Goodbye Harry

He did go gently into that goodnight,

Gladly embracing the golden light.

The one-time poet from the street.

Sauntered off to eternal sleep

Dashing off a few lines

About the times,

when his head was in a swirl

With his love for the poetic word.

It is with sadness that our family announce that our dad Harry died peacefully on 1st February 2018 ...

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It is with sadness that the family of Harry O'Neill announce that he passed away peacefully on 1st February 2018 aged 89 years.

Harry really enjoyed being a part of the Write Out Loud community and it became a big focus for him in the last few years. He was so enthusiastic about the possibilities the online poetry community offered. He looked forward to reading the work of others and he really ...

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I accused her of pinching my dinner

She said "you think you're a winner"

But how can I love some old schmuck.

Who can't even defend his crisp duck!

( for reference see `N'Shya....and me`......posted 9th July 2017)

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(This is the last paragraph of Chesterton`s essay: `The slavery of free verse`... It is
a challenge to produce a poetic (beautiful?) effect in free verse...Surely - in these
days of almost universal free verse - it can easily be met......any offers?)

`It is certain that words such as ” birds ” and ” sweet,” which are as plain as ” fish ” or ” stone,” can be combined in such a miracle as ...

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Should Hammond suppress - or reveal

The true cost of a Brexit `no deal`?

Would the knowledge enlighten us?

Or would it quite frighten us?

And result in a Brexit repeal?

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(News item.)
Gove tweets support for Boris

Is Boris quite calm and serene

Now that Michael is back on the scene

Does he miss the suave charm

And that strong loyal arm

That once pulled back his lips from the cream.?

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AUBADE

The world sits silent round the Eastern stair,
The sky grows lovely - lucid now - and calm, 
While soft fed wisps of heav`n-released air
Caress my lifted brow like soothing balm.

The tardy pennants of the night`s dark cloud
Stream from the sinking rearward of the mass,
Laggard frags of midnight`s mourning shroud
Withdrawing slowly down the Western pass.

Now, as ou...

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Why all this timorous caution
(Not one single word on the blog)
Concerning the views on abortion
Expressed by the Honorable Mogg?

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(Now that the antibiotics are begining to fail, this might be a good time

again for this little `warner` which was written as an answer to a poem

by Liverpool Scene poet Sid  Hoddes who wrote a funny poem called

(I think) `The promiscuity Calypso`...which played entertainingly on the 

way he ended the word promiscuity.)

CHORUS

(Promiscuity, promiscuity

It isn`t a sin...

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It was almost nonchalantly done.

She lurked through the eddies of the crowded room
And moved towards me. We both realised
That it was now the time – the one time –
And never afterwards a time again.

I sensed she was behind me, and I felt
Her desolate, enormous helplessness
With such a fierce compulsion that it seemed
My very heart must claw out from my back
And leap the space bet...

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Ah, that was a sight!
Betty in the end-of-summer light.

A recent rinse of rain had washed the air
Glistening the low sun`s shining everywhere,
When a frisk wind, come upon her laughing there,
Wrestled with the sun-glints in her hair.
And snatching her long carillons of delight
So tossed them every place around the height
That the coming night
Was filled with Betty laughing everywhe...

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(A friendly warning for those members of
the women`s PLP  who were elected by
`leave` constituencies)
l

Given that our decaying, aging population
Is causing this perilous rush of immigration,
Is cheapening the morning after pill abuse
By `incentivising inappropriate use`?

(Think! for every pill that proves efficacious
Space for immigration`s made more spacious!).

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(I`m not sure if I posted this one about my
very first encounter with a girl in her full
Eastern regalia before)

I said, `Star of the east cuddle closer,
`Pearl of the Orient come near.
Tell me of clove-scented coastlines,
And tales that my heart longs to hear.

Whisper of nights in the desert
Dancing madly beneath a full moon,
Of Beduins on shuffling camels
Who sna...

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(This is a revised repost about when
our natural carnality takes over both
parties during the act of love and  it
all gets a bit combative...also about
the way (hopefully) it usually finishes.)

