BIRTH WRITE
HEMISPHERE
I morphed into Soma fluidity-
like
etherised
emerald flame.
My mother's
face appeared like
animation
creation from uthe rn
Ash, tears
of grief, I woke up
After 63
years ,on the ofrst
Day of March
traversing Soma.
Somnambulist
is a way of being
IIt'snot a
thing but a way of being
A link
between mind and body
Given to me
by my inner being.
For twenty
years,I have been
At war with
my inner self.
The process
of death was in
Plant cell
Botany, neuron re-
Placement,
brain stem-u-late.
Contre co-up regime change
In my head ,hetero-no-minds-
eye.
Aphantastic
shamanistic dream-
State
somnambulist in a multi
Story
car-pa A Fox dreaming
A fox curled
up in a grey world
Yellow, red
car park symbols.
I reached
out to touch it but
He
nonchalantly looked away
as if I
wasn't even there was
this myis Secondary self dreaming
me alive
without substance
broken-minded ,he put me in.
BLOODSTREAM OF HOPE RI-ZEN
Caregivers
let in a butterfly.
It
landed on my bed, swooned
by
its beau I held its fragile
spore-like
rose petal wings
in
my finger/thumb.
Like
a winged mandala
a
diagram of my soul-
you
could blow it away
but it blew me away
I watched
it fly away like
a
silhouette in dthe ark.
In
laptop light, It
was
a blast of colour, perfume
seeping
under the skin.
full
wolf moongazing
reflecting
on a drink of water
I
hold you in my hand.
RiThe ri-zenense between master
Suzuki Zen Buddhism.
I saw
a flflickeringmage.after 2o
years
ago
butterfly-like when in hospital
Recovery
twenty years ago.
Fluttering
through my
Broken
mind barely
being
in body humankind.
2.
I
sat by a corridor
wind Other
brain injury
patients
watched TV.
Did
I dream of a butterfly?
Or
did it dream Me?
Butterfly
flutter by.
Nature
opens up the door
drifts
like time itself.
Written
when I woke
from
stroke, shows how far I've cum
or
didn't, Impoetent.
The Spiritual Path of Destruction
I'm not saying I don't believe in your creator because that belief holds the essence of gsoundin the woworldI just want to get closer to what Albert Camus said: weWere all in this bloody century together, and that should be argument enough to stop the killing.
Regarding religion, I'm like the guy with the bag and shovel, taking a bit of this and a bit of that—mixing them all together to create my pick and m Let's call it my a It seems that's what I get off on.
Let's stop bickering about the suspending violence and just stop thekilling . I was watching spiritual leaders favouring Hezbollah, and I felt very ffrustrated Being from Northern Ireland, I wake every day to the same rhetoric of violence spilling from the samemouth . These are supposed to be people who bbelieve For God and
Ulster, we create violence and mayhem.
Look at what is happening in Lebanon at the minute—a country created by the worst violence in the wo . Millions have di The world bickers about the meaning of a word that will stop the confl . In the meantime, innocent people die until they get it ri . Stop this, plea Israel, you were created from the worst atrocity in the wo . I
know your trouble goes back hundreds of years, but I believe in humanity, and this is my way of saying stop the violence.
I don't know where I stand when the word is utte . I'm jealous of people whobelieve . I have a belief, . It's called ar, and it is the only way I express myfeelin' . I know we are close to Albert Camus' words now that there is peace in NorthernIreland . I bet Tim McVeigh, the Oklahoma bomber, never considered that there was a crèche in the building before he blew it up—I'm not saying he was right; no taking of life is correct; the system wasn't working forhim . He was bringing the war home to America to show them how evil it can be; he seen women and children maimed and killed, so he thought he had no otherchoice . I bet Osama Bin Laden had been cooking up his scheme for years before he put it intoaction . Look at George Bush, Tony Blair and the right-wing fundamentalists—they believe they are correct, and in the name of God, they are doing his work.
Someone once said, never hate your enemy—it clouds yourjudgment . Religion and politics shouldn't be uttered in the same breath because they are too big an entity ever to be satisfied unless you're a glutton forpunishment . Let's stop clouding ourjudgment . Let's stop thebombing . We're like children with toys—my bombs are better than yo . Mine can kill 28 innocent fruitpickles . Yours can only kill 22.
