RUSHING TO CATCH THE FERRY !!!

Ok, the ferry is not until tomorrow, but I take a long time to rush.And I'm bringing 2 bags with me this time as 1 bag was not enough last time.Do you see how I evolve? Darwin would be proud of me.

Now instead of emptying one whole bag of stuff out onto the floor to find me sandwiches, I will put them in a SEPERATE BAG!! Genius!!

In fact I will take this new travel theory to it's zenith and bring 36 bags.Each with it's own individual item in. Brilliant! And you can fuck off Ryanair beacause this is a BOAT and you can bring a hundred bags or a cow onto it at no extra charge.(Not sure about the cow actually, I think they class that as an extra passenger and charge accordingly, unless you put it in your sandwich and then it would be free)

So I'm going to bed early now and I'll be away at cockshout tomorrow (10.30 am)but I'll be back home next Sunday and will read all the bus poems then.People of the world I love you all and I'll bring back presents for everybody.Why? Because you're worth it, that's why.And because they won't charge me any extra for the 600 Billion bags.

Toodle pip pip!

xxx TFE.

Va Va BOOM! It's THE BUS wit Bonkers BILL!

So Bill has set us a tricky set of instructos, some passengers have leapt aboard , others have crumbled by the wayside waiting for the chipper van and performing seals. Could be a long wait.

But anyway we had to think of/steal a line, delete the second half of it and invent new endings and then boil it for 20 mins, leave to simmer for a further 20 then serve (cooled) on a bed of rice with a Domestos and paraquat dressing.

I was going to explain the provenance of this poem to explain it a bit but I've lost the plot so I might do it later. Best just post the thing now. My line was from the Yeats poem called ' Ireland 1913' ......and was 'Romantic Ireland's dead and gone.'

Romantic Ireland retched and wrung,

Dead and gone.Half-cut pilgrim

Cold shouldered in The International.

A drunken parody plastic Saint Francis

broken and betrayed,

sandwiches soup and beds made

not for sleep for lying in.Barman

in namesake dungeon 15 Baggot street,

casts a cold eye and cold tongue.

Kavanagh no ghost to be seen

Save for the obscene boredom, neglect

Nurtured in McDaids off Graffton Boulevard

Memories left to the picture postcards

who will remember to weep dry tears

for words so poor in spirit.

To save myself from hypocrisy,

the price of a last glass,

every coin posessed fumbled

with slur of patronising words

to grubby styrofoam.

The vultures have their pick

Dole out the liquid drugs

Behan battered nobody

Buried in some forgotten hole

the kindness of strangers lives on without us

Ferried off to some foreign land

Like O’Leary In his grave.

GET ON BONKERS BILL'S BUS

Many thanks to Teressa for the brilliant driving lastio weeker.T put neither dent nor scratch upon the Poetry Buses gleaming red paintwork.In fact T actually washed and polished her , so she's gleaming and ready to GO!

T has thrown over the starting gelignite to Bonkers Bill.Who has set a mission impossible stylee task. You should eat all his instructos after you have read them.

So get ye abroad to the land of Bill and decipher the convoluted codices that Bill found on a Greek Island holiday.Poetry will flow like the waters of the rivey styx, so have a cup of tea and a Twix and get righting! Ya dig? Ya gotta fight for you write to party.So put away your bukes and stick up yer dukes, bob n weave and nip and tuck asnd duck and dive into those freeflowin waters that will bring us to Eldorado or Eastenders or East Croydon, or somewhere. To join in the fun and the frollicks never mind the bollicks clickety click two fat swans a swimming the channel covered in goose fat, how strange is that? HERE

BONKERS BILL IS DRIVING !!!!

BILL is setting this weeks poetry bus challenge and I am rushing for a real bus.Getye over to him


HERE

Rushing so much I posted this on the wrong blog be bollix!

THE MAN WHOSE HEAD EXPLODED!

This weeks Poetry Bus is being beautifully driven by Teressa , clicky on the linky for details of how to hop on board HERE


Don't let the bus run out of road,MORE DRIVERS REQUIRED. JUST PUT YOUR NAME/ PSEUDONYM in the comments box and the keys will be all yours. Think of the POWER!

Here is my response to Teressa's fabulosa picture.



