Modern Ireland has Nothing to Inspire Modern Writing

www.writerscentre.ie
On Wednesday 1st December the Irish Writers' Centre presents an open panel discussion on how the current economic climate is affecting modern writing in Ireland.

The Procrastinating Slave

Another kick
another beating down
across the sweating brow
across the lionless pride
the same work
the same day
over and over
over a barrel
for the less pay
for no gains
the procrastinating slave
the low wage serf
mumbling grave grievances
mumbling red flag revolutions
but all the while toiling
but all the while compliance
another unjust tax
another ill informed law
shout at the television
shout at the headline banner
nothing said to the faceless
nothing screamed at the wall
the wall of sham democracy
the faceless unelected rulers
same day
same year after year
over a barrel
over and over
all the while losing self-worth
all the while working toward slavery

The Money Counters

Even the jokes have lost their pitch
So much greed in the blood
boom and burst like a twenty year itch
the amoral minority leeching
from the translucent skin of ever citizen

Self satirising money whores
counting their coin like a typecast Jew
in a Nazi propaganda film
Self-proclaimed titles on closed doors
The rhetoric of the Age dripping from lip

Protagonists propagating
systems of honour without honour

Leviathan

Below are the white crosses sown in the fields
of Passiondale and Normandy

Those soldiers of two terrible wars
might spin in their claustrophobic Hades

Open skull mouth anguish
all that blood and pain was for nought

The flags of Nations are lowered
cowed down … unsung songs … unheard voices

A Leviathan has risen unchecked
a Monster not of weak flesh like Hitler

This creature is made of ideas and ideals
unobtainable but for numbers on a page

Those numbers were once people
now to be altered … deleted … moved on

No army can be sent to defeat this Thing
we have created from bureaucracy and corruption

Where every dictator has failed
It brings unanimity and slavery to the free

The Stupid Cow

She follows untethered
not heeding the passing signs
even the distant shape of the abattoir
that loom like a black hole
in an otherwise pleasant blue sky
goes unnoticed by her happy eyes

Oblivious she follows the fools
that lead in a long line
ordered and numbered so that
the meat can be cleaved from the bone
with greater ease
and swallowed raw
with a pinch of salt to lessen the taste

Watching the fate of those in before
the Happy Cow waits in line
humming to herself a familiar tune
but not raising any protest
how the butchers laugh as they kill her
too late the panic in her eyes and the
scream frozen in her cut throat

Government to let them eat cheese

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/1105/breaking22.html

politics has now failed completely in Ireland it is time for our people to take to the streets and if necessary take phsical action to end this madness ... words fail me that Our Country has been brought down to this level and a system of failed government and a heartless party of fools

Video showing the brutal police force of a dead government

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPnoAY1wXfI

World Doomed

And the News in Brief: World Doomed as carcinogenic immigrants float into our jobs in their millions on a tidal wave caused by global warming, a meteor strike, the moon exploding and Muslim extremists, the economic depression will mean your house is worth less than your life (which is worth nothing if you happen to live anywhere there is oil).

The world is cooling or heating or something like stopping or speeding up, somewhere between Tuesday and a billion years we’ll be engulfed by the Sun and the liberal media is behind it all (if only Jade and Diana were still alive!) Ants are taking over, crop circles are letters from aliens asking us to buy a timeshare

… and finally, on the lighter side, all food is poison, beer gives you AIDS and anything fun will make your genitals fall off

…. goodnight

Blast from the Past

Below are 3 poems from days gone by ... my first published poem 1991 and one from 1996 and 2001 ...enjoy

S.

