Poetry Bus : Yard Brush

So this week's Poetry Bus prompt comes from NanU, and the theme is one of Excess. Of Far Too Much. Of Going Over the Edge. I've done something I've never done for the Poetry Bus before ( I think?) - i.e. I've used a poem already written. Reason being, I'm a wee bit 'writ out' right now - after a bit of a purple patch, thankfully - and, in keeping busy outdoors (while the Irish sky deigns to remain conducive to such activity) I remembered something written a few years ago, which seemed to suit this prompt, albeit on somewhat of a tangent. An ode to a loyal implement which has somewhat exceeded its life expectancy, perhaps only due to a lack of excess in its usage? To wit....



Yard Brush

Old friend, I know you longer than my wife.
I brought you from my parent's home - a gift,
for you were on the way out - your acolyte
had deemed you ill-equipped. Yet here you are

your handle slick and sheened by years
of palms that regularly furled to working fists
(though woodworm traffic in your cambered
head suggests a cheese particularly Swiss).

Your nylon bristles, once bright cherry red
and eager as a pup's tumescent tip,
are clogged and grey like ancient natty dreads,
but still upstanding - equal to the chore.

At least to any I might yet inflict.
For that you labour still speaks volumes too;
my yardwork - yes, the sparsity of it -
has kept our union true.


© P Nolan 2008



That's the implement itself, pictured above in all its woodworm-headed holiness. Still in (sparse) use - even earlier today. The reference to 'clogged and grey, like ancient natty dreads' refers to another brush entirely, one my father used when building our family home, which acquired said appearance from sweeping up after mixing cement. But hey, if a poem can't conflate a little......?

Poetry Bus : Pancake Day

So, time to dust off the bus ticket again.

This time the prompter is the one-and-only Peter Goulding, with a selection of prompts over here. I went for the option of writing an homage to Pancake Tuesday (tomorrow, yay!).

The requirement was to write in the voice of a wellknown poet. I felt that the particular mix of religion and sensual pleasure involved might suit a certain Canadian Troubadour - one of the first poets that ever hooked me with his work - AND I thought I might as well go the whole batterin' hog and record the damn thing too. So, as a Fierce Pancake treat(!?!) - Nolan sings;

Happy Pancake Day, fellow passengers :-)

Pancake Day by scalder


Pancake Day
(with sincere apologies to Leonard Cohen)

Epiphany passed
and the time came at last
to shrive our omissions and misdeeds away

We met in the middle
I brought flour and a griddle
what you brought you just couldn't say

the future was fast
riding free in its stirrups
we buried the past
turned gold into syrup
and danced

and we danced
we danced
on pancake day


As twilight grew angry
we pillaged the pantry
hardly seeing each other for smoke

A crackle of light
turned linoleum white
thunder muffled the words that you spoke

the future was meagre
the past tried to smother us
hungry and eager
we battered and buttered
and danced

and we danced
we danced
on pancake day

The sky boomed and rain fell
we cracked open the shells
mixed the yellows down into the whites

The gutters were flowing
The storm it was blowing
Like Lucifer and all of his lipsmacking sprites

I asked would you rather
Azores malassada
but you just lay stroking your legs

I sprinkled mine
with cane sugar and lime
and we gorged in the night till we ran out of time
and eggs

and we danced
we danced
and we danced
on pancake day

we danced
oh we danced
and we danced
on pancake day

with Mardi Gras spent
we woke up in Lent




© P Nolan 2011

Poetry Bus : Tumulus

The Poetry Bus has rolled into town again, this time under the peerless driving of TheManHimself, Mr. TotalFeckinEejit.

A few nice options on the prompt - including some class sepia photos. But I went for the audio prompt - a track from Van Morrison's Veedon Fleece. Which reminded me of the Golden Fleece, which reminded me in turn of Jason & The Argonauts, who were sometimes call Minyans, who, I discovered, were a prehistoric Aegean tribe, who also made use of that familiar feature of the Irish landscape - Tumulus graves. To wit.....


