Last Night

First of all - I said the poem on the phone to my Mam, the one I'd learned off for the occasion, she said it was "Genius, Brilliant, etc etc" sometimes they say the right things. Then spoke to a very distinguished poet friend whose advice was to pretend any 15 minute pauses were avant garde, and call them all losers if they didn't get it.

Myself, himself, Oub, MB, and co were safely ensconced in front of the "stage" well before the show kicked off.

Host Stephen James Smith started things off with his version of 1913, and put every one at ease with his laid back friendly hosting style, a true gent.

I was psychotically repeating the poem to myself again and again for most of the next two hours, but was shaken out of the nerves by alot of the acts that were on before me, alot of them were so great they distracted me right away from thoughts of the utter humiliation that lay ahead when I'd go up and mumble something incoherent and be booed off. There was a guy from the Netherlands who shocked us all with his "I can't believe it's not Luke Kelly" but better than the usual "I can't believe it's not Luke Kelly" voice. There was the hilarious Aiden O Reilly, a great young comic, genuinely clever, a joy to watch. There were several other brilliant music acts, an outstanding guy from Longford, a guy with floppy hair who has an anonymous mandolin playing friend, a brilliant fella with a Cohenesque song about "Forests of song". (I know this is a really helpful review for anyone who wants to go and see these people, sorry I'm just crap with names - if anyone reading this knows their names pls comment below)

There were other poets, SJS - the maestro treated us to a lovely one about a sunset, and a delightful tale about where he was when he wrote it. Matt Bolton, a fellow Lucanite writer went on, 2nd last before me. That's when things got a bit sticky. He told me it was only his second time reading, so of course I was hoping he'd utterly mess up, say things wrong and run off crying. Unfortunately he did a great reading, and I know size doesn't matter but his poems are so much longer than mine! He had some real beauts and even made some off the cuff comments. The fecker. So there I was, really under pressure, at least he hadn't learned any of his off, ha - brevity pays off at last.

I eventually got called up, and said my poem. The poem that the goldfish nearly know off by heart at this stage, because I'd been trying so desperately hard to make sure I wouldn't forget it.

Here tis by the way - by popular demand (thanks Oub!) - written during my angst ridden computerless evening last week.

Techno Tribes

Children scream,

Their only mode

of being seen

Adults Shout

Along the road

M50 rage. All Out.

Don't you touch my van.

Don't you "Don't" me man.

All anger full.

Bile rich, nice poor.

Kicking heels, licking windows, not answering the door -

Our friends are on facebook, on myspace, on twitter.

Strangers stay strangers. And we'll never get fitter

squandering lives on bebos blogs and so on -

By the way, mine's variouscushions.blogspot.com

I forgot -

I forgot how to meet real people years back.

Defence being the best form of attack,

I'll defriend you if you call be a hack,

All while ignoring the complete, utter, lack,

of any real life

in my life.

- so that was it, went down well, people listened, (a very nice lady with impeccable taste even told me afterwards that she thought it was great) laughed at the right place(s) and I somehow remembered every line without stammering or stuttering at all. Then I took out me little red note book and read another, only had the one more ready to hand, so that's all I did, but I tell ya it was the easiest poem I ever read out - after the stress of the first one, and again got a warm response.

Lovely place - downstairs in the International Bar on Monday nights, check it out, google Stephen James Smith and book a spot to read/ play right now, you won't regret it. See you there.