The Enchanted Bus of life

This week's tough but straight forward bus challenge was to write

"Poems that address your existence on this earth. Good, bad, or indifferent, tell us something, anything, about your life here." from the wonderful Enchanted Oak - visit her here for further bus Passengers

Here's what I got:

Reaching

Driven to seek out comforts
I steal to the cosiest spot of a messy room
Crave a smile through gloom
Want to see bright in all
and feel
Feel all there is
All textures, temperatures, tastes, triumphs, terrors
Kiss every face, wear every kind of lace there is
bootleg, dead queen, liquorice,
Dream of crazy races, paces, lifetimes in alien lands
and understand
the canned laughter, the over planned,
the fake wasted grandiose delinquent strands will grow out their bleach some day
Give way to wavy beaches, stony, grey – but real and speaking wisdom
Laughing back the spray onto the shore
and more

Harry Clarke's Stained Glass on the Radio

This weekend I will have a jam packed studio with Lucy Costigan, Raymond McGovern, Theresa Cullen and Micheal Cullen all joining me in the studio. They have all been embarking over the past two years on a fantastic exploration of the work of Harry Clarke, one of Ireland's artistic heroes. This has culminated in a book, film and website documenting their work and their discoveries on his work.

A little about the star of the show:
Harry Clarke (1889-1931) created spectacular stained-glass windows for churches
and private patrons in Ireland, England, the United States and Australia. Born in
Dublin in 1889, Clarke developed a unique style and technique in stained glass that
combined deep rich colours with beautiful, elongated figures that exuded poise and
grace. His deep blues and ruby reds became the hallmark of his work. Clarke is
considered to rank among the masters of stained glass, with Tiffany, Burne-Jones and
the medieval colourists.
You'll find examples of his work over on their website http://www.harryclarke.net/
Here us all talking live about this marvellous adventure on Liffey Sound, this Sunday, at 4pm. (5am in Alaska)

Silliness surrounding elephants

Yesterday's poem reminded me of some age old questions and answers

such as

How do you kill a blue elephant?
Shoot him with a blue elephant gun

How do you kill a red elephant?
Leave him out in the cold till he turns blue, then shoot him with a blue elephant gun

How do you kill a green elephant?
Heat him up till he turns red, then leave him out in the cold till he turns blue, then shoot him with a blue elephant gun

How do you kill a yellow elephant?
Tell him about environmental issues till he turns green, then heat him up till he turns red, then leave him out in the cold till he turns blue, then shoot him with a blue elephant gun

How do you kill a pink elephant?
There's no such thing as a pink elephant

A Poem which attempts to dissuade you from bringing your Elephant to the Dáil

A word of warning.....

A Poem which attempts to dissuade you from bringing your Elephant to the Dáil

Don't bring your Elephant to the Dáil

I don't care if he likes Labour, Greens, or Fianna Fáil,

He wouldn't fit in there at all, 't all, at all

No he wouldn't fit in the Oireachtas

He'd be sure to annoy the poor aul Cheann Chomhairle

He wouldn't sit still, go to sleep, like them all, yeah

He'd be sure to vote wrong, then have to call ye

And say, "We did our best and they mocked us"

Yes, you'll soon find your Ivory toothed friend

is prone to the Royal "we" which no end

annoys all the politicians, who tend

to find trunks more inclined to get blocked, thus

There'd be so many problems, no bail out could solve

so pack him his trunks, tell him better evolve

get on with his life, cos you won't be involved

No Dáil for your elephant today

Losing one

Well, I've lost a follower, I've no idea who it was, but my 52 strong army of fans has reduced to 51. Never mind. They won't ever read this, but it's very possible that they have too much sympathy with the meany-pants quitter birds of last week's fame.

They'll also never know about the fabulous book of myths launching this week in Tallaght's fabby doo arts centre - Rua Red, Wednesday at 7pm.

Writers of the South Dublin County persuasion were asked by the brilliant Eileen Casey to contribute a new myth set within the area. It's a wonderful little book with fantastic flights of fancy, explanations of local places, names etc, and some of the writers will be reading from their work on the night.