Let's get on with the real issues that humanity fa . Let's forget Iraq and America, Israel and Palestine, Northern Ireland and the Republic—or any other country you want to bo . Look at the money we're wasting and the resources we could use to end the world'spoverty . We should be dropping money instead ofbombs . War is being treated like a commodity.
I grew up in North Belfast—Ardoy I've had my fill of who's right and wrong, and I've noticed that the innocent always d He or she was in the wrong place at the wrong t . If you idiots weren't messing around with murderous toys, we wouldn't be hurt.
Americans deal with war by getting in an aeroplane on one side of the world and flying to the other to drop a b . They are home again for their television ssets War is not a commodity that capitalists trade-in.
Don't let belief iinterfere Whatever you do behind closed doors is up to you; just respect the other pers Let's stop this ttrivial Embrace capitalism as long as it doesn't hurt oothers We follow like sheep, and the shepherds are those in power.
Here are my words—: "ise up, bo . We are ruining this beautiful
accident." do you know that we have never had one day of peace on this Ea ? Let's change Ear
It begins with the soundtrack by Bob Dylan's Desolation Row getting louder and louder.
A blond girl is in the toilet cubicle of a dive, dressed in a miniskirt, heels, and a white T-sh . Graffiti is all aroundhim . She shoots a drug into her vvein Everything becomes blurred and distorted until it becomes an aerial view of the city of Dublin and along the murky Liff Then, it opens up, bathed in light, like the scene of Meadow Room 101 in 1984, to a fragmented society, as if flying past a block of flats.
In one window, a woman is surfing the n In the next, a guy is laughing at Spike Milligan on TV, doing the sketch from Q about the priest in the confession box screaming, "You've been fornicating with a sheep." A lamb walks out of the b Next, a teenager is playing with his Pod Na In the next, someone is playing a Nintendo Wii, acting like they are at Wimbledon.
Next, there is someone with headphones on listening to mmusic Someone is reciting a poem, someone is painting a portrait, someone is creating a scsculpturesomeone is taking a phphotographSomeone is sleeping, another is waking, a chchambermaidakes a bed and then turns into a nurse, and the camera starts to go faster, like a flick book through life, showing all aspects. The blond girl walks through a multi-story car park on the way to her car, thinking about her alcoholic mother and her bank-robbing boyfriend Zak and where she will score her next . She began shooting smack a few yearsago . She worked overtime on an article for the next day's magazine ddeadline It was late, and she began to fade at the compu . Her boss took her by the hand and ushered her into the bathroom.
Saying I've got something to perk yo . Since then, she had taken every drug known to me and met the characters; it was as if that night of innocence had woken up another side ofher . She scored Tom down a dark al . He had a glass eye, ripped out of its socket in a fight, and he limped with a walking stick due to the bullet still lodged in his le; he had filled it with wet tissue he nearly bled to death, but he couldn't go to the cops or a doctor and say he was caught in a gun battle with Chinese tri . In Mexico, a man sat at the breakfast table, having tea and to . At a quarter past t, the postman folded the big brown envelope and put it through theletter . He was legally divorced, with a piece of paper to prov . He read the certificate decree nisi absolute and remembered.
All those secret meetings with his ssister-in-law He fucked her in a field, in the car, in a motel room, and on the floor of her living room, and her husband upstairs in . It was he who caught them ttogether He thought about his three boys and how they affected th There was one thing he wanted to do before he died, and that was to make it ri . He scrunched up the paper and turned to throw it in the . On the door behind him was a photo of his three boys with their young nnephew I love you,u boy, he said as if they were there; he returned to his tea and toast before picking up his balaclava and sawn-offf shotgun,n and leaving the fl Peaches never knew the guy pretending to read a newspaper was a special branc,h and the guy on the third-floor building was filminghim . She crossed the street, was dragged into a waiting car, and sped oon The soundtrack of henrykGoreckii began to play, time seemed to slow in motion, and it was as if the cops were talking in slurred langu . The music started like an Eastern block funeral mar The violins lilted as if playing a piece for the holoca . Suddenly, the tempo rose, an if they were in fast-forw . She was sitting at a desk in an empty room with two special branches, asking herquestions . All that was missing from the scene was a swing naked bulb.