The time
Was opportune.
My members all had mutinied,
Gone traitorous,
Withdrawn
Their acquiescence to the will,
And the will stood,
A lonely sentinel,
Afraid.

Behind my eyes
...

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She duped me with burbling baby-talk
That I was her favourite guy - a winner!
But-as she burbled - (look at that fork)
She was busily snaffling up my dinner.
 

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(People sometimes ask me what some of the lesser venues in the Liverpool poetry scene in the sixties/seventies were like. …This re-post  is a bit long – but here goes!)

The scene…Liverpool in the early seventies

 The place…The Gazebo restaurant in Duke street.

 The poet…Me…compering my first gig and ambitious to `civilise` the poetry scene.

 The poem…(printed on all the adver...

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(I`ve flogged this thing around now for three elections

now, I`ve added a bit on myself. will someone take it

over and add a few more stanzas...There is supposed

to be an election around - where is it. Is everyone dead?) 

I`m a floating voter
Can`t make up my mind
Who I`m going to vote for
I`m just the wavering kind,
Tory, liberal and labour
Are worried where my one vote...

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(When I wrote this I fondly imagined that I was

imitating the style of Gerard Manley Hopkins) 

(....Ah, Well...........)

PRECIPICE

Go away God!

Why didn`t you just leave us be, leave us gambol in the long grass there.
Half-tender our loves, lie our reciprocal lies, vend in love`s vestibule the body`s wares
What did you give her a heart for? Why did you give me a heart?

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The monkey took a slender twig
And poked it down a crack
Gave it an up and downward jig
And promptly pulled it back.

Full of creepy-crawly things
Which he licked off speedily
(Quite ignoring all the stings)
Then poked back greedily.

Cripes! said Jonathan-surprised
Haven`t we all been fools
Never - till now - to realise
That monkeys can use tools!

So I seized the op...

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(This is about an old ex-soldier from those post
world war two days when - if anyone raised
his combat experience - then his mates used
to all put their caps on upside down and their
thumbs into their mouths. and suck firmly.)

We asked him why he`d not declared
That he had just been Croix de Guerre`d
For his efforts in that great advance 
which struggled and liberated France 

`...

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They ambushed and surrounded me
And asked me; `What is poetry?`
I pondered over what they`d asked
And knew that I`d been over-tasked.
Until, this morning, quite by chance
I witnessed Fred and Ginger dance,
And it hit me like a thunderstorm:

True poetry is nine-parts form! 
 

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(.Just been reading that half of today`s marriages

in Britain end in divorce. So, it seems, the other

half don`t. The sometimes why of which is my

reason for pillaging the Gospels for this `oldie`).

She`s patient
And full of gentleness she is
This gentlest of all the daughters of the Lamb.

And there`s a prayer she prays -
She cries -
Constantly in Christ`s heart:

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Some times it`s worth re-posting a poem for the sake of
 the (true) story of how it came to be written:

The young poet had been widowed early and was sitting
with his responsibilities wondering how on earth he was
going to carry on when an envelope tumbled through his
 letter-box and he found he had been invited to a twenty
- first birthday party...Well, he went and this (written from
the...

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I wondered why that set
Of Mediterranean sky
Was domed between these whirls of weather we get,

Why, through the jibs
Of the low oaks, the sun-shafts
Kept digging me in the ribs,

Why I could feel
The shock of spring seas bursting against a far coast
Vibrant under my heel –

The sudden toil
Of all kinds of coming-alive things
Stirring in the soil

.

(What was it...

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Sleeping, topless, deeply rested

She was so superbly-breasted

That I felt I must –unheeded - sneak

And tweak them a reverential tweak.

So stretching timorously… slow,

(Intending just to touch…and go)

I inched toward her gingerly

Till – cruelly and disastrously -

My feet (both) skidded under me!

Propelling me head-longingly.

(And turning my adoring touch

Into a crud...

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(A celebratory ode)

When did it happen Linda?
You were not so yesterday.

(How strange: the way
The young bud unnoticed grows,
Then at the break of it`s appointed day
Is suddenly a rose)

Was it the moon, last night,
Serene from the lovely zenith of her height,
Worked this white
Bewilder – witchery.
Most secretly
In the silent shedding of her light?

