Monday, December 20, 2010

The Last Poems have been Sung


I decided to quit writing poetry to concentrate on novel and story writing from now on, thanks to all who supported my poetry work in four collections over the last number of years.

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

www.writerscentre.ie
On Wednesday 1st December the Irish Writers' Centre presents an open panel discussion on how the current economic climate is affecting modern writing in Ireland.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

The Procrastinating Slave

Another kick
another beating down
across the sweating brow
across the lionless pride
the same work
the same day
over and over
over a barrel
for the less pay
for no gains
the procrastinating slave
the low wage serf
mumbling grave grievances
mumbling red flag revolutions
but all the while toiling
but all the while compliance
another unjust tax
another ill informed law
shout at the television
shout at the headline banner
nothing said to the faceless
nothing screamed at the wall
the wall of sham democracy
the faceless unelected rulers
same day
same year after year
over a barrel
over and over
all the while losing self-worth
all the while working toward slavery

The Money Counters



Even the jokes have lost their pitch
So much greed in the blood
boom and burst like a twenty year itch
the amoral minority leeching
from the translucent skin of ever citizen

Self satirising money whores
counting their coin like a typecast Jew
in a Nazi propaganda film
Self-proclaimed titles on closed doors
The rhetoric of the Age dripping from lip

Protagonists propagating
systems of honour without honour

Leviathan



Below are the white crosses sown in the fields
of Passiondale and Normandy

Those soldiers of two terrible wars
might spin in their claustrophobic Hades

Open skull mouth anguish
all that blood and pain was for nought

The flags of Nations are lowered
cowed down … unsung songs … unheard voices

A Leviathan has risen unchecked
a Monster not of weak flesh like Hitler

This creature is made of ideas and ideals
unobtainable but for numbers on a page

Those numbers were once people
now to be altered … deleted … moved on

No army can be sent to defeat this Thing
we have created from bureaucracy and corruption

Where every dictator has failed
It brings unanimity and slavery to the free

The Stupid Cow

She follows untethered
not heeding the passing signs
even the distant shape of the abattoir
that loom like a black hole
in an otherwise pleasant blue sky
goes unnoticed by her happy eyes

Oblivious she follows the fools
that lead in a long line
ordered and numbered so that
the meat can be cleaved from the bone
with greater ease
and swallowed raw
with a pinch of salt to lessen the taste

Watching the fate of those in before
the Happy Cow waits in line
humming to herself a familiar tune
but not raising any protest
how the butchers laugh as they kill her
too late the panic in her eyes and the
scream frozen in her cut throat

Friday, November 5, 2010

Government to let them eat cheese

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/1105/breaking22.html

politics has now failed completely in Ireland it is time for our people to take to the streets and if necessary take phsical action to end this madness ... words fail me that Our Country has been brought down to this level
and a system of failed government and a heartless party of fools

Thursday, October 28, 2010

World Doomed


And the News in Brief: World Doomed as carcinogenic immigrants float into our jobs in their millions on a tidal wave caused by global warming, a meteor strike, the moon exploding and Muslim extremists, the economic depression will mean your house is worth less than your life (which is worth nothing if you happen to live anywhere there is oil).

The world is cooling or heating or something like stopping or speeding up, somewhere between Tuesday and a billion years we’ll be engulfed by the Sun and the liberal media is behind it all (if only Jade and Diana were still alive!) Ants are taking over, crop circles are letters from aliens asking us to buy a timeshare

… and finally, on the lighter side, all food is poison, beer gives you AIDS and anything fun will make your genitals fall off

…. goodnight

Monday, October 4, 2010

Blast from the Past

Below are 3 poems from days gone by ... my first published poem 1991 and one from 1996 and 2001 ...enjoy

S.

