Barcelona #1

The Gaudi monuments of Barcelona Slipped under my radar; I flew down Sardenya on a rented bike instead. The beach is straight ahead, I think. The city map makes the west seem north with the sea at the bottom instead of at the side. No matter. I like getting lost. and finding little cafes where I can practice my Spanish. R.H....

Monologue: Imagine you meet a guy…...

Imagine you meet a guy and he introduces to you his wife. She stands beside him and she looks directly at you and she smiles and you know instantly that she is the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen in all your time on earth and that, regardless of what ensues, whether you’ll make love to her over and over or have her just once, or never lay your eyes on her again, seeing her has changed you and now you will forever feel a gnawing ache because she exists, because she came out of the world and will go back into it and you’ll know that it happened and rue the day it did. The mythologising will come: every desultory gesture, every object she touches, her name, her smell, the way she phrases a feeling or recounts an event, shares a memory, the way she looks at you and the peculiar timbre of her voice and how she says your name- all of it makes you feel so agonisingly alive and conscious of her that you want to cry heavily just to be able to go another round. Is this love? You develop murderous thoughts about her lover. You’d prefer it were otherwise; you don’t really want to harm anyone, not that it would ever happen; it’s just a silly fantasy that he could be removed somehow. Your mind splits in two: the real and the imaginary – the latter begins to feel more real....

Monologue: Rossmore Drama...

Two picturesque girls are standing three feet apart with their backs to the red-curtained stage: the first with a thick mane of blonde hair and full lips; the second very different but no less intriguing, more like a greengrocer’s daughter. We’re on the hill at the back and people are filing in and going up and down the aisle trying to find a coveted perch from where they’ll get an advantageous perspective on proceedings. My father and our guest are looking through the €3 programme, wondering where Moyne is. There is a troupe from there performing tonight. A man in the row in front turns through 30 degrees stiffly to tell us it’s near Thurles, Tipperary. There are a lot of bespectacled drama fans and bald- headed men. A girl walks along with a clear Tupperware box selling raffle tickets. The two girls at the door are offering the programmes; the prettier one has a badge saying “Usher”. I was disappointed that it didn’t reveal her name. On the way here the conversation began with warfarin, a heart disease drug discovered in Wisconsin when farmers found their cattle were bleeding from the stomach. They managed to extract the vital ingredient from the cattle feed and test it on rats and make rat poison. Our guest takes it for his arrhythmia. It thins the blood and in the right concentration will kill rats or treat your heart disease. He remembers the dying mice in the floor when he lived in Tomes, a small village near Macroom. Whatever it was they were using to kill them made them writhe in agony, shriek and cry. Then the car stops and my father points to a farmhouse about two hundred yards away in the middle of a green...

“The Clouds Arrive to Weep” by Hassan Baker: Aftab Poetry Winner...

Between being half dressed and dressed, the clouds arrived to weep, A lost head, and the other is running, Quickly brushed with the olive comb, Fully packed before the hail could strike; A family of birds awake, A last feel of the old brass handle And a leathered figure steps out. Between home and the car The rain drums on his coat, and the thunder claps his...

“I Sit Here, Watching” by Aaron McCarthy: Aftab Poetry Runner-up...

I Sit Here, Watching I sit here, Watching, Watching. Chrysali open, Open, Victims of their own emergence. The waves whip against the rocks, Biting, Biting, But the rocks do not move. The fernery is grazed, Abolished by its master. I sit here, Watching, Watching, And then I...

2013 so far by Luke Dilworth...

In Sandy Hook plenty have died It was revealed that Lowry had lied Cyprus got bailed out With Mandela we were left in doubt The resignation of the Pope Lance Armstrong revealed that he did dope The revolution in Syria is not yet done Pervez Musharraf was not allowed to run Now Thatcher is finally gone The News of The World uncovered a don Oscar Pistorius had a shot Shakira gave birth to a tot China got a new leader Apple launched another reader JLS gave up Queen Beatrice handed over the cup Amanda Knox will have to do it again in court Dolours Price died up north The Swedish police found drugs in Bieber’s van The Harbaugh brothers fought it out for the Super Bowl The government introduced a household toll In Mali, the rebels lost ground Manchester United got re-crowned A situation in Algeria with a hostage In Love/Hate the character of...

The death you choose defines you, but so does life....

The death you choose defines you, but so does life. Imagine if you can storming up the beaches, Interlocking firing style, germanically impeaches Upon fresh flesh, embedded, leaded, shredded Until nought remains that’s not remains Of youth, uncouth now shamed and sullied, Blasted seaside war vacation, Boys with guns defend their nation? It seems so pointless. What better way to prove a point, And get most noses out of joint, Than to strap some Semtex to your back, Then find a crowd and for the craic, Explode, upon the unsuspecting Knowing you’ll be resurrecting, With virgins ripe and for the taking, What joy, this heaven’s of your own making. It seems so pointless. Glory, valour, honour, pride, Alas the poor old bastard died, Promises of things to come? He’ll find no virgins not a one. Do you believe “thy kingdom come?” The moment that you do opt out, It’s sad, but you’ll be forgot about, Life’s to live, you get but one, Enjoy it. That’s all……… Sorry, there’s neither rhyme nor reason....