The tempo of Tom Waits singing flipping back spring h Before they released her to jump in a taxi, they told her thastarchch held 5 to 10 years, and if she scratched her back, they'd turn a blindeyeysheee, put her hand in her bag for a cigarette and remember the gun was the She got the taxi to drop her off at the river and threw the gu . On the way home, she passed the Cat and Mouse pub and called for a g and t to calm her nnerves She sat at the bar, pulling on acigarette . A heavy bald guy in a tracksuit appeared at her side from nnowhere He held a gun at her ribs and said you pe . W ? Who wanted to know and escorted her into the back rroom It was like a meeting of the gangland lord.s Frankie mc coy was there, the gun was put to her head and cocked, and Frankie said we know that Zakk and that Mexican are doing a job, and we want a cut, so when alllcle . You see, Zak tells him to get in touch, or else he releases a Stanley knife and holds it to her throat, releasing a little bblog You end up in the river with heavy boots if there's no ca On the way home, she called her smother However, it was only eleven when her mother said she wanted to tell her about her crazy morning; one looked into her mother's eyes swimming in pools of alcohol; she left without uttering a word; oh, you can get h . Still, I can't take a drink well fuck you she said and closed the front d . Peaches went ho As she was making a cup of tea and chugging on a cigarette,eZakk burst into the kitchen strippedofff to his boxer shorts, shoved his blood-soaked clothes into a carrier bag with the balaclava and pump-action-sawn shot gu,n and handedPeachess the car keys and said dump that in the rriver She was about to tell him about Frankie Mc Coy, or Razor as he was called, because he liked to slice his victims with a blade, and suddenly, she was shoved through the swing doo She got in the car, drove to the river, dumped the evidence, and drove ho Pulled into the driveway, cops appeared from everywhere, and Zak was in handcuffs and being escorted out of the house.
Don't worry honey, he said, deny everything, say nnothing Displaced by the NeCowleyley trio began, and she was hauled from her car and was flanked by two coppers on the back seat of a police . Her whole day was reeling through her mind, and she realised that the cops had her follow and film everything, and she couldn't den it . She sat at the desk of interview room 1 and saw Zak the Mexican and Frankie mc coy going past handcuff The soundtrack of the flaming lips singing Do yYou Realisefollowed by Tom wWaitssinging What's he building and the good cop, bad cop scene sstars Then Tom, with the glass eye and the limp, was escorted through, and three signed statements were slammed on the d . Everything became surreal; time seemed to drip like rain on the wind Aheo monk music began, and for a moment, she thought she had to change her lifestyle and remove all the negativity from her life. She looked at the cops, and they turned into guinea pigs on a treadmill. There was a light under the doo,r and God entered the room dressed like an ordinary bloke with a five-clock sha . She walked through the open door, got in a taxi, and said dri The scene of the toilet cubicle began to focus, and she walked away from the negativity.
Exploring space
I want to start this essay with a quote by the great Hungarian poet Attila Josezf from the poem A Pure Heart; I was in Hungary for 4 weeks in Szegked, Solnock, Paz and Budap . There was poetry echoing from every pour of the coun . I had a wonderful time arranged by Szegked University and the British CCouncil Thanks to Andrea and Gabriella for making my trip so memora . We travelled by train to Lake Balaton, and I was inspired by the scene There's a painting beside me I just finis . It's a self-portrait, but it reminds me of looking at the statue of Attila Jozesf in Szeged.
From with a pure heart, I am fatherless, motherless, Godless and countryless; I have no cradle, no funeral shroud. And no lover to kiss me proud.
Poetry and painting come from the same place one is silent, mute while the other one whispers in your ear or yells at the Ear of its voice, they are both tiny snippets that come right out of the bl I hope my poetry shows a subtle tinge of light like my favourite painting is Van Gogh's "The Potato Eaters" Even in its stark reality, there is a tiny flicker of light, just enough to show the expression of the family, especially the little girl who's back is to us I bet she is beautiful with a pureheart . The light he captures is fantastic.
