words without reason, life without rhyme.

untitled

2008-06-24T10:03:00.000+09:30

sitting befuddled at her telephone,
uncertain who she means to call
her dial tone is a tiny car,
its driver asleep at the wheel.
on these broken nights
rest comes late or not at all,
her thoughts gets lower, rougher,
one more day, she tells herself.
it comes, the mercyof empty places
her mind gives out like headlights
over darkened water, and
she holds the receiver closer
the phone a belly full of numbers
sparked and glowing, a far alarm
pulsing in her hand.

2008-04-08T16:26:00.001+09:30

When the sun burns out,
and the moon has to hang
in the sky forever,
and the colorful threads of life
seem to fade,
when the winds refuse to blow,
their whispers deafened,
and flowers lose their zeal
and wilt beneath dead trees,
when my tears slide silently
down my face,
from blank, staring eyes,
that is when
I won't need you anymore.

The Dog Barks Back

2007-11-27T02:54:00.000+10:30

finally the meaning of the 'past’
reveals itself in a sudden downpour
of warmth running down her spine.
she can see how it happened.
stupid empathy exploited, disarmed,
savaged to account for things it
didn’t cause or consider.
wrong-footed, stupid-headed.
empathy for the underdog with a fist,
a slap across her face that left her jaw clicking.
that silenced her ambitions.
sentenced for his thefts from her,
who she was, when she was,
those lost years, her personal toxic
shock syndrome.
without cowering, forgetting to eat or
wishing to forget
she remembers it all.

dirty little secret

2007-11-08T17:54:00.000+10:30

hidden in your non-thought
a shadow on your wall,
i dwell in the recess
of your head.
lurking behind your reason,
i wait for sleep to come,
and rise from the depths
of your dreams.
I am the name you cannot say
the face you cant reveal
the one you need the most
and see the least.
you wake in morning's half-light
and wash your sins away,
leaving your dirty little secret
to sleep.

for mattie

2007-08-25T04:35:00.000+09:30

Cois na Teineadh (Beside the Fire)

By T. W. Rolleston

Where glows the Irish hearth with peat

There lives a subtle spell—

The faint blue smoke, the gentle heat,

The moorland odours tell.

Of white roads winding by the edge

Of bare, untamèd land,

Where dry stone wall or ragged hedge

Runs wide on either hand.

To cottage lights that lure you in

From rainy Western skies;

And by the friendly glow within

Of simple talk, and wise,

And tales of magic, love or arms

From days when princes met

To listen to the lay that charms

The Connacht peasant yet,

There Honour shines through passions dire,

There beauty blends with mirth—

Wild hearts, ye never did aspire

Wholly for things of earth!

Cold, cold this thousand years—yet still

On many a time-stained page

Your pride, your truth, your dauntless will,

Burn on from age to age.

And still around the fires of peat

Live on the ancient days;

There still do living lips repeat

The old and deathless lays.

And when the wavering wreaths ascend

Blue in the evening air,

The soul of Ireland seems to bend

Above her children there.

seven years bad luck

2007-07-26T03:23:00.000+09:30

I can see a rogue spring
captured in mirror images,
falling glass broken
when no one was looking.
hands stretched forward
catching prisms of light,
sharp shards of sun rays
slice the grey clouds,
and winter ends early.
the flag of freedom flies
in the clear blue skies
of my early summer.

valhalla

2007-06-24T05:09:00.000+09:30

even the bold Viking
must shore his long boat
and discard his war helmet

the last cut, cruel but clean
the final word is the trophy...
the war is over.

untitled

2007-06-14T01:13:00.000+09:30

Sorrow has a human heart

in stillness now it will depart

sail before a thousand moons

never finding where to go.

Endless days of summer light

overwhelmed by dark of night

a moment for the poet's play

until there's nohting left to say.

salt lick

2007-06-03T04:08:00.000+09:30

A tear...

becomes a puddle

becomes a pool

becomes a stream

becomes a river

flows to the sea.

becomes a ripple

becomes a wave

becomes a tide

becomes a grain of salt

dried on the cheek of someone

who cant let go.

