Object

Fear made her
fists made her black
slaps made her eyes blue

Something old
he was old
cheap vodka aged

Something new
she was fifteen
a doll-like child

Something blue
eyes like Coventry skies
wild sapphires

Three babies bourn
and she was aged too
worn as an old door handle

Yellow stain in her knickers
when he beat her
outside the school

This is what made her
something
not someone

Dawn at Midnight

In here
it is cold

only the surface is thawed
by radiation
by the touches of certain fingertips
by thoughts of idealised friendship

Inside
at the heart

far from the fake illumination
a diamond is forging from blackness
a coal face that does not yet show
a cold face to a ceaseless Sol

Dreams
and all the

Dawns of each rebirth and re-death
dreams have faltered
dreams have almost stopped
dreams waste even in the midnight sun

What
Is wrong here

Someone from childhood has died
and I can think of nothing but sad living me
and I have no remorse not even as a crocodile
and I can do nothing but watch the Blackpool lights blaze

for
Dawn at midnight

An Ending

A hand reaches out
touches
not touching
feedback wired into the cortex
it feels more than real
high definition vision
each compression of the skin
is exquisite agony or orgasmic ecstasy
no mediocre sensations from heaven
to hell without moving
just a blink of the electronic eye
purgatory is for the poor
reality for the downcast
the masses of the left-behind
just inches away behind the glass
the screen
the firewall
blazes
touches
while the dreamers dream
and night folk mare
the toilless workers reduced to scum
floating along the broken streets
waiting for the light to fail and it all to end
a hand reaches out
touches
nothing
we have passed from this reality
and become a mathematical memory
a fossil
a shadow
just radio voices in he dark cosmos
echoing what we were and could have been

A Prick in the Conscience

Cardboard cut-out boy
2D person
face from a book
black & white
but I never read on
ignorance is bliss
and we’re all mostly happy
to walk on by
our 3D steps clicking on the pavement
and like all the other ‘well rounded people’
I didn’t study the cardboard cut-out
genuine or not
how could I tell
he’s not real
cartoon qualities
thinly painted against the wall
just another 2D thing
I left behind on a Dublin side street
September 2009

Armistice Day Event on Nov. 11th.

* A talk by Donal Hall, author of "The Unreturned Army: Co Louth War Dead in the Great War 1914-1918 with following Q+A

* Letters & stories from the Front

* Readings/ Selected War Poetry, including Tom Kettle and Francis Ledwidge by Steve Downes

Boyne Books
56-57 West St.
Enquiries: 041 987 3835

Tired

Of it all
the maddening ceaseless noise
a million humming birds drilling
for oil five inches behind you right ear
cute little fuckers
the bully buses breaking the stream of cars
taillight to taillight
you could walk on the flat metal heads
from here to wherever the city ends
if it ends
the sleepless walker will never get there
not through the rushing hours
with his entourage of humming birds in tow
and the drag factor of his lazy eyelids

you’d think the bastards would be in tune

Death of Democracy in Ireland 2009

Slogans mirror Stalinist walls
dirty
formulaic
black and white
headlines avoiding any issues
any real issues
blurred by bullshit celebrity cultism
the rhetoric of the idiocracy nation
no culture unhomogenised
no individual unassimilated

The old tricks
slight of hand and lie in mouth
Smile - Grin
good suit and look to camera
sincere
and the plebs fall for it again
Maastricht
Nice
Lisbon
just different places
different forms of usurpation
a treaty a bill a right a vote
means nothing
just lip service to your liberties

The slobbering cow of bureaucracy
grazing on relentless
all the voices of disparity pushed aside
by the wallowing beast
vote yes – munch
vote no – munch munch
vote nothing and lie to yourself –
munch munch munch
it’s all a meaningless march
to the milking parlour
and the death of an ideal
I don’t believe has ever been realised

The Premiersh*ts

and now for those Premiership results in full:

Birmingham Bluenoses 2 – Sunderland 1
(Sunderland get a win due to having the handicap of Niall Quinn +2 goals)
Burnley 1 – Wigan 3
(good first division clash there)
Chelski (formally KGB FC) 5 – Blackburn Flatcaps 0
(Chelski win by technical poisoning)
Hull up North 0 – Portsloudmouth 0
(Portsloudmouth win there by a riot and two heads kicked in)
Tottenham Jews 0 – Whothefuckarewe Stoke 1
(Spurs failing to turn up for game)
Wolverhampton Wonders-what’s-for-tea 1 – Aston Villa 1
(still playing due to extended lunch break)
Bolton 3 – Everton 2
(win for the BNP candidate there)
Liverpool 2 cars set on fire – Man Scum-bags Utd 0 cars
(The Scumbags failing to steal anything in a disappointing ram raid)
Saudi Arabia City 2 – Egypt Mafia 2
(both teams had their feet cut off after the game)
West Ham Skins 2 – French B team 2
(no winners there!)

