Beneath the broad columns of Herculean Pillar,
Weeps the springtime feather dance
Of freezing frothing blanket.
He lies on Irving’s rocks across the Henry,
Painting words of Freedom’s March across a furrowed brow,
Till tiredness creeps it’s feet on lonely eyes,
Counting mountains
As they frown down from above.
On the first crack of the distant Bell
A teary head raises from a bloody pillow,
And sings out the count, to defiant beats.
Flakes drift softly round a faraway moon,
As drizzle melts the lines of morning strollers,
With the hoofs their companions, embossed upon the heather.
His eyes close as he settles to dreams of futures possible,
Picturing rows of steaming turrets, sharpened blades
And crumbling fear, as they draw known faces on fancy paper.
He hears whispered talk of sagging brows and lobbing smiles,
Scribbling and Scripting our morning news where
New artisans paint Headlines in his head,
“Work, save, and Beg.
Make ends meet,
Work those streets,
Bare them writers, debaters,
Leaders, loiters,
Teeming with poor lice“.
Upset now, he straightens, filled with sculpted fear,
And flagging hope,
Devouring ideals of painful labour,
Darkened evenings and prose.
The Narrow Alleys echo his comrades screams,
‘They are Flogging the undesirables‘.
Cries of the deserted ring out
As sweat now pores on dirtied boots.
On A One page of women Jubilant,
Black Coffins swim across the oceans, and the Singing corpses chant the Voters Slogan
‘The great appear great,
Only because we are on our Knees’
The Parisians have embraced the soul of his youth, stole his heart,
Hardened his resolve,
And emancipated the print of the newest chapters.
He’ll fall upon the lords great will,
The ‘Singers’ and ‘Wobblies’ will call and cheer,
While unrest leaves lanes of torn and listed books.
It’s a world only make believe could make so real.
Locked in, Locked out,
Fattened Guerrillas stalking shadows,
In concrete jungles of law and lands.
Their people Long since, Ner’ forgotten,
For He hears their whispers in his sleep.
This Farmers land, had workers lead their kin to the gates of Slaughter,
Then scavenged, begged and stowed to the cloudy Hill
Of Overlooking
To remorse or return, is a question beyond the door of the living.
He must Shed not for the defiant butcher,
But more for the life now gone,
Since sold to an aging critic.
He was Born in to the Poor mans world,
But now freed from it’s chains,
Must help make what‘s fallow ripen.
On the streets where rubble were once great walls,
Where mounted high, the heavenly stag did Breed,
In fields where blight had starved their plates,
He would toil and drive and Dig and Build.
That day, That day in May,
Upon a hazy heather pillow,
A life of history filled a lonely man.
As He lay and held the hand of glories past,
He raised a fist to salute the one which had just begun.
He shakes hands in his dreams with the men of the mist,
Along hills,
And at the edge of great towns.
James Fitzpatrick
Seamus Mac Giolla Phadraig
James Fitzpatrick is an Irish Poet based in Dublin.
The passing of my Grandmother in 2015. She passed a day after my birthday, February 26th. It rained that day and snowed a bit. Pretty much the whole week leading up to her funeral, the weather was like that. But the day of her funeral the sun was out. I guess she had a warm welcome that day.
How long have you been writing poetry?
This is really like the second poem I wrote. I not really a poet. I wrote a poem a little before that called “No More Mr. Nice Ty”, it was like the opening of a short script I wrote of the same title. I thought it was sorta wack though.
If you could have dinner with one person (dead or alive), who would that be?
I’m not really trying to have dinner with a zombie, bro. I don’t know. Maybe the old Kanye.
What influenced you to submit to have your poetry performed by a professional actor?
I got email out of the blue about submitting a poem. This was like the only poem I’ve really had. I’m writer battling writer’s block right now. Maybe my Grandma and my fam that I named in the poem knew I needed some inspiration and trying to align the universe up for me.
Do you write other works? scripts? Short Stories? Etc..?
Yeah, the short script I mentioned earlier. I’m working on a pilot and feature right now.
What is your passion in life?
Writing, storytelling , creating. Just being able to create characters and come up with storylines. It’s like having a whole universe in your head. Right now I’m just trying to figure how to get it out.
I wrote what I felt would encourage anyone experiencing dark times.
How long have you been writing poetry?
Over 10 years and I’m still learning every day.
If you could have dinner with one person (dead or alive), who would that be?