Now I can plainly see
Y...

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(a repost. revised, and an extra stanza)

Soothed within it`s scythe of sand
The docile sea dozed at her feet,
Scarce a breeze disturbed the land
And the distance was a hush of heat.

The sun`s light, shimmering from the skies,
Lit the bay-sea green and blue
And, glimmering down her deeps of eyes,
Lit her lucent soul all through.

It seemed as if the whole world`s light
Was ...

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(Satan taunting Anthony in the desert)

Coward! betrayer! defecter! recreant!

Shriveller from all entitling thee male

Nose the oestrus! rise to the invitation!

Strut the proud stag, the pawing stallion.

Shoulder the onus! bend to the obligation!

Stock-still, stony-faced malingerer, move!

(Under the searing sun a vemonous viper

Side-winds across the...

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(Just to prove that I`m only old and - hopefully - not dead

This is a Valentine`s day revision into `proper` sonnet form)

At the the Caribbean fellowing

The lady from that far-off place

Swayed to the steel-pan`s mellowing

With such a lively, lovely grace

That I watched her for a longing while,

Hoping she`d favour me a smile

Then suddenly, like daybreak beamin...

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(before the statue of  the great St. Charles at Shrewsbury)

The professor

(here on earth)

Informs us 

That somewhere

(God knows where)

Many millions of years ago

(God knows when)

A certain self-replicating molecule

(God knows what)

Came to be

(God knows how)

And fell down

(God knows why)

Into some soup of pre-historic slime

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In this advanced and modern age
Fantastic creatures fill life`s stage:
Hobbits, Vampires, Space invaders,
Super Heroines - Darth Vadors.
So what on earth`s defeating us
From fantasizing Foetus-us
Who, although they be exscinded,
Can be fantastically rescinded? 
(And by fictitious miracle
Partake in the satirical)
The problem, though, for any sage
Was how to get them on the stage

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(on drifting too close to the preacher)

He was no inhabitant of this world

Who hurried with such swiftness that the wind

Fluttered the rags around his lanky frame

Like tattered gonfalons...Who`s fierce eyes-

Caught fire long ago of some great vision-

Perpetually blazed...who uttered madnesses,

Words, wild words, no man could tolerate,

Full of crucifixions...

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(this is just a `stood alone` part of a sadder poem)

I`m singing because...

 
I get so happy at the kindnesses folk do,
At the way the summer sunshine glory lights
The young girl`s eyes, the old man`s silver hair,
White walls, and all the thousand things men make,
That the sheer gladness over-swells my heart
And only a jubilate sets it free.

I sing sometimes, Just for th...

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(This was a linguistically `stripped` attempt
to poeticise the natural wonder of a canal
lock using an un-literate personna...I hoped
someone else might have had a go at it.......
How about now?)

canal-boat nudge
into hill
not budge

nose
into tall slot
back-gate close

water spill
from top
slot fill

boat
up and up
float

at top
of hill
bo...

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Nearly Love

(a parting sonnet for Jean)

Let`s not call this cosy comfort love,

But only say that once there was a time

When the loneliness and travel-heat of the way

Became too much for us, when it was enough

To leave the world go by us and recline,

I in your deep kindness, you in mine.

And though we boast: we never did betray

Cupid with words – being much...

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It`s a fall! A drop!

Sheer from the top

Joy to the sight it is.

A drape! A cape!

Sleek on her neck`s nape,

A helmet of light it is.

It`s a spilled sluice

Of gold juice

At the vintage-squeeze it is.

(The slight stir

Of one hair

Caught in the breeze it is.)

It`s the deep gleam

Of that oak beam

At the head of the stairs it is.

The silk glow

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Let us send back every immigrant
And anthem our nationalistic tune 
(and ignore the old white elephant
who stands-unheeded -in the room)

This is about the requirement that prosperous consuming countries 
with aging populations will always need contiuous immigration in
order to replenish perishing consumers, replace perishing workers 
(skilled but-mainly-low paid ones), and fin...