THE MAN WHOSE HEAD EXPLODED

Thinking.
That’s a journey you don’t want to take
Stick to the familiar
Watch Eastenders, Or
Take up knife fighting
Thinking takes you out of your depth
Stay in the shallow end of thought


an umbilical cord to bring you back
Thought is a poetry death wish
Your minds eye a microscope
Poised above the Petri dish
Watching a million things divide and multiply

Can you try this jacket on for size
See how it wraps you tight
Saves you from yourself?
Think of it as a life jacket
No strings attached
Except of course that there ARE strings attached
Padded walls? Suits you sir!

So the thoughts collide and bounce and bark
Like Pavlov’s dog each time your alarm bell rings
Whispers shout louder than things
That go bump in the night
More fragile than you might think,
Than you might…imagine
And then the answers, Oh ! The answers.
A billion bacteria for each amoeba.
Musical crescendo disjointed
That’s when your head,
that dull mono note, explodes.

The Weekly Poetry Bus Challenge

Well folks last weeks exercise by the wonderful Barbara Smith ( HERE ) yielded, I think, some of the best responses ever.And I've said that a few times so things are looking mighty healthy.
So thanks a million to Barby who has thrown the starting handle across the pond to Terresa HERE

Take a look at The Poetry Bus Magazine blog when you get a chance and keep an eye out as the submisions request for issue 2 will be out shortly. BUS

THE (virtual weekly) POETRY BUS

Driven this week by Terresa... HERE

THE POETRY BUS MAG BLOG IS BORN !!

Come and join in the fun and frollicks where poetry rules and funding is Bollix.

POETRY BUS MAG BLOG

To be fair to Artslinks

To be fair to Artslinks they took the trouble to reply and give feedback. The panelists said.....

'No supporting material. I'd like to see some of his poetry and also
experience in editing a journal / magazine for publication'.

'No supporting material supplied. The proposal is poorly written, which
does not auger well for a publication project'.

I have to take this on the chin.Although in my defence I thought the project and stellar line up spoke for itself for anyone who knows anything about poetry.And funnily enough though I supremely lack talent in life to an enormous degree ,if there is one tiny area where I might show a modicum of ability it is writing, so 'poorly written' stings.

I will forward a copy of the finished article to Artslinks.

I think the problem is that the Arts funding system is, at best,(I'll keep my 'at worst' theories to myself for now) based on the survival of the slickest. Artslinks admits as much by running courses that include tuition in how to apply for funding.This is in itself a good thing in the current system.I however believe we should fuck the system.

Arts shouldn't be a slick business surely it should be a haven for the bumbling the wordly inadequate the shy but talented people who have opted out of the commercial business slick world?
It worries me that only a certain proficient type of voice can be tolerated while others less 'loud' and 'shiny' regardless of the promise or talent they may harbour, go unheeded and unfunded.

I think too that we are fucked because we are poets.That puts us at the bottom of the pile.We are literatures poorer cousin who itself sits beneath all other forms of art with visual art the only true artistic form.

I think they may be right.You cannot compare a picture to a poem.They are a different species.Artists/ art boards/ arts councils do not understand poetry.

In fact I would like to declare that they are right.Poetry is NOT an art.Fuck it till we get our own boards our own category seperate from 'Art' we don't stand a chance.To make matters worse here in Ireland we are, on a government department level, lumped in with 'Tourism culture and sport' How the fuck can that be? That's too wide a spectrum.It's totally absurd.

So we are on our own, out in the cold, and by fuck I'm more delighted than disappointed. Hell hath no fury nor determination like an EEjit scorned. GRRrrr!

My ,God, I don't believe it.

Ok, so we were rejected by Artslinks.Though disappointed I had to realise that no matter how good your project not everybody can be funded.There's just not enough money to go round which makes the process a bit of a lottery.Disappointing but can't really be helped.

BUT wait till you hear this, WICKLOW ARTSLINKS HAD €6,000 FUNDS AND AWARDED ONLY €1,500 !!!! So in their eyes it wasn't fierce competition after all, in their eyes The Poetry Bus magazine is NOT WORTHY OF FUNDING at all, ever, full stop.Iknow it's my project and all but for fuck's sake!!! That is a nonsense.I'm fucking apopleptic with rage.


