Dermott Hayes's Blog: Postcard from a Pigeon, page 20
May 23, 2017
Speechless
While on my way to the funeral of an old friend’s mother today and reflecting on death, a poem sprang to mind but I couldn’t focus or write, I was speechless.
Speechless because of the wanton horror of events in Manchester.
Speechless because I can’t fathom how consumed with hatred the perpetrators of such an act must be.
Speechless because of the cold cynicism of such an act and how its horror factor is ramped up to achieve their aim of greater Islamophobia.
Speechless reading the headline in that Tory rag, The Sun, posting a photo of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn that reads ‘Blood on his Hands’
Speechless that less than a day after the massacre of innocents in Manchester, the Tories and their acolytes should be seeking to make political capital out of this atrocity.
Speechless because one of the bankers who was at the centre of the Irish banking system seven years ago as well as the ruin of many people and the loss of their savings, should walk free.
Speechless because the so called ‘leader of the free world’ has just sold a $100 bn worth of arms to an hereditary oligarchy while condemning someone who has just won a democratic election on a reform platform.
Speechless that an alt-right fascist student in Maryland just stabbed a young man to death because of the colour of his skin.
I’m speechless.
May 22, 2017
ADRIFT
When someone dies,
what connected you to them
is set adrift
May 20, 2017
DESCEND
Immobile,
leg encased in plaster,
climb the 30 steps,
ascend to comfort
and sanctuary.
No time to think or talk,
no time to write
with too much time.
Two months of tv
movies and dinners,
old books read again.
Until the time came,
when the leg awoke,
became a thousand tiny living creatures,
a paper knife and meat skewer
to fight the nibbling hordes.
Time came to descend,
to free the agitated limb
but how can I liberate
my mind
to write again?
The Rare Archival Photos Behind ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’
While investigating the heinous Osage murders for my new book, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI I also came to know the victims’ faces, by David Grann
One day in 2012, when I was visiting the Osage Nation Museum, in Oklahoma, I saw a panoramic photograph on the wall.
Taken in 1924, the picture showed a seemingly innocent pageant of members of the tribe alongside white settlers, but a section had been cut out. When I asked the museum director why, she said it contained the image of a figure so frightening that she’d decided to remove it. She then pointed to the missing panel and said, “The devil was standing right there.”
May 19, 2017
NOTORIOUS
It was exciting to be there
at the Paris Omnisport in Bercy.
Even getting there was fun,
the five of us, arriving late,
checking in before taking the Metro
because it was rush hour
and we were late already.
‘Five tickets for Bercy,’
our guide asked, in English.
The ticket attendant shrugged and pouted.
Ok, the accent was broad and Irish
but Bercy remains Bercy.
‘Trois billets pour Bercy,’ I said,
message received.
Complaints were muttered
about the French and, ironically,
their inability to understand.
At the Palais de Omnisport,
credentials verified,
we marched inside,
the show’s begun.
Duran Duran
singing
Notorious.
Wisdom
Ten people attended the ceremony, an evening meal in summer sunshine. Some drank wine, others, water. A warm, summer breeze blew through the windows, eight of them in this peculiar room that hung suspended over the river, flowing below. Incense burned but there was no solemnity, just curiosity and an underlying note of joy.
The ceremony didn’t last long but that was fitting. Sandra, the high priest presiding, said she didn’t like the phrase ‘witchcraft’ and preferred ‘wisecraft’. A few nodded but others listened, bemused.
‘You can have all the knowledge in the world but only wisdom can understand.’
May 18: Flash Fiction Challenge
May 18, 2017
FARCE
The orange faced buffoon centre stage, gesticulates, his fingers point, effeminately. In the background, bit players, lackeys and yea-sayers smile, grovel and fawn while, in the foreground, uniformed bullies beat the undergrowth. ‘Is this a farce?’ asks a bemused onlooker. ‘Oh no, it’s real,’ he’s told.
May 17, 2017
The Wish
I found this old draft that I’d never published so here it is now, reblogged.
I wish I wasn’t where I am,
because to be there means I know
what I’ve always denied,
that there’s a thought inside me
that fights to get outside.
I don’t recall writing this
but memory’s such a tragedy,
a wretched thought,
of forlorn and unhappy incidents,
best forgotten.
May 16, 2017
Challenge
Down in my local pub, I was challenged to write 50 word stories and I was given two words, ‘pin’ and ‘derogatory’ and here’s what I came up with. Oh, and I had (50 minutes to do it.) unfortunately, thanks to WordPress, they’ve disappeared
Postcard from a Pigeon
- Dermott Hayes's profile
- 4 followers