Tumulus


Lying senseless under sun
troubadours emerge at night
to citizens of twilight trading
fading hues of bottled light

I stir, the world beside me wakes
creaks on her scale beneath
the measure of diurnal pitch
each trace a blessing, firing

livid, time initiating space
from no mere spark, instead
an ember coaxed to flare,
two mysteries refracted there;

a song from time beyond recall
a voice built new from broken things


© P Nolan 2011

You can read some more responses to this prompt HERE.

Poetry Bus : Bath time

It's been a while since I've hopped onboard the Poetry Bus. Preoccupied of late. This weeks prompt comes from Jessica Maybury, over yonder, and has to do with bathrooms, water, swimming etc. Great prompt - some of the best thinking gets done in the bath - but I was all at sea for a bit (a soak is a luxury I haven't had for a while) - no Eureka moment. Instead came a short meditation on the room itself (as society?).

Here it be;

Doldrum

Our bathroom's going down the crapper
tiles ungrouted, mildew on the ceiling,
run-off from the bathrim pisses on the bare marine ply floor
each time the shower is used

a topograph of littered towels claim corner territories as their own
contoured lumps, damp and rank
wary of exasperated hunters blundering in
to bundle them at last into the wash

some bright morning, sunlight will see
the hot tap wink and all these grimy spells will break
with towels rebirthed as heroes born aloft, their
clear expressions creasing widely, hugging all, folded, soft

they'll hunker neatly, muffling all doubt,
dispelling damp and disarray, the lack of DIY shrugged off
until, decks cleared, we'll set our faces to the glass
pipe ourselves a welcome, all shipshape once again
from figurehead to ass.

© P Nolan 2010

Don't forget, it's the OFFICIAL LAUNCH of the Poetry Bus, Issue 1 TONIGHT!!! At the Glór Sessions, with readings by Poetry Bus poets - as well as readings from the newly re-issued Soundings. Should be a good one!

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Breaking News : Back to Blogger

Sooo..... it's all a bit odd right now. Comings. Goings. Turnings. Returnings.

I'm back here after my brief sojourn across the blogochannels to Wordpress. It was good - the virtual weather was fine and all that - but various glitchings and technical bewitchings made me think I'd be as well back here in Luvverly old Bloggerville for a little while yet. Spam is everywhere.

Staying put. Lots going on. Welcome.

That guy above is The Fabled Black Hole Head McFlinty - a notorious character from the depths of the imagination of Recently Crowned All-Ireland Poetry Slam Champion 2010, Colm Keegan of yonder parish.

Colm's poetry features in issue 1 of the hippididippest new poetry magazine the Poetry Bus, as does the above illustration based on his poem. I've a couple of poems in there too, alongside a whole heap of talented people.

Another whole heap of talented folk are the Brainbelt Illustration Collective, who have an exhibition opening TONIGHT! at the Centre for Creative Practices as part of Design Week 2010. Looks well sweet! I won't make it there tonight, but hope to get in later in the week. See below;

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Poetry Bus : Early Morning

This week's Poetry Bus driver is Chiccoreal with a prompt to write about the first thing that pops into the head on waking up - so here it is;


Again


Light bleeds along the edge of drawn blinds

Monday and the working week is drizzling to focus

beyond the window raindrops spatter sycamores

like silent neighbours popping corn



Summer shrinks away, this week our second child

is starting secondary school

soon the morning schedule won't accommodate

five minute blinks at sullen numerals


I close my eyes again - a temporary flatline - listen

to the rain shower slide away, down over Sallynoggin to the sea

rinsing early morning swimmers towelling down at Sandycove

freshwater back to salt - an opposite of tears.



© P Nolan 2010

(edited 24.8.10)

Poetry Bus : Weirdly Visions

This week's poetry bus prompt issued from NanU The Sciencegirl. Her prompt involved taking note of those nuggets of nonsense, blogger's own verification words - a linguistic mystic in its own right, which brought some great responses. So with a tip of the hat to Lear, Carroll, Milligan et al - here's my bus pass;

Odditty

In the still of morning
a-frabing I will go
along the banks of Sumet
down to the frozen shore

to search amidst the gravel
for gleaming diagoo
with rake and sieve and mopokip
my fortune I will gather

my freedom I will purchase
and return to Icitemo
to sip on silk and beermemp
and never more stir.


