Shtisel Said It All

Nobody’s dead, it’s okay.
The people who made you
are in you. And those you knew,
whose folks were in them too,
came into you as well.
And the crowd of you mingled
into the crowd of them,
Late arrivals ringing, appeared
and oh the reunions,
the smiles, the sorrys,
and the laughter.

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Photo: The Bohemian Society, Dublin. My grandfather Peter Moran is seen in profile, seated on the right. I don’t know who the others are or the date, possibly late 1930s.

Last Day, Final Reductions

Wake up to
A bubble in my ear.
And in my other ear.

Sit.

A gap under the door.
The idea of a mouse exhausts me.

My attitude is no good.

My skin is no good.

                    My history is no good.

                    My character is no good.

                                        My personality is no good.

My behaviour is no good.

                                        My poetry is no good.

                                        I am no good.

                    Make a note.

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Photo: Mothercare store closed (Harrow, June 2022). Handwritten signs on the windows say “Last Day” and “Final reduction” .

That’s me reading poems at the Torriano Meeting House

12 June 2022: It was a pleasant Sunday evening of poetry and friendly chat, meeting local poets and listening to the top of the bill, Judi Sutherland’s commentary and excerpts from her epic poem, Following Teisa.

For the record my “set list” (because I’m like Bob Dylan y’know) was:

• Sonnet for Dandy
• The Holy Child of Sudbury Hill
• High-Flying Birds Know
• Outpatient segue to
• The People Who Did Good Things
• Winter Thoughts
• The Possibility of Skipping (Day of the Flying Leaves)
• In the Waiting Room of the Western Eye Hospital (Day of the Flying Leaves)
• Ballad (The Hour of Waking Alone)

As well as getting two poems out of my referral to the Western Eye Hospital, as I said at the Torriano, I also got this blog post, which should be subtitled “Angels or Demons,” and several other mercifully unpublished poems.

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Photo: “Frankie Pedantic at the Apollo” cartoon by Zoz (aka yours truly.)

Wild Cotton *

The number of all the raindrops that ever fell on England
raised to all the snowflakes that ever fell on Japan
by the number of jelly beans in a very big jar,
that number of words,
would not outweigh a pinch of wild cotton
as would make a pillow
for a fairy.

On a mossy hill heads of cotton grass gently nod on the breeze. 🌾🌾🌾🌾#yorkshire #moorland #countryside #outdoors pic.twitter.com/fRhuwwONSs

— YorkshireShepherdess (@AmandaOwen8) May 29, 2022

* Wild Cotton is a rewrite of the poem “The Weight of Words” from Day of the Flying Leaves. I was inspired to rename it by the beautiful photos shared by YorkshireShepherdess on Twitter. (Stephen)

This Boring Man

I shared this on Twitter today. Previously unpublished flash fiction. (Stephen)

Come up and see me in Kentish Town

I’ll be popping in to read for a few minutes as a guest poet before the main act. I’ll bring copies of my book and sign them for you, unless you would like one of the rare unsigned ones. (The old jokes are the best.)

June 12th – Judi Sutherland reading from her new pamphlet ‘Following Teisa’ introduced by Pauline Sewards. Here’s the Facebook event link:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1705216489818793/

7:30 pm, Sunday, June 12th
Torriano Meeting House
99 Torriano Ave, London NW5 2RX.

Tickets £5/£6 on the door.

Impromptu

If I think of a poem
as I take the next step
on the stairs of my home,
I will fall to my death

and you’ll never have known
that I loved you the best,
because I lost that poem
when I missed the next step.

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Photo: Traditional eve of Mayday bouquet on doorstep

Photo: “Walking in the Street with no Deadline” out there in the world

Distracting self with fantasies to drown out ever louder ringing bell of deadline filled week. From Stephen Moran’s Day of the Flying Leaves: pic.twitter.com/k0J6gSOGRD

— Gav Clarke (@gavclarke) May 3, 2022

Photos: Day of the Flying Leaves open at Walking in the Street with no Deadline and original cover

Jackfruit

And now for another episode of Fruit is Stranger than Fiction…

Jackfruit outside a local shop today (Global Foods, 64 Bilton Road, UB6 7DJ)

“That’s just average for jackfruit, you should see the really big ones.”

Tess

Unquiet Flows the Tolka

Bridge of Tolka, Drumcondra Park, spelter baluster, pewter spate. Spectre of Swan’s liturgy, philtre of Stac’s refrain, and peroxide Ida, acid exchange student, your college green a prairie to our Botanics. You sexed me with a buttercup, highly, and yogi-sat akimbo. Oh Ida, we shoulda. I’da!

Where are you now, Obama bounden, marked for McCain, bankrupt in Ohio, divorced in Union City? Do men put their words into your mouth in Idaho? Are you a mother of succour or did you die purple-hearted by the tracks in Maine?

I’ll seek you high and low in Isle au Haut, I’ll trade Manhattan for rosary beads and pray for an apparition, I’ll drop into every dive from Atlantic City to shining Zee, and go over Niagara in a glass-bottomed boat, looking for my Tolka naiad.

But should all peroxide Idas look the same, I’ll find out what Martinis are and drink them dry, I’ll down firewater without reservation in the Indian nations, I’ll find a night door and wait for you there as longing, unquiet as the Tolka flows.

(2008)

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Photo: The Tolka river viewed from the bridge at Drumcondra