Maya Angelou. I would thank her for continuing to teach me how to make myself heard using the eloquence of simple words.
What influenced you to submit to have your poetry performed by a professional actor?
I dislike public performance. So your platform is the right place for me to co-share the skill of writing and performing with someone else.
Do you write other works? scripts? Short Stories? Etc..?
I have published books on fantasy/adventure/educational tales with moral lessons. In the published portfolio is also a novella and anthology of thoughts. For anyone interested to know more, I am giving free books to visitors on my website.
What is your passion in life?
Inspire and invoke positive changes with my writing.
Empowering individuals to take control of themselves, to accomplish their goals. We all have that power, but unlike the simplest toy or device that we buy, WE do not come with an ‘Operators Manual’! This poem IS one, it reveals the simplicity of changing conciousness!
What motivated you to write this poem?
We have developed a powerful Smartphone Biofeedback instrument and I wrote the poem to explain how it can empower YOU!
How long have you been writing poetry?
Since 1972 – Forty-five years!
If you could have dinner with one person (dead or alive), who would that be?
William Shakespeare
What influenced you to submit to have your poetry performed by a professional actor?
While I can read my own poetry, I wondered what an actor could bring to it with their own interpretation of it!
Do you write other works? scripts? Short Stories? Etc..?
Yes, I wrote a Children’s Book – “Jacque the Lumberjack”, I wrote decades ago and is about to be published!
I have just started to Write a Book on Elite Sport Psychology, and my Forty Three Years Work with Olympic and Professional Athletes with the Mind Over Muscle Program I co-authored with Major Nory Laderoute, former Athletic Director of the Canadian Armed Forces Combat Training Center. It reveals the Power of Your Mind, to every individual – and how you can simply “Take Charge of Yourself”!
What is your passion in life?
Skiing, Consciousness, Self-Realization and Family
There are people with purpose. People who know what they are supposed to do. They have dreams, they gave goals to achieve. There are lazy people. People with no dreams. People who just get by…..and then there are others. Others who have dreams and goals to HAVE dreams and goals. To feel appreciated, to feel needed. Your words to them are daggers, more than most. One incling of failure and they are utterly defeated. But…you don’t see them, even as one, I don’t see them. They are Others. I am an other…and you don’t know. Others hide, praying to found, yet rarely are. We laugh, we cry…just like you….but we are not. We are different. Your words resonate within us so deeply we drown……Emotionallly, physically, spiritually….for the others, every day is the day we need to catch our breath, every anxious thought is an excuse to get out. Every cry for help is debilitating….every conscious thought is paralyzing…. Everything is other….we are other. I am other….and you will not understand.
but yours and mine
which (should) now (not), is (be) known–
like planks placed for fences
was the day we’
ve decayed of
bodies both yearned
those termites–no,
they did not
cause our
feet into crumble
Forever is a long time. Yet still I’m here, simply yours.
I belong to you, I am forever linked to you, all yours.
You created something special between us, forever yours.
Through trial and error, the learning curve, u raised me forever yours.
In sickness and in health, yes like matrimony, I am forever yours.
When I got on your nerves as I grew from infancy to adulthood, still I remained forever yours.
Shameful that only one day has been chosen for you, it’s still forever yours.
Even on the days that perhaps you didn’t feel your best, I came first, forever yours.
Feeding me, healing me, teaching me, how can I be anything else, forever yours.
When I began writing my own life chapters, lest we forget, I am still forever yours.
As short as this message may be, the meaning is clear, this day and eternity are forever yours.
Happy Mother’s Day to you these women I can’t say enough about, the world is yours.
I said it before that forever is a long time, but so too are you.
Be all that you know yourself to be, fore as long as you do these things forever will live within you.
Not just anyone can kill a baby;
It takes a degree to commit that crime.
The doctor’s conscience will hurt him—maybe,
But the guy on the street will do some time.
In the clinic it’s called an abortion,
But it’s murder when done on the street.
Society’s views are a distortion
Of truth. Just ask the next stranger you meet.
A drunken man hits an oncoming car.
The impact begins preterm labor.
The nearest hospital is much too far
Away. The paramedics can’t save her.
The drunkard is found guilty of murder
Of the baby that was killed on the way
To a place where Doc waited to hurt her—
He was scheduled to abort her that day.
Abortion is legal; it’s Mother’s choice.
Planned Parenthood plays on that ruse.
But Baby’s human. What about her voice?
Shouldn’t she too have the right to choose?