© P Nolan 2010



Speaking of Edward Lear, I wasn't aware until recently (University of Wikipedia) that he was also quite the accomplished artist and illustrator. His work as 'ornithological draughtsman' was favourably compared with Audubon, and he even briefly gave drawing lessons to Queen Victoria. Which allows me to segue sinuously to the image above, entitled 'Demon', my own 'demonological' contribution to a group exhibition by IGI members, launching this Thursday at the United Arts Club. I'm not sure if any of the illustrators on show have ever given lessons to royalty, but several (or rather, their art) have definitely appeared on stamps.

Your invitation to attend is hereby decreed.

Poetry Bus : Confusion, she says

So the Poetry bus rolleth on. This week's theme is 'confusion' as decreed by this weeks driver, Niamh Bagnell - with plenty of passengers over on her blog.

I'm confused. A lot. I think. Who knows? Happy July. Innit?

contour

journeys taken
asphalt or otherwise
must abrade certainty

worthwhile destinations
require navigation and detour
often into knot and tangle

slowed along the route
strained along the rise
stopped along the level
skewed along the decline

sputtering into glare
to find the sea

swell and return

Enniscorthy 1500 : Scalderverse

Hi there - back again after tramping around in the cyberwilderness for a few weeks. Lots going on - much of it tiresome, some of it beautiful. And now THIS!

I reckoned I should pay some attention to the weird synchronicity that arose during a recent Poetry Bus prompt. As a native of Enniscorthy, I've always been conscious of the amount of writing talent that has emerged from the town and its hinterland. So I had a chat with the good Tom Mooney, editor of local newspaper the Enniscorthy Echo, and Paul O'Reilly, driving force behind Scallta Media, publisher of local writing and music - and this is what we came up with;

Enniscorthy 1500 : Scalderverse : Call for Submissions

Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford is currently celebrating the 1500th anniversary of its foundation in 510AD. As part of the anniversary celebrations, local newspaper the Enniscorthy Echo will feature a weekly poetry column, entitled Scalderverse. (Natives of Enniscorthy town are traditionally known as ‘Scalders’. A punnet of best Wexford strawberries to anybody who can categorically explain why?)

This weekly column will feature a poem by a local writer - or which references some aspect of the town itself - in each issue of the Echo from mid-June to end of November 2010. A pamphlet of these poems may also be produced at the end of the year.

While a number of established poets have been invited to partake, it is intended that the majority of poems will be sourced by open submission from emerging writers from the town and its surroundings. Unpublished poems reflecting contemporary life in Enniscorthy are particularly welcome.

Poets from further afield are also welcome to submit poems which specifically reference some aspect of Enniscorthy or its surroundings.

Scalderverse will be curated - and occasionally illustrated - by Padhraig Nolan in association with Scallta Media and the Enniscorthy Echo.

NOTE : There is a production limitation of 40 lines of verse, including stanza breaks, for each poem. A maximum of three poems, with a short biographical note, should be emailed for consideration to scalderverse[at_symbol]gmail.com before July 15th.

***

We kicked off with the first Scalderverse column this week, featuring - with the kind permission of The Ollamh Himself - Heaney's Requiem for the Croppies. An auspicious start! And we have new poems to come from Eamonn Wall and Anthony Cronin, amongst others.

It's fantastic to have some serious established names featuring - but the exciting thing for me is seeing what might come from poets whose names I'm not familiar with. I'm particularly keen to see work which speaks about contemporary life in the town and its environs - so if any of you out there have something that fits the bill - please do submit!

Poetry Bus : Theatricks

This weeks driver of The Poetry Bus is Nevada-based writer, librarian and blogger Terresa Wellborn (great name). Hi Terresa! Her prompt was this remarkably theatrical photo by Keith Carter shown above.

I found it a tough enough prompt to start with, but the resulting piece took its own angle on things;



Noon

Saturday in May and summer arrives
the back garden a suntrap baited
with newspapers, birdsong and beer

In the cavecool kitchen I remain
a shuffling pale caucasian caveman
slicing through an orange block

of what we buy as cheese, four cut
slices snugly fit to blunted squares
of white bread licked with mayonnaise

I hover on the doorstep of kissing sun
blossom breeze, turn instead to monochromes
of costume, tragedy, reveal

the flipside of this page - another world
asleep, where now a person stirs
blinks awake, listens to the night



© P Nolan 2010

Worth noting too that fellow Poetry Busser and Connecticut-based blogger, Jeanne Iris Lakatos, is in Dublin at the mo and (I'm pretty sure) is appearing at The Glór Session downstairs in The International TONITE! (Can anybody confirm this?) Hope to make it along to this.