Christmas at Christchurch (2001)




I feel translucent
a man of marble skin
as if dreaming my motions
every step a tread in water
each reach of my hand
a ghost grip touches
but nothing holds and yet
I clutch these stones and
iron spear barricades
as a sea-snail would the bedrock
for this is my folly
to hug close the masonry of charity

I feel nothing
no remorse runs down my arms
to my useless wrists
no rage
twists my mouth into rabid snarl
no pleasure lifts my face
from the footfalls
of those celestial beings
bustling above

not even a soaked black wall
on which I am a shadow
penetrates my deadened hide

I feel grotesque
I am a gargoyle of flesh and bone
sown into the fabric of these
towers with closed doorways
that form broken arch homes
for broken things
but

no longer am I broken
I have embraced
the cold and hunger
of my mouth and my soul
I am free of this place

Yet

here I am still
here for you to see
if you can stomach
to see me

Dear John 1991




I look away from the wall
away from your face
the blood is dripping from the table
and all the dishes are dirty
I try to picture your eyes
no one put out the bins
there’s a knife in the door
pinning the letter you wrote
I feel quite sentimental
about my photograph of you
even while it burns in the fire
I look back at the wall
and your face is there
your head on my pillow
and you body in my kitchen

The Ghost of Saint Anthony (1996)



Once I was a man like you

strong in the heart and mind

Now my spectre drifts the sands of Egypt these sixteen

centuries

across the tombs of Pharaohs

from Alexandria and the sea into the desert mountains

where only insects live and hermits come to die

No longer do I feel the burning Sun of Purgatory on my bare back

no longer does the word of God wet my dry lips

no more do I hope for resurrection

I only pray for eternal sleep to end my torment

My shade counts the sands of time

moving as parches water

through its fleshless fingers

the carrion have abandoned my bleached bones

a scorpion has nested in my eye socket

no answer echoes in my skull to the

frozen scream of my broken jaw

I am alone

the only ghost in a godless land

I pass through a stone crucifix and Sun Gods

on ancient plaster

neither have redeemed my soul

so I will walk the Breath of Egypt

until the end of the world

Friday, October 1, 2010

Greybell Wood and Beyond


Lapwing Publications and Gutter Bookshop cordially invite you to the launch of

Greybell Wood and Beyond a new collection of poems by Roger Hudson published by Lapwing Publications, Belfast. At Gutter Bookshop, Cow’s Lane, Temple Bar, Dublin 8 on Tuesday 5th October at 6pm. Roger Hudson will read from the collection. Refreshments.

Monday, September 20, 2010


UNANSWERABLES

1. What is the meaning of life?

2. Is there a God?

3. Do blondes have more fun?

4. What is the best diet?

5. Is there anybody out there?

6. Who is the most famous person in the world?

7. What is love?

8. What is the secret to happiness?

9. Did Tony Soprano die?

10. How long will I live?


My Answers

  1. We live in an ever deteriorating universe, which will eventually compress to either nothing or form a new big bang … thus rendering life and all endeavours meaningless … on the up side that means no more stupid ads from ‘injuries lawyers are us’, so enjoy life, no as little harm as possible and try to read at least one eighteenth century novel.
  2. No. If there were he/she/it would be a schizophrenic sadist with a back garden full of confused Jews, Christians, Voodooist and Ian Paisley wondering what each other were doing here.
  3. Yes, because they’re too dumb to realise they’re miserable.
  4. Stop eating so much.
  5. Yes, to paraphrase mister Python, ‘let’s hope there’s intelligent life out there cause there’s bugger all down here.’
  6. Too close to call between Hitler and Jesus so I’ll say Bono … who wants to be one of them and is close to being the other!
  7. Love is being able to live with someone despite their annoying habits, that and really hot sex.
  8. Wait until everyone on earth is dead and then play with all the toys
  9. Who cares .. it’s a tv show
  10. Until the end of this sent.......