SONG LYRICS

2007-05-27T22:58:00.000+09:30

SPLENDID ISOLATION
(Warren Zevon)
I want to live alone in the desert
I want to be like Georgia O'Keefe
I want to live on the Upper East Side
And never go down in the street

Splendid Isolation
I don't need no one
Splendid Isolation

Michael Jackson in Disneyland
Don't have to share it with nobody else
Lock the gates, Goofy, take my hand
And lead me through the World of Self

Splendid Isolation
I don't need no one
Splendid Isolation

Don't want to wake up with no one beside me
Don't want to take up with nobody new
Don't want nobody coming by without calling first
Don't want nothing to do with you

I'm putting tinfoil up on the windows
Lying down in the dark to dream
I don't want to see their faces
I don't want to hear them scream

Splendid Isolation
I don't need no one
Splendid Isolation

song lyrics

2007-03-20T12:42:00.000+10:30

extraordinary
By Liz Phair

You think that I go home at night
Take off my clothes, turn out the lights
But I burn letters that I write
To you, to make you love me

Yeah, I drive naked through the park
And run the stop sign in the dark
Stand in the street, yell out my heart
To make, to make you love me

I am extraordinary,
if you'd ever get to know me
I am extraordinary,
I am just your ordinary
Average every day sane psycho
Supergoddess
Average every day sane psycho

You may not believe in me
But I believe in you
So I still take the trash out
Does that make me too normal for you?
So dig a little deeper, cause
You still don't get it yet
See me lickin' my lips, need a primitive fix
And I'll make, I'll make you love me

I am extraordinary,
if you'd ever get to know me
I am extraordinary,
I am just your ordinary
Average every day sane psycho
Supergoddess
Average every day sane psycho
Supergoddess

See me jump through hoops for you
You stand there watching me performing
What exactly do you do?
Have you ever thought it's you that's boring?
Who the hell are you?

I am extraordinary,
if you'd ever get to know me
I am extraordinary,
I am just your ordinary
Average every day sane psycho
SupergoddessA
Average every day sane psycho

The Death of Paganini

2007-03-11T23:16:00.000+10:30

A final taut string is
Harshly caressed
By an uncaring bow.
The symphony falls silent,
the maestro leaves
The stage.
The magic was never
Anything understood
By others
its leaving is lost
in the sound of music
no longer played
No encore in this elegy.

untitled

2007-02-19T23:19:00.000+10:30

like a tiger
shifting stripes in the brush
of the weeping wind,
a movement the naked
eye cannot see,
tethered moments drift
toward us,pulling
us toward the frayed
nets of home.
The creeping moon looks
knowingly toward
our uneven tide,
tethered in the
carpet of darkness,

waiting

for us to be.

Ráth Cúil

2007-01-02T17:32:00.000+10:30

small faces peer out from dirty windows
thin and ashen behind yellowed netting
on the colourless Rathcoole estate.
sallow faced men creep out like weeds
through parched soil, shuffle like shadows
of their former selves, the meagre sunlight
never holding back the grey.
sad stories unfold through tower windows,
the shadows elongate from the walls while
steel-grated windows negotiate the sunlight.
shattered glass from smashed car windows
glitters like stars in the gutter and the streets
soak me wet-through with the hopeless wait
for benefits day.

thank you

2006-12-06T14:28:00.001+10:30

for the comments that made it neccessary to turn on comment moderation.
your respect for my personal feelings expressed here through my writing means so much to me.

Tides

2006-11-28T10:15:00.000+10:30

High tide has eroded me,
tidal waves rubbing salt into my wounds.
I want to live with my eyes shut now,
in a shady haze of lazy afternoons,
with just my toes in the low foam.

untitled

2006-11-06T23:08:00.000+10:30

moments of anticipation
condense overhead
beads of humidity
collected in drops of
dreams painted across
a canvas hidden in the closet .
when the moon
unveils this silk of
fantasy, I will fall
back into your embrace
and there will be
no more need for fabric
stitched with distance.

breathe

2006-10-08T06:56:00.000+09:30

Breathe in...

taste the salt you
left on my lips,
smell your lingering
scent on my skin,
reminding me of
who you are and
what you were
to me.