** Update : Jeanne's flight was delayed - it seems unlikely she'll be arriving in time for Glór tonight after all. Jeanne, drop me a line when you arrive? **

Poetry Bus : Sign O' The Lino

This week, TFE's Poetry Bus is in the safe hands of the good Barbara Smith - and her prompt involved responding to the line;

'I got down on my knees and smelled the brand new linoleum,' from a story by Edna O'Brien, with emphasis on responding with longer lines.

Which I did - like this;

Trackstopper

I got down on my knees and smelled the new linoleum
and blessed the modern age that threw this dreamtime down

unrolled a pristine plane across my gritty concrete cage
clapped into place a slippery playground, this stage

across which - newly confident - I'd glide, a dancer born
my encores blowing faded floral curtains wide

a technicolor faun cavorting in my den until
I'd curl to snooze - a faded star becalmed again

alas, at other times my knees would squeak and drag as if
arrested by some drogue, a limpet smacked in place

I'd stick - just like that - scabbed knees turned to roots, topple
face down, cheek pooled cool to ground - looking back I'm glad it wasn't jute

The Poetry Bus : Scalderville Request Stop

World Wide Weird. One of the other poets mentioned a bizarre coincidence in terms of the image this project threw up for them.

Now I've just had mine. Shvvvvvr. I went with the number 12. The 12th square linked me into the image archive of the Musée McCord in Montreal. The McCord Museum is a public research and teaching museum dedicated to the preservation, study, diffusion and appreciation of Canadian history. Now here's the spooky part.

I counted down the page to image number 12, which turned out to be the photo of the august gentleman you see above. The caption describes him as "Mr. Whitney(?), Enniscorthy, Ireland, about 1885." An Irishman! What a coincidence, eh? Not major though - except that Enniscorthy is also my hometown, where I was born and raised. WTF? The universe is definitely trying to tell me something. Very 'Artists Way' indeed :-o

Enniscorthy is a beautiful place, culturally and historically rich, yet there's sadness too. The local landscape is dominated by Vinegar Hill, where the 1798 rebels were finally defeated, blasted back against the bare rock, as commemorated in Seamus Heaney's poem Requiem for The Croppies.

For a small enough town, it has produced a great many writers, including Anthony Cronin, Colm Toibin, Eamon Wall and - a more recent addition - Peter Murphy, whose novel John The Revelator, garnered noteworthy reviews and heavyweight fans.

Anyway, enough metaphysical tourism - how to deal with such a familiar subject in this particular context?


Around 1885

There was river traffic still
though the forest had long been cleared

In Deadwood they were mining seams
at home the gold was barley, harvested and brewed

Rabbits scattered - just as now - bared on stubble
cropped by hand, the season still the same

By the gate, Whitney saw a final coney jink to cover
opened his eyes to Montreal snow


© P Nolan 2010


And now, a warm Scalder welcome to my fellow Poetry Bus passengers. Tayto anyone?

Karen is thinking thrashy.

Rachel Fox Mad Max, the opera?

Dominic Rivron is having a Kiwi moment.

Enchanted Oak is laying down supplies.

Sandra Leigh is getting minty fresh.

Niamh B with a touch of Poe.

Titus the Dog is feeling a little 'ruff', yet experiencing the Poetry Bus twilight zone.

The Watercats are seeing Goblins.

Argent is time travelling.

The Bug is sizzling.

Jeanne Iris is setting sail.

Uiscebot is getting frisky.

Poetikat razzes the moneymen.

NanU is catching toads.

Swiss considers British algae.

Crazyfieldmouse is parched.

Pure Fiction is exorcising.

Great stuff and thanks to all!

The Poetry Bus conductor is hanging out the back with an outstretched hand for tardy travellers - make a dash for it!

