HERMITS (a poem)

HERMITS

I want you,

I want him too,

I want all of you

To come sit by me;

We’ll light a fire and never leave,

Let ourselves be hypnotised

By this mid-summer night’s dream.

We’ll hollow out the trunks of trees,

Sail to where the wild things be,

Live in this jungle

Rent free;

Say we’re Hermits

When only in hiding be we.

We’ll cut off the rotten bits of meat

To prove how fresh the rest of us is,

Then pretend not to be haunted by them

Like the maddening itch of a phantom limb.

When within you is nothing but the full blossom of night,

When the terror bleeds through the circles

Of tired, dim light,

I want you to come sit by me,

Politely;

We’ll make of it a holiday,

Build ourselves more castles made of sand

And wait for the sea.

(c) Abby Oliveira 2012

Opening Speech: 2011 All-Ireland poetry Slam Final

Opening Speech (for the 2011 All-Ireland Slam Final)

Welcome in

To the 2011

All-Ireland

Poetry Slam Final

Finally making it’s way to the City,

Ladies and gentlemen, get ready!

Lift up your hands and drum like Shamans

If you like what you hear;

Use your heart, your tables and your ears

As your instruments...

The Cauldron if Poesy is simmering,

The Cauldron of Wisdom is tipped on it’s lips

Tonight,

We’ve invoked the ancient bardic spirit;

May it

inhabit all these walls like a spell,

Be it

so potent we only notice it’s reflection in the well,

May it

Lift up your hearts and minds,

Send blood cells

Sprinting after pulses

This is no place for the pulpit.

We understand that nobility is subjective;

So if you’re wearing a tie

Better loosen it,

And if you’re holding a pint

Better raise your glasses to it,

This event

Is underground prestigious

And underground’s where all the best most precious shit is

The Cauldron of Poesy simmers

As Ulster, Leinster, Connacht, Munster

2 by 2 enter the ring

Ding-ding

(3 minutes

No hooliganism, assume no position, defend no borders, we honour the craft, we merit the art)

They mark out of ten

(There’s three of them

So that’s potentially 30 points per round per po-et.)

Then again

we accept

That when 3 minutes passes

A half point is deducted

for every 10seconds

over the limit the poem lasts,

Sayeth the judges:

Eaman Craig – writer, actor, recording artist

Julieann Campbell – Derry Journal journalist and poet

Jason Lee Lovell – UUC Poetry Society founding member as well as poet, editor and all round upstanding Londoner

Give them judges the front and back of your hands!

We understand that no raconteur shall read from his arm,

or from his scroll, or from white foolscap,

Nor make music

with anything other than her voice, her words, her heart.

No raconteur

May be anything but the poem; all props left at home,

One crutch allowed alone

And that’s

The microphone!

One-by-one, the poets;

First eight, then four,

Then head-to-head;

One by one

Will step aside,

Unveil the path up the mountainside

And the one who survives the climb 3 times

Will surely be immortalised!

Will surely strip naked ‘midst the glory

By the Foyle side

And chant

The mantra of the All-Ireland Poetry Slam Champ

As the Christmas shoppers dander past,

Not one fuck will they give;

There is no nakedness

Just dizziness

at such exalted high standing.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Lift your glasses;

We’ll call role for the brave souls who’ll stand on this stage

Listening to the waves crashing,

To the rocks in the walls come alive like Titans

Who’ll take vertigo but still hurl words like boulders

Into the wind, off the cliff,

Straight in the faces of the Gods or just

Whisper them:

John Cummins, Karl Parkinson representing Leinster

Conor O’ Kane, Seamus Fox representing Ulster

Seamus Barr’O Suillebhan, Sarah Clancy representing Connacht

Fergus Costello and Mary O Mary O’Connell representing Munster

Onwards poetic soldiers!

May your words flow like wine and stain colours

on the flag of this most ancient of ancient arts.

Ding, ding, three minutes,

The Cauldron of Motion is stirring

The time is upon us,

I declare these proceedings

Begun.

(Abby Oliveira 2011)

(for some clearer reason as to why I bang on so much about cauldrons please see this link and consider the ancient Irish text therein by our main man Amirgen White Knee http://13thdruidofavalon.tripod.com/druidplanet/id29.html)

The Death of the Dollar (poem)

This was in part inspired by John Wyndham's writings (he's responsible for such gems as 'Day of the Triffids' etc)...

The Death of the Dollar

They are shivering in the cold to the rhythmic quivering of begging bowls

Beckoning them to dance

For the death of the dollar.

In the eyes of the guys sellin' plastic flowers

The hours hang like laden plastic bags

They all stand

For the death of the dollar.

The seconds gush through gutters and down drains

Just like money,

They run away with the clay foundations of the empire

And even the playing field,

The sewage stinks like fiat currency

As it creeps up to their feet

Underneath the concrete

Of their great cities

London

The Vatican

Washington D.C

Washed into the sea.

Their symbols of liberty are holograms,

Their mantra is “Blessed be the Meek

For The Meek Rarely Rock This Vessel.”