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Arts Cuts in Ireland

On the subject of the Arts Cuts .. while i agree this government is the enemy of the people, the arts council (merrion sq mafia) should be gotten rid of, a waste of time and money for years, make each arts centre responable for their own budget and cut out the red tape .. in the long run arts will be better off ... if people want to see a show/exibition/reading etc, let them pay for it, therefore the arts people actully want will shine through and the dross forced on us by a few old-school-tie snobs will be history
http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/ontherecord/2010/03/09/why-whinging-about-cutbacks-in-arts-funding-gets-you-nowhere/




Lapwing Publications & Drogheda Creative Writers cordially invite you to the launch of “Greybell Wood & Beyond”, a new collection of poems by Drogheda poet Roger Hudson, published by Lapwing Publications, Belfast, at The Venue, McHugh’s Bar, Chord Rd., Drogheda (entrance in Francis St.) on Tuesday, September 21st at 8pm. The Mayor of Drogheda, Cllr. Paul Bell, will launch the book. Well-known Drogheda writer Steve Downes will introduce author and book and he and Roger Hudson will read a selection of poems from the collection. Singer/songwriter Joanne Kieran will perform some of her songs. Refreshments provided. Parking in Chord Rd. & King St. Car Park


Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Mein Kampf by Tony Blair


... read his struggle to free Iraq from the Iraqis, his sucessful efforts to cure cancer in straving babies, his flawless conduct in a war with no civilian deaths (who were White or Christian) and his Ascension to the right hand of God ... also how everyone else is an idiot ... out today .. price ... 106,540 dead since 2003

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

In Zombia

I shuffle like a bad movie extra
around the cold dark kitchen
you know the type of place
written by a hack and furnished by a ham
only an orange street light illuminates monsters
a devildog from the toaster’s shadow and a
scaly gremlin in the sink of dirty dishes
the soundtrack is provided by
a not-too-distant motorway strip
wailing banshee-like and the refrigerator
humming mindlessly because he has
nothing left to say to me after all these years
This is the realm of the lidless eyes
where the Sandman
like an evil Santa Claws stealing the gifts of
drowsiness and yawns leaps from rooftop to
rooftop keeping you alert for fear
downing warm milk and hoping for good dreams
dire dreams
any dreams
even mares with flames and toasters behind
I pack my eyeballs off to the bedroom
where the sheets have somehow pulled themselves
back in a sarcastically smug manner
and facedown flop into the soft infuriating
fluffy madness

Ephemeral Fruits

Even stone withers
akin to the face of an old man
worn by weather and toil
given enough time
it hollows with pockmarks and wrinkles
names chiselled by hand and iron
dissolve into it’s surface
leaving only indistinct scars
faint bumps of secret code under the
fingertip
fading eventually to nothing
like a memory dying in the brain
forsaking all calls to enjoy its pleasures
one more time
just a ghost in a field of crooked stones
choked by grass
then soil
then gone
buried
built on
renewed and forgotten completely
all who fought and loved and lost
they ate the ephemeral fruit for
a chance of brief bitter-sweet life
the touch of the Gods
compels the eternal consequence
not even a whisper to tell the tale
of all who lived
and lay here
in this flat empty field

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Kalos Kosmos

[This was a 3,00 word short story for a competition,
but I decided not to use it, I felt it would do
better as a longer story, see what you think.
Steve ]


Kalos Kosmos



Miranda sat under a tree scribbling with a quill, her thoughts on the world. Around her the children were reading and writing their class work. Beyond her Academy, in the distance, a silver shine rose off a vast set of domes that lay heavy on the landscape down toward the infinite sea.


*
Forty years earlier

“The door between Us and Them is closed.” The Matriarch spoke in her grandest tone, annunciating every syllable so it could be picked out from its partners with a fine pair of tweezers. “They were once our slaves, our servants and our objects to command, but they were a corruption of Man, a corruption of Woman, without the True-Way they could never rise above the level of the Savage.”
She raised her hand hastily before she realised it, the questions in her head almost bursting out of her lips, it was a bad habit that had gotten her in trouble before. Her hand still high in the air above the heads of the rest of the class she made a tentative effort to lower it again, but it was too late, the Matriarch had seen it. Even behind the expressionless polished white mask she felt the Matriarch let out a sigh of discontent at yet another question from her most inquisitive student.
“What is it Miranda!” an undertone of annoyance.
‘But annoyance ruins complexion,’ Miranda could hear her skincare teacher say in her mind, ‘frowns equal wrinkles.’
“This is history,” continued the Matriarch, the polished white face of a beautiful woman titling as she spoke, “history is unquestionable my dear girl, it is written, it can not be unwritten, how can even You with your incessant curiosity find a question in history?”