My myth explains how Citywest got its name and why golf is still played there to this day.
It was a great and fun project to take part in, and one I think could be very easily and successfully transferred to other places....

Anyways - see ye there (except for the meany-pants quitter bird lover)

Karen's Decision Bus

See here for this week's Bus Prompt from the very brilliant Karen

And below is my little attempt (on the plus side - it's very short)

Deciding to Go

Walls sang with mats from different beers

and I, curled up with ruffled thoughts

was thrown to chance of changing tunes

one sign post in the town just told the place

threads of drifting friendships were rewound

and stored

so, carefully I packed myself away

to seep back through the cracks on distant days

Brian Lynch on the Radio

This week's guide on the Sunday Scrapbook weekly trip into terrific-ness is Brian Lynch, a dubliner, living in dublin - his first book of poems 'Endsville' (with Paul Durcan) was published in 1967 - and he has published more than 10 books of verse since - including one translation, ‘Paul Celan: 65 Poems’ (Raven Arts Press 1986). Samuel Beckett nominated him for election to Aosdána in 1985, praising his 'exceptional talent'. He is also a dramatist for stage, screen and television. His book on the artist Tony O'Malley (New Island) is now in its third edition. His first novel, ‘The Winner of Sorrow’ , based on the life of the poet William Cowper was published in 2005, and his latest novel is called "The Woman not the name." He is this years judge for the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award for first unpublished collections of poetry.
His chosen theme is "Magic in Literature" and you'll hear us as usual on Sunday over on Liffey Sound - link on the right there to listen live at 4pm (8pm in Tashkent), or catch up on the archive later, if that's the type of person you are. :-)

Chasing the dark

The reason for the darker mornings during winter is because there are less and less birds around to chase the darkness away with their morning chorus. The birds who have decided to stick with the job find it harder and harder to get rid of the dark when there are fewer of them around to dispel it, therefore it takes longer. The problem is that migratory (otherwise known as quitter meany-pants) birds have moved off to warmer climes, leaving the locals to handle the job on their own. They leave at a certain stage of the year when they feel the dark has put on too much weight, and won't be as easily lifted. Of course this entices the darkness to arrive early as well, knowing it'll get a good lie in, it senses the fact that there are less feathery fiends around to scare it off the next day.

THE SOLUTION:

I propose that we start building cages NOW for next year, in an effort to keep the migratory (quitter meany-pants) birds in their places. They'll get used to staying around after awhile - and if they can be convinced to keep up the singing - then we can say goodbye to winter forever...

It's just a thought

A Poem which attempts to dissuade you from bringing your Tapeworm to Yamamori

With apologies to Noodle lovers everywhere....

A Poem which attempts to dissuade you from bringing your Tapeworm to Yamamori *
.
Don't bring your tapeworm to Yamamori
He'd end up feeling grey and hoary
The staff would shout "HEY! what's the story?"
Twould be just like dynamite
.
For Tapeworms don't like Japaneses
Preferring to ask politicians for cheeses
Or watch Ben Hur, the Passion, anything about Jesus
They'd watch those old films all night
.
But tapeworms don't have table manners
they're much maligned by wedding planners
and their scolex look like a bag full of spanners
no, keep home this bold parasite
.
He wouldn't be able to get chopsticks to work
And if he fell in with the noodles, he'd surely lurk
And no one could save him from a chef gone berserk
No Yamamori for your Tapeworm today

*Yamamori Noodles are a very popular and lovely chain of Japanese style restaurants around Dubland, for the international amongst you readers.

So now we know why she was homeless

The dog that is.... How such an intelligent, gentle and friendly creature ever got thrown out of any household just before Christmas of last year was beyond us... Until now.

No sooner was Halloween over than she went ballistic decorating the house with festive fake snow, impressively improvised from the inners of her bed. She is a Christmas nut. I dread to think what will happen when decorations appear.

Her tail was in shot in this picture but she was wagging so hard it was impossible for the camera to keep up.