And when this vessel runs aground

Smiting towns and cities

And all the pretty private property where they used to play as kids,

When the mighty obelisk penises

And sacred garden arches

Go, brick by brick,

Who’s Phoenix will rise from the ashes?

Will they finally understand the nature of their inheritance?

They are the Crown of Creation,

Grappling with starched collars

As if to free themselves

From the loop of a hangman’s noose.

On the Tube

They are cybernetic, sub-human and dressed to kill,

Stealing themselves

For the death of the dollar...

(c) Abby Oliveira 2011

100% certain? (Altnagelvin radiotherapy unit)...

So today I'm sitting enjoying a Sunday cuppa, listening to the trad session, looking at the pictures in the newspapers.  A few things, (lets face it - a very few things) caught my eye.  Just the usual stuff really, you know: the 'no craic atall' stuff like:

250'000 400'000 500'000 and 50 sinisterly clad Anarchists rampaged through the streets of London wrecking Capitalism's stuff...They were dressed head to toe in black...Remember, Vigilant Citizens! They are always dressed head to toe in black...

In the Serengeti, 1.5million Wildebeest's heads are about to be wrecked by a plan to build a highway through the National Park.  The Wildebeests are currently being ordered to attend a weekly class in order to learn the Green Cross Code, it is thought that this will reduce the number of road deaths in their community during their annual migration from the South to the North.

A rally and march took place in Derry yesterday, as people took to the streets to protest against the shelving of the Altnagelvin radiotherapy unit.  It's all McGimpsey's fault, all of it. His alone.  He's a rogue element in Stormont, he is. Always locking himself in dark cupboards and implementing dastardly deeds all by himself.  So everyone's quite rightly raging with him.  When I interviewed Mr McGimpsey in a dream this afternoon (allegedly), he had this to say:

"Mwahahahaha!! It's all going nicely to plaaaan, mwahaha!!"  But when asked to repeat this he replied: "I said: My heart is broke! I've not slept in weeks but what can I do, ye canny take the knickers off a bare arse! and what with the dissolution of the Assembly and all..."
It was a particularly weird dream; an employee of Derry City Council was painting the daffodils red, all the trees behind him were made of those swirly red and white lollipops.  It was very distracting.  His voice then became a droning mantra of some sort, I went into a trance, there were purple rabbits, and by the time I came round, McGimpsaey was gone and the entire Stormont workforce (dressed, you guessed it, head to toe in black) had snuck up behind me and nicked my camera, my passport, my NI and bank cards, my good coat and my man.  Fucked up. I'm going back off the Aspartame.

Martin McGuinness is 100% certain that Altnagelvin will get the Radiotherapy unit.  So say the Journal, but you can't believe everything you read in the papers.  100%!!  Seriously, Martin??  Not 98%?  No, 100%... Certain. Full stop.
Well, that is weird.  100%, one whole, no question.  On one hand ofcourse this is cause for celebration especially for the families whose lives are crippled by cancer.  On the other hand, it (the statement) is just weird.  After I fell back to sleep after the horrific McGimpsey dream I met Mr McGuinness on a cloud somewhere above Stormont; we were both dressed in coats of many colours.  He was sat in the lotus position, and it has to be said, his posture was excellent. Decades of practice. He was in a state of deep trance but agreed to give us an interview when he saw how class my camera was.

Here is that interview, complete and unabridged:

Me: Marty, what's the craic like?  (Gasps) Can you read minds!?!?

He:  We are The Mind.

Me:  Well, how do you actually know that we'll get the radiotherapy unit??  (realising) Ahhh! Are you gonna get your *nudge nudge* mates to *nudge nudge*, y'know, back of the Creggan shops style like?"

He: (grabs my throat and squeezes it really hard) I have transcended all of that nowwwwwww.... Violence is a dead craft.

Me: (raspy, in pain) But how could you possibly know that?! Goddammit, politicians almost never make direct and absolute statements such as this!!  What's it all about!!?

He: It is because I am 100% certain.

Me:  Is that a lie?

He: It is because I am 100% certain.

Me:  Does that mean you're privvy to something that these people aren't?

He:  It is because I am 100% cert- 100% cert- 100% cert-
(at this point there was a cybernetic hard-drive failure).

Then I woke up.  I was raging, it was a mental dream...Answers on a postcard please Vigilant Citizens.  How does he know that?  Can he read minds afterall? Is he a closet astrologer?  Is wee Mrs Doherty down The Bog doing the readings for him again?  Is this actually an insignificant statement just filling up space in the paper?
I don't think so...I very well could be wrong and I often am, but he's either blatantly lying or blatantly telling the truth.  No grey areas in that kind of statement.  How timely! The Assembly is dissolved and an election is looming, and we have an issue which has angered a broad spectrum of the electorate.  They are 100% certain the plans have been shelved now.  This is a service which would greatly improve the daily lives of cancer sufferers and their families, cancer is understandably a highly emotive issue and few are untouched by it's influence...