Miranda slowly lowered her hand, all of her classmates were scrutinising her; some brushed back their long hair, other massaged their temples in order to negate stress from affecting their skin tone or inner harmony. The class of thirty students were all aged between fourteen and sixteen, in the final years of their education, after this they would graduate into various roles in society. Some would become Beauty Aids, other Designers, but most would be funnelled into the Lobbyists. Lobbyists spent their days socialising the various members and ranks of the Senate Court, which was anyone between the ages of twenty and thirty-nine, as they tried to outdo and overtake one another in the vastly complicated leagues of Court business. When they were old enough Lobbyists and Aids would have a second Graduation into the Court, from there try to claw their way into a more influential position, all the time watching over their shoulders for some younger, or more beautiful, opponent coming up behind them in the league ranks.

‘A beautiful mind cannot exist without an outer vessel of equal beauty.’ – The Grand Template.

“What is it now Miranda?” whispered the teacher in a soothing tone as she floated over to stand in front of Miranda’s desk. Her velvety white gloved hands resting fingertips on the wooden top. Miranda could smell the heavy perfumed scent, familiar from any Elder she had encountered, it stung the nostrils and settled around her like an envelope of authority.

The Matriarch’s piercing blue eyes were vaguely visible through the gorse of the eye slits in her mask and a faint and unknown scent wafted toward Miranda’s face from the mouth slit when she spoke, it wasn’t at all pleasant but was mostly veiled by the musky perfume.
“I just want to ask…” began Miranda.
The boy beside her sighed and began to file his nails into a gleaming half moon.
“ … They are a corruption of Us?”
“Yes, child.”
“And if we have risen above the level of the savage, then we must once have been like them?” To Miranda it seemed a fair question, if they were savages now and we were once savage too, then surely we are from the same birthing stock.

Not for the first time the Matriarch allowed her anger to manifest through her voice, and as always it upset the rest of the class; they would ask for a recess, a beauty sleep or sex release pills to relax them from all this unnecessary anxiety. This time was no different, although the Matriarch seemed more agitated than normal, she hadn’t even taken the time to refute Miranda’s stupidity with her wisdom, she just berated her for her incessant probing of The Truth and The Grand Template.
And after all, as Miranda knew, Truth is Beauty and Beauty is Truth, they are one and the same, a Form that is endless and unchangeable.
The class filed out of the teaching chamber to go their separate ways. The Matriarch didn’t disappear through her doorway at once, as she normally did, she stood with her back to the class as they chatted and paraded their way into the main arteries of the Polis, her fingers pressed hard now against the silvery marble of her own desk.
Matriarchs and Patriarchs never mixed among the children or the populace; they had their own secret world of corridors and chambers, windowlessly locked away behind the walls of Polis.

Miranda gathered her affects slowly and moved to follow her classmates out, but the Matriarch called to her with a tender voice.
“Miranda, stay a moment will you.”
“Yes Mother,” said Miranda, the sinking feeling of another talking down running through her entire body.
There was long silent moment; The Matriarch stood with her back to Miranda, still as a statue, her all white satin gown of Elderhood flowing down to the ground where it brushed the granite floor with an inch of material. Miranda often wondered why the Elders dressed so. But to ask would be a faux pas of great disrespect and such childish questioning had, over her senior years, isolated her from her peers. In accordance with the Grand Template ‘Friends’ were a discarded concept from the age of ten, children who would one day thrust and parry in the Court would not need nor want friends. Miranda felt she didn’t have a choice in the matter; she was deeply unpopular with everyone around her.
Friend were to be replaced with allies, dependents and guardians. The more allies you had the more connections you had when the real jostling for position began. Guardians were more powerful, more beautiful people than others; by making yourself dependent to them you were protecting yourself from other powerful children and eventually Senators. Dependents were those who lacked the skill, elegance and desire to be high up in the leagues, as their age grew and their beauty waned from having to fetch and carry for their Guardians they became little more than puppets. Dependents forgo their right to procreate.
Miranda could see her future before her. No one depended on her, no one wished to be allied with a questioner of Truth.

