically -
To create something so magically vital,
And not bottle it up, frame it, bind it;
But set it to the wind, with his blessing,
With demons and angels who dress the same
And never make their intentions known.
God was my love; I insulted him,
Blamed him, wept in confusion, in bitter
And speechless frustration - everything
They had told me about him was wrong,
How could he... I will write him a note,
A postcard, or a letter, if I'm feeling
Old-fashioned, just to say 'hello,
I understand now, I think, and at any rate
I'm sorry.' I'll leave the end blank,
Because he knows my handwriting,
How I cross my 't's; and if I don't
Hear back I'll know why,
And understand why God must be lonely.

So, Then, Tycho Brahe

On the hillside that overlooks city and sea,
I lie in your hand’s reach, nestling in
The soft grass, sheltered by branches,
Black blanket sky lit by freckles of light,
On the hillside just angled to lie and look up.

I haven’t anything to say, not really,
And the blathering stream and the bass-chorus
Owls seem more eloquent anywho, night-
Watchmen with three-sixty vision; I tell you that
I haven’t anything to say, and you’re quiet.

So I turn back to the stars, moving too slowly,
But moving, ancient light that confounded
Astronomers, fearing eccentricity, or punishment
For it, burning away their distance from God;
So they turned back on the stars, and you squeeze my hand.

If truth is heresy, Brahe can hardly be blamed
For a universe model that set sun and Mars
Toward fiery discourse – I say, and you laugh,
And punch my arm, which is confusing;
I can hardly be blamed if truth is relevant.

Errantium syderum – wandering stars
That threw the world into error, only needed
Correction, but correction eternal.
The tent-bed is warm on the hillside.
Mountains and shoreline, errantium syderum.

Crow and Phoenix

Crow flies down to the body.
Rain gathers in sink-holes, browning green earth,
Moonlight hidden by bloated clouds.
Crow pecks at the frost-bitten fingers.
Phoenix, old and diseased,
Bullet-ridden, one-eyed and weak,
Hops and flutters beside Crow.
Nuzzling his feathers, he clears his ancient throat.
“Shame,” says Phoenix, “There aren’t
Many left like this one.”
“Even fewer now,” crows Crow.
Phoenix stares at the corpse.
Crow says, “You will die.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” says Phoenix.

It's been great fun so far. Thanks for reading,
Dave.

Time Out

2008-03-05T16:49:00.008Z

A new month, a new poem. Hopefully the first of many.

Burns

It was divine providence, synchronicity,
Along those lines. Fate made me miss
The appointed time, we met by pure chance.
Not that that means anything of itself,
But my mind likes painting over cracks.

I signed my name, detailing my confession,
A dim-lit night of bad wine and worse blood,
Delicate serration –
Not that it matters. That was someone
Younger than me, unwelcome in my hearth and home.

We took hour-long excursions to quiet places,
The wood-sheltered rivers I’d forgotten
Becoming their own tributaries as memory
Worked its home-surgery, witch-doctoring
Tattered parchment to smooth river-skin.

Each meandering Charles, each low-lying Lagan,
Each Feirste and Quinobequin curved
Away beyond kenning, carrying ballast downriver,
confluences of babblings and rapids
Recollecting stony strands at my feet.

At this turn in the river, in this auburn-tipped clearing
Where cardinal and blue-jay fade to heron and gull,
I reach my hands into the clear-dark freshwater
And wash the stale blood. Tent pitched on the littoral,
Water flowing past us, on its way to everywhere else.

Thanks for reading,
Dave.

So, Then, Blog

2008-02-13T16:39:00.001Z

It's not dead! Hurrah. Here's a poem:

So, Then, Tycho Brahe

On the hillside that overlooks city and sea,
I sit within hand’s reach of you, nestling in
The soft grass, sheltered by branches,
Black blanket sky lit by freckles of light,
On the hillside just angled to lie and look up.

I haven’t anything to say, not really,
And the blathering stream and the bass-chorus
Owls seem more eloquent anyhoo, night-
Watchmen with three-sixty vision; I tell you that
I haven’t anything to say, and you’re quiet.

So I turn back to the stars, moving too slowly,
But moving, ancient light that confounded
Astronomers, fearing eccentricity, or punishment
For it, burning away their distance from God;
So they turned back on the stars, and you squeeze my hand.

If truth is heresy, Brahe can hardly be blamed
For a universe model that set sun and Mars
Toward fiery discourse – I say, and you laugh,
And punch my arm, which is confusing;
I can hardly be blamed if truth is relevant.

Errantium syderum – wandering stars
That threw the world into error, only needed
Correction, but correction eternal.
The tent-bed is warm on the hillside.
Mountains and shoreline, errantium syderum.

Cheers,
Dave.

And there's more!

2008-01-17T20:37:00.000Z

A Staircase in a Foreign Country

It wanders up from stonework riverwalls
And the old town’s cobbled lanes –
From tourist traps and pork knees,
Sweet lager and plastic half-crowns –
A timorous, frayed-ragged stairway
With the best seats in the house,
A skybound place to level out.

In the market marble coolness
Of a new town office courtyard,
Skateboarding kids work magic feats,
Fleet foot street artists with coterie crowds
And no box office, ticking off the seconds –
Anticipation of each moment –
Ollie, bail and second chance.

There seems stability in the hills;
Peace at the precipice, a house of God,
Veranda over the roof-tiled canopy,
Where sunrise tries to catch one’s shadow
And send it out across the skyline.
Fingertip metronome counts off the beat
For skaters in the scarlet fire of dawn.

Dear John, I’m leaving and taking the cats with me.

I never thought you’d say that it was so;
That with our finance you had been gazundering,
You went far further than I thought you’d go.

There were irregularities in our cash flow –
From our accounts, you swine, you had been plundering.
I never thought you’d say that it was so.

Oh yes, you’ve been found out! And now I know!
Just in the off-chance that you were wondering,
You went far further than I thought you’d go.

But now the acrimony ‘gins to grow,
The forecast of my soul predicts great thundering,
I never thought I’d say that it was so.

Our matrimony dealt a fatal blow,
Your plan was proof, aside from your small blundering;
You went far further than I thought you’d go.

So now you’re leaving, taking half my dough,
The alimony cheques will keep us sundering,
I never thought they’d say that it was so;
You went far further than I thought you’d go.

Thanks,

Dave

There and Back Again.

2008-01-10T18:27:00.001Z

It's been too long.

Franconia

There is an old farmhouse, north of Boston.
I stopped by once. Its peaceful aspect caught
The scarlet sun’s swansong, the Appalachians
In silhouette as cricket-music fell.
Rocking chairs paced their motions, a little
Out of synch, still looking to the horizon.
An empty pantry, rusting range, wooden floor,
Wooden bedframe’s crafted skeleton, curtains drawn.

I read about death in an old comic book once.
It said that it wasn’t like a thief in the night,
Snatching you from your bed, leaving no trace but
A faint depression in the mattress and the smell
Of stale sweat on the pillow. It said it was more
Like someone you’d known forever, an old friend
Who stopped by every night, a loyal old friend,
Who picked up every thing you’d forgotten
You even had, so that it wasn’t there next time
You wanted it. And, that, over time, there just
Wasn’t anything left to keep you there;
You were the last thing death would take home.

There is an old farmhouse, north of Boston.
No one lives there now, the old man was famous;
But there is a clearing outside, and a path
Through the woods, passing cairns for forgotten
Little gods. You may find old photos,
Small foreign coins, footprints in the mud,
Roots weaving their stories in the earth;
And the spot, at a fork, where footprints end.

The Mountain

I

At the mountain’s peak, I stopped for
A while, cast an eye over the pines,
Rolling out towards vanishing
Point, layer over layer, rank
And file, phalanxed shoulder height,
Mottled units toiling under
Sylvan dictat. On north-eastern
Slopes, a fallen mount gasping for air,
Pleading with avian windpipes,
Tree-cacophony, crushed larynx,
Wilderness howl in falling twilight.
Suddenly the tree-pier did not
Seem high enough.

II

On the mountain’s side, verdant canopy-
Shelters, tree-grounded, gigantic fauna
Remembering Triassic brothers
In serenity and sanguine nostalgia.
The earth has ears, a heart, a mouth, bait;
Unrooted feet striding wordlessly, turning to
Constituent carbon, clawing through meat,
Unnamed vital organs, blood and carbon;
Hair falls out, becomes carbon, nutrients,
Teeth fall out, carbon (calcium?).
Eyes, tongue, brain. Carbon.
Soul.
Flight through treetips dancing on leafstages
Outstretched and dissipating further
Boundless offerings and earthtunes
Earth.
Knees soiled, hands caked in fecund soil;
Disgusted, croaking eyes observe my retreat.

III

On the foot of the mountain, my little fire
Cooks, browns tender meat, fresh loaves
And fresh produce for my pilgrim’s victual.
Lying on green mattresses, bathed in ember’s glow,
The mountain looks over the pale, rising smoke.

Crow and Phoenix

Crow flies down to the body.
Rain gathers in puddles, browning green earth,
Moonlight hidden behind jet blue clouds.
Crow pecks at the frost-bitten fingers.
Phoenix, old and diseased,
Bullet-ridden, one-eyed and weak,
Hops and flutters beside Crow.
Nuzzling his feathers, he clears his ancient throat.
“Shame,” says Phoenix, “There aren’t
Many left like this one.”
“Even fewer now,” crows Crow.
Phoenix stares at the corpse.
Crow says, “You will die.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” says Phoenix.

El Tres de Enero (for García Lórca)

Nieve cae, tranquilidad sagrada,
La zumba baja de la caldera
Hay la ruida sola.
Media-luz de la madrugada,
Nieva por aire negra.

El cielo cerrado tiembla,
Deslumbra la luna miedosa.
Quiero que quede oscura
Por siempre; esta noche plata
De relámpago y nevada.

[Snow falling, cathedral silence,
The bass hum of the boiler
The only sound for miles.
Half-light of the small hours,
Snow falling in black air.

The blanket sky rumbles,
Obscuring the timid moon.
I would it stayed dark
Forever; this silver night
Of snowfall and lightning.]

Thanks,

Dave.