And to rub salt into raw and weeping wounds and to give another swift kick to the teeth listen to this, if you read my post below about wicklow only funding VISUAL arts, you'll know what I mean, The only 2 recipients of money in Wicklow were... drum roll pause baited breath, yes you guessed it, VISUAL ARTISTS!!

I give up.

Seriously pissed off now.(Not really)

The Poetry Bus Magazine funding REJECTED by Artslinks (Arselinks)yes I am bitter and twisted and hypocritical as I would have been singing their praises had filthy lucre been winging it's way Castlewards.

In all honesty I take a peverse delight in rejection and get further steel in my determination to publish this excellent publication come hell or 20 pints of Guinness.If I can do it without any kind of funding at all I would be all the happier. Fuck the lot of them!

In short I'm gonna pay for it myself. I would have done this ages ago but severe negative finances make it very tricky.I know however I will get my (borrowed ) money back, hopefully before someone breaks my legs.

So if YOU yes YOU have any interest in buying The Poetry Bus Magazine (details to follow) please express your interest in the comments box. Let me know how many copies you would like, please order as many as you can to sell to friends etc.If I know roughly how many I can initially sell ,I'll know how many to order.Simples! I'm hoping to keep the price to a rock bottom bargainsville €5/$6.25/£4.29 plus P+P because I want to get it out there.

This weeks ethernetBUS is being most brilloish drively by the world famous poet and soprano Barbaro Smith. See HERE

She gave us the first line of.."I got down on my knees and smelled the new linoleum...

I changed it slightly but a nods as good as a wink to a man with his head in a Hawthorn bush My effort is not a WIP (work in progress) but best described as a RIP (a rant in progress) Drink and loud music to blame.

Pilgrims progress

I got down on my knees to pray and smelled the new linoleum.

Twas better than waking up to smell the coffee

And I needed to get away from the fumes of the paraffin stove

The nearest thing we had to a loaded shotgun

Eco friendly under floor heating windmills in the skyline

Solid fuel solidarity parity of pay of opportunity

On our knees ice on the floor cancer in our hearts

Corrugated iron kept the winds at bay

Bay windows double-glazed south facing Agapanthian blooms of love

Life money in the pocket where dreams once rubbed with bare knuckles

Lies so deep, life so cheap, the brand new ML 350 Jeep on the gravel extended driveway

Stairways rendered to heaven help us Jacob's ladder broken

God turning in his grave not in my name black-hearted priest

St Francis of Assisi on the highway beaten and blackguarded

Money in the plate for golden crowns Pontiff Pilots ,Mammon we love you

Your altars surround us, poets clamouring to pat each other, Mwah!, Mwah!

Snake like conceits of kisses daggers held in abeyance for the summit supper

My back backstabbed/ backscratched like yours, like mine, keep the plate clean pass the buck, the honey, the bees knees aren’t we, la plus ca change.

keeping it tightknit literary community Arts practice the ball of plenty to ourselves snout first in the trough

Pass it on amongst us keep it to ourselves the goal is our goal the gold is our goal

Alchemists we plunder dissect reject renew gametes divide and rule

Forgetting we were stuck travellers once on the road the Mohican boreen

Grass bled green from our teeth

Fear now holds tight now drowning in the waters of our greed

Rattling raw towards the hollow empty grave a finish line unseen

Conversely this has nothing to do with linoleum, sometimes I just get tired of fighting.

Summer breeze

I remember when dreams were dreams, not memories

And we wore platform shoes

And train tracks led to somewhere

Not the hell out

I remember when the sun shone and reddened our necks

When we pumped water from the well

And the coldness of it’s clarity took us by surprise

Our turf cut hands healed quicker than

Our broken hearts

But nothing was forever

That was for the old

Something we would never be

Fortunes told by a pack of cards glances given on the dancefloor

Like your life depended on it

Heightened summer love

A different girl each year, like the seasons

Things bloomed then fell

By the canal we walked, in Gleeson’s bar we talked

The river was too wide the Winters were too wild

So we sat in buttercup meadows and made love

While we could.

I'm up to me oxters in debt ,delirium, depression and a savage rake of conundrums.