“Miranda, since you arrived here at the age of ten, you have done nothing but ask questions of me,” said the Matriarch, her back still turned to the girl.
“Sorry Mother-elder.”
“It appears to be your nature.” The Matriarch turned and leaned against her desk. When she spoke next her voice had softened to its most gentle teaching tone.
“Do you know what happens to little boys and girls who aren’t popular in class?” she asked.
“Yes,” answered Miranda, despondent.
“Tell me,” said the Matriarch.
“They become lower Dependents.”
“Yes. And you like this future?”
“No, Mother-elder.”
“I thought not. According to the Template, ‘to find true beauty you must find true power.’ We strive for power because we want to be beautiful inside …. and out.” Miranda had never heard the Matriarch speak so melancholy.
“And yet the questions in your head continue to influence your behaviour.” The Matriarch continued.
“Yes.” Even now, in front of her Elder, Miranda could feel such questions pitching inside her mind.
The Matriarch went on, “Are there other questions, ones you dare not ask?”
There were unimaginable questions which manifested in her brain, she tired to repress them as much as possible, but they chipped away at her resolve and good sense.
“You can answer freely, Miranda, I’m not angry with you, I understand, I’ve seen this all before.” Again the soft voice.
Seen what before? Miranda thought, someone fail, become … unbalanced... not beautiful?
“Yes,” whispered Miranda, “I just want to understand why things are the way they are.”
“I know, you’re not the first little girl to question our way or even the Grand Template.”
“I didn’t question the Grand Template.” Miranda spoke quickly in a sudden panic as to do so would be to break the ultimate social taboo.
“Don’t worry, dear girl, I will tell no-one of this conversation.” The Matriarch reached out a gloved hand and pushed Miranda’s fringe back from her face. “Go for some beauty therapy and some relaxants, I’m sure they will help ease your mind.”
“Thank you Mother-elder,” said Miranda, almost tearful.
The Matriarch stood up and drifted toward her door, it opened automatically in silence, she paused at the ornate doorway and said as soft as ever, “I wish I could help more, Miranda, I wish I could,” and vanished into the darkness, the door mutely closing behind her.

Miranda walked the wide boulevards of the Polis, avoiding the many forums which would be filled with evening bustle. The scheming and plotting and posing of the forums always felt alien to her, so often she would pace the near empty corridors which linked various chambers of Court and Academy, only meeting Dependents on some errand for their Guardians.

*

‘Instinctive actions are the actions of the ugly, preparative thought is the thought of beauty.’ The Grand Template.

She didn’t know why she had done it, but it was too late now, she was here, in the darkness, behind the door.

*

It was early morning and Polis was buzzing with activity, Miranda, like all her classmates, walked around the forums and studios before lessons. Others in the class stopped to listen to influential Senators, meet with Lobbyists or peruse the various therapies and treatments available after schooling. Miranda just walked, no-one spoke to her, she was like a ghost moving through the chambers of the Polis. She passed the fertility clinic, where Guardians and other successful people would go to have sperm and eggs removed from their bodies. On their passing from the first chambers to the second of middle age their offspring would be created so as numbers in each set of chambers reminded constant.
Passing the Fertility clinic and away from the main forums where the birthing rooms, the newborn young lay in cots facing the glass wall. Miranda liked to stand here and look at the tiny humans, their sparkling eyes and innocent smiling faces give her a warmth she felt nowhere else. There was always an Elder-mother, bustling around the chamber, caring for the young as Elders always had. Miranda had once asked could she assist the Elder in her duties, but answer had been a firm ‘no’, with a warning that she should know her place.