Poetry is written in their eyes, in the thoughts of oothers They always see the other person's perspect . This painting is an excellent example of th It's as if Van Gogh told us to wise up and put ourselves in their sho If we'd done that,t we wouldn't be living with a dirty-year war, all the wasted blood that has been split.
Anna Akhmatova wrote that the clean wind lulls in the fir trees, the clean snow sweeps the fields, and my land is at rest, and I no longer hear the tramp of enemy bo . My favourite poem of all time is Robert LoLowell's Epilog For me, it captures the same essence as the potato eaters.
Robert Lowell - Epilogue Those blessed structures, plot and rhyme-- why are they of no help to me Do I want to make something imagined, not recalled? I hear the noise of my own voice: The painter's vision is not a lens; it trembles to caress the light. But sometimes everything I write with the threadbare art of my eye seems a snapshot, lurid, rapid, garish, grouped, heightened from life, yet paralysed by fact. All's misalliance. Yet why not say what happened? Pray for the grace of accuracy Vermeer gave to the sun's illumination , stealing like the tide across a map and stealing it to his girl, solid with yearning. We are poor passing facts, warned by that to give each figure in the photograph his living name.
This poem represents all forms of a I hope you see it in what you have crcreatedOne day, I will be able to create something as beautiful as ththese. Theyeflect what I have to say about work, rally, and ramble on about my love of poetry and art.
Good writing comes from the heart and informs you of what you want tohear . EEverythingrelates to yyouuthe read . I see myself sitting at the table eating potato I have endeavoured my whole life to capture the actual light Van Gogh captured in thatpainting . He was a true master.
When you are flat on your back in intensive care and only able to move your eyes, death knocking on your door, you have time to put things away and deal with the proper issues; I'm fortunate that I'm still herewriting . Imagine Raymond Carver after he was told by the doctor that he had tumours on the brain.
What The Doctor Said
He said it didn't look good and looked terrible and i . He said I counted thirty-two of them on one lung before I quit counting the . I said I was glad I wouldn't want to know aboutanythingy morethan being theret; he asked if I was a religiousperson . Do you kneel down in forest groves and let yourself ask for help when you come to a waterfall, mist blowing against your face and arms do you stop and ask for understanding at those moments I say not y till, intend to start today , he said, I'm really sorry he said I wish I had some other kind of news to give you I said Am . e said something else I didn't catch, and not knowing what else to do and not wanting him to repeat it and me to fully digest it , I just looked at him for a minute,e and he looked back it w . en I jumped,, up. shoo Shookwith this man who'd just given me something no one else had ever given me I may have even thanked him for being so decisive - Raymond Carver.
Look at Norma. h I to mention my friend Norma,n who is in a nursing home; he was in the hospital witwill be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life for trying to stop a car from being stolen, poor Norm . yhoughts are always with you, Patricia, his sister and Gavin, his brother-in-law; it is not until something like this happens that you realise your life has some purpose and meaning.
Music had a significant influence on my life when I was young. wanted t Wanted good lyric, but then I came across poet .a am and JaniAmesimmons pointed me in the right directi . efodirectionay, when Jimmy sat me down at his computer to show me how to edit a poem, I had the story, but it was all jumbled up in my he . hank for uncuttering my system.
Poems appear right out of the blue; I don't know where they came fr . f I kpIfthekeepstery alive, I can put the book of poetry back on the shelf and read it another day. can read and re- Cangain and again. have al I s been an observer since I saw my reflection as a child in that tiny puddle of water on the street. wanted to let my Wantedo and drown in it, which is my drowning.
My mother never once said Adrian, you can't do that like other mothers do, and to this day, I have had a problem with authority; it's almost a year since my stroke, A year of people telling me what to do, it's me for breakfast You get washed at this meme and angry at the toilet, even if you're not in the mood The body has to make way for all these changes You go from being a happy-go-lucky free spirit to a control freak It's hard not to be the person they have controlled Poems come from a spring source Take a sip of the pure stuff that falls from high up. ou will Ou in love with wor . atrickaPatrick Kavanaghht when he said, "Po" try is the birth of young life and the cry of elemental beings".
"To help you understand what I mean, I have included a verse from his.
