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CHAPBOOKAs Part of the Poetry and Poetics Module
ABOUT
These poems were written as
part of a poetry writing
module during my 2008 MA in
20th and 21st Century
Literature at the University of
Southampton. Not all the
poems I submitted as part of
the module are here, however
I believe that this is the bulk.The majority are experimental
poems. Conor OReilly 2008
By Conor OReillyIfihadaminutetospare.com
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RED WINE LULLABY
I heard you cry the other night too
your tears well laced
in red Spanish winevintage glassfuls
rolled down both cheeks
dripping from your chin
and I could feel your stomach
turning from the delicate edge
you had been pushed from
into a hole where it seemed
you broke and drank
ten whole bottlefuls venting
your fury and your temper
In the morning when you woke at ten
your makeup smudged
in long back lines down to where
it dripped and burned holes
in the carpet where it pooled
I spoke to you and you smiled
trying to hide meekly
deterring the talk from the topic
of your lonely serenade
in the night to a house full
of ears who had privileged
listening rightslast night
you spoke to my friends
who had called and drank
and sang songs after dark
in the kitchen like the old times
how well they looked you saiddespite having no jobs and
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An open discussion.
Your education is useless reading books that wont do anyone any favours Explain
useless then I mean its no good for society youre wasting our money when you
should be going out and doing a productive course of study which involves the
betterment of humanity Like you Yes like me But I dont want to nor do I care for
your academic interests What use is your education but for a job working in
McDonalds look at where it has taken you and look where my education will take me
to a good job and lots of money But I dont want to nor do I care for your profession
and credit rating What use is it that you spend four years reading about history its
finished and English when they dont explain how things work that surround us and
are so important to society Do you think I dont know how things work or of the
importance of things in society I never said that But implied it did you not Thats
not important It is if you imply something do you not give your opinion without
exactly supporting it with evidence Yes So what use is your opinion in this argument I
know what Im talkin
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Conscious
The morning iridescence
through the Viennese blinds
pale at first but soon
becoming brightthe childrens
shouts on the way to school
and the traffic-flow grumbling
just outside the bedroom.
Moving over in the bed
touching your skin
stealing the heat from
your bare body
trying not to waken you.
Dreams at last over
the room despite the darkness
is decidedly clearer
windows condensation
obscures a frosted cityscape
that peers down on the bed
which naked bodies lie in.
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Getting Drunk While Watching the Sun Set
A bottle passed
around with laughs.
In the background
sea waves curling
over then under
climbing closer
with every fall.
Guitar notes play
and songs sung
hushed by the
light reclining.
All stops
for the state of being
to consume
then pass.
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Recognition
(Blink #1, Blink#2 etc. and problems with creation)
Even conceiving a second guess
allows for the same result:
the fluctuation of the instant
reaction suppression of
feeling, truth, emptiness
and believing what is forming
but never realise the passing
of the instant which tests
your creativity & poeticness.
Alone alonealonebut
For every describable thing
(fixation/article/idea/incident/mechanism)
Attached to the desk and
The environment inside/outside
The head/room
The weakened mental state
Of clarity has affected
the vanity of poetry again.
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The Funeral
Hed left the body in a ditch
half submerged in stagnant water
face down wrapped
in briars and blackberries
Two hours later
a caller came
to the front door,
A neighbour
hardly spoken
with before.
The dog had found it
he said apparently
went mad at the sight
In the ditchstill kicking.
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The Town
Victory! To the denizens of ________________!
Your town is the tidiest of them all!
Congratulations on tidying your town
It looks very nice, very nice I say!
The grand judge may say on television
After many months of competitive cleaning.
The jargon of ladies and gentleman
Discussing the ins-and-outs
Of potted plants and window boxes
(very nice they say A very nice attempt at beauty they exclaim A nice eye for
detail woz ere 08, ho ho ho is touted by the astute gentleman in the grey suit
Perhaps the nice geraniums would look nicer on the nice window facing east. The
nice brickwork could have been scrubbed harder with a toothbrush perhaps the
lady in the flowery dress and summer hat says scrutinising the post office steps)
Categorically classifying the toil
And effort in a venue of no quality,
No heart or soul, no berating evil
Content which echoes of character
And individuality that fits not in
The boxes that are ticked with unceasing
Regularity by the Sunday school graduate
Lookalikes amassing on the corners
In a hundred similar towns across the nation
Speculating on the beautiful beauty
Of little villages and big so-called towns
with more public houses than childrenyoung in the streets dodging
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moving wheels and baton wielding old people
vexing the antics of the delinquents
overflowing with merriment and carelessness.