She followed the great semi-circular corridor which ringed the centre of the Polis; here the hundreds of treatment clinic were busy too. Toward the end of the corridor, where it began to loop toward the Middle-chambers, plastic and laser surgeries stood side by side. They were mostly frequented by those approaching thirty-nine, but younger people would go there too, unhappy with a facial or body feature. Miranda had noticed the Elders’ doorways at the back of these surgeries were left open for unusually long periods. It was difficult to tell one Elder from another, apart from sex, from a distance, but she was sure that some of the surgeons were moving from clinic to clinic through the open doors. She sometimes drifted mindlessly into a clinic and glanced at the ‘before’ and ‘after’ photographs posted on the wall. But today, as she stood close to the Elders doorway, she looked around to see no-one watching her, the surgeon and his assistant busy with a client and no passers-by at the window.
No thought, just instinct, she was inside.

*

The corridor was dim and narrow, like nothing she’d seen in the Polis before. She stood just inside the door for several minutes. Her eyes slowly adjusted and she could make out a three-way split just a few feet in front of her. A movement in one corner made her heart pound even harder than it was already; she bolted blindly down the centre corridor away from the line of doors leading into the clinics.
By the time she’d calmed herself and slowed to a walk she was in a wider triangular shaped hallway, dim green floodlighting stretched out before and behind her, but the main illumination was coming through a set of high narrow wall window to one side. Miranda paced slowly up to the first window. The light was strange; it flickered and had an odd yellowish tint to it. When she reached the glass the view beyond astounded her, she felt light headed, almost faint, as she looked out over a vast green space which seemed to have no walls, no roof… no chambers at all.

“Stunning, yes?” The familiar voice of her Matriarch didn’t give her a start; she was too stupefied at the sight before her to react. “The first time I saw it I had to lie down, your fortitude surprises me, but I suppose it is in keeping with your tenacious character my dear girl.” The Matriarch stood beside her at the window.
“Beautiful … in a sort of chaotic way, isn’t it!” she added.
“What is it?” asked Miranda.
“Why my dear, it’s the world, vast, perhaps endless, a living wild world, which does not obey our Polis laws.”
Miranda saw movement, objects were swaying to and fro. “Are they alive?”
“They’re trees, moving in the wind, its part of the weather, we don’t have weather in here, locked away as we are.”
“Locked away?” said Miranda.
“More questions?” The Matriarch’s face titled, it was almost as if the mask were smiling.
“Is this where the Savages live?” asked Miranda.
“Come with me girl.”

They walked in silence passing more windows to the endless green world beyond, Miranda tripping over her own feet as she moved behind her gliding Matriarch. They arrived at an elbow in the hallway, a double window looked out here over a vast courtyard which disappeared underneath them into the silvery skin of the Polis.
There were people below, moving goods on large wheeled carts, full carts into the Polis and empty ones out. Miranda looked down on them, they were children, young ones, middle ones and … some thing else, a person, yes, but withered like a fruit, yet still moving. All of them were dressed in bizarre garb, with no uniformity or design. Their faces had blemishes and were unattended, their bodies ranged from sleek to fat. Miranda had never seen a fat person, except in manuals, it was like a horror story told to young ones.

“They don’t look savage.” she said finally.
“They’re no more savage than we are, as we strive for position and influence, as we push others down to raise ourselves, some become strong and others become weak, such is our nature ... and theirs.”
“What are they doing?” Miranda looked at the carts, they were loaded with boxed and bags.
“We long ago lost the ability to feed ourselves. Areas of the Polis have broken down and become useless and the skill to repair them is lost, so the Elders some time ago began trading with the outsiders. We gave them trinkets and medicine in exchange for food. But we do not always have something they want.”
“So why would they continue to feed us? Because we are Gods to them?” Miranda remembered the Grand Template, ‘The Truth elevated us to Gods and fear of the Truth made the Savage worship us so.’
“Perhaps we were once like Gods to them, with our technologies and learning, but now they see us as children.” She turned to Miranda and laid her hand gently on her shoulder, “It is sympathy which they show, pity for us.”
A child sitting on a cart swinging his legs waved up at them, Miranda timidly waved her hand back.