2007-11-17T14:19:00.000Z

Keepin' em coming.

Descent

Flying in from Glasgow on the eighteen-fifty

To Aldergrove; out through the thick-glassed window

The frayed knuckles of coastline, reaching out with gnarled hands

Beyond the fallow piebald farms, swooping and diving

A thousand feet below. The sun touches the horizon

With a feathered fingertip, hissing as it meets

The waves, settling in for the night under a blanket of

Flourescent algae, the unfathomable sea-dreams of fish.

An hour earlier, on the crystalline waves of cumulae

Propelled by the eerie thrumming of astral turbines,

I wait to be informed of our descent, patient angel

Entranced by the rolling breakers, snow-white foam,

Trying to feel something. Awe. My grandfather flew

Once a month to his work in Scotland, leaving his

Son and wife in the capital, watching the sky.

My feathers melt as the black cliffs drift into view.

Thanks,

Dave.

2007-11-07T19:29:00.001Z

Shalechet
Leaves had started falling outside
In a late summer gloom of fledgling rainclouds
Reflected in foggy puddles underfoot
We trooped on through, out of step,
Packs on our back and foreign coins
In our pockets. The first discarded leaves;
Big five-fingered horse chestnuts, face down,
Showing waterlogged veins in the inch-deep pool.

Jackdaws fluttered outside the gates,
Hoking at dirt, pecking at apple-cores,
Flitting off as we arrived. We ventured in,
Catching the moment in digital memory:
An irregular holding cell, walls towering
At the end of a hallway that withered and shrank,
Though a door that led into sky-scraping judgement,
And the window that spoke of Saint Daniel;

There was silence in that room, space for silence
That loomed and condensed three stories overhead,
That rained ash-snow, staining the railway lines,
Unholy blend of hair and ground thigh-bone,
Snow on a mountain of odd shoes and lost luggage,
Marked in fading chalk with its last destination,
Deep darkened snow, overwhelming, drawing
The air from the room that had space for more silence.

I managed to open the door. Disorientated,
I took a breath to regain my bearings. Upstairs,
An exhibit that asked to be walked upon. Gently
Stepping between grotesque iron faces, frozen in
Wordless death-masks, turned to iron and concrete;
I lost my footing, and the faces, disturbed, screamed,
Awakened, echoing off high walls, reverberating;
As I left I heard iron crunch and cry out.

A jackdaw flew home as we escaped to the surface,
Apple-heart in mouth, into the sunshine.
I put the camera away, resting easily between
Victuals, tour maps and a handful of foreign coins.
I couldn't help looking back. It was still there,
A multi-story building under receding rainclouds.
We walked home, out of step, in uncomfortable silence.

Thanks,
Dave.

2007-10-14T11:33:00.000Z

So I wrote one about God and how I was kinda pissed off at him. I don't usually write angry, or what have you, but I just felt this one flowed better for it. It's one of the more personal ones. Here goes.

God Must Be Lonely

God must be lonely; his only love
Proved temperamental,
Unfaithful, distracted by bright lights
And wet dreams that turned to sacks
Of yellow flowers at dawn, penniless,
Eating pigswill for brunch, down and out
In Sodom and Gomorrah. His love told
Lies to friends, abused his intimacy,
Hurling curses at enemies who
Didn't know what pawns were,
All the while wrapped round the body
Of the fella with bigger muscles.
God must be funny; only a real joker
With brass balls could make a world -
A whole world! - either deny him or else
Fight about denying him or else
Fight about defining him or else, or else!
A world where his name is on a bomb
Or in the mind of a bomber as he unveils
Hell for his love. God must be beautiful;
Inconceivably beautiful, blindingly, hypnotically -
To create something so magically vital,
And not bottle it up, frame it, bind it,
Publish it online - to set it to the wind,
With his blessing, to strap a satchel
To its back and send it down a road
With demons and angels who dress the same
And never make their intentions known.
God was my love; I insulted him,
Blamed him, wept in confusion, in bitter
And speechless frustration - everything
People had told me about him was wrong,
How could he... I will write him a note,
A postcard, or a letter, if I'm feeling
Old-fashioned, just to say 'hello,
I understand now, I think, and at any rate
I'm sorry.' I'll leave the end blank,
Because he knows my handwriting,
How I cross my 't's; and if I don't
Hear back I'll write again. And if
I don't hear then I'll know why,
And understand why God must be lonely.

So there you go. A little pretentious, I think, but it's a start, and I don't imagine this is how it will look in the end.
Thanks,
Dave.

Hello Again!

2007-09-24T17:08:00.001Z

Three months on, things are rolling once more. Back in York, doing stuff. That's Amsterdam, up above there. It was the coolest place. And that was by no means the only bicycle in town. I'll talk about that more later. For now, content yourself with the knowledge that it was class. Here's a couple of poems for some reason!

The Island House

A cricket rubs his legs, wild percussion
Close to the house; close to the house
Are the open valleys with crazy-form mountains –
Slieve More - big mountain; Knockmore - big hill.

Hives on the arms are tattoos of honour,
Though the midgey convicts’ days are numbered.
They emerged, days later, from behind the curtain,
Overdosing on the quiet peace of the living room.

Over the fence, a donkey tears the grass free
With blunted teeth. There is space to hear breathing,
A steady brush of air between the lips,
The tips of the leaves twitter in the breeze.

She Held a Daisy in Her Fingertips, the Bitch

She had a camera, capturing the coast though a daisy
Held up to the lens. Her friends sounded German
Or Swedish, she looked French, or at least like
The ones I’d seen in the movies.

There she was, standing at the edge of the world,
Taking photos, though the tint of her travels;
Maybe the reality of Ireland clashed with her dreams,
Maybe it didn’t. Either way,

A month later, I was wandering through Amsterdam,
And met her in the red light district, taking photos
Of the girls in the windows, selling wet dreams.
But I hadn’t the nerve to say hi.

Three Nights In Belfast – A Villanelle

An angel, like an angel, clothed in white
Strides across the field on the attack
His antagonist stands quaking at the sight.

October’s dress, embroidered in delight
Heaven-witnessed observance of a pact,
An angel, like an angel, clothed in white.

One drizzling evening, nothing but polite
In her appraisal of all the things I lacked,
Her antagonist stands quaking at the sight.

A desperate prayer, the forlorn hope I might
Restore to you a life made whole, intact;
An angel, like an angel, clothed in white

Should patrol above your headboard, shine its light
To ward away the demons at your back,
Its antagonists stand quaking at the sight.

A man sits by the bedside, tries to fight,
And, pleading for a gem that sickness cracked,
An angel, like an angel, clothed in white,
Your antagonist stands quaking at the sight.

Thanks for reading,

Dave.

My First Revisions, How Exciting!

2007-06-23T17:59:00.000Z

Having looked back on the septet of poems I've posted up here in the past wee while, I've come to the understanding that they are in need of work. So I've rewritten them to an extent, tried to make them more honest, because I reckon the more honest they are, the better they read. So, that in mind, here are - for now - the definitive versions of the work I've produced thus far. Plus one new one. We'll see how they last.

Achill

I will probably reduce your life to pithy verse,
Wailing, chest-beating, drunk despair,
Breathless hyperbole, unctious crap,
Which I’ve accepted. Just as fair.
I know nothing truly dies, though all things change,
As wind will alter course, lead the lost astray.
Though the truth of the matter may fade,
I remember in my own way.
I will look to sea, every coastal bound,
In stubborn dumbness, most hope gone;
Take what I need and to hell with the rest,
And with heart in hand, march on.

Birthmarks

They tell their own story,
Angry, red-ribboned, fraying,
Black-edged, a more sober
Reminder of nocturnal passions
That grow green and pale
In the cold haze of morning
Or the warm breeze of spring.

A Sorrow Burns

A vesperal flare in the reddening night,
Curled on the floor, half-naked, we lie
To each other, beautiful half-truths, delight
Daubed freely across the northern sky.
Drifting for now, asking nothing but the world
Leave us, all fingertips and tales,
Sun-fled and tight-lipped, too fleetingly held
To the warm, dull thud, too livid and pale.

And down, as needs must, as rainfall returns
Us to respective lives. Frail memory concedes,
And sentiment directs a crowd-pleasing reprise
Where our parts are played, sensationalised
By our favourite actors, the starring leads
In their picture. Somewhere, unheeded, a sorrow burns.

Revelation

Standing by a clearing, unassuming,
Awaiting discovery, a stone
Behemoth shading the wood. There sits
A fallen trunk worn smooth by time,
A wizened great thing, skinned by curious walkers,
Curiously slumped, wide-eyed
Transfixed by terrible earth-woven beauty
On root-woven soil. But none the wiser,
For once seen, my native landscape,
The drumlins and cliffs, like so much
Ham-fisted doggerel, stands
Unassuming, all noise of myth fallen silent.
Waiting, dirty-eared, pulse-conscious,
The great stone bastard holds his breath.

Giants' Causeway

Back on the path, its gravelled lustre
A reminder, overwhelming, that I hid
Skillfully, pretending the rough sea
Wind had blown dust under an eyelid,
And walked on, a few steps behind.
I made jokes about the cliff face, and
You pointed out primroses, designated
Them spots in the garden, and I feigned
Interest, and pointed out Fairhead.
It emerged we'd walked the wrong way,
And shuffling past the anoraked yankees
We giggled like kids, knowing no fear to allay,
Being locals, proprietors, and far more
Rightful to shuffle down the stairwell
In half-hidden mirth. By a crumbling
Hand-rail with a red-rusted warning fell
Any palm-sized rock we found,
And after all these years I shouldn't've been
Surprised that you still had the better arm.
They stirred the spray. The ocean
Refused all entry, the cluttered sky gone grey,
We retired for the day for a stout meal
At one of the pubs you knew. And then, I thought

I knew what you felt in your blood.

A Good Year

A good year it's been now. Coarse and brittle,
A rainless year, without memory of rain,
Without a prayer for a squall,
Or the lousy grump of October.
A full year now, since the pang of thirst
Was settled, and reminders of that
Something I felt first, cast to the roadside on
That cruel April evening, driven out.
A bloody year it's been, with blood-torn nights
And bone days, where no bitterness
Lies, for the senses have crumbled, no scent of

Summer lingers, no words lie in the throat.