(aaarrgghh these childrenarent nice anymore they growl discontentedly to each
other. No respect, rude, fast, happy-go-lucky, smelly, unchristian,
uninformed and all the many other complaints which resonate from within them
of which they heard when they were but a lad or lass dodging between moving
wheels and baton wielding old people vexing the antics of delinquents)
What walls and streets we see
Decadent in the splendour
Adorned for the date of inspection
All the hard effort in vain
To have the rain fall heavily
And drag up all the soiled drain effusions
Lurking just below the well swept gutters.
What pain and blood has been spilt
As arguments echoed around the walls
While children cried and looked on wondering
why the streets must be swept without pay
so the street where the shop which will not sell
them cigarettes is look so very very pretty
all in the name of glorious competition.
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The House
Walls red-bricked and pebble dashed
From a distance a two-tone two storied
Structure of domesticity planted in unison
To ten on each side and so many more
Around the corner and stretching up and down
The street full of miniscule bubbling families
Happily creating their own little worlds within
The red-bricked and pebble-dashed walls.
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Thoughts dont fail me now
- I said to my cranium on beginning this assault on the pageFor days I ploughed
through pages of criticism, theory, memories, more memoriesmy own and then
those enviable published kind (niche or no niche yall are what stands between my
own shelf-space and an ISBN#).
White ruled feint crumpled and tossed in corners or plastic bagsunfolded re-read
then crumpled again in a continuous charade of impotent fictive creativityyawning
and yawning again and againtotal absence of all instinct I thought was home
grown in the blood manufactured by semen and ovaries going at it all those years
ago deep in the (warm) womb of my mother who raised my in the typical fashion of
stretch or starve and do it yourself ye lazy article when I asked would you be so
kind as to enough said
Well now where was I or am I or ever have I been or does that really matter because
at the moment it appears that it is what comes out via the medium of the pen which
is of most importance (or have I just created this hierarchy within my head) - Should
that be a question or a statement? What does the sentence or the pen (not
forgetting the paper but which is of more importance) careanother question and I
have still yet to answer the first
This is some pathetic parade on the part of my self, antagonising every
insubstantial utterance of thought lingering about my frontal lobes mixing in my
Wernicke's part below my cerebrospinal fluid (in my brain of course, Im trying to
sound very intelligent) full of wish-wash and detrimental quishiness as I was
saying at the beginning
Thoughts dont fail me now not with this one opportunity to pretend that I know
what I am doing trying to interpret something which has being emerging
successfully/unsuccessfully for the past few minutes (or hours I should haverecorded it for people to laugh drunk and/or stoned and/or_(insert condition here)_)
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on my own under a single lamp in a cold room skull explodingit seemsfrom over-
indulging in twentieth century theory criticism and literature but it still hasnt
presented any allusions or for that matter jumped in front of me and sang waving its
arms in my face:
Im here singing and waving my arms in your face I am the answer
THE ANSWER!
Chance would be an improvement on hopelessness would it not I imagine
So seriously what have I been writing (but really its typing although I did start out by
writing i.e. pen + paper + hand + movement + thought = writingI can show you the
rough arithmetic if you would prefer) forvainly trying to pull some shite out of my
metaphorical/physical top-hat which incidentally is full of air and grey strands of hair
not mine fate and destiny forbid I declare running from the point again like
homework or rugby training after school on Saturday afternoons (and they wonder
why no one is a catholic after six years in that school) to smoke stolen cigarettes and
find some able eighteen plus year-old to buy us cans for the teenage disco that night
in Dublin 4.
Confounded sick twisted memories keep filing into my head, erotic ensembles of
times long dead, not really a priority but they just keeping coming to mind mind...
mind full of ___________ doesnt look good here no one can gather whats coming
out in this blather of pen and my head distracted again from the process of writing
Poetry.