Well done to Padhraig Nolan who gainfully and most ably chucked da charabangus down the potry laden photographic lanes of Scalderville.Many thanks to himself and the multifarious bus poets what jumped aboard for red lemonade and chaise and onio crispeens. Tis some mighty poems that ye did come up with and I enjoyed readings the lot o them.

This weeks drively perso is none other than the world famous poet, shoe fetishist and mother of sixteen, Barbara Smith.She has given us a prompt which has me googles all of a gaggle with synapses firing hither and thither like a cerebral Bren gun.And seeing as we is all starting with the same seed it's gonna be doubly interesto to see what germinates and blooms in the nebulous Zen poetry bus zeitgeist zoo garden.
Take a looky-see HERE

Elsewhere in the metropopist. A while ago The Poetry Bus magazine project was REJECTED by Wicklow Arse Office.Their august panel of professional prize giving pundits decided that the following (see below) were more worthy, more needy, more laudable, more fundable more fantastic than the world's second greatest poetry mag with @30 talented new, nearly new, and established poets. I knew we were rejected but here now is who were accepted and it seems the rumours that they favour visual arts were borne out.

Wicklow County Arts Office

Recommendations for Arts Bursaries and Awards 2010

Individual Artist Bursaries

Artist	Discipline	Details	Recommended
Yanny Petters	Visual Arts	To realise a new glass project	750.00
James Merrigan	Visual Arts	To realise a new site specific project	1,000.00
Sam Keogh	Visual Arts	To support the development of his practice	750.00
Damien Flood	Visual Arts	To support the artists preparation of two new substantial projects	1,500.00
Sinead Ni Mhaonaigh	Visual Arts	To support the artists participation in a new project and exhibition	1,500.00
Anna Rosenfelder	Puppetry & Early Theatre	To support the artists training and development	1,000.00
Total Awarded			6,500.00

Artist Project/Education Award

Artist	Discipline	Details	Recommended
Aisling Gibney	Film	To support the artists training and development	1,000.00
Ross Scanlon	Opera	To support the artists training and development	1,500.00
Tasmin Clare Snow	Visual Arts	To support the artists participation in a residency project	1,000.00
Kate Warner	Visual Arts	To support the artists participation in a new project	1,000.00
Total Awarded			4,500.00

Arts Festival Awards 2010

Arts Groups & Organisations

Group	Discipline	Details	Recommended
West Wicklow Arts Network	Multi-disciplinary	To support the artistic fees associated with the provision of an arts programme in a rural context	2,000.00
Space Inside Arts Group	Multi-disciplinary	To support the provision of the club programme	500.00
Curious Tale Theatre Company	Theatre	To support an artist led project	1,500.00
Conary Community Arts	Multi-disciplinary	To support the development of an arts programme in a rural context	2,000.00
Total Awarded			6,000.00

Festival Name	Discipline	Panal Comments	Recommended
Killruddery Film Festival	Film	Killruddery Arts have produced a fine programme with a clear application. Funding towards related artistic fees	2,000.00
Bray Jazz Festival	Music	Excellent programme of jazz events Nationally recognised and a key cultural tourist attraction in the Bray calander	5,000.00
Dunlavin Festival of Arts	Multi-disciplinary	Varied Programme of events support offered specifically towards the visual arts element	500.00
Wicklow Arts The Festival	Multi-disciplinary	Varied programme of events and workshops throughout Wicklow Town	1,150.00
Calary Arts Festival	Music	Programme of Music Events @ Calary	1,350.00
Total Awarded			10,000.00

Looking at that lot quite clearly poetry/literature doesn't merit funding at all. Virtually the only 'Art' existing in the Wicklow world is visual.
Once again disappointed but not the least bit surprised.There is still the Artlinks bursaries to be announced and I have one other last funding straw to be grabbed at soWatch this space! Not literally. So stop now. Really.

Go on, you can go now, away with ye, begone!Feck off! But be sure and come back.

THE POETRY SCUTTLE !!!!

Im way in 5 mins.No planes. Getting the ferry. Back Tuesday.

Get ye over to the magnifico Padhraig Nolan for this weeks Poetry Scuttle task..... HERE

That fucghin thing hasn't worked has it? Find ye Padhraig Nolan he be on me side bar somewhere the Scalder village voice.