Going Home

It was a strange thing to hear,
Like a student-fantasy play
At the end of the Ireland crisis; "We're
Imagining that one day
The two of them'll meet in a room
And, y'know, get on like normal folks.
Not to say they'll sing the same tune,
But they'll laugh at them'uns' jokes,
And get on like the whole thing
Was just a misunderstanding."

A Patch of Daffodils

These could be my last words.
This could be the last feeling I manage to recall,
Bearing in mind that the feeling cannot be retrieved in full,
Only represented in poor rhyme, or not even that.
I would you could step in my skin for that brief moment,
To know how I felt when I looked at you
And saw everything I wasn't.

Thanks for reading,

Dave.

The Edge of the World

2007-06-01T16:20:00.000Z

It's not every day you find yourself part of someone else's family. So when I found myself in Stirling at the start of this week a full-fledged member of a social group I hadn't seen since St Patrick's, I was somewhat taken aback. It was an incredible experience, and to my new relations north of Edinburgh, a big "'sup?" is more than due.

In other news, it turns out each new heartbreak hurts less than the one that went before, to the point where it barely seems like heartbreak at all. World, bring it on. Things are looking rosier than you like them to.

In that vein, I'd like to continue the theme that has been running through recent posts, and stick some more poetry up. It's hard to know straight away how good they actually are, but time and revision will play a definite role. After all, being 21, time is only on my side. Here goes:

Birthmarks

They tell their own story,

Angry, red-ribboned, fraying,

Black-edged, a more sober

Reminder of nocturnal passions

That grow green and pale

In the cold light of morning

Or the warm breeze of spring;

The bitter solace taken

In the fact you came back.

A Sorrow Burns

A vesperal flare in the reddening night

Curled on the floor, half-naked, we lie

To each other, beautiful half-truths, delight

Daubed freely across the northern sky.

The kinetic meander slides flowingly past,

Leaving us, all fingertips and tales,

Sun-fled and tight-lipped, too fleetingly grasped

To the warm, dull thud, too livid and pale.

And down, as needs must, as rainfall returns

Us to respective lives. Frail memory recedes,

And sentiment directs a crowd-pleasing reprise

Where our parts are played, sensationalised

By our favourite actors, the starring leads

In this picture. Somewhere, unheeded, a sorrow burns.

Achill

I will not reduce your life to pithy verse,

No wailing, no chest-beating, drunk despair,

Nor breathless hyperbole, nor unctious chaff,

Just acceptance, as just as fair.

For nothing truly dies, though all things change,

As wind will alter course, lead the lost astray.

For nothing's truly lost, the destination knows

To come along the way.

I will look now to sea, every coastal bound,

And defy, though every hope be gone;

Take all I need and to hell with the rest,

And with heart in hand, sail on.

Thanks,

Dave.

Talking About It

2007-05-26T00:25:00.000Z

So I've heard that talking about it helps. Since I can't quite bring myself to talk about it, I'm going to write about it, since that helps not as much, but enough. So there's a gap. There's a little bit of time every day that I don't spend talking to my mum. Like today, I had a great game of cricket, and I haven't really told anyone about it. And I'm fine with that, because now I'm learning to enjoy it for myself, and that anything else is just a bonus. But I know she would've loved to have heard about it, and it would've made her happy. It didn't have to. She chose to. Not everyone has parents like that. I don't know. I'd just have liked to have shared today with someone.

The cricket was amazing, of course! It was epic, in a way I didn't think I could play. The bowling was a little substandard, pickin up a few tailenders, 4-0-24-3. pretty happy. Happy enough that I could go in relaxed for the last half-a-dozen overs, and score 41! Holy shit, I can't even believe it now. I just swung at anything that came my way, and ran like my life depended on it. It's a personal best for me, and I think I lost about a stone in sweat. Asides from that, I got everything sorted out for the Nouse film page, and this edition's lookin a cracker.

Here's a couple of poems I wrote a few days ago.

A Good Year

A good year it's been now. Coarse and brittle,

A rainless year, without memory of rain,

Without a prayer for a squall,

Or the lousy grump of October.

A full year now, since the pang of thirst

Was settled, and reminders of that

Love I felt first, cast to the roadside on

That cruel April evening, driven out.

A bloody year it's been, with blood-torn nights

And arse-dry days, where no bitterness

Lies, for the senses have crumbled, no scent of

Summer looms, no words lie in the throat,

For want of you.

Revelation

Standing by a clearing, unassuming,

Awaiting discovery, great rock

Behemoths shading the wood. There sits

A fallen trunk worn smooth by time,

A wizened oak skinned by curious walkers,

Curiously slumped, wide-eyed

Transfixed by terrible earth-woven beauty

On stony earth. But none the wiser,

For once seen, the western landscape,

The drumlins and cliffs, like so much

Ham-fisted doggerel, stands

Unassuming, the noise of myth fallen silent.

Waiting, cloth-eared, pulse-shocked,

The great stone bastards hold their breath.

Pirates of the Caribbean tomorrow. Wheeeeeeee

Thanks for reading,

Dave.

Poetry of Sorts.

2007-05-11T15:38:00.000Z

Oh, it's party time.

So it's been something of a while since I put any ol ramblings up here. Between having nothing to write about over Easter, and the general business of self-actualisation and gathering of confidence - both deserved and otherwise - and the tragedy of the love-life that never was, I just haven't dragged myself to look at a blank page or screen in the way I used to. However, things are good in my little world, what with a cool party the other week, and the terrific experience of bein a cricket correspondent at Roses, and the interesting prospect of my first acting audition on Sunday, and the Modern Irish Poetry seminars in which I kick ass and take names, things are as rosy as the weather by all rights ought to be.

First things first, the Cinco de Mayo party barely alluded to in the above paragraph. It was brilliant craic, I met a few American folks, most of whom I was able to impress with my passing knowledge of geography and professional sports teams (go Giants/Chargers/Pacers/what have you), and some rather impressive hostessing work. Needless to say, should I ever need advice on how to be a successful hostess at any point in my academic/professional writing career, I'll know which corner of the globe turning toward would be judicious. Plus! I now have a name and an entire backstory to the girl who last term filled the role of irrational crush previously held by a number of illustrious names too illustrious to mention in these tawdry screeds. She was lovely, too, daughter of a university professor in upstate New York, livin on an old farmhouse. Sounds too perfect. So Hannah, if you're readin, I had a bit of a crush on you last term. But I'm happier now that you are a real person.

The cricket was an eye-opener. Like how long a match can seem when it ends as a contest two hours before the conclusion. Or how much sunburn plays a role. Or how much work it is to document every last bloody ball from morning to evening. Or how tetchy the opposition can get if you wait untile they're 2-2 before asking for a quote. Whoops. Still, t'was good craic, and if all else fails, I've got a pretty sturdy safety net in sports journalism. The world will always need sports journalists. The article ran in the Nouse Roses pullout, which made me happy. What made me happier still was bumping into Raf and Niamh at the Vanbrugh cafeteria and hearing that not only had they read my article on 300, they enjoyed it, and mentioned it on the NOuse podcast! Yessssssssss.

So! The whole point of this post is really as a means to rationalise the past few weeks, put some things in order, and generally feel better about things. But! As I have nothing but admiration for you, dear reader, I feel that now is the time to take the first steps on my journey as a Modern Irish Poet, and give y'all a tentative free sample of my poetic tenor. One for my Dad, one for the news of Peace In Our Time on the home front.

Giants' Causeway

Back on the path, its gravelled lustre

A reminder, overwhelming, that I hid

Most skillfully, pretending the rough sea

Wind had blown dust under my eyelid,

And walked on, a few steps behind.

I made jokes about the cliff face, and

You pointed out primroses, decided where

In the garden they'd go, and I feigned

Interest, and pointed out Fairhead.

It emerged we'd walked the wrong way,

And shuffling skillfully past the anoraked yankees

We giggled for knowing no fear to allay,

Being locals, proprietors, and far more

Rightful to shuffle down the stairwell

In mirth half-hidden. By a crumbling

Hand-rail with a red-rusted warning fell

Any palm-sized rock we found,

And after all these years I shouldn't've been

Surprised that you still had the better arm.

They stirred the spray. The ocean

Refused all entry, the cluttered sky gone grey,

We retired for the day for a stout meal

At one of the pubs you knew. And then, I thought

I knew what you felt in your blood.

Going Home

It was a strange thing to hear,

Like a student-fantasy play

At the end of the Ireland crisis; "We're

Imagining that one day

The two of them'll meet in a room

And, y'know, get on like normal folks.

Not to say they'll sing the same tune,

But they'll laugh at them'uns' jokes,

And get on like the whole thing

Was just a misunderstanding."

So there you go.

Under Northern Skies Etc

2007-03-22T16:59:00.001Z

2007-03-22T16:44:00.001Z

So a weekend in Stirling then. Over Saint Patrick's, no less, with a big old rumble in the six nations for company. Never have I felt so heartbroken as when the French shunted their way over the tryline for the last time, and me halfway through eatin a lovely burger. Well, the remainder was bitter as all hell, let me tell you. No amounta cheese an bacon could cover the raw stench o undeserved defeat. That said, we've still a crackin team, an while I'm by no means expectin the Irish to go all the way, they could still give the best in the world a decent game of it.

Anyway. Stirling. My good pal Aaron, who recently turned 22 (see below), had largesse enough to provide a crackin weekend fulla drunken hilarity an pensive philosophising. That is, prank calls an talkin shite. It's always a revelation to take a look into the stage play o someone else's day to day life; to meet the characters, to warm to the drama and tensions between the players, and, for a while, to be a novelty in a few people's lives. They're crackin folks up there, I miss em already. Wee things like that make life worth gettin up for.

So Modest Mouse have released another belter. "They've got someone ridiculously famous now, haven't they?" says someone, possibly Amy. And yes, yes they have, the one and only Johnny Marr, once the guitarist of The Smiths. And their new single (above), is a sweepin symphony of a track, rockin and rollin with the best of them, with a nifty video and Isaac Brock's usual vocal spasmodia addin to the fun. Nice to see a band achieving popularity of a degree, but keepin their standards, even if they're much better produced these days than back in what some fans would call the band's heyday of Moon and Antarctica. They've certainly changed their style somewhat, but to me it seems more like a maturing process than selling out.