(At this point the blog was interrupted by another bout of narcolepsy.  This time the dream was extremely sketchy but I remember there was a huge elephant in a big swanky room with gourmet triangle sandwiches on platters and loads of suits with no people in them sitting round a large table playing boardgames such as chess and monopoly whilst waiting for the results of something...)


Jordan's ex Alex has told how he has been driven to suicide after she moved her long-term lover of 3 days into her home.  He remained alive just long enough to ring the Daily Mirror, The Sun and Celebs magazine (allegedly).

Afraid for her career again, Kerry Katona has stripped to her underwear for pictures.  She hopes she'll get another stint on 'I'm a Celebrity' out of it, and that her public will once again deem her worthy of worship.

Hey, that's the media for ya! ;O)

ADDENDUM TO 'SIGNS' (poem)

This poem is an addendum to the poem 'Signs' which I wrote in 2008 or 09...At the time I liked the 'Signs' piece, I still do, but it's amazing how much your outlook can change in such a short space of time.  I don't perform 'Signs' anymore as I feel I was too lost in doom-mongering at the time, and what's more it was a piece that tended to be particularly affective on audiences...and basically, given the times we live in, I don't want anything I do to strengthen the sense of hopelessness that alot of us are feeling at this time...This won't help us. My mind was drawn back to when I was a kid and the countless times we were in dire straits as a family, I'm sure there were times when it seemed like there was no way out, but we're all still here and relatively healthy.  I remembered loans of a quid here and a quid there, I remembered living Tuesday to Tuesday (Family Allowance day- best day of the week! :O) ), I remembered people helping each other out.  Not to say it was a Walton-like existence, far from it, but everyone knew each other and even though our community resembled something out of 'Shameless', at least there was some semblance of a community.  Now I live on one of those generic, American-style housing estates where, even after nearly 5yrs, I still don't know any of my neighbours, and they don't appear to know each other.  We all believe we're in different boats, but if the shit hit the fan tomorrow I hope we can remember what 'community' means, what it felt like, and how it could be.

ADDENDUM TO ‘SIGNS’

They say this is it,

They say we’re fucked

It’s over, our luck ran out years ago

We just never noticed.

They say there’ll be a pole-shift, a tsunami

A stock market crash

And so we’ll either ascend, fall or set back,

This

Is a transition,

An opportunity for every human soul to grow;

So many theories, so many intelligent people,

So many heads rule

And so many hearts blow a fuse,

So many wise men and women in asylums,

So many diamonds,

Watching the news

They say it’s the global revolution,

It’s the 2^nd coming,

It’s Jesus arriving and being missed,

It’s watching the mists on the horizon

On the look-out for Hitler or someone just like him,

It’s the whispering behind backs,

The plastic smiles on faces

And the friends only in it for what they can get,

It’s the knowing, the seeing and the pushing it to the back of your head

That’s the waste,

Yeah

It’s one breath slowing,

Another breath going,

It’s watching a loved one slip away and finally understanding

The nature of river that can never burst it’s banks;

The only water that’ll ever quench your thirst,

It’s thinking about

Then bringing about

Thinking about bringing about, thinking about bringing about

That is power!

And thought is a Sculptor

And matter is the sculpture

And thoughts can be chosen, like garments

And discarded as rags if they’re rubbish

Though The Choice is the hardest lesson to master.

But

I believe in tribulatory times people can come alive

And shine

In a way that no-one gave a fuck about in the good times,

I hope, now they say we’re in the twilight,

Most of us’ll jump on our chance to be The Light.

And I

Am one of those types

Who sometimes can’t see the blue skies for the chemtrails,

I can be rude, un-couth and ragged round the edges

But hurting any one of you was never my intention.

I’m done begging for forgiveness though.

Some of you just needed to be told where to go, like me,

So in some instances I’ll never be sorry.

But understand this:

If they are right,

If we’re in the shit,

There isn’t one of you I wouldn’t piss on

If you were burning,

There isn’t one of you I wouldn’t feed if you were starving,

There isn’t one wound I wouldn’t dress

I promise

From the bottom of my heart, 

Which

Beats out the rhythm for the brain

Which

Beats out the constructions of the physical world

Which

Beats out the rhythm of the entire universe;

No thought ever came to no-thing.

There is something in everything we feel and think.

Everything is only a vibration

Upon which

Entire nations are scribbled, indulged and toppled

Back into the ocean;

Great men and women made of the same malleable substance as angels and planetary bodies and

Meek men and women made out of the same malleable substance as angels and planetary bodies;

Lest we forget this

When our Choice is upon us,

When our hearts are like concrete,

When our heroes teach us only how to worship on our knees

And seek the inheritance of the Earth

When we could have inherited the whole damn Universe!

Let not our mouths do all the communicating,

Let them only put the icing on the cake,

Until we know we’re not making love

Just expressing it,

Like milk from the breast.

And we’ll do the best we can from there…

© Abby Oliveira 2011

Council Ban on Sheffield Poet

http://sheffieldpolitics.com/2011/01/31/council-bans-poet-ian-mcmillan-from-library-event-due-to-fears-of-political-comments/