FIXED IT!!

Almost Blue

Blue is the colour of the night
black is the colour of my heart
speaking could shatter the scene
Almost blue
all the things I saw in your eyes
proves you only see what
you want
to see

Almost blue
twenty years in the painting
picture this reality
the concept the practicality lost
panic on the streets of my mind
details I recognised but never knew
things aren't said
because they are true

lies are told not to deceive
because they are almost
touching, so close to fact, so
matter of fact, so
Almost blue,

smoke screened revolution underground
in the bars the clubs, the night,
the moment, the crux of our discontent
car crash suicide, midnight lay-by
blow-by-blow job

How did I live this long
who was there to remind me
there was no future
one way ticket Babylon

fallen to the slab you have no choice
but to see the stars
how little they could mean
in harsh reality
the pernicious beatification
left to the poets
no dirt beneath their nails
to explain to us how it should be

WATERCATS ON THE BUS CALLED POTTERY

This weeks cutlery drawer is driven by the rather talented, soon to be seen on 'Later' with Jools Holland, singing ensemble, the fabuloso 'Watercats'.They hit us not with a rythm stick but with the fantastico theme from the moniker of the late Mr Dury's song 'Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll'.

A reaction to this was not only to be writed but also recordified! Rimmmskyyyykorsikov!

The writification of the verbals took less than 5 mins, the recordo took about half an earth hour, but the uploadifiying to vidleotube took FOREVER!
While I waited, I wrote a 600 page novel and carved an impressive impression of the dangling gardeniums of Babylonia out of my back teeth which had fallen out from sheer boredom.

Ivory is banned but EEjit teeth are legit so this sculptural beauty is for sale at a reasonable €2000 and can be shipped (at no additional cost) to anywhere in the world, except Carlow.
(An embargo on the transportation of human teeth, not attached to a living head, has been in place there since the great Gold Tooth Rush of '64.)

For other bus poets clicky ye HERE

(Black gloves, white frost,black crepe, white lead,
white sheet, black knight, jet black, dead white)
From Sweet Gene Vincent by Ian Dury.

Wasted.

Too far gone for sex and drugs or rock and roll

I’m over Beethoven, I’m the last of the Mohicans

The dynasty of the dinosaur

Too old to live too young to die

I’m stuck in the middle without you

Medicated mendicant fucked up philanderer

Dead beat downbeat pretender

I thought I could have been a contender

See the spark snuffed out drowned

Clown about town

Arrogance of youth to waste

Oiling the wheels of commotion

Volcanos of emotion

Pool hall cannonball

Jack the Hat, dragon-chased

God didn’t bless you Dark Donegal

Nor Nenagh from the phone box

In Borrisokane, to the world of

Dominion, Roxy, Roundhouse ,

Hammersmith Odeon, Spread Eagle, Stretford.End.

Scarred up lines of jacked-up escape

Painting the town with blood

Red revolution deep down knowing no better

Despite it all, some nights I never go to sleep

And it all amounted to a heavenly despair

Graveyard ticket one way tripped out

Wonder. Wasted. Only, if only, my bones were broken

But worst of all, there’s still you,

and you are the one that’s gone.

BUS DRIVERS REQUIRED- JOIN HANDS!

Reasonable hours, NO pay, but unequalled job satisfacto! I'm delighted with the world trip. I think the diversity of the impetus, the creativity, is totalo refreshing. Poetry is not best left to one person to suggest or , God forbid, dictate, how things should be.

The Poetry Bus has left home, I don't want it to come back, I'd like it to continue on it's journey of discovery around the world. BUT I NEED DIVERS and PASSENGERS. There are no bad prompts, only different ones. Anybody can drive this bus, no MA required, no previous experience needed,no academic advantages, the less qualifications the better, the raw voice, the unheard missive,the misunderstood message, the lost and the lonely, all welcome here.Regardless of age, sex, creed, or colour. All can find sanctuary, and succour, AN OUTLET, on this rambling, ramshackle unshackled, red bus.


SICK OF THIS WORLD? All you who are broken in spirit ,the voiceless, the ignored, the rejected, come unto the bus and have your say.

For this weeks leg of an intergalactic exodus see the howling Uiscekateens ...
HERE