Breathe out...

you're gone.

into the black

2006-08-28T04:15:00.000+09:30

the moon slips her
silken veil,
slides behind clouds
thick as paint,
and darkness folds
bat wings over the world.
now is the time
to pluck the
falling star
and wish for that
beyond your reach.
Before it fades
into the black.

apple trees

2006-07-28T17:50:00.000+09:30

Another poem based on my father's journal entries.

We walked past apple trees
in the old orchard behind
Jimmy’s house,a small,green
haven from the concrete
and wire world we lived in.

We climbed them when school
let out, and settled into
the thick branches, sweet bites of
the forbidden fruits we loved
melting on our parched tongues.

Jimmy told stories back then.
when he grew up, he said,
he would have a red barn
full of horses black as pitch,
and long green fields to ride in.

We dreamed of so many things,
and we didn’t know then that
it would take so little time
to grow up..the trees seemed
endless on that hot summer day.

The red barn was never built,
the black horses were exchanged
for the matt black of a gun barrel
owned by a young Guardia officer
and Jimmy lay, unhorsed, in a field of red.

But....

I can still see my friend’s hair
sparkling in the blue summer skies
as we climbed through fistfuls
of leaves,down the thick tree,
running for home, breathless.

Winter Flight

2006-07-25T14:52:00.000+09:30

I danced to your thunder,
feared your lightning,
bathed in your rain and
flew on your wind.
You were a passing
thunderstorm
on a summer night.

when winter came
you spread your wings
and flew south,
following the sun.

Theodore Roethke

2006-07-15T20:07:00.000+09:30

I'm not a huge fan of american poets, but theodore Roethke is one of my preferred ones. He was very popular in the 1920's and won a Pulitzer for his book in 1954

Epidermal Macabre

Indelicate is he who loathes
The aspect of his fleshy clothes,
The flying fabric stitched on bone,
The vesture of the skeleton,
The garment neither fur nor hair,
The cloak of evil and despair,
The veil long violated by
Caresses of the hand and eye.
Yet such is my unseemliness:
I hate my epidermal dress,
The savage blood's obscenity,
The rags of my anatomy,
And willingly would I dispense
With false accouterments of sense,
To sleep immodestly, a most
Incarnadine and carnal ghost.

prose

2006-06-30T18:59:00.000+09:30

I held your hand and we stared into the universe together, back through time, sharing a small glimpse of how heartbreakingly beautiful this fragile life can be. I felt you leave,laughing,filled with light,your shadow embracing me.You belong to the earth now,shake off your atoms and the burden of being, go on to other places; you're absorbed into the debris of creation, parts of a remarkable gentleman, and my soul weeps, for this part of the universe has been robbed of an entire world. Existence is a tiny sliver of light between two eternities of darkness.That’s all.
But my God what a fantastic light it is.

Belfast

2006-06-23T18:58:00.000+09:30

Another poem based on my Dad's memoirs

In the stony grey soil of my homeland,
dead friends lay in wait for me.
hard ghosts speak her name in lonely verses,
cleverness concealing the lies of history,
the blood they spilled for freedom
now worth no more than a single tear
on the streets of my beloved Belfast.

Oscar Wilde

2006-06-11T04:44:00.000+09:30

Oscar Wilde...not everyone likes him, but he's always been one of my passions.

The Ballad Of Reading Gaol

Oscar Wilde wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol whilst serving a two years sentence in that prison.
This is just a small part of it...my favourite verses.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.
Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.

warm hands, cold heart

2006-06-08T18:01:00.000+09:30

The lonely tease of hoping
shivered in the darkness.
I wanted to find the light,
stepped out and the cold
rain exploded on my face,
doused the flame that
still flickered,
rinsed romance clean
and washed it away
in the guise of
liberation.

bittersweet

2006-05-31T00:48:00.000+09:30

i've lived in the arms of springtime
and the steel legs of winter streets
i danced in waves of gray and white
and rested in the blue pacific.

sometimes I yearn for the ugly

i am a girl

who is not always very sweet.

Did I mention...?