“Then the Template is a lie,” said Miranda, standing now on ground level, watching up close the carts being brought through a series of sliding doors. The Outsiders passed the carts not to Elders but to younger and middle Polis members, dressed oddly, their cloth clearly once designed now cut to suit their work. Their faces too unmade and their bodies plumped.
“They are like you, questioners and wonderers. They chose to live in a half-way world between the Polis and outside, but they are free to leave should they wish.” Miranda looked at their faces, they were worn but seemed unstressed, content.
“As for the Template,” continued the Matriarch, “It has become a lie, only through time and ignorance. It once had some meaning for the ancients who built the Polis, but now, sadly, it is just a way to keep order.”
“I can’t go back, can I?” Miranda asked rhetorically.
“You have the choice that we all faced when we found the Truth of our world. You may stay here with us and serve the Polis as best we can or you can go out and explore what is there.”
“Have any come back?”
“In the form of the children, yes, they are always here with us.”

Miranda looked out onto the green world beyond the thin glass partition; so many questions … so very many questions to find answers to.

* * *

Sunday, June 27, 2010

State of Hate


‘We are Us because we are not Them.’
imbued like a battle cry on your children
already tainted from their innocence
by the constant chatter of those twin evils
Religion and Nationality

Wall away the Them as if they
were rats in a Joseph Goebbels film
unclean – untouchable
divided by false culture and chance
does the irony of your actions escape you?

‘They are our enemy.’
you call out to a tired world
as the images of children throwing stones at
tanks flickers across the eye in a background
conflict justified by hate alone is just hate

Thursday, June 24, 2010

What to do

I want to start a second novel now that I've completed the 1st draft of
Warworld part I, but I'm torn between 3 choices: write a
parallel-future political novel (which I concieved years ago), write a second War World book, or do what I actully want to and write a fantasy-fiction-comedy and be accused of copy my writing hero Doulas Adams...? What to do!

Monday, June 21, 2010

Short Story

Currently Writing a short story for competition titled 'The Beautiful People'
based on my reading on Plato's Republic, something similar has been done before
but I'm hoping to find a new twist to make it my own.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Drogheda Fringe 2010 Pics








Poetry Winner Dixie coming up for his award, SJ tunning up for his gig and myself giving it loads as guest poet

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Mass Rock Loch Crew




The mark of suffering cut into your flesh
slowly healing
vanishing under the tearful rain
the swings and round-a-bouts of sectarianism
bigotry and undiluted hate
made you
carved you
a hidden place of worship for an Eastern prophet
among the tombs of older softly whispered gods
despite your Latin tongue
despite your violent birth
you are now part of this temple
this folly to Man’s hope of immortality
false idols and faith die here
side by side
become memories
wonders for an out-of-breath journeyman

Behind Fore Priory

Enveloped into the hillside
invisible from the roadside
almost as natural as the earth herself
the grave of a never-to-be-known soul
a pregnant bump in a green sea
in the shadow of Fore Priory tower


Tears were once shed for you
laments in lost tongue sung for you
time will dissolve you into dirt
my words will only delay the flow
all we think of as immortal will
join you in the great flood of death

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Urbania E-mail for any questions etc.

urbania.paganpublications@gmail.com

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Down and Out in My Own Mind




The camel’s back in concave
under the gold-straw mountain
the colour of a fool glistening
and reflecting in a drizzle pool

It’s a self-pity depression episode
that attempted to be a comic verse
but ended up as this
not for the first time in this life

I’m at the bottom
staring up the well walls at a
giant set of broken camel balls
smile kid – it’s only temporary in your mind

Friday, May 7, 2010


PRESS RELEASE POET GOES ELECTRONIC

Well-known Irish poet Steve Downes embraces the internet with his new collection of powerful raw urban poems Urbania which he has opted to publish online as an ebook rather than in print. Steve took the opportunity of his Guest Poet spot at the recent Great Drogheda Poetry Slam to launch it by giving a forceful reading of a selection to the assembled poetry enthusiasts. Ranging from a study of a designer-punk trendy to neon-tinted street scenes, from a dead druggie in an alley to cyberweb mindset, the poems cast a cynical but penetrating eye at our modern society and its recent technology-dominated changes and developments.