Even wholesale change is possible without compromising one's principles, or even without changing one's major motivations in life. Sometimes the goalposts move, and the choice is to change or atrophy. I like to think that that's never going to be much of a choice.

Thanks,
Dave.

Self-Congratulating Shite. No, Really.

2007-03-13T10:37:00.000Z

So the end of term draws close, and the time for appraisals, summations and the like is damn' nigh upon us. A tough job it is to nail down what to draw from the last ten weeks, or whether anything should be drawn; maybe a greater achievement would be to look at this semester as nothing unusual, as a job done, rather than well done. There certainly won't be any victory parades, nor celebratory nights out: the lesson to learn is that the greatest victories, the satisfying ones, come from a sense of completion that no-one but yourself can generate. No amounta back-slappin nor congratulatin - though well appreciated, mind - can replace a self-constructed feelin of accomplishment. I think I'm feelin it.

Perspective is vital. Knowing when to exert oneself, and when such investment is unnecessary, is probably the soundest discovery o the term; much as I've delighted in the pure theatre of Old English word-paintin, it all seemed like an exercise in education, rather than education itself. I'm braced for tougher challenges to come. Note to self: it's just a game.

Besides that, the journey, bein by far the worthier part, has been nothin shorta blissful. I've made friends along the way, lost touch with a few old ones, which o course wrenches at the heart like nothin imaginable; lettin go is often the hardest part, but rarely does one thing end without some kinda new thing beginning in its place. Moving on.

Moving on, next term, my second Yorkshire summer, is shapin up very nicely. Modern Irish Poetry is the soup o the day, wi Yeats an Muldoon for the aul main course, an wi only eight folks in the seminar group, includin myself, I reckon I can cook up somethin spectacular.So that was a great example of what can be done wi shitty metaphors, abstract nouns and generalisation alone.

Thanks for readin this term! See you in April.

Dave.

Election Time, There's No Need To Be Afraid.

2007-03-09T22:26:00.000Z

Pre Script: listen, if it be within your faculties, to "Radiation" by the Epoxies. Fo. Shizzle.

So the Assembly elections have come and gone. Bein on the wrong side o the Irish sea, I haven't heard from the emerald/tangerine isle in manys a moon. Not much has changed, but we've secured self-determination. "A farce," says my dad, "the UUP have bought it". And so they have. The only poor buggers who know how to run a country have gone and lost nine assembly seats to go with the all-but-one they lost in the election to the grown-up Parliament in Westminster. The final score was DUP 36, Shinners 28, UUP 18, SDLP 16, wi the Alliance gettin a respectable 7 an the Green Party, did you ever, pickin up a sly one in North Down, most likely down to the fact the candidates name is Brian Wilson, for let's face it, who wouldn't vote for him? If'n I could think of a decent Beach Boys pun, you could bet your bottom dollar I'd stick it right here, an by Jove you'd be fallin off your chair for the hilarity of it all.

But spare a thought for those who weren't so lucky. Those who didn't find themselves on the right side of the party lines. Those who were caught receiving a 'sports massage' in a Belfast hotel in the middle of an election campaign for the most socially conservative political party since Ian Paisley could sit in place for more than a half hour without urinating uncontrollably. Nevertheless, Paul Berry's valiant effort to convince the nation that ability to govern and sexual preferences were unconnected fell some way short, though picking up over 2000 first-preference votes in Newry and Armagh district is not to be sniffed at. Northern Ireland: We're Getting There!

So that's it! Another election under the belt - the Northern Irish have more politicians and elections per head than any country on the earth - and things have more or less panned out as expected. Trimble and Hume retired to international diplomacy, Paisley can only eat soup, his son's a bollickin fool; it won't be long til Gerry's the only piece left on the board since '97. Strange how these things pan out.

And as if that weren't enough! Today the Langwith College Volleyball legends, nay, ubermensch ass-kickin allgunsblazin KINGS AMONGST FRIGGIN SERFS kicked all manner of posterior cross the aul court in a stunnin three-set thriller wi more twists than a book wi a lotta twists in. FUCK YES. Every man (and woman) jack o us played out their gorram skins the day, all wi Albi's Napoleonic leaderships skillz teachin them there clowns exactly what time it is. Hammer Time, is what. We Hammered Yez Time, is more specific. A bloody marvellous end to the term was had by all. Albi, Steve, Dan, Naomi, Simon, Raph, Lou, Lucy, Phlip, Lou's fella, Naomi's mate, Joelle (we miss you!), we gave 'em a helluva fight, an never stopped believin. And that makes us goddamn mighty. Like ducks. Like mighty ducks. All our ancestors are lookin down an goin 'here, they've got some mad skillz, this lot.' An then drinkin an debauchin an discussin fine arts an whatever else they do in the great beyond. More power to em. But you take your victories where you can, and hold em close, for there's few things warmer than a win well won. Except maybe a fine lookin lass lyin next t'you. Hard to quantify, in concrete terms, though. Certain assumptions must be made. Certain posts must be ended.

Thanks,
Dave.

2007-03-03T11:54:00.001Z

Pitch 'n' Putt, Human Kindness, and a very special birthday greeting

2007-03-03T11:18:00.001Z

Two great writers out on a Sunday afternoon in bloody terrible weather, playin the most infuriating game on the planet. Are there literary possibilities in the game of golf? The purity of a dash to the finish, where only strength of mind and clarity of thought count? Massive forearms help, I guess, an $3000 drivers, an havin the free time to turn professional... nevermind. Golf is the closest thing to chess you can do standin up. Nothin like three pairsa waterproofs, a wooly hat an a bout o hypothermia to take y'away from the world for a bit.

Beckett ain't all that bad, either. Havin actually seen his work performed, it suddenly makes sense. Studyin the text is pointless, an it takes a certain kind of genius to pull off such a seamless transition from written word to performed art, maybe performed reality. Endgame an Waiting For Godot in the right hands make for some transfixin viewing, that strikes its mark wi the greatest force when you recognise the players as aspects o yourself. Not only that, but it manages to keep a sensea humour about itself, somethin Joyce alternately struggled with an captured perfectly, dependin on whether he was composin for that intolerable bastard Stephen Dedalus or not. Ulysses is a crackin book, no matter what mantle o greatness might be thrust upon it, just because it gets the point so perfectly, inhabits the character o Leopold Bloom so entirely, like no one has done before or since. 1922. Unreal. An o course, seein him fuck up a drive on the pitch 'n' putt is comedy gold. Jimmy woulda approved.

So Fusion was on last night, a show o highs an lows. There's some extremely talented folks out there. Woulda liked to have seen more of em. But it turned out to be when we got home that the best story emerged. After orderin Efe's (lovely pizza), we told the delivery guy that Amy said hi, all of us bein slightly tripped out by hunger. He remembered seein Amy a couple weeks previous, huddled in the corner in a similar fashion. The conclusion was obvious.

"You are pregnant!!"

Before rushin back to the van. He reappeared seconds later with a handful of strawberry flavoured lollies for the newly expectant mother. People are wonderful.

But not as wonderful as this dude here, who recently celebrated his twenty-second birthday. Here we see him in earlier times (on the left), recoverin from a nasty bouta sunburn, as was his wont. Happy Birthday Aaron! You are the wind beneath my wings.

Thanks,
Dave.

Ireland Crush England, Croke Park and Sylvia Plath

2007-02-24T20:52:00.000Z

So, today Ireland kicked all shiny shades o shit outta England at the rugby, which, I'll be honest, brough me no end of satisfaction. Mostly because of two folks in particular: Brian Ashton, the England coach, who is one of those wankers who thinks he's the bee's knees but is - in fact - tosser-in-chief, a highly respected position in the tosser community; and Brian Moore.

Moore is the twattiest of commentators, practically without peer across the sporting diaspora, in terms of being opinionated, biased, and for the most part, wrong. He made the critical error of writing off the Irish, a move that - if we are to assume it had any effect on the Irish squad - could only be a motivator, one that was condemned by critics an fans alike. There's not much to be added, except to praise Eddie Butler for remaining calm an professional throughout. He's a better man than I. Moore made phantom calls all over the pitch, steadfastly refusin to grant Ireland even the slightest of leeway for skillful backplay an fierce defence.

Which is a shame, for I haven't seen Ireland so good in manys a long while. England simply weren't in the same league. Farrell looked like a Union wannabe, Wilkinson missed a kick, did you ever, and Ireland were sublime. O'Connell was an absolute machine, bustin heads like Cuchullain reborn, Horgan munched through anyone thick enough to get in his way, and from nine to fifteen, they gave a performance that'd remind you of nothin less than the way Arsenal can pass a football, but with more violence an less dancin. An our very own wee Isaac Boss took a try for himself to make it 43-13, which makes for a nicer scoreline, all in all.

Better, by far, than the 19-16 bloody stupid scoreline some o the lunatic fringe were hopin for. I couldn't believe the hack o some folks in the build-up to the game. Of course it was awful, no-one wanted for folks to get killed back in the day, but it happened. And life went on. There's no point in arrguin that the RA started it by killin British agents, there's no point in playin 'who's the victim'. The fact is that the Black and Tans were ordinary fellas put in extraordinary circumstances beyond their trainin, in a hostile environment. What they did was inexcusable, and - of course - the lessons learned from that day should never be forgotten. But just as inexcusable is playin stupid bastards an demandin an apology eighty-six years later. From who? The men with the guns are long dead. The politics that motivated them have passed on. The government that occupied an repressed no longer hold sway. It's just the Irish now, an there's a minority that can't let go of the victim status. It's time to move on, give the fuckin B&Ts a break. And don't pin stupid political banners on a little game o egg chasin.

