Dermott Hayes's Blog: Postcard from a Pigeon, page 14
July 30, 2017
July 29, 2017
July 28, 2017
SHALLOW
“I have feelings too,” he pleads, “if I’m cut, I bleed.”
‘Ha”, she mocked, “if you itch, you scratch, you hurt, someone else cries.”
“That’s so not true. I listen to Adele, don’t I?”
She’s shocked, speechless, “yes,” she snaps, “but it’s my album you listen to.”
HIDDEN
He tears the place apart. He feels drained and empty. She tells him he’s selfish and pathetic. He refuses to believe her, dismisses her as a ranting, spiteful, jealous woman, bent on revenge. ‘You can’t feel anything,” she screams. She’s right, he knows, but his feelings aren’t lost, they’re hidden.
Image: Addran – DeviantArt
July 27, 2017
Donkey Race in Lixnaw
An old short story from Postcard from a Pigeon and Other Stories
https://new2writing.wordpress.com/2016/05/02/maydays-prompt-odds-are-on/
I knew none of my companions before that evening. Yet here we were, all five of us, striding with intent, to our common destination.
A full moon swung in the air like a bare bulb in a dingy pub toilet. The path was wet and slimy from that evening’s summer downpour, slippy from the sodden daily grime of a country town’s streets, chip grease, spilt beer, puke and chewing gum. We trudged along purposefully and, it must be said, tipsily.
We were seeking arbitration and judgement on something that on a summer’s evening in a small town in north west Kerry raised issues as fundamental as birth and birthright.There was close to 750 Euro in side bets involved too.
It’s amazing what a night of carousing can be had from a summer’s night in a country pub with a town festival and carnival in full swing. The posters we…
View original post 2,902 more words
How Cool Works in America Today
By David Brooks
If you grew up in the 20th century, there’s a decent chance you wanted to be like Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, Humphrey Bogart, Albert Camus, Audrey Hepburn, James Dean or Jimi Hendrix. In their own ways, these people defined cool.
The cool person is stoical, emotionally controlled, never eager or needy, but instead mysterious, detached and self-possessed. The cool person is gracefully competent at something, but doesn’t need the world’s applause to know his worth. That’s because the cool person has found his or her own unique and authentic way of living with nonchalant intensity.
July 26, 2017
Zuppa Molly Malone – Daily Post photo prompt – Satisfaction
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/satisfaction/
When I’m not writing, I cook. I love this Italian soup, Zuppa di pesce Napolitano but this is my Dublin version because all the seafood’s from Dublin – cockles, mussels and Dublin Bay prawns.
[image error]
The Deal – #4 in the Taking Liberties Project
The Deal
By a busy city street
three men in a lane,
between the Middle East store
and Vicar St,
bent in business,
oblivious to the hub-bub,
rush hour people,
going home,
intent on the share,
the deal of their lives,
this minute.
Few words,
hungry eyes,
gaunt and haunted,
slaves of the powder
that owns them
while they buy it,
tossing them
like crumpled waste,
human garbage
for disposal.
In a blink
it’s done
one turns away,
the smiling dealer,
the others quarrel now
like two curs
in a bitter battle
for a scabby bone
dressed up
like juicy steak.
July 25, 2017
Libertie’s, a poem
I live in The Liberties, one of the oldest parts of the city of Dublin, the outer suburb of the medieval walled city where the native Irish lived to trade with and serve the city’s Norman rulers. It is an area rich with history and a strong sense of community.
The Bells of St Patrick’s is the first of a series of poems I plan to write about my home. It makes sense, I think, for a poet to reflect on their surroundings. Another poem in this series is Organic, a story about an historical incident when a wild fire created by an exploding bonded warehouse unleashed a river of burning whiskey that threatened to engulf the city until the chief fire officer, Robert Ingram, came up with a unique plan to stop it.
Jack Roche is a greengrocer. His shop is on Meath St, the commercial heart of the community. A visit to Jack’s shop is far more than a destination to buy fruit and vegetables. Jack is involved in the community. He’s a philosopher and a comedian, a historian and an intellectual. He loves folk music, crooners, jazz, swing and country. International artist, Imelda May grew up a short walk from Jack’s shop and there’s a photo of her and a personal message to Jack hanging in his shop.
So here’s my poem about Jack. I call it, The Libertie’s.
The Libertie’s
Jack closed his shop,
the lease was up,
the rent was rising,
but the joke’s on them.
Two weeks later,
he rose again,
a phoenix, unquenched
and undaunted.
People visit Jack’s,
buy a box of cherries,
a bag of tomatoes,
a melon to squeeze,
shoot the breeze,
a philosophical discourse
while Luke Kelly
sing about the love he lost
on Raglan Road.
He’ll fill your cart,
discussing Descartes.
[image error]
Taciturn, learned comic,
well read and involved,
with little time for fools
and all day to be foolish
among the fruit
and bags of curly Kale,
five types of spuds,
he’ll cut your turnip
and the parsley’s free.
What’s home,
is it where you’re known,
where you hang your hat,
and buy your food?
it’s there on Meath St,
The Liberties’ Greengrocer
where crooners sing
and fruit is counted
in grocer’s numbers,
where you’ll walk a mile
not just for the fare,
but the breadth of a smile.
[image error]
I live in The Liberties, one of the oldest parts of the c...
I live in The Liberties, one of the oldest parts of the city of Dublin, the outer suburb of the medieval walled city where the native Irish lived to trade with and serve the city’s Norman rulers. It is an area rich with history and a strong sense of community.
The Bells of St Patrick’s is the first of a series of poems I plan to write about my home. It makes sense, I think, for a poet to reflect on their surroundings. Another poem in this series is Organic, a story about an historical incident when a wild fire created by an exploding bonded warehouse unleashed a river of burning whiskey that threatened to engulf the city until the chief fire officer, Robert Ingram, came up with a unique plan to stop it.
Jack Roche is a greengrocer. His shop is on Meath St, the commercial heart of the community. A visit to Jack’s shop is far more than a destination to buy fruit and vegetables. Jack is involved in the community. He’s a philosopher and a comedian, a historian and an intellectual. He loves folk music, crooners, jazz, swing and country. International artist, Imelda May grew up a short walk from Jack’s shop and there’s a photo of her and a personal message to Jack hanging in his shop.
So here’s my poem about Jack. I call it, The Libertie’s.
The Libertie’s
Jack closed his shop,
the lease was up,
the rent was rising,
but the joke’s on them.
Two weeks later,
he rose again,
a phoenix, unquenched
and undaunted.
People visit Jack’s,
buy a box of cherries,
a bag of tomatoes,
a melon to squeeze,
shoot the breeze,
a philosophical discourse
while Luke Kelly
sing about the love he lost
on Raglan Road.
He’ll fill your cart,
discussing Descartes.
[image error]
Taciturn, learned comic,
well read and involved,
with little time for fools
and all day to be foolish
among the fruit
and bags of curly Kale,
five types of spuds,
he’ll cut your turnip
and the parsley’s free.
What’s home,
is it where you’re known,
where you hang your hat,
and buy your food?
it’s there on Meath St,
The Liberties’ Greengrocer
where crooners sing
and fruit is counted
in grocer’s numbers,
where you’ll walk a mile
not just for the fare,
but the breadth of a smile.
[image error]
Postcard from a Pigeon
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