Monologue: Independence by Aaron McCarthy...

I sat in the restaurant pursing my lips, bull-dog like, while I stared at the slim blonde at the counter, running her fingers through her hair while talking to a seventeen-year-old boy. To my left a brunette was gazing around, fiddling with her ring, as though wondering where her husband was now. As I thought this I looked at my watch. It was turned the wrong way round again; there was something that I had to remember. Scratching my nose I continued to take in my surroundings: there was an old man drumming his fingers along the steamy mug of tea. It was then that I realised that no one here was in pairs – we were all loners: single fish in a vast...

Ode to my cousin – footballer, musician, multitalented, under graduated but overly congratulated. (also my favourite cousin with the same...

Ode to my cousin – footballer, musician, multitalented, under graduated but overly congratulated. (also my favourite cousin with the same name as my son) You’re in a bad place. But staying all day in bed is your saving grace. Deal sleepily with the world while in your duvet curled. Think nihilistic thoughts at twenty while getting sleep a plenty. Don’t ever risk emerging before noon that dark filled world is best attested to un-vested and pyjamaed you, not soon but in mid to latish afternoon. Emerge blinking and unshaven to dusk’s familiar smile then plug in your play station for these late hours to wile. Bother not with thoughts of study, bloody, shoddy, fuddy-duddy, cruddy, bookish, rote, remote, words and thoughts that fail your boat to float. Centrifugal eccentricity for a student of chemical electricity, seeking notoriety and publicity – attempt eliciting lyrical sympathy for upper middle classic apathetic idiosyncranicity. (made up word) Roll out of bed Cause you ain’t dead Moan less groan less Shave then dress Your stuff is folded In the hot press Right next to you sister’s summer dress. Emerge blinking and thinking Not shirking, stinking and sinking. Now go live more....

Terrence Thomas, Terry Gnomic, rotting from the inside out....

Pump me full of soma, For I’ve got a teratoma. Shred my pleura open, Making sure my ribs ain’t broken. Tear and cut and rend and scrape. Clean me out from stem to nape. Watch and wonder at this rot Comprised of muscle bone and snot, Image and likeness of God it’s not. Me, I’d call up Ridley Scott. Patch me up as best you can I’ll be as brave as any man Faced with an uncertain fate The fear is only in the wait, Lying here I can envision Each clinically precise incision Lying here for my physician My life, the price of each decision. So pump me full of soma I’ve got a date with knives. Be thankful for mundanities Don’t wish away your lives....

Work, Love, Fear and Other Stuff: Seamus Heaney...

In normal poetry, you’d expect predictability: love poems would be “soppy”, “full of flowers and chocolates and stuff”, rhyming; also, poetry is more often than not confusing, boring, dull. However, Heaney’s work makes you think. He uses unusual comparisons: in “The Skunk” he likens his wife to a skunk: Your head-down, tail-up hunt in a bottom drawer In “The Pitchfork,” a banal, everyday object is described as if it were some kind of futuristic spaceship: He would see the shaft of a pitchfork sailing past Evenly, imperturbably through space He is a master of description; take this line from “The Underground”: To end up in a draughty lamplit station In “A Constable Calls”, we get this about a gun: I sat staring at the polished holster With its buttoned flap, the braid cord Looped into the revolver butt. There is a strong sense of place in other poems like “The Tollund Man”: Out there in Jutland In the old man-killing parishes I will feel lost, Unhappy and at home. Work is a major theme in Heaney’s poetry. Work is an art, a skill, something that allows us to express ourselves, find ourselves, cherish our identities through passionate exploration of what we have inside of us: Inside, the hammered anvil’s short-pitched ring, The unpredictable fantail of sparks Or hiss when a new shoe toughens in water. Work attains mythical, religious proportions: Horned as a unicorn, at one end square, Set there immovable: an altar His subject matter can be extraordinary. He can write interestingly about the most ordinary of things. In “Sunlight”, he describes a “sunlit absence” and imagines that a water pump is an oven: The helmeted pump in the yard heated its iron There is a sense of warmth in the poem. The...

Diary of a Dictator by Daniel Dilworth...

Deal Dialy, So, I had this blight idea of thleatening those Ovel the Rine. You know how? Of coulse you do! Waln them of impending nucreal wal, that I can nuke them in an houl and watch ’em get scaled. Rovely job! One catch though. We ale stirr getting aid flom those infidelrs acloss the Watel. Uncre tord me not to do anything lash, just a rittre dlirr alound the City. So thele ale the sordiels at six o’ crock in the night when what wourd happen? The rights went out. In Fleedom Squale! That shourdn’t happen! Fulthelmole, I had no access to that yoke the common man is banned flom. What do they carr it? The Intelnet I think. That meant no IntiPipe for me. Keept it cool Dialy, and untir next time! Naghag...

Georg Baselitz & David Hockney in the Guggenheim...