2006-05-23T13:21:00.000+09:30

Some things never change....

did I tell you that the grass
has grown,the weeds
in the back paddock are falling
under the teeth of the plough,
and the seeds are being sown?
that the frost on the window
of the dairy this morning
was so thick I could barely
see the sun rise.
that I'm growing used to
solo conversations, the dog
keeps me sane,and you're still here....
did I remember to tell you
how much our memories keep
my head above water,
do you hear me say I love you?

a liar's words

2006-05-17T14:52:00.000+09:30

From me..to you.

you play with words
like blades of grass
in a sunny field.
planting the seeds
and watching what
they reap.
you're a friend of
the environment..
never using artificial
fertiliser on your words.
just pure bull shit.

Mikey Paige

2006-05-15T01:17:00.000+09:30

I wrote this poem about a friend of my Dads, based on the story he told me about him.

Mikey Paige had a funny grin,
a row of crooked tiger teeth, black
with tar and the deprivation of
hard Belfast childhoods.
Standing on the heath, skinny arms
raised to the sky, crying the freedom
of the wearin' of the green
Mikey declared himself the King
Of Ireland...
While down below in Ulster, his
best work to date exploded into
a thousand fiery messages of
a challenge accepted and met.
They let Mikey out of the scrubs
Twenty years later, his debt paid in full.
The heath was unchanged, but they tell me
that Mikey's grin was gone....
toothless tiger tamed by the Gardia zoo.

Rain Cloud

2006-05-10T17:29:00.000+09:30

you leave me
tender and dark,
a rain swollen cloud,
weeping questions you
won't answer,
disturbing secrets
that laid dormant
trespassing upon
pain resurrected
by your intrusion
into the basement
they skulk in.
no words when i
needed them most,
then you complain
that I'm broken..
you've been cut
by my sharp edges
and you want me to
lick your wounds
until they're mended.

Never forget who you are

2006-05-08T18:46:00.000+09:30

A short story for my Dad.

Mellow winter.I don't remember it ever being this cold in April.I'm shivering. The rain
is soaking through my hair, the heels of my shoes are sinking into the ground and I'm desperately trying to escape the sympathy of people I don't know anymore.Standing right here, leaning on my brother for his warmth,I take in the words that have no meaning. Nod and smile, nod and smile. Thinking of a good stiff drink. Somehow I don't think Catholic Father Solemn would appreciate that thought, he doesn't look like he has much of a sense of humour, and we must remember the "occasion."

I can't help thinking that you would get a laugh out of this whole scene; it may be macabre, but it's funny. Sitting in the family pew, all the bereaved together while you're eulogised...they're leaving out the real you, the man that you really were.
I'm recalling the speech my Aunt gave me this morning, just before we left, about respect and "making a good impression".And I recall you telling me, time and again, "never forget who you are." Decisions, decisions. I don't want to speak about you as if you weren't here, don't want to forget the life and the vitality of you, won't let you fade into a ghost, forgetting who you are. No yearly reunions in the cemetery for you, no duty visits and flowers that made you sneeze. I want them to feel your essence, to see you as I did, dancing in the downpour after the drought,delivering lambs at midnight,smoking on the verandah in the late summer evening with your dog at your feet.That was you...IS you.It has to be told that way.Not all loss should end in tears and mourning.

My family are staring at me like I'm a headless chicken,and I can sense my Aunt's dissaproval,although she won't meet my eyes.The priest coughs and speaks more words without meaning, and I can feel your arm wrapped around my shoulder like it often was.I wonder will it be a clear sky tonight? I'd like to just stare at the stars and the moon for a while, and remember who you are.

The Reader of the Rhyme

2006-05-05T17:38:00.000+09:30

do you ever ask yourself...what am I doing here?...why am I reading this?

youve never owned a book of poetry
only borrowed from pages that
other people left crumpled
in their wake.

you've never read everything written
but mined through a writer's soul
visiting thoughts you can't
think of yourself.

You don't understand the thoughts provoked
but you aim for the profound gesture,
spewing broken dreams to deaf witnesses
while you're suspended in
your vacuum of disregard.

every time you move it's part of your mime,
playing out your role of the stricken one,
delivering a message no one can interpret
and your existence seems to recede
into the lines you read between.

William Butler Yeats

2006-05-03T18:29:00.000+09:30

Yeats is probably my favourite Irish poet. And this is one of my favourite poems by him.