Patrick Kavanagh-- Canal Bank Walk Leafy-with-love banks and the green waters of theGodnal Pouring redemption for me, that I do The will of Go Godllow in the habitual, the banal, Grow with nature again as before I grew. The bright stick trapped, the breeze adding a third Party to the couple kissing on an old seat, And a bird gathering materials for the nest for the Word Eloquently new and abandoned to its delirious beat. O unworn world enrapture me, encapture me in a web Of fabulous grass and eternal voices by a beech, Feed the gaping need of my senses, give me ad lib To pray unselfconsciously with overflowing speech For this soul needs to be honoured with a new dress woven From green and blue things and arguments that cannot be provided.
This is a beautiful poem, a man indeed in love with the world; I'm captured in his web of poetry Thank you. Patri . e snare me in his web of thought, and I hope his poetry captures y . heHeyeco images; I can see him and Dublin in the 1940s and 195 . y mother ew Myp not f grewrom there, so the poem holds a certain magic for me; I cannot write this essay without including Wilfred OweOwen'sem. This is Wilfred's generati . t generateue, reminding us that this can happen aga . omeone onceaidSomeoneust be in touch with the past to know the futu . Alfred Ofutureew his future in this poem, Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.
Wilfred Owen (1893 - 1918) Dulce Et Decorum Est Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod All went lame; all, blind; Drunk with fa,igue; deaf even to the hoots Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind. Gas GAS Quick, boys! - An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, And floundering like a man in fire or lime... Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, I saw him drowning under a green sea. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devdevil'sck of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, - My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie:
Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.
I started my new day with an email from my beautiful friend, Cherry Sm . he captures w t I am trying twhatay in this essay, and that's why I love her so mu . he is more tmuchjust a friend—than is my soul mate.
Dear Adrian,
I was staying in bed to read and write the other morning and re-read 'Pr'se on Poetry' by Raymond Carver about the morning he discovered there was such a thing as a poetry journ . t made journal Madee me rememb that unique charge that being part of poetry gives me, and it's not about prizes and the intellect or being the flavour of the month - it's about the so l. t's about the bea ty of the page with space around words and a glimpse into someone else's art, something that moves where you expected stillness or even dea . isIsork so remindme of you: your robustness, your vulnerability, your beauty, your dogged honesty. . Keep writing. upo what you do.
Tell me about your d . Are you getting outnow? re you reading much printing? Love thi iAre of year because I work until about 5:30 p.m. and then see it's 30 p.m. didn't realise the light was going la e. t's like looking up nd seeing a face you ve at the wind . he light.
Love as al s
Cherry
I'll include one of her poems to show you how talented and orig she is with wor s. Love this poem.
The F nnel The time . I lovetheir ratchet of sound an unoiled mechanical pan c. "my home," "hey say. ss quick. ink. nic Ssat a ca Ink. t's isolated. l the days undoing in their beakit'sclosing in as the land throws peaches into the sky and a Turner unfolds overhead in gold and baby blue and pink she couldn't. Clouds build Sahara sand rivers and ridges no foot will ever tou . , and reReou compelled ttouch themch eye to eye with one great art to practice dying?
Litter scatters over the mountain, an open torso dried out and bloodle . hree lights sprbloodeda bungal . aIlluminatinglights picked out t road I followed, aand red ball rwas olling down a gutter. Her face after the dance performance, bodies in tableaux of every human pain, grotesque and gullible on that ledge of love. She looked blasted as this landscape and pretty and I was glad to have her uncopied, not as a picture or as the image I have of her face at the edge of the eartEarthter too much consciousness, her eyes shut, lips baring the night song sheshe'srked from the days without colour, coming back alive for those who have found sense in grey.
CHERRY SMYTH
I will end this essay by saying thank you to my friends and fami . o, now who you are, and all the staff at the Royal, Forster Green, and the Joss Carwell Centre re-hab, my painting rests on the wall of the new unit at Musgrave Par. hank you, Duncan, for having faith in me. would also like to thank everyone at CheshireMewss for looking after me. will end this essay with a quote from Attila Jozsef, which I started with Ma . very art form is inspired y this.
You should read my poems
For silence in your dreams Has taken on a human form.