* ADDENDUM * Here's a response to the prompt from my non-blogging friend, poet Chris Allen;













Not unlike the Trees at Dyrehaven

Tomorrow in this place the sun will shine,
The choirs of old will be recalled in the acoustic arch,
The beauty of nature reign supreme
And the holly trees squat and summer green,
Their thorns a little rounder - berries gone,
November passions fallen – their reds fired to earth.
This formal wheel - its turn in turn will take.

And I cannot imagine the face that I might have
There in the moment to carry the tides of existence,
To turn into the wind of shapes and matters
This final record of the watch.

Tomorrow as you rise above the valley
Move beyond the canopy and linger
Fluid and abiding like a river returning

The berries I saw fall here last October,
A velvet vein of wine in the still of winter
Sweetened and distilled by time and distance
A moment alive in the breath of it all to trace
Elements as periodic as a glimpse of the eternal
In which a man might make his soul a shelter.

If everything is thrown before the heavens,
Exposed to every weather in acceptance,
Home, is a memory sustained
By forces which are more than we can name
Of moments felt and entered in the heart -
A place existing always where you are.

© C Allen 2010

Poetry Bus : The Dury is Out

Well now. I've been a-walking the inner wilderness this last few weeks. Beats sleeping in airports, I guess. Really haven't had the wherewithall for blogging, nor much else beyond the necessary and rudimentary. Yet the poetry bus trundles on, and a new prompt from glorious sonicists The Watercats referenced one of my all-time favourite groups, lyricists, musicians and songs - so the universe reached out across Babylon, you could say - and here's my ting!


Slaughterer

Lugh's weapon buried in its sack of dope
dark light under a bushel
a hunger drowned in dregs

If every sleeping spear's a gift
perhaps the loss of that vainglory
may yet prove to be the kinder cut

© P Nolan 2010

(My image above is a response to a 'memories' theme on Scamp.ie)

Poetry Bus : Monday Poem

This week's Poetry Bus prompt is the wonderful couplet "She was wearing Stella McCartney /I was drinking Stella Artois".

As tempting a prospect as it was to flesh out this tale of designer gear and Belgian beer, I found myself tugged in a more imagistic direction - as follows;


Stella

I was struck
not by a star nor that quality
about her

stuck nonetheless
my frozen face before
the heat of her

jaw slack, molten
mouthful held stock still

grazing suspended

shocked as a calf
witnessing this meteorite
plough my pasture


© P Nolan 2010

Poetry Bussing : Training Day

Totalfeckineejit's Poetry Bus rolls along, forming an integrated public transport interlink with this weeks theme, "TRAINS". What with all the connections, I though I might as well get the ferry in there too (well, being honest, this particular image was in the old headnotebook a while now). So - no planes, no automobiles, but rail, sea and myth are present and quite possibly correct;

Transit

Winter early afternoon
the wane of waxy light

Off the west pier a ferry clots from fog
seethes beyond the carriage pane

Hybrasil unmoored and restless
looming into town for the weekend

© P Nolan 2010

Magpie Tales : Photo Prompt Poem.

Magpie Tales is another blog running a regular photo prompt for aspiring writers to throw an eye over and see what results. Here's my first stab at this week's 'weighty' topic;


Shelter


Days build like scales

each a measure, particular unto itself

accumulating combined heft


new weight thrums to composition


chiming into place a melody

which, in twining towards the familiar

cools to a carapace



© P Nolan 2010

Poetry Bussing : Monday Poem

Our good friend Totalfeckineejit continues to navigate new territory with his Poetry Bus. This week its all about the big question. As Prince might put it; Dearly beloved / We are gathered here today
2 get through this thing called life / Electric word life / It means forever and that's a mighty long time / But I'm here 2 tell u
There's something else / The afterworld.

So, in the spirit of the ehhhh.... spirit, I give you;


Silver


This ill wind they talk about

that blows some good about the place

while making a hames of all in its path

- you know the one? I think it's on the way.


My worry is this - how to get a grip

on the benevolent margins of the thing

without being swept up in the chaos.

Sounds easy, doesn't it?


No. Not really, you say.

That sounds tricky as hell.