The Bell Jar is fascinatin stuff. I'd always seen it as a kind of scenester book - one that you read just to say you'd read. An true enough, she's a pretty tragic figure, wi more than her fair share o stories to tell. First time I saw it was in the hands of a fella - I assume he was a student, he looked like one - the copy all dog-eared an outta print, readin it on the subway in Boston, Plath's hometown. Back then, it suggested to me everythin my bias needed to hear, that this was a novel for the myspace crowd, of bad fringes, tight jeans an expensive tastes. But Plath herself is a narrator - while not free o pretense, fair enough - who's at the very least an engagin figure, one you root for in the end. But there lies in the book a tenderness, a willingness to understand, an a wish to be understood, that's often absent in fellas like Burroughs or Huxley. There's a definite desire to see the best in life, a cravin for the thing that makes everyone else seem so happy, so normal, that sits agonisinly, infuriatinly outta reach. both for reader an writer. Watchin the novel unfold, sittin in pretty fuckin awful comparison to the actual end to Plath's life, leaves a bitter taste. I can see why the myspace crowd took her on: she's a genius no-one got, but for me, it seems more a case o her failin to 'get' anyone else. The fact o the bell jar is that everyone can see you, scrutinise you, judge you, but you're helpless to do anythin about it. Myspace man could get anyone he wanted wi his hipster fringe an desginer scruffy jeans, but Plath wouldn't a got him. Maybe I'm missin the point, but the book is jus so much more than a handbook for non-convention. It's more like a cry for help that no-one got.

Thanks for readin,

Dave.

In Which Dave Figures Out How To Work Imbedded Youtube Videos

2007-02-15T00:15:00.001Z

Another beltin track an video from New York coupleband Matt and Kim. It's an odd video, but sweet in its own way. There's not many bands out there that I'm excited about, but these guys have just captured my imagination in a way that no other act has done in a long time. Maybe it's an acquired taste, or maybe they'll turn out to be a flash in the pan, but man, it feels good to be excited again.

Thanks,
Dave.
PS. Kim is hot. That is all.

Solitude versus Lonliness; aka How I'm not an emo.

2007-02-14T00:05:00.000Z

It's that kinda night, lads. It's pissin it down outside, there's no reason to get up particularly early in the mornin, an I feel great about the world at large. It might only ha' been the friendly look of a coupla girls I've never met before an shall surely never meet again, but hey! No better reason to take an alcohol-founded trip o optimism. For to be honest, I haven't felt so good in weeks. A wee quiet night out wi some folks to whom I owe nothin but respect, an possibly a drink or two next time we find ourselves between a bar an a hard place; a couple drinks in Montey's, wherein reside the finest lookin lasses afore they go to Toffs, honestly the classy standards in that place, you'd need to be Sean Connery t'score in there. Seriously like.

So optimism is the order o the day! Far as I can tell, the other folks in our motley crew are happy as larry in their relationships, be they long or extremely short distance, and I see no reason to refrain from their jollities. For I have long since figured out that I am simply better alone. I don't always enjoy it, an for the longest time I've tried to fight against it, but it just seems like solitude is the path that I am predestined to take. I'm fine with that. Because solitude is a state best enjoyed wi company. It is entirely possible to be completely alone in a room fulla people; equally it is possible to be absolutely communal and sociable on one's own. The most intimately human a fella or lass can be is when said couple folks, be they or be they not of a differin gender, are alone together. That's the overarchin goal, folks. That's the holy grail. And by god it's been too long. So here's to solitude, in all its realisin glory.

Thanks,
Dave.

The Homeland, Clubbing, xkcd

2007-02-08T20:40:00.000Z

Yeah, so it's been a while since my last post. All honesty, things have been goin smoothly enough, no drama to speak of, which I gotta say is most vexin for an artist of my calibre to go through such a dry patch in terms o subject matter. There is the excitin news that Northern Ireland has officially been named the hate capital of Europe, with 36% of respondents to a survey stating that they just don't like gays (19% European average), while a whompin 46% simply would not live beside a black, jewish, muslim or gay person. Decent people leave Ulster.

It was cool goin out an seein everyone again on Tuesday. I'll be honest, I enjoyed it pretty much right up until we headed to Toffs. There's just somethin that makes it impossible for me to enjoy myself when I cannot hear anyone and have no real interest in the music that is causing my aural mischance. These things I cannot deny. On the other hand, where is it writ that I should feel that so inclined? Some people love clubs, can't get enough of them, the dirty bastards. That's fine, they are for the most part, decent, clean-livin folks with whom I have no beef. However, I am simply not categorised under the variety of folk that find it easy to let go in a crowd wi'out fear of lookin a dick. Nor, in fact, do I feel like I know the folks who do enjoy clubbin well enough for to hang out wi'them, thus aggravatin my discothequal misery. So what to conclude? Clubs simply aren't for the likesa me. Which is a shitter, t'be honest, as that's where what gangsta rappas call 'tha honeys' is at, so to speak. And it is in precisely that category of lifestyle accesorisation that I am unfelicitously lackin. Damn and blast. Anywho, I'm under the belief that given the right circumstance, an a fair bita good fortune, some finelookin lass wi low standards shall surely come my way. An I'll probly fuck it up, but she might have a mate who's got a good sensea humour, and perhaps enjoys all variety o chinwaggery bout Kerouac an such. A fella can dream.

Might I direct you t'ord the fine site www.xkcd.com? Tis a marvellous thrice-weekly updated comic site, wi more revelations bout the geek-psyche that I can handle alone. In this, I need the assistance only you can grant. Do this...for me.

Thanks,
Dave.

Football Focus, 31/01/07, The Shape of Art to Come, Relax With Dave to "Sing Sing Death House"

2007-01-31T23:53:00.000Z

Another week gone, another week wi'out any movement pon the upmost peaks o English football, which some smarmy Italian bastards might tell you ain't all that formidable, but this midweek evenin showcased a couple o the best damn footballers from Newcastle to Naples. I'm talkin o'course about Rooney an Ronaldo (the thinner, better lookin one).

O course, no calcionista is worth much wi'out a fine supportin cast, one which a greater man might yak on bout for days, but not I. Watchin Wayne an Christiano turn from petulant adolescents into model professionals over the course of a year has been a joy to behold, an though Watford are by no means Barcelona, the fellas tore them asunder wi effortless grace. Rooney's finish here, added to his heart-rendingly beautiful strike gainst Portsmouth, invite all variety o temptin comparisons t'Eric Cantona himself. The difference bein, course, that it took a ninemonth ban for Cantona to control his temper, Rooney seems t'have figured that one out already. And say what y'want bout Ronaldo's simulatin shenanigans, he's the best diver out there. An his footwork is simply the best in the world, a glorious combo o individual finesse, and, new out this season, an instinctive team ethic. I don't see this fella sheddin many more tears in his day.

An honorable mention goes to Peter Crouch, who looks more like a real footballer every day. He's put on weight, picked up a yard o pace, an is bangin them in like nobody's business. I talk lightly of him, but he could surprise a lot o folks yet. Another crackin goal today, an his work wi Dirk Kuyt, surely the most talented grafter ever to hassle a Premiership defence, puts him in great shape to hold his England place.

So, wi Chelsea winnin again, even wi Ashley Cole out wi ligament damage, there's no great power shift at the top. But damned if it isn't good to see four quality teams at the top again.

This here's some sample artwork by a young lass by the namea Maureen Twist, who's been scribblin away at sketches for a comic book bein written by myself an my good friend Adam Hanley, himself a greatly talented artiste. We've thrown down two outta the five planned chapters of our wee book already, wi more to come, once I get the gumption to go do it.

This fantastic four are a rock group known as The Distillers, bout whom I've previously ranted more than is healthy for a fella. But they are just that good. Were that good, I should say, for they went their separate ways over three years ago now. Still, the fact remains that their second album, Sing Sing Death House, is one a the best rock albums I've had the pleasurea listenin to. It's freea as much pretention as it's possible t'be free of for a rock band, and lordy but it woulda been splendid for to while away the dusky hours o a summer night in their screamin hysterical presence. The whole shebang opens wi "Desperate" onea a number o tracks lastin slightly below the 1:30 mark. But where a lotta bands fall down on tryin to squeeze every last dropa rock out a track, the Distillers beat it out, move on, an start over. The next few tracks, "I Am A Revenant", "Seneca Falls" an the unmatchable "The Young Crazed Peeling" are, simply put, fuckin awesome. Brody's aforementioned vocal stylins, put over the top of a crashin rhythm section wi more melody than a balls-out (proverbially, in this case) punk rock band should be capable of retainin. The message in mosta the tracks is, admittedly, pretty simple; "It hit me / I got everything I need /... When the birds have been freed from their cages / I got freedom and my youth." But the honesty wi which these lines're delivered charms the everlastin socks off me, an considerin the wealtha clever bands peddlin all manner a cynicism an smarm, Sing Sing Death House is still, five years on, fresh as the first time.

Thanks,

Dave.

Post Script: We got the bloody bungalow in Vanbrugh Drive!!!!! Thanks, God.

Dave on Brave New World, Cricketing Lamentations and What Have You.

2007-01-26T14:09:00.000Z

I've been takin no enda hassle wi regards to the writin of this bloody essay. It's procedural, doesn't count, and is concerned wi probably the most educational (least inspirin) morsel encountered thus far in the English Lit smorgasbord. To paradoxically relieve pressure from, and speed Icarusly t'ward thon deadline, I've taken to readin a bit o Aldous Huxley, a beltin scribe if ever one were to be found.

Brave New World is - like the other brochures for dystopian future that followed, but never emulated - both terrifyin an captivatin, promptin the discernin reader into a mania o 'God no's and 'so that's where The Matrix nabbed that off's and so such. There's little more to be said bout the cautionary tales an the prophetic genius - save that they're both in resources plentiful - so here's m'thoughts. 'Pon puttin yon book through the colour-coded letterbox 'neath the automatic book-return (God, puts the cold sweats on jus thinkin about it), then steppin out into the glazed, fragile, glarin sunlight, Brave New World makes its profoundest impact once it's over. Makes a fella want nothin more than to go flyin, to put all he needs in a bag, get on a bike an jus go. Anywhere, doesn't matter, just in celebration o the fact that he can. That's the big deal bout it, that the sufferin inside the book need never find realisation outside. No embryos in jars, no unified identity, no predestination, no fuckin soma, jus the freedom o God's green earth. It's a proper good read. Whips the arse off o The Song O Tittin Roland anyday, that's for sure.