A Coat
I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world's eyes
As though they'd wrought it.
Song, let them take it,
For there's more enterprise
In walking naked.

girls don't hitchhike-a short story

2006-05-01T16:52:00.000+09:30

I guess this is what they call a "found" story. I read a story similar to this one but told from the perspective of the driver not the hitchhiker. I thought my version of what can happen was much more appropriate.

I don't hitchhike anymore. According to my mother, it's much too dangerous, especially for girls.
Just lately she's taken to sending me newspaper clippings about the back packer murders and other assorted violent crimes in the big bad city. And now of course, there's the serial killer.
Everyone's talking about it. There's daily stories on the news, in the papers, and of course the crack pot theories of the general public. The police are denying it of course, claiming that the dead bodies aren't neccesarily related, that they're "continuing investigations"... but it's true. There's a serial killer,and he could be coming to a location near you. Or worse, near me.
So I don't hitchhike anymore. Besides, It's too hard making conversation. If you're too friendly they think they're going to get something for the lift, and if you're too quiet they accuse you of not being grateful. Then of course there's the religious freaks, the motherly types and the middle aged men with wandering hands syndrome. I've had a few bad experiences on the road and at least one very lucky escape, I can tell you.
Thats why I don't hitchhike anymore. Especially at night. On some lonely roads it's so dark there isn't even starlight to see by.It's totally black and still, and you feel as if you're all alone in the world.When a car comes along,I get caught in it's headlights like a startled 'roo . The night is far too dark to be out here alone.
I don't think I'll hitchhike any more. It's too late and the traffic is thin. The only rides I've been offered are ones with truckies, and I never take lifts with them.They never want to stop anywhere except a those big,well-lit truck stops and their CB radios are constantly chattering in the background. Far too distracting.
I don't think I'll hitchhike any more. walking for hours on this endless, empty highway, standing by the off-ramps hoping for the right lift to come along, while the police are everywhere looking for the serial killer. No, I don't think I'll hitchhike any more.
Then he stops... backs up to where I'm standing on the shoulder of the highway and rolls down the passenger window. He's about fifty, with a beer gut and a stupid grin on his face, asking me if I want a lift while he's checking me out. Like I don't know what's on his mind. And I smile a big cheesy smile and open the door, making sure he gets a good look at my legs while I think about the knife in my back pack. He wont know until it's too late. And neither will they. And I promise you mum.. Just one last time. And then I wont hitchhike any more.

Caoineadh

2006-04-30T17:02:00.000+09:30

This poem is for my Dad...the excellent art work was done by my good friend Addy

In the dimming hour
when light
bleeds away in a
fractured second,
when all the world is grey,
you fled astride wild horses
up a lonely mountainside
to ride among the clouds.
I see you moving
between the shadows,
the throaty laughter
of your voice is heard
in the clinking glasses
whenever whiskey’s poured.

cat haiku

2006-04-28T16:21:00.000+09:30

A cat haiku I wrote after watching my cat in the grass.

summer's end—
grass blades caught
in the black cat's mouth

All the shades of blue

2006-04-27T10:58:00.000+09:30

Colour is something we can associate with things that are often too hard to express in any other way.

My lips turned blue
when I couldn't breathe,
oxygen stolen from
my lungs by the force
of his rage.
they matched the pattern
on the sterile walls
of the room I woke up in
blue for calm, blue for peace
blue bruises on white skin.

I remember floating
on a flowing sea of blue
watching over the shoulder
of a blue shirt turning red
swirls of rust in a bright blue sky
my blood on his hands
as he chanted "breathe, breathe"
and I screamed, unheard,
until my lips turned blue
and the world faded to black.

Shadows

2006-04-26T17:25:00.000+09:30

I wrote this as the title poem for my poetry book.

shadows cast on clear mornings
patterned light across the ground
finding the infant steps of courage
and mocking their dance.
Remembering the last time
I walked kicking through the leaves, breath frosting
silently in the evening cold,
I breathe in and out to prove
that I still exist somewhere,
crying when I have to and
washing the pavement clean
with the tears that escaping
shadows brings.

words from kat

2006-04-26T16:44:00.000+09:30

This is the place to find kat's words. I have a couple of poetry sites but theyre time-consuming to update and don't have the ease of a blog to work with. So this is it...short stories, poetry..whatever. Welcome to the sister blog of the Bizarre Rant.