You'd have to be some class of stormchaser

decked out with sensors, anemometers


Shining colanders with flashing lights

a wig of wires to helmet yourself

beneath the fury

- improve your chances, like?


Perhaps a freelance synaesthete for good measure

sifting various temperatures of threat

aflame under rosepaned spectacles

rating risk by hue


the findings a flittered book of scribble

to be reviewed once the storm has fled

and the land calmed.




© P Nolan 2010

Deansgrange Writers : Crossroads anthology

Well, it's all coming together! After months of chat, planning, submission, editing, tweaking, confusion, collaboration and ehhhh... a bit of writing, Crossroads is with the printers! We'll be launching this immaculate anthology at Bakers Corner, Kill Avenue, Dun Laoghaire, from 7.30pm, Tuesday, December 8th. Why not join us for a bit of pre-budget shenanigans? You're all welcome.

Guest speaker on the night will be novelist Julie Parsons, herself an excellent example of how the whole Writers Group thing supports those aiming to develop their writing. I haven't heard Julie speak before, but she comes highly recommended. After that, some of our group will read a selection of work from the book. There will be wine. Possibly even Porter. A good time will be had, and the book will be on sale - there may even be Special Offers ;-)

It's worth noting that all proceeds from the book will be donated to the National Rehabilitation Hospital. Our group has a long history with the NRH; one member is an ex-patient, and the group has facilitated writing workshops there in the past.

Crossroads will be on sale locally and will be available to purchase online soon, at deansgrangewriters.com

We're all very proud of this book - a first publication for several members - and there's quite a range of voices here. As our editor, Katie Donovan, says;

‘Here is a variety of voices, drawing in politics, satire, family life, travels abroad and classical mythology. There is a ghost story about a shipwreck, a story for children about leprechauns, a memoir of the Dalai Lama, and responses to the recession in both verse and prose. Although each writer possesses his or her own distinctive style, there is, overall a confidence in tone and an ability to summon up a scene – from a crowded train station in Belfast to a lamplit farmhouse in Waterford – that makes this book consistently enjoyable and entertaining.’

Two words; Christmas Present!

Monday Poem : A Sunday Threnody

I've been (am still?) under the weather. Since later last Tuesday, I've been alternating between hot, headachey and clammy or shivery and exhausted. Having had quite a few commitments which I genuinely wanted / needed to meet, I've tried to spend any off-duty time wrapped up warm and horizontal, woozily hydrating. What a waste of a Bank Holiday! Still, it meant I was able to get things done - including meeting some good mates for a couple of drinks in town on Friday. I hope they're all still healthy!

So I'm only getting back in action (ish) today, just in time for TFE's monday poem prompt. This week, the prompt involved listening to a piece of music and / or staring into the mirror - reacting in either case by writing something.

Here's what arrived;

On Sunday

I

in every face the aftermath of riot

a lineage in cells

the merest flicker spells an epitaph

as rhythm falters

each sunken cheek a despoilt altar

tasks uncompleted

broken windows left unrepaired

no word is spoken


II


Sunday formed a puddle round my bed
crow dark, my throat scratched out any text
or performance

erased activity - even intent - held woods at bay
leaves fell unobserved, chill winds missed their target
while other torsos filled my space

on hills, on piers, on lawns, on streets, on Sunday.


© P Nolan Oct 2009

This prompt requested no investigation of the musical piece until after writing. I had heard it somewhere before but didn't know it was Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima by Krzysztof Penderecki.

The image above shows paper cranes made by japanese schoolchildren in memory of Sadako Sasaki whose tragic story, while horribly sad is also searingly beautiful. She died on October 25, 1955.

This poem is dedicated to her memory.

Monday Poem : Laughing Lenny

Another Monday Poem, in response to Totalafeckineejit's ongoing prompts. This time, the prompt was that modern classic of Irish cinema, Lenny Abrahamson's Garage. Responding to this low key tale of a life caught in the cracks was always destined to result in a fairly sombre tone - and so it proved.

Precaution

given time, the incidental
sweetness held too tightly
can stifle as much as any
relentless night

sugarcubes pocketed
will curb, losing their chastity
to the silt of pocket lint
dissolving finally

as hips immerse
wading into that water
shoes, socks on the bank
trouser legs rolled