Speakin of arse-whippings, England are in some pretty fuckin incredible dire straits at the minute. Hard to see where you go from successive steam-rollerins from New Zealand an Australia 'B'. 110 all out, 111-1 in 24 overs.

Things are pretty rosy at the mo. It's all quiet on the girl front, alas, which obviously is a wee bit shite, but 'ey, what can a fella do? Wi reference to the aul post regardin Patch House, Amelie etc, I reckon I'm in some way ready for the aul relationship malarkey now, though even the fact that I have to soften the word 'relationship' by surroundin it wi all kinds o bull-words an blather shows more'n I care to think about. But who the fuck knows! Nobody, is who. Alls I know, there could be some delightful young lass wi all sortsa questionable thoughts o a filthy nature regardin myself, an I'm jus waitin for to meet her! Who can tell what tomorrow may bring. Perhaps she'd even be up for a bit o the aul literary banter pon the subject o individuality an Huxley an allsorts. P'raps she's readin this now an takin notes. Who the fuck knows. Sir Huxley certainly has little for to add to the topic. High 24/7 that boyo was.

Thanks,

Dave

Liebeskummer

2007-01-22T21:58:00.000Z

Liebeskummer is a fantastic concept, created by none other than our German brothers, referrin to that most misunderstood of ailments, heart-sickness. It's taken very seriously as a disease in them parts, allowin time off work for to recover, an even so much as utterin the phrase'll surely secure you a decent 6-12 months to get back to normal.

Fuck.

Thanks,

Dave.

Regarding the Words of Dawkins, Some Dukely Scribblins.

2007-01-22T15:09:00.000Z

I've recently been in contact wi the proprietor o the top-quality blatherin website www.mondoirlando.com, the Duke de Mondo himself, regardin the touchy issue o God, the universe an all things in betwixt. He kindly gave permission for to publish his thoughts on the matter, which follow:

Anyroad, with regards Mr Dawkins, i'm conflicted no end. I don't believe in creation as told in Genesis, i believe that to be a purely metaphorical story, and in The God Delusion Dawkins makes a fine point indeed about how in whoever's name can modern-day theologians openly announce that they believe the story also to be metaphorical, and yet accept the doctrine of original sin? It's all very bizarre. And Dawkins book IS very very good. I've read it and listened to him read it, and both times i've enjoyed it immensely. But whilst everything he says in there pretty much makes sense, i still have belief in some manner of God. whether or not it does what various religious folks say it can do is neither here nor there far as i'm concerned, i know that for ME, personally, it has been an enormous help. But in saying that i'm not religious in the sense that i believe any one dogma or doctrine. I have my own faith which is nothing to do with christianity or islam or buddha or whatever. But i still love Catholicism for it's iconography, i will say that. maybe cause i was raised Protestant, the sights you mind find in a chapel just seem incredibly alluring and strange and beautiful to me. I don't BELIEVE any of it, but that doesn't make it any less affecting, least where i'm concerned.

So the answer to your question is that i agree with Dawkins that religion can be harmful, and i think his suggestion that moderate religious types do as much harm as anyone by paving the way for the extremists is very well made. But in saying that, i know people who are much, much happier and content since coming to believe in one or other religion, and i would find it deeply unpleasant if anyone were to pluck that from them, or to mock them for having it (one thing i DO find very unpleasant about Richard Dawkins is the occasional, although only occasional, tone of deep smugness that creeps in when discussing these things).

i find it fucking incredible, to be honest, that Darwinism is SERIOUSLY bein contested in science classes on account of manuevering by the religious right, and the fact that probably near as many people are harmed by religion as are helped is obviously something to worry about. but i know i felt a lot better in myself and treated others a lot better when i came to consider the idea that there was some sort of God character (not because i feared punishment if i WASN'T nice, which Dawkins, and many others, Neitzche bein one off the top of my head, suggests to be reason why Christians are 'good', and that in fact it's not moral at all, that behaviour. Choosing not to do something because you think you're being watched is no morality worth considering. i don't beleive in hell, as it happens.) to derive some strength from. And maybe it's just me i'm deriving strength from, but it's done me more good to carry on as i'm doing than it did when i was doing the opposite, and at the end of the day that's all i can go on.

aaron
duke de mondo

Hope that sheds some light on things, certainly did for me.
Thanks,
Dave.

Reflections On Wes Anderson, Mix Tape Shenanigans

2007-01-20T20:31:00.000Z

I figure that the only thing this blog still needs is the propietor's opinion on movies. Alas, my taste in the aul cinematic arts is just abut as bad as my taste in music. But there is one flick in particular that needs mentionin, if I'm never to mention one again. That flick is The Royal Tenenbaums, and it's a work of absolute fuckin genius.

I'm a massive fan of all Wes Anderson's movies. Rushmore appealed to me at a time when I was a massively anti-social geek, though why I refer to that period of my life in the past tense is somethin of a mystery. It struck a nerve, as the critical folks say when they chance upon somethin so perfect, somethin so built-in to the dark alleyways o the consciousness that all a fella can do is say 'Yes! Fuckin...yes!' That's the experience I had wi Rushmore. And, perhaps unique amongst all your blatherin hero's favourite flicks, it doesn't star a girl the likesa which very heaven itself would be rather embarrassed to accomodate. 'Ms Tautou!' stutters Saint bloody Peter, 'Fuck.' No, it's just got that somethin that gets to a fella.

Then there's the newer one, The Life Aquatic, which got Bill Murray somewhat towards the end of his near-legendary long-haul Odyssey as the fella who dun't emote less he absolutely must get off wi Scarlett Johanssen. Between Lost in Translation, that most agreeable o date flicks, the dementedly frustratin Broken Flowers, and this here gem of an ensemble, your man has all his most melancholy guns blazin in an apocalyptically spectacular volley of nothin very much. Murray had the damn good fortune to work wi a buncha supremely talented bastards. The Life Aquatic is probly the best example o Anderson's work encapsulated: the unashamedly grand dreams o the story, the bastard's impeccable discovery o humour even in the most fuck-wrenchingly goddamned gash through your soul destroyin breakdown an weep moments in cinema history, also findin Owen Wilson is actually talented in some way.

The heart-stabbin moments are mostly found in Tenenbaums, truth be told. It's one o the few flicks that made me open the lacrymal ducts an blub for all the hell I'm worth. The man has not only an unrivalled mastery of gettin unfeelin autism-bastards like myself carin deeply bout essentially, basely, at the base a the skull-ly flawed folks, but then had the utter cheek, the sheer gall to take them away for ever in front my very eyes. It wasn't a fella in fiction, then, twas a part a me. The bastard got me to open up, led me the whole damn way through a story so chock fulla wonderful, tear-dragginly beautiful folks that it near drove me wild thinkn about lettin go, then made me. An no-one's been able to do it since. Tenenbaums stars the peerless Gene Hackman, an a supportin cast to remember. On paper, it doesn't inspire confidence, I'll grant you. But watch, I implore, see for yourself, innumerable actors in the best damn parts they'd ever play. Murray, Luke Wilson (best attempted suicide in cinema?), Gwenneth Paltrow (she's fuckin gorgeous, I challenge any livin man to a duel isn't captivated by that glacially detached artist-soul), Danny Glover (!), Ben Stiller, Anjelica Houston, Owen Wilson, hell it melts the heart to think how much cinema has to do to raise the bar to such phenomenal heights. Plus it has undoubtably the best voiceover-soundtrack-sheerfuckintragicohlordmyemotionalgutsarehanginoutmey'bastardAnderson combo ever dedicated to celluloid. I'm sure it sounds to the layman like fan-driven hyperbole, but trust me, if you never trust man again, trust me, that it is the closest a film has come to drivin a fella batshit than any before or since. Check out Nick Drake's 'Fly' off the soundtrack. Brings a fella to his bloodied, emotional knees every time.

Bit a music comin up: A mixtape bonanza! A chance for anyone hardy enough to pay attention to this nonsense to buck up their ideas bout the art a music an start listenin t'what I tell you.

1. The Young Crazed Peeling - The Distillers

'Are you ready to be liberated?' brawls the lovely Brody Dalle in the first fuckin line, did y'ever. Too fuckin right I am, Brody, you who were foretold by the prophet: 'an there shall be a hot as fuck girl in a punk band, an lo! her voice shall be unto a fuckin car wreck, but wi more soul than any livin man could possibly handle in person. Thusly, buy her second album 'Sing Sing Death House', for truly, to abide her furious wailin wi'out the intermediary o digital recordin technology, is surely to die.' So, aye, beltin track.

2. Yea Yeah - Matt and Kim

I've covered this before, way back in post #2. It still makes me pine for to be 17 again, at which tender age twas perfectly acceptable to go see a punk band an 'dance' (for to call a fella's spasmodia 'dance' is t'stretch the term fairly fuckin thin) to a wee heart's glorious delight. Forget talent, forget style, forget everything. Put this track on full volume an freak the fuck out.

3. In Other Words - Ben Kweller

I'll tell it straight. I bought Kweller's On My Way, a recent album, a while back, whilst on a trip to the states, an didn't care for it. I found it hollow in places, an lackin somethin I couldn't nail down. His first record, upon which this track features so perfectly, is a worka glorious genius. Wi lyrics like 'butterflies are passive-agressive/and put their problems one the shelf/but they're beautiful,' it's more than a wee bit indulgent, but dear god does that suit a fella down to the ground. Kweller nails the head for so many wee would-be artists it's not even fair. Check out the instrumental rock-out two-thirds through. If that dun't get you dancin, I don't wanna hear it. It's got banjos, for fuck's sakes.

4. Casmir Pulaski Day - Sufjan Stevens

If y'haven't hearda this chap, it's about time y'did. He's for the most part another indie kid wi pretensions an the like, but dear sweet golly, he puts tragedy in a key so everyday that it makes ya wonder how he gets up in the mornin. How anyone has the nerve to fit a tender, gentle song bout love an shame an grief o death in the same six minutes is an affront to anyone ever tried to write lyrics for guitar an bass.