Writing Poetry.
ThereI said IT ITPoetryPoetry is IT
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ITis therefinally written I think it can be said successfully and I havent even had a
drinkyetyet poetry is not this surely this means nothing and poetry should mean
all that ever wasrunning off the tonguelyrics declaiming to the tune of a ballad
forgotten by the new youth personifying the self originating in the self a footprint
of the streets and poor misfortunate forgotten leaves which were trodden into
oblivion and washed down empty drains by the melting ice and winter raina
skyline hazed grey by the urban detail of five hundred thousand lives which make the
space below the smog the place in which their homes are madewere not this the
day the lonely maiden made her way with all her life packed away and draped over
her shoulder climbed the flyover above the trains and above any other humans
grave then dropped between the arches below to the stillness of a crematorium
which she hoped would spread her ashes away never to be named
POETRY BE NAMED I finally can free from my mouth the word but three syllables
so hard to stress the start but so much more complete are the words I speak without
that name-tag attachedalmost a sin connecting my words with this archaic term
which makes noses turn reminding them of school or something worse it almost
feelslanguage corrupted like taste from the memory of a past experience
sensory organs corralled into hatredmustard is onemy old disciplinary last
meal when I said a bad word like fuck or shit or poetry
Poetry you you mother of Poetics theyll be screaming on the next Hollywood A-list
big screen extravaganzaswearing W.B. Yeats and William Wordsworth and if things
really turn bad/good my name will also be includedalthough I think I might have to
die firstsome form of suicide is bound to get their (By their I mean EVERYONEs)
attentionit will increase my appeal as a beautiful person and/or a tender soul
damned by reality
Reality (not T.V. or the News) has gone beyond existing realisticallyrules and
words in large block capitals in red have decided that we should all walk on the left
and stand on the rightIm afraid to even apply for a library card in case they ask formy life (or that of a small child I think may suffice)reality has gone beyond
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existencewhat is the point in having a reality without the ability to express its own
tear drops and molecules of emotion (hatredloveapathy) which caress the
footpaths walked on every night and morningthe broken glassthe orange tinted
vomita random unattended dangling under-garmentfading echoes of a dramatic
enactment smeared with jovialityconversation can no longer express the subtle
passion felt when happening on the foot trails of these instancesthe breaking of a
bottle over a head - a brief but over zealous cuddle in a bushtoo many drinks and
a curried dinnerwords wound in a directiontoyed - a performance twisted from
a fight into a playa drama into a gamea love story into a riota moment into a
lifetimea parting glance into a promise to staya house on fire to just another day
Words - stewed well in inspiration - dont fail me now save me from
convention rules and reality!
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Xanadu
I looked all over for you;
the pleasure of your crystal dome
your sacred meandering river
and twice five miles of fertile ground.
But a myth is all I found,
secular and unspoken, clinging
on for people to try to explain
why soldiers lie for their sins
and are taken deep below your
caverns measureless to man
where forgiveness
is a days labour believing
that truth is an evil thing.
From hell I wandered on
to seek the lifeless ocean
the answer to a prophets call
echoed within the frozen
cavern where souls had left
it empty but for the tumultuous
drawl rebounding of the cavern
wall
then dancers came
they haunted newly
ruined gates by
lilting to the lucid,
seducing the stupid,
and pawning gifts
which they had taken.When all was said
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and done they sank
beneath the waves
to the redemption
of the bottom of the sea,
waiting on a chance
to re-emerge
bringing with them greed.
Now, no sacred river left to navigate
or salvation delivering mountain
effusing its turmoil
like an unforgiving
hurricane; only obscurity
and anonymity remain
and in the darkness we hear
a whistle calling our children
to mountain caves and see
a bright light enticing
us to sun blanketed cliffs
white from artificial sunshine
Now
devoid of dependence
on all memory
and memorable things
no chance to choose,
to leave synthetic misery.
It is only the future
that we believe in.
That sunny dome,
those caves of ice,Xanadu, what
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became of you?
Are we left alone
battling against
unseen furious things,
drunk with the fruits
of production
with no declarations
for no domes or pleasure
now, only more decrees of state?