  Georg Baselitz’s upside-down paintings in Room 103 of the Guggenheim in Bilbao… There are these upside-down paintings, arranged in an alternating pattern of dark and bright depictions, each of two figures. They’ve got zany titles like, Joseph chased away the Bandura player with his Stuka and Piet’s apparatus have [sic] become useless, too many tears have cauterized the mechanism. The latter painting is black, white and yellow, depicting two male-like figures upside-down who appear to be sitting with their hands on their knees. It’s not clear which one is Piet though the figure on the left does seem to have black tears, like wires. The one on the right could be a woman because it appears to wear a skirt; but then it also has something of a Fu Manchu growing on its face. The latter painting, a white, teal, blue, pink, yellow and black affair appears to show Stalin and Lenin. A third piece is the most colourful of all and has, like the others, two figures; again they seem to be Stalin and Lenin sitting beside each other. This one’s called “Lucian y Frank al aire libre.” Another room features stuff by Hockney… One in particular of Bolton Junction has a man standing at a crossroads looking at the viewer; its colours are drab – mostly grey, black and white with different shades of darker green; it makes me think of Robert Johnson’s Crossroads – it’s spare and sad. On the wall at the entrance to room 202 it explains that Hockney spent time in Yorkshire to be with his terminally-ill friend Jonathan Silver who had bought some place called Salts Mill in Saltaire to display Hockney’s work. Other than the man at the junction, there are incredibly loud and crazily-colourful...

Cheap Tricks: Iguana in my Pants by SwagDaddy...

  I grabbed the iguana and shoved it in my pants. I had already decided to name him Jerry. Jerry didn’t like being shoplifted. As I tried to stroll nonchalantly out of the shop, my pants started wriggling: “For God’s sake Jerry, just chill.” Shouting at my crotch wasn’t even the worst mistake I made that day. The guy behind the counter looked up and just sighed defeatedly, his greasy hair dipping into his bowl of spaghetti hoops. “Look buddy, please take your weird shit outside.” I’m pretty sure he muttered, ” I hate my life so much,” but I couldn’t be sure as I hightailed it out of there. Jerry got a few dirty looks on the bus home but he took less notice of them than a fat-chick-whose-boyfriend-just-left-her eating a rasher and jaffa cake McFlurry. He’s pretty cool like that. When we got home, we just chilled for a while and smoked some weed. Well, I did, he just kind of sat there on the couch, watching Cops until his eyes glazed over. If you take just one thing away from this, it’s that an iguana’s leg will not grow back if you cut it off with a scissors. Seriously, don’t listen to the Internet, he’s lying. My friends have taken to calling Jerry “Donald Stump”. I know he’d be laughing if he could. He’s pretty chill that...

Cheap Tricks: Missing Ear by Chris Reynolds...

Having been voted the world’s greatest stone skimmer Charlie was on a high. Every stone he touched turned to gold. He could not be stopped at the recent stone skimming championships. After winning the title a party was thrown. Screams were heard from an outside tent where Charlie was. As everyone approached they saw that his faced was covered in blood. His left ear had been robbed. His life was ruined. How could he maintain his balance with only one...

Cheap Tricks: Coming up short...

I had been there before, on some drunken Tuesday, a monstrous evening of cheap Aldi wine and itchy denim. But this time…this time it was different. My hand was bigger, more expressive, an artist’s hand. I clutched, I kneaded, I choked it for all it was worth but it was still, well, gone. I was finally, undoubtedly, categorically dickless. Where’d I put the bloody...

Fork

I sat at a café, smoking; A light grey pinstripe suit Watched his wife get up and go; We both reached at once – I, for the saucer He with the sparkle. I watched the item sail In an ‘n’, straight from the hip – Complete with a wrist-twist, Eyes welded to the jack-in-the-box door: It was a fork. And it had been in his hand, In his pocket. R.H.; G.D.; M.K.; J.V.; A.C.; D.N.            ...

Monologue: Au Laboureur...

In the bar we chose the barmaid was drunk, high or possibly retarded. She was dancing or rather trotting grotesquely behind the bar. I was afraid of her. She might have been reasonably pretty once, or twice, but no longer. When I approached and found a niche at the far end of the bar I had to look at the woman so as to ask her for two Duvels but she was walking backwards and shaking her dyed blonde locks. I imagined it may have been a moonwalk once, or twice. It digusted me. I fixed my face in a defensive smile and prepared for the moment when she’d look at me, when her eyes would shift, much like a cannon is turned upon a newly-discovered foe on a hill opposite the castle. I’d need that smile to say that I didn’t detest her, which I didn’t – though she was revolting. But I feared my mask might betray me and fall off the stilts on which it was standing, trying to perform for me the role of a happy-go-lucky punter who just wants a drink and a laugh and prefers drunk, overly-friendly barmaids. The cannon turned and faced me and I half-expected a salvo of metal sphere. Instead, she made a strange face, as if an invisible troll had grabbed her ear and twisted it, turning her head to one side. It took a second or two before I knew it meant she wanted my order. I told her and she reached for the money and shook it like more notes might fall from it. It was just a prop in the performance. I wondered who it was she was most interested in impressing: “Fun-loving, still-cool, older woman seeks younger, desperate, naive man...