5 The Funeral - Band of Horses

Lyrically simple, I can't think of another track better wraps up a feelin o loss and pure cryin ragin railin frustration at the cruel fragility o life an everythin that fades.

6. Bukowski - Modest Mouse

Of particular interest t'anyone's actually read the worka Charles himself, but still a crackin tribute to one o literature's most miserable bastards performed by one whose own wallowin skills are unmatched in popular music. In an interestin aside, I once used my at best peripheral knowledge of Modest Mouse to impress a young American girl I once went a-courtin. It worked, as it happens, and with her I enjoyed the best night of my life, includin the ones that actually ended in physical contact wi a member a the opposite sex. Raeanne, if you're readin, you're still an indescribable joy. Bukowski is for those in a bad mood. Ventin vicariously is th'only way to go.

7 I Will Follow You Into The Dark - Death Cab For Cutie

'If heaven and hell decide / that they both are satisfied; / illuminate the 'no's in their 'vacancy' signs / if there's no-one beside you / when your soul embarks / then I'll follow you into the dark.' Christ.

8 Swing Life Away - Rise Against

The punks take a break from Risin Against all sortsa political/social scullduggery for to give us this wonderful tribute to youth an friends lost. Though it sounds a lot like when a punk band goes overboard wi the emotional balladry, it retains a sincerity that's just touchin, makes y'wanna spout shit like sic transit gloria an find someone knows how t'play Time of Your Life on acoustic guitar. It unfairly picks on my weakness for 3/4 time.

9 Formed A Band - Art Brut

Just a relaxin screamer bout formin a band, an all the grandiose dreams what come with it.

10 No Children - The Mountain Goats

An in contrast, this is an unbelievable song to hate bound by fear a loneliness, told wi brutal truth.

11 Everybody Wants A Little Something - Duke Special

Just to end at a happier pitch, as I've come to realise how much I get hooked on the melancholy an cruelty o life an fiction, this is a beltin wee track from a fellow countryman, off his crackin album Songs from the Deep Forest. Just bounces along, carefree an sweet as fuck.

12 The First Day of My Life - Bright Eyes

Mr Conor Oberst hangs up his morose bastard boots forever, an embarks on a round-the-globe odyssey wi his sweetheart, fillin the hearts o those he meets wi unbridled joy at the sheer sound o his joyous warblins. Or possibly he just felt good the day he wrote it. Either way, there's no tune to send you on your way quite like it. Except perhaps 'Send Me on my Way' by Rusted Root, or possibly 'The Power of Love' by Huey Lewis and the News. Take your pick, I guess.

SO! That was right an blowhardy. If y'got to here wi'out scrollin down first, fair play, you're a better man than I. Unless y'happen to actually be the aforementioned Raeanne, in which case, give us a e-letter or two, would you ever.

Thanks for readin,

Dave.

Richard Dawkins v God.

2007-01-17T19:53:00.000Z

First, watch him in action. There's a bit in the middle where conceited members of the audience talk about how amazin they are, but once that starts, skip to about 24 minutes in. Here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9HtY1chchM&eurl=

Richard Dawkins has fairly made his opinions clear. God is a purely fictional character, invented by man as a surrogate mother/father figure, to variously soothe/protect/motivate/forgive us as we require, and as such, everyone who believes in divinity is deluded, puttin faith in somethin that cannot be enumerated, quantified, or even proved to exist. Worse, this delusion leads to extremist views by logical progression from the original dogma.

I don't feel Dawkins engages fully with the concept of religion. He instead leans heavily on the stereotypes of the religious man: one who teaches his children ‘to believe without evidence’, which, he argues, leads logically on to the phenomenon of suicide bombing and religious extremism, this time showing a lack of interest in understanding the mentality and social factors required for such a fanatic to practise freely.

His theories hinge on the issue of God’s purpose, which, while a fascinatin topic of discussion, by its definition – if we are to conduct such a discussion with the presuppositions of religion in play – cannot be answered.

He often sounds rather frustrated at the fact that his views are even questioned. If you skip ahead to about 24 minutes in, he is confronted by one of the declarations in his own book, the belief that there is ‘very probably alien civilisation somewhere in the universe that is superhuman, even godlike, beyond anything any theologian might imagine.’ He appears insulted to be even questioned on this belief. The UCD Professor, Gerard Casey, performs brilliantly, and in a way perfectly suited to the discussion; he is composed, relaxed, and open to every suggestion Dawkins makes. Kudos.

I'm not havin a go at atheism. I reckon its as legitimate a belief system as any other. What I am havin a go at is someone who is so unashamedly close-minded, to the point of bigotry, on a concept so philosophically open to debate as the existence of God. To take a scientific approach to a matter so intimately connected to the human condition seems like folly, dangerously so. It's noticeable too how Dawkins says nothing on the other Abrahamic spiritual text.

It's easy to be indignant and self-righteous on religion, but it accomplishes nothing, and is really what Dawkins wants. Nor am I sayin there's any way of resolvin the argument to a satisfactory degree; a fella could spend the rest of his days splittin hairs an makin enemies and still be no nearer a conclusion. There are a lot of ideas, and no reason why they can't all be correct. In the end, it's down to the individual to educate his/herself to a degree where doubt can no longer be a factor. So good luck.

Thanks for readin,

Dave.

So then, Joyce, you right bastard.

2007-01-17T01:45:00.000Z

There walked a man 'pon Erin's shore,

Saw Erin was shite, walked there no more,

Walked instead 'neath Alpine peaks,

By alpine woods and alpine creeks,

But a voice said clear, a voice said true:

'You'll always be Irish,' o this Joyce knew!

And he was rightly fucked off about it.

So I handed in the aul Joyce essay on Monday, blessedly. I didn't think much of it. It ended suddenly, it was fairly unfocused, if a fella cam up to you an said 'show us a run o the mill English Literature essay, or the bunny gets it' (he has a bunny, and an anti-bunny weapon of some description), you'd have to do no more than usher him toward 'Names and Narrators: the Power of Perspective in "Cyclops"'. God, it's painful rememberin even that much. Even the title's drippin wi convention, like a stripey jumper, or anythin on channel 4. I can only hope that its middling qualities soothe the markers into such a state of incapacitation that they forget what essay they're readin an give it a good mark. These things I hope against hope.

Talkin shite? Borin my beatnik friend utterly shitless? This you may never know.

Joyce wasn't a terribly fascinatin chap, as far as conventional critical opinion goes; the author himself is represented in the book by Stephen Dedalus, an introspective, morose little bastard if ever there was one. Quite a hero o mine, so he is. The most interestin characters, e.g. Stephen's dad, his roommate Mulligan, an the Citizen, are the ones the author paints in the worst possible light. In a strange way, the author has been left thoroughly behind by the sheer brilliance of the text: Ulysses is now so much more than a mere novel with a writer an protags an plot: the fact that anythin like it exists is unbelievable. Some clever chap, I can't remember who, defined art as somethin that makes you proud to be human. I can't thank JJ enough for bustin the borders o literature so wide it made me proud again.

So then, Joyce, you put me through hell, and I'm not even sure what I gained from the experience. But by God, I loved every minute I spent in your company, engaged in a work of fiction that made you sorry to leave. Every man jack floatin bout Dublin that day in June was a sonnuva bitch one way or another, but its the full realisation of that shitty sidea folks makes a fella so happy to spend time with them. Finally, says the wee voice that'd rather be playin Baldur's Gate, finally a writer who knows what people are like.

In other news, I was out second in a field o seven at poker the night. Scundered I was. I was gunna buy a coppy o The Riverside Friggin Chaucer (Pointless Expenditure Edition) wi the winnings. Bastard Middle English.

Tomorrow: Dave on Richard Dawkins and 'The God Delusion.'

Thanks for readin,

Dave

Dave's Football Focus, 14/01/07

2007-01-14T23:01:00.000Z

Another weekend of football that didn't hold much movement at the top or bottom o the table, but by jove I'm gonna write about it anyway. And I'm gunna say it right out, right up front. I like Man United. They may only be the better of two evils in terms of 'who do you support what doesn't threaten the ideals we had about football until reality reared it's ugly head and we realised folks actually made money out of this whole malarkey', but hey, they just play better football than Chelsea. The fact that Arsenal play the kinda football that'd make you want to take up poetry written solely bout the subject of twenty two fellas and a ball is another matter altogether.

Which brings me to my next port of call on our magical journey round Premiershipland, teams I like cuz I feel a bit sorry for them. First, Newcastle, undoubtably the best team ever to play the majority of a campaign in the bottom half. The hell does that work? I'll tell you. An injury list readin like the who's who of Uefa Cup football is the hell that works. Newcastle have had shockin luck, but goals like what Obafemi Martins scored 'gainst Spurs in a spectacular display of grit and other hard-working-team clichés won't do a licka harm.

Which brings me neatly to Tottenham. Never has a team lived so profoundly in the shadow of its local rival. Spurs are the untalented wee brother of l'Arsénale, the one who'd look pretty good and probly attract its fair share of womenfolk if it wasn't so unavoidably contrasted by its gorgeous older brother, who has a tattoo and took a gap year to Venezuela. I like how Spurs play; I like Aaron Lennon, who will always kick Theo Walcott's ass for best twelve year old North London midget winger; between Berbatov, Defoe, Keane and Mido they've got a strike corps to be feared; they've even got a capable defence wi the likesa Ledley King and that keeper who's shite but still the best in England somehow. Where's David James when you need him.

Which brings me neatly to Liverpool, though maybe they don't belong here. I can't remember a club as big as Liverpool being such (league) under-achievers, and approaching every match in that framea mind. They've world-class players: Gerrard, Hyypia, Kuyt, Alonso, Luis Garcia, the list goes on. Yet they retain a number of players it's impossible to see as heroes in any sense but that they're punchin above their weight, sometimes literally: Carragher, Finnan, Bellamy, Kewell, Dudek, and of course, la tube de la tube, Peter Crouch. How that man continues to be an international-quality striker is beyond my comprehension. He's a puddin. I cannot make that clear enough. But neither can I make clear enough how much I love that man. I want to meet him in the street, shake his hand, give him a knowing look and start pissin myself laughin. I think he'd know what I meant.

