Dermott Hayes's Blog: Postcard from a Pigeon, page 51
August 26, 2016
August 25, 2016
Perspective
He didn’t handle perspective well but he could see the house in the distance, at the end of the long avenue of trees, trees that leaned over and engulfed him. It wasn’t called witchy lane for nothing, he thought, unsure, eyes darting, then crunch, the house, damn, miniature.
Photo source:http://www.discovernorthernireland.com/The-Dark-Hedges-Armoy-Ballymoney-P27502
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
Every morning when I wake up, I will see something, hear something, read something, smell something, feel something, remember someone. My first impulse is to call him on the phone. He was an early riser, lived alone and by nine o’clock he was in his garden, trimming something, cutting back, replanting. In the summer it was a riot of colour and texture but in Autumn, that’s when it really came in to its own because that’s when the raspberries, the strawberries, the blackcurrants, the blueberries, the gooseberries, the apples and the pears appeared, in abundance too. Then, without thinking, I pick up my phone and hit the speed dial number to call him, say hello, tell him I might drop out to pick up some fruit and I wanted to make sure he’d be there when I called. He never goes out, not anymore, not in the last two years, anyway. It exhausted him to walk half a distance he often covered five times in the same day. It became a ritual, not reminding him he couldn’t do those things anymore. But you could never stop him gardening or reciting poetry, mostly the Bard.
Then I’m reminded not to phone him, because he’s gone. It’s a hard lesson, but I’m learning
. Today’s his birthday. He would be 94. Happy birthday, Marty.
August 24, 2016
DUBLIN, me darling
Dublin can be heaven, with coffee at 11 and a stroll in Stephen’s Green, no need to hurry, no need to worry, you’re a king and the lady’s a queen, Grafton St’s a wonderland, there’s magic in the air, there are diamonds in the lady’s eyes and gold dust in her hair and if you don’t believe me, come and meet me there, in Dublin on a sunny summer morning…
I took these pictures on my way home from a stroll around Dublin on this warm, sunny, summer morning…St Patrick’s park, beside St Patrick’s Cathedral
Signs of the Time # 16
In the ’60s a philosophical political group, The Situationists, argued the subliminal messages designed to foster our consumerist desires, could be used and directed towards usurping that same commercial protocol and the political establishment it fostered and represented. Everything you see around you, every day, informs the reality you live in. What information you chose to register informs the way you see the world. So, on a stroll into Dublin city centre I took some photos of things that grabbed my attention.
We like to think of Ireland as a progressive country these days, stepping away from the images and styles that might have informed our past. But in this billboard you can see we hold on to our traditions, too.
The Why Go Bald? sign outside the Universal Scalp Studio building is known the world over. At night, the man’s neon hair lights up, bald, not bald and so on.
Ignored while he lived in Dublin, James Joyce spent much of his latter years away from the country, living in France, Italy, Austria and Switzerland, but his heart remained at home, in his writings. Nowadays, you’ll find a celebration of Joyce somewhere, if you look.
Right across the street from the Stag’s Head pub, a fine old Victorian building with wooden and ceramic panelling, wood floor and a marble bar top, there’s a barber shop that was used as a shopfront for a HBO period drama series, Penny Dreadful. The owners decided not to change the film artwork which makes entertaining reading as you pass by.
August 23, 2016
Torn Apart
She grasped his coat,
that coat he always wore.
It stank of beer and coffee
and the waft of wind at dawn
on a sandy beach in summer.
She wiped her tears on its sleeve,
tutted, tearing at a loose button,
then bunched the fabric of the sleeve
and tore, at arm’s length
until it shredded, ripped asunder,
wrenched stitches, like a gaping wound.
Why, she screamed,
at the torn garment,
Why, again, tearing, could you not see
that we were always destined
to rend ourselves apart?
Hallelujah
#WQWWC – Writers Quotes Wednesday Writing Challenge – “Miracles”
Bursting to pee after sitting for two hours in a wheelchair in the sweltering heat of a Kentucky hill country, tent missionary, revival meeting, he had the goods on this charlatan. So he leapt to his feet and ran for the toilet. Behind him, the scoundrel claimed another miracle.
2SOULSonCRUTCHES
Poetry is not an art form I visit too often (audible sigh of relief from the back, suppressed giggles) but here’s one I wrote when a former girlfriend turned up, unexpectedly, at my workplace. I tried to write the poem in the shape of a woman’s dress.
She looked in through the saloon window,
a blast from the past,
her shame or his blame,
no honesty,
no trust.
Return to remind,
twist the knife,
salt the wound,
where drunks get drink
and lives are lived
and lost.
Two souls on crutches
a zimmer of their future,
alone with their thoughts,
of that glimpse in the dark
through a bar room window.
JOHNNY THE FOX
In 1991, MOJO editor, Mark Ellen invited me to write the first article in a proposed series of articles about bizarre rock and roll deaths. The story would have a 1,000 word limit. The subject of the debut article was to be Phil Lynott, the lead singer of Irish rock group, Thin Lizzy. Little had been written about Thin Lizzy or Phil Lynott, since his sudden and tragic death on January4, 1986. What was written was usually about his problems with drink and alcohol. No-one wrote about the legacy of Thin Lizzy and what Phil Lynott had given to rock and roll. It was MOJO‘s Second issue, styling itself The Rock and Roll Magazine. I argued Phil Lynott deserved better than 1,000 words. He agreed.
Postcard from a Pigeon
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