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What America required,
Insisted new president Trump,
Is a non-politician inspired
To lift the U.S. from it`s slump.

(Now that they`re in poor `condition`
And urgently need to be cured
Only a quack non-physician
Will see all their glory restored) 
 

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(a `tidied up` re-post)

In the aftermath of war
And plenitude
Of remnant explosives
Gerasimos
Had `come into possession` 
of several
Hand grenades.

And, desiring
to eat 
Of more fish
Than a mere net afforded,
Had chanced his arm
At the concussing method
Of piscatorial capture.

Something
(A faulty safety pin perhaps?)
Failed.

And - 
On that occasion -
...

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Now that everybody`s  hoverin`
Wonderin` just who is sovereign.
We`re hearin` quite a lot of gabble
From all the stay and brexit rabble.
The winners on- fifty two percent-
Wonder where their triumph went,
As the discontented forty eighters
Are condemned as foxy re-instaters.
The final split was miles from wide
(With record turn outs on each side)
So, For fear of communal discontent    
...

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I must have passed this attic door,
Framed in it`s mist of quietness
 A thousand times
I wonder what it was
That bid me now
Accept the invitation
And come in.

This journey
Through nostalgia country
Has been sweet.
Past the old rocking horse
(my first addiction)
My old three-wheeler bike
Upon which - trailing
A panic of pursuing womenfolk -
I first burst out the bonds of neigh...

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(This is an`older to a younger` poem for Susan
who falls in-and out-of love very, very often.)

Susan…in love again?
Headlong,
Faith strong,
Soul soaring above again?

Susan…for keeps again?
Swift lunge,
Far plunge,
Into emotional deeps again?

Susan…complete again?
Eyes bright
With content-light,
Swept off your feet again?

Ah!… but then?

Susan…distraught ...

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(we poets are usually a pessimistically miserable
 lot..so something happier for National poet`s day)

The world sits silent round the Eastern stair 
The sky grows lovely - lucid now - and calm, 
While fresh-fed streams of newly wakened air 
Caress my lifted brow like soothing balm.

The tardy remnants of the dark`s black cloud
Pursue the somber rearward of the mass,
Reluct...

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(I revised this radically to read at the well-attended
 Everyman last night. where I listened to our own Joy
France reading and continued to wonder why the
local radio or T.V. scouts hadn`t yet `discovered` 
`scouse` poet  Ralph Killey....they must be blind.)

(The full story)

It`s attested scientifically
That that fish I had last night for tea
(battered so deliciously)
Has now ...

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(on Reading my poem)

God`s got a sense of humour

It`s plain as it can be.

That God`s got a sense of humour

Is there for all to see.

God`s got a sense of humour,

A merciful sense of humour,

An ineffable sense of humour,

Or how could he love me?

(on reading Adrian`s)

That God`s got a sense of humour

Is undeniably true,

And to put the point...

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It had been betrayal
And I knew it
As I sat on the tavern stool
Disconsolate.

In the hollow
That had been my heart
Firebrands spluttered
And several
Disconcerted presences
Were writhing
From the unaccustomed light.

 Pat on cue
Sidled monsieur solliciteur
Purring of captivation
Helplessness
All of the intertwiningly enticing
Eve rousing Adam
Plea for a compassionate ac...

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It had been betrayal

And I knew it

As I sat on the tavern stool

Disconsolate.

In the hollow

That had been my heart

Firebrands spluttered

And several

Disconcerted presences

Were squirming

From the unaccustomed light.

When to my ear

sidled Senor Consolatio

Whispering of enthrallment

Helplessness

All of the physically indeterminable

...

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Forlorn, alone, bewildered, and un-respected
(Apart from foreign faces with foreign voices)
She passed away ,and never quite suspected
That all was due to her faith in female choices.
 

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(A  her, him, them, and us poem)

Look at the grace of her!
The leap,
The sweep,
The joy of the game in the face of her!

That delicate chip of her!
The snick,
The flick,
The swing of the curve of the hip of her!

The glorious zest of her!
The bounce,
The flounce,
The exuberance swelling the breast of her!

........................

Look at the pace...

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