So now the good stuff. Manchester United will take the title this year, unless Christiano Ronaldo gets injured. The transformation of that wee fella has been nothin shorta incredible. Last year: crybaby whingin bastard. This time round: team player par excellence, a mature, controlled, master of the pitch who's made Rooney look like he's had a quiet season. And now, far more than last year, they've the squad to carry it off. Chelsea don't look like a team up for a fight. 4-0 against Wigan is one thing, but they did it in such a ho-hum manner, with three o the goals comin from rotten defensive slips. A Ferguson team woulda been more disciplined, woulda torn a strugglin side limb from limb; they would never have had to answer to idle talk bout the boss leavin (at least not til the enda the season). Whether it's a ploy by Mourinho to bait the board into givin him more cash - would you believe Chelsea's pockets are closed, now? - there's no way something like this can be good for the team. This week: A tie on points, but United win by split decision.

Post Scripts: How good is Thierry Henry. How good is that gorgeous French bastard. Right bloody good, is how. Not a bad dancer, neither.

David Beckham is now on $1m per week, playin for the LA Galaxy. Good luck to him, I say. Bout time the Americans learned how to play proper football.

Sylvester Stallone. Did you ever.

Thanks,

Dave.

Patch House, Amelie, and Forlorn Realisations

2007-01-13T02:13:00.000Z

The party was awesome. I had great craic, saw a buncha people I hadn't seen in a while, got dressed up like a hobo, marvellous. Now to the interesting part, the part where I start thinking about myself, for I think of nothing else. I'm an artist, y'know.

Aye, so there's a beltin lookin girl there, beknownst only to me as 'white hat girl'. She had a white hat. She was pretty as hell. And Amy had a great scheme for me to go talk to her. She would occupy her friend wi idle banter, while I smoothed in and engaged white hat girl in all kindsa witty talk and charmin word-flirtin. The very idea terrified me, and it was no small relief when the scheme, Wile E. Coyotean though it was, din't work. Turns out she had more than one friend at the party, which is really where the operation fell down at a conceptual level. Point is, I was scared shitless. Not only at the thought of puttin myself in a situation where some demands might be made of my personality, not only at the possibility of rejection, but at the very idea of turnin somethin from an idle fancy into reality. This problem is only too easy to see: Even on this page alone there are pictures of women I've got all sortsa romantic childish notions about. Look at Audrey Tautou, there, would you ever. Gorgeous, she is. And just the kinda woman about whom I could imagine all kindsa romantic shite, like she only ever bathes in a bathtub fulla finest silk, an her day job is bein a muse for poets an artists across the land, who bask in the soothin glow of her beatific visage.

The fuck that's what she's like. She probably enjoys gettin wankered like anyone else, and laughs her arse off at fart jokes. The fuck I know what she's like. And alas, I've a tendency to do the same for real people. Too many, in fact. It's fucked up, and I'm not sure from where it stems, but it's somethin to be dealt with. Hopefully from this day forth.

The essay's progressin, though it ain't terribly good. Shite, you might say.

Thanks for readin,

Dave.

Windle, Winona and the Warriors.

2007-01-12T00:36:00.000Z

I have a blog. I've mentioned it to a few people, cuz, let's face it, why have a blog with no audience? Madness, is what that is. So there've been mixed reactions. "Isn't that like what the emo's have on MySpace?" The fuck? MySpace is where bad programming goes to die, where bad poetry goes to be indulged by folks with more fringe than sense wi' names like xXxdarkangelbutterflysatanxXx an more friends than IQ points. This here is a blog, a place for me to vent whatever opinions happen to scream into the aul brainpan of a night's drinkin, for instance the one I've just had, where we decided Chris was an ethnic minority, despite fairly obvious evidence to the contrary, wi hilarious results. Poor bastard didn't know what the fuck.

So aye, ideas and the kind. Joyce has been excitin all kindsa synapses I never figured could have life breathed into, and bringin the senses to a level that I'd enjoyed quite thoroughly before the holidays began an my mind went into a kind of permafreeze which proves mighty tough to bust outa. He reminds me o how folks like myself oughta sound, afore we get all softened an anglicised for to fit in wi our surroundins. I've no doubt that most Belfast folks have no problems hangin on to what's theirs, but I've always struggled to sound like what I was, even since when I was wee. Joyce, even though he's a southerner who lived in Italy most his days, reminds me more o who I'm sposed to be than any writer should legitimately have the power to do.

So there's folks outside the room orderin Efe's. I'm thinkin bout the best films I've seen recently, and the one that springs most readily to thought is the delightful "Girl, Interrupted" starrin the lovely Winona Ryder, in what's somethin like a feminised take on One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, incidentally also a crackin flick. What's most worryin about this choice is that so much of it hinges on how much that lass's eyes hook mine, all brown an lovely, all full of deeper meanin, all kinds of shite I might wish to project onto that troubled soul. Cuz Winona never seems all that mental, in the film, and seems to suffer from nothin more than a case of the introspecties. An' I dig that sometimes your natural reaction to a certain situation errs somewhat from what other folks might call the norm, and what have you to justify it? You're a weird one, is what. But here, no, says I, no, I'm not a weird one, mental is what's up wi me. A wee bit cracked, wi all the artistic an philosophic advantages such ailments seems to imbue a chap with. Ignorin the characters that are actually broken, beyond fixin, and thinkin here, if I could harness a wee bit o that for my own, just imagine! All kindsa discussions could be thrown about, all kindsa unorthodox mind-waxin, and why? Cuz I'm a bit mental, that's why. But Winona's not mental, and neither am I, and as soon as she figures it out, that's when she realises her true potential.

But what good does all that head-arse interfacin do a fella? Nothin would make me happier than findin a girl o sound mind, sittin down wi her to watch a shitty movie, the likesa the 1979 classic The Warriors, maybe even a bit a Rocky, and for me to never have to explain to her who's fightin who and the why and the wherefore and the can't we watch Harry Potter instead. Just enjoyin each other's company. And now we get right the way back to my original point about the emo and the self-indulgence an the "O, nobody loves me, I'm a unique, incredible soul is my problem, an there's no one in the 32 counties can understan the likes o me." Truth is, I'm an insular, navel-gazin wee bastard like any other, the only difference bein my access to an internet diary.

So what to conclude? Joyce is amazin, Girl, Interrupted is a cool wee flick, despite the lingerin shots o Ryder's beautiful eyes, and I wish I'd got some Efe's! So that was right an productive.

Thanks for readin,

Dave.

Vaughan, but not forgotten.

2007-01-09T19:19:00.000Z

Good news! Michael Vaughan is back and battin well, Paul Nixon looks like the bona fide wicket keepin-batsman England've been looking for, and that's the last Twenty20 match England'll have to play for a while. On the other hand, they were shocking. Australia batted out of their skins, fair enough, but they were never tested. Australia bowled well, but Flintoff and Pietersen combined for 11 runs on a decent wicket against a strike force that could hardly be described as world-class. The dropped catches tell their own story. The world cup is in exactly 60 days, and England seriously need to pull their socks up if they're even gunna survive the groups. Hope the selectors have Gough on speed-dial.

Liverpool 3 - Arsenal 6!! Holy shit! Makes you think of the good old days when Liverpool beat Newcastle 4-3 every week. We took it for granted that once Newcastle went 3 up Keegan would send on more strikers, just in case. Jose is clearly a talented guy, but I can't stand to look at Chelsea these days. So many talented players, playin the kinda football you'd be ashameda playin in the park. Kudos for Benitez and Wenger both, who play beautiful football whoever they play against. The special one can get tae fuck.

Thanks,

Dave.

Dave rattles on.

2007-01-08T13:13:00.000Z

Over the holidays I stumbled across this pair of New Yorkers bangin out some fucking beautiful punk rock, the best I'd had the good fortune to hear in a long time. Besides bein probably the cutest couple in town, an the most earnestly joyous performers I've seen on any screen on the Intertubes, they lay down some bloody good tunes, the best of which can be found on YouTube, at this address:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Yg-CgIwaHs

"Yea Yeah" to my ears speaks volumes about these crazy cats, and the catchiness of the song coupled with the barely co-ordinated spazzin out proves an essential law of rock: No matter how complex your time signature or chord progression might be, the truth remains that two twats with drums, keyboards and barrelloads of soul can and will blow you out the fuckin water.

On other matters, I arrived back in (Old) York the day, pumped to the gills with anticipation of havin in my possession a PS2, an housemates with a fuckin dance mat, did you ever. Also, Monday the 15th will see the last meetin between me and Joyce for manys a long year, in all likelihood. I'll miss the bastard, to be honest with you. Ulysses is probably the best work of fiction I'll ever set eyes upon, and encounterin some of the foremost thinkers on the subject last term is a memory I'll treasure.

Last, but by no means least, I gotta spill my guts about this dude, Neil Gaiman, and his outstandin graphic novel series, The Sandman. I've never been a big fan of comic books, and I always considered "graphic novel" to be the token of a genre strugglin to be taken seriously. After readin through the ten volumes and then some concernin this uniquely rich universe Gaiman has created, I recognised my brute ignorance. Between some fabulously engaging characters, a gloriously broad story arc containin a degree of care and intimacy I never thought possible, a truly original take on religion, history, fiction and all things in between, your man has made a series of graphic novels that are, above all, fun to read. Incredible, is what it is. That said, the collections are a little pricey, and while neither the sex nor the violence are excessive, they are there, which might put some folks off. Fair enough. But to dismiss The Sandman would be to dismiss one of the few occasions where graphic art and literature meet, and dream up something fantastic.

That's about it! Thanks for readin, hope you're suitably enlightened.

Dave.

This is the first post of my blog.

2007-01-06T23:05:00.000Z

So. I've started up a weblog. Given the dearth of these things on an already crowded web, I can only imagine that this will be a blog like many others. I don't imagine that my life is more interesting than anyone else's, or even that my writing is of a higher quality - this whole endeavour is motivated by selfishness. If one person reads this and like what they see, then that's a bonus, but hey. It's all about the joy of just writing. Even if there's nothing much to say.

Dave.