Christmas at Christchurch (2001)

I feel translucent
a man of marble skin
as if dreaming my motions
every step a tread in water
each reach of my hand
a ghost grip touches
but nothing holds and yet
I clutch these stones and
iron spear barricades
as a sea-snail would the bedrock
for this is my folly
to hug close the masonry of charity

I feel nothing
no remorse runs down my arms
to my useless wrists
no rage
twists my mouth into rabid snarl
no pleasure lifts my face
from the footfalls
of those celestial beings
bustling above

not even a soaked black wall
on which I am a shadow
penetrates my deadened hide

I feel grotesque
I am a gargoyle of flesh and bone
sown into the fabric of these
towers with closed doorways
that form broken arch homes
for broken things
but

no longer am I broken
I have embraced
the cold and hunger
of my mouth and my soul
I am free of this place

Yet

here I am still
here for you to see
if you can stomach
to see me

Dear John 1991

I look away from the wall
away from your face
the blood is dripping from the table
and all the dishes are dirty
I try to picture your eyes
no one put out the bins
there’s a knife in the door
pinning the letter you wrote
I feel quite sentimental
about my photograph of you
even while it burns in the fire
I look back at the wall
and your face is there
your head on my pillow
and you body in my kitchen

The Ghost of Saint Anthony (1996)

Once I was a man like you

strong in the heart and mind

Now my spectre drifts the sands of Egypt these sixteen

centuries

across the tombs of Pharaohs

from Alexandria and the sea into the desert mountains

where only insects live and hermits come to die

No longer do I feel the burning Sun of Purgatory on my bare back

no longer does the word of God wet my dry lips

no more do I hope for resurrection

I only pray for eternal sleep to end my torment

My shade counts the sands of time

moving as parches water

through its fleshless fingers

the carrion have abandoned my bleached bones

a scorpion has nested in my eye socket

no answer echoes in my skull to the

frozen scream of my broken jaw

I am alone

the only ghost in a godless land

I pass through a stone crucifix and Sun Gods

on ancient plaster

neither have redeemed my soul

so I will walk the Breath of Egypt

until the end of the world

Greybell Wood and Beyond

Lapwing Publications and Gutter Bookshop cordially invite you to the launch of

Greybell Wood and Beyond a new collection of poems by Roger Hudson published by Lapwing Publications, Belfast. At Gutter Bookshop, Cow’s Lane, Temple Bar, Dublin 8 on Tuesday 5^th October at 6pm. Roger Hudson will read from the collection. Refreshments.

UNANSWERABLES

1. What is the meaning of life?

2. Is there a God?

3. Do blondes have more fun?

4. What is the best diet?

5. Is there anybody out there?

6. Who is the most famous person in the world?

7. What is love?

8. What is the secret to happiness?

9. Did Tony Soprano die?

10. How long will I live?

My Answers

1. We live in an ever deteriorating universe, which will eventually compress to either nothing or form a new big bang … thus rendering life and all endeavours meaningless … on the up side that means no more stupid ads from ‘injuries lawyers are us’, so enjoy life, no as little harm as possible and try to read at least one eighteenth century novel.
2. No. If there were he/she/it would be a schizophrenic sadist with a back garden full of confused Jews, Christians, Voodooist and Ian Paisley wondering what each other were doing here.
3. Yes, because they’re too dumb to realise they’re miserable.
4. Stop eating so much.
5. Yes, to paraphrase mister Python, ‘let’s hope there’s intelligent life out there cause there’s bugger all down here.’
6. Too close to call between Hitler and Jesus so I’ll say Bono … who wants to be one of them and is close to being the other!
7. Love is being able to live with someone despite their annoying habits, that and really hot sex.
8. Wait until everyone on earth is dead and then play with all the toys
9. Who cares .. it’s a tv show
10. Until the end of this sent.......
    

Arts Cuts in Ireland

On the subject of the Arts Cuts .. while i agree this government is the enemy of the people, the arts council (merrion sq mafia) should be gotten rid of, a waste of time and money for years, make each arts centre responable for their own budget and cut out the red tape .. in the long run arts will be better off ... if people want to see a show/exibition/reading etc, let them pay for it, therefore the arts people actully want will shine through and the dross forced on us by a few old-school-tie snobs will be history

http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/ontherecord/2010/03/09/why-whinging-about-cutbacks-in-arts-funding-gets-you-nowhere/