Mould

See my snot coloured hair
I don’t care
I don’t care
my jeans make a statement
my T-shirt is a protest
I got a cockring
it’s a shock thing
I am different
same as all my different friends
I’m a fashion punk
my clothes come pre-distressed
got no opinions
won’t riot in Italian boots
got no opposition
I’m a weekend anarchist
a vodka and lime atheist
a funny cigarette socialist
I don’t care
LOOK AT ME
I don’t care
if you look at me
come look at me
this stuff is expensive
and don’t think
I care
don’t think
don’t care
and my cock hurts from this stupid ring!
but it’s alright
my snot coloured hair says
I don’t care

Poetry Slam (in detail)

Boyne Books in Assosiation with Drogheda Creative Writers and Louth Arts presents:

The Great Drogheda Poetry Slam!

This forthcoming Thursday is National Poetry Day, and we will be celebrating this event here in Drogheda with a Poetry Competition, or “Slam” as it is more commonly known. Basically, this involves local bards battling it our for a top prize of €100. Adjudication is by members of the audience, selected at random, with two rounds, the first of these being an eliminator…It will be fun! Guest poet for the evening is well-known local celebrity “Dixie” Nugent. Participants are required to bring along a max of 3 and a min of 2 pieces of their own work..................

If you are interested in participating, please contact us here at the bookshop between the hours of ten and six. Should you not wish to participate, we would welcome your attendance nonetheless. Admission is a modest €5 and wine/refreshments will be served at the event. 8pm Start. All welcome.


Hoping to see you on the 1st

Poetry Slam

Poetry Slam on this thursday to mark International Poetry Day, with yours truely taking part in a poem-off!!!!! for the first time in many many years ... should be fun, will post poems here afterward.

Callen's Bookstore/Gallery, Drogheda 8 til' late

ElectroVerse

ElectroVerse a New Concept multimedia collection of Poetry by Steve Downes as a free e-book. The site will also contain illustrations by artists/photographers which represent individual poems and the overall character of the collection … watch this space for more details soon.

Drogheda-Stand-Up for Poetry.

Locally-based comedian Joe Rooney (aka Father Damo from Father Ted) will host an evening of comic verse at Boyne Books/Callan Art 8.pm. on Thursday, September 10th

Poets and non poets are welcome to contribute their own funnies or recite a piece that has tickled their fancy in the following categories:

1.Satire/Political
2.Comic Irish Poetry
3.Spike
4.The Life Cycle
5. Bawdy Verse (careful now)
6.Yer Own Funnies

Two Hilltops

A white wedge glistening
under a great yellow bulb
it squats on the clifftop
clinging to the raw rock as if
some lair of a Bond villain
claustrophobic squares of glass
and iron
puncture the faceless blocks
a hexagonal tower broods
over its nest of thorns
its green metal hood palpable
above the black volcanic stones


‘Her majesty’s prison Grenada’
someone points out to me in passing
It would have meant nothing
just a curiosity
not even a photo opportunity
for my digital tourist eye
but for the history books
those silent whispers of truths
Maurice Bishop
ministers
unborn child in the womb
lined up
gunned down
in the basketball court of the wrecked
St. George’s fort
where I stood


I suppose
unjustly perhaps
it’s a poet’s moment or
maybe all who stand here do it
wonder if the executioners stare
from the barred windows
across the picturesque valley
a short distance to the scene
to where the blood ran
and the bodies were thrown from
the old English walls


Two hilltops close to each other
watching
in a constant eyeless vigil
the dead shadowing the incarcerated living
the triggermen and the would-be leaders
sleepless
with guilt or vengeance or nothing at all
I try to put myself there
inside the white wall
inside the trapped mind
finger on the trigger
but I fail
as I was bound to
and just keep my own brief but
intense watch

top 50 books

Inspired by SJ's '100 books to read' post, I've put together my top 50 book I have read, some obvious and some ?, see how many you have read; they're in no order in particular, although the last one is the first book I ever bought.

Lord of the Rings
Hamlet
Long Dark Teatime of the Soul
Hitchhikers Guide
Brave New World
Animal Farm
Down and Out in Paris and London
1984
The Outsider
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog

The Republic
Waiting for Godot
A Snail in My Prime
To kill a Mocking Bird
Origin of the Spices
I Claudius
Hitler: My Part in his Downfall
The Anubis Gates
The Colour of Magic
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep

Ulysses
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Gulliver’s Travels
Fall of the Roman Empire
The Iliad
Lord of the Files
At Swim-two-birds
Naked Lunch
Catch 22
A Clockwork Orange

A Christmas Carol
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Frankenstein
Dracula
Dune
The Histories
The Satanic Verses
The Time Machine
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
A History of Britain

The Divine Comedy
The Canterbury Tales
The Odyssey
Dead Souls
Oedipus Rex
All Quiet on the Western Front
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
The Crusades
Ogre Ogre
In the Cravens of the Snow Witch
(first book I owned)