To a Fellow Artist

It’s often asked: wherein does beauty lie,

In mystery bound, proportions magical,

Deciphered only by the observer’s eye,

Or in some poet’s words deemed lyrical?

I know that beauty’s not in sparkling dross,

Perfection is for fools; an empty frame,

In masterpieces, lines are found and lost,

And here, in life’s chiaroscuro lives a flame,

A caring smi...

Read and leave comments (4)

I can go miles 

with someone believing in me.

So, speak into existence, 

those words I need.

I’m not kidding,

or play acting a pose,

this isn’t a hobby,

it’s me you see, exposed.

My time is here, and

I don’t want to stop.

Give me that shout,

dissolve my doubts.

Read and leave comments (2)

Poem scribbled into my phone

   is my best and new number one.

Can’t believe I’m so in the zone,

   where in space did that come from?

Hit me with extraordinary pace,

   ideas strident, in avalanche flow,

   filling the bright white open space,

   the right words set up to glow.

Me witness to growing perfection,

   and conduit without choice.

Happens so rare...

Read and leave comments (4)

I, poet, may write of love

and in that moment feel

a meaning clear:

yet my soul knows love

my hand will never pen

You, reader, read that word

and think to know my mind  

              I say you cannot know the love

my heart placed behind that word, only

your sense of the love you thought you saw

The poet can never truly speak

and have his reader k...

Read and leave comments (3)

So, fellow poets, Rwanda’s safe…isn’t it?

Tell that to our friend, Innocent Bahati,

The Kigali school teacher, whose words are illicit,

And offensive to Rwanda’s high and mighty.

Come on, you poets, do you fancy a visit

To Rwanda to tell Bahati: it’s safe!

Well you can’t, because Bahati’s simply, disappeared,

Desaparecido, as Thatcher’s generals would say.

Worldwide, one h...

Read and leave comments (3)

“Comment is free…
but facts are sacred”,
an ed. once said.
But I’m fact-free,
and my prejudice naked,
when things are said
with which I don’t agree.

Uilleam Ó Ceallaigh

4th July 2023

PEN International calls on the Rwandan authorities to urgently come clear and publicly account for the whereabouts of poet Innocent Bahati who has been missing since 7 February 2021.

https://www.pen...

Read and leave comments (3)

Merseyside poets and musicians performed their environmental anthology last week at Liverpool’s beautiful Victorian Palm House in Sefton Park. Led by Michelle Wright, Barry Woods and Ali Harwood, the event covered ocean pollution, global warming and rainforest reduction, with contributions from many local poets and some first time writers from local schools.

Read and leave comments (1)

Words from poet's past flow through me

their stories live on through reverberating echoes.

Tales as old as time bouncing off pages into reader's

minds, then from their lips

not into god's ears but into mine.

Things fall apart by Chinua Achebe

a literary goldmine waiting to be explored. 

Writers weaving together linguistic 

art, masterpieces so intricately 

resonant, you'...

Read and leave comments (0)

Do not curse at the clocks

Time will not stand still

Do not shout at the rocks

They are not stronger

Than their stone hearts

Do not get angry at the mirror

Their ugly face beats the error

Of all your good deeds

There is an evil in them

Stronger than the storm

And the hurricane never ends...

Read and leave comments (0)