I'd love to see the apartment that this "Home Computer" would fit into!

Not a poem for reading, but for declaiming loudly in the middle of Mother Redcaps pub in The Liberties, Dublin.

The Commuter


Ballymun,
Looks fabulous,
at night from the plane.

Like Torremolinos, or Ibiza,
On the Costa del Spain.

“Turn off yer mobiles”,
the Pilot lets a roar.

The gobshite in front
Makes it seem like a chore.

My stomach is somewhere
At the back of my spine,
as we climb steeply
with a tinny whine.

“What are you doing darlin’,
in London, tonight?”
says the gobshite to the stewardess.
How sad. How trite.

She smiles and walks on,
glad to pass by;
Makes him pay later with
hot coffee down his fly.

Up another hundred metres,
Me ears start to pop.
This commutin’s no joke –
Will it ever stop.

We are all stumbling through our relationships, like my man Sherman here.

September 1984

He felt that he had tried them all. Maybe he was wrong but every now and again he would drop into a dead mood, listless, lifeless, bored and disinterested, like a small boy at a loose end. He would wander from room to room in his parent's large town house picking things up, generally books; there was a vast and transient population of books and other printed matter in their home. He would listlessly flick through the pages, unable even to summon enough energy or interest to read word by word. Descriptions and scene-setting bored him unless they were sufficiently adept as to evoke a tangible mood or an atmosphere of some strength. He would particularly be halted in his leisurely jaded progess through a book by any state of affairs through which languor and slow sensuousness like a dying river merging with the sea in a hot muddy delta. He was trapped on a sandbar. So what was this slow dying he seemed to endure every now and again. An uneasy answer hinted at the edges of his mind. Mid-twenties - he had achieved nothing. He was not distinctive, he needed to feel this; he felt tired, which he shouldn’t feel at this stage in his life. He was timid ,when he shouldn’t be and loud at the wrong times, silent, when he should speak, weak when strength and that alone was needed. He could see the huge ruts of his future life gaping out in front of him and sometimes his mind would scream in helpless terror at the sight like a soul fallen from Charon's boat. A phrase swam slowly to his mind's surface: “Screams of pain echoing through the haunted night". He remembered. It was from a poem that he wrote at the back of a lecture hall in University while a lecturer droned on at the front. He found the poem and reread it. What pompous, pretentious trash, he thought. Still the effect he had wanted to create was there - the mood of dulled pessimism, silent desperation, mournful sadness and slow decay. Oh to be gripped by something, some pursuit that would occupy remorselessly one's waking hours in a passionate welter of activity, mindless, absorbed and complete. Something that would absorb and fulfill for the rest of forever, drowning one's ambitions, hopes, childish dreams, fatuous and materialistic obsessions, unconsciously generating that longed for respect ,admiration and esteem of one’s fellow man, one's friends, acquaintances, family and all the members of one's community. But, no. He shies away from such an honest and simple solution like a nervous young colt. Salvation is within his grasp but his mind won't allow his arm stretch to its fullest ………….

Nothing to do with writing but couldn't resist it

Posting my writings

I recently came across an old folder full of my writings. With a sense of dread I started looking through it. However they weren't as bad as I expected and I began to muse as to whether or not I should take up writing again. I've been going through a very difficult time in my life and have been advised that I need to find something to do to relax, some sort of hobby or interest. You see, I have spent the last 15 years of my life building up a company for some people and have always been "too busy" to do much else. Idiot!! Now I find that I ain't gonna be so busy anymore!

I always found writing to be very relaxing and I find that time just disappears when I write. However, after some thought, I felt that the best way to determine whether or not I should start down that road again was to take the step of throwing the work I had done to date out into the harsh light of the internet and into the public gaze. If large volumes of people hate the stuff then I will know not to continue and if there is a more positive response then I will be encouraged to continue. So over the next few months I will post bits and pieces of my work, grit my teeth and watch the response.

Ye Gods! I must be mad....................anyway.