Steve has three previous collections to his credit, the last being Side-Angles with Roger Hudson. An award-winning playwright, he recently completed the novel WarWorld.

Urbania is available to read or for free download on www.stevdownesurbania.com The poems are complemented by graphic-designs by Jamie Stanton and photographs by Duirmuid Jones.

For further information or interview, contact Steve Downes@ stephendownesma@gmail.com or 0857127613

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Poetry Slam Reviewed

http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/launch.aspx?referral=other&refresh=m09M8T1tX1i7&PBID=eb89a4df-82ca-4255-b3ba-e3bfbcabe3b0&skip=


Poetry Slam and Fringe Fest. Review and Pics on Drogheda Leader website

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Comments on Urbania


http://www.stevedownesurbania.com/ ... Feel free to leave a comment on Urbania here, things you like/dislike, questions or anything that pops into your head.

Steve D.

Friday, April 30, 2010

URBANIA Poetry Collection


http://www.stevedownesurbania.com/ ... check out my new free-to-read poetry collection Urbania, will be reading tonight at the Fringe Poetry Slam and more readings and Q&A to be posted soon ... enjoy

Thursday, April 29, 2010

New poetry Collection

Urbania will be available (free to read) on-line from tomorrow .. watch this space

Tuesday, April 20, 2010


Come along to the great Drogheda Poetry Slam
... 30th April,
McHuges,

Drogheda,
with guest poet .. yours truely .. reading from my new free-to-read online collection Urbania
... http://www.droghedafringe.com/

Monday, April 12, 2010

The Sound of Pub Violence

Goodbye beer my old friend

I’ve come to quit you once again
because my vision’s badly creeping
threw my guts up while I was sleeping
and the damage
that was planted in my brain
still remains
with the sound of pub violence

On empty streets I walk alone
narrow streets of cobblestone
beneath the smile of a street tramp
I lay down in the cold and damp
when my friends were stabbed
by the flash of the neon light
they spit blood in the night
and touched pub violence

And naked in the light I saw
ten thousand cops maybe more
people screaming without speaking
people roaring without listening
People passing needles to share
and they would dare
disturb the sound of pub violence

Fuckers, said I, do you not know
violence like a cancer grows
hear my words that I might teach you
take my arms that I might reach you
but the words like blood drops fell
and echoed in the cells of violence

And people swore and prayed
at nightclub neon sign they made
and the sign flashed out its warning
in the mouths their words are foaming
and the sign said the words of the prophets
are scribbled on the toilet walls
and hospital halls
and whispered in the sound of pub violence

Monday, March 22, 2010

Horrorscope

Today’s Horrorscope: Virgo the Virgin: Male: If you don’t get some action soon your balls are going to explode, on the up side there’s a small chance you could be the next mother of the Chosen One, so make that decision for success and have that sex change today.
Female: Good week for wearing blue and headdresses, appearing on golf courses could mean extra TV coverage, but avoid randy Tigers.
Shemales: Typical, you went to all that bother and they changed the wrong half of you … contact ‘Injury lawyers for You’.

Monday, March 8, 2010

5 Step Template on: How to write a hit American sit-com

Step 1. Define your characters from the following types
A neurotic undersexed professional woman
An oversexed slut with a heart of gold
An ethnically challenged woman
A fat older woman who uses sarcasm (now that’s original)
A prudish professional man who falls in love easily
An oversexed boy-who-hasn’t grown-up
A bumbling idiot
Another bumbling idiot with a foreign accent

Step 2. Choose your setting
Doctors a hospital
Doctors in an apartment
Friends of a doctor .. in an apartment
People who meet in a coffee shop (everyday .. without fail)
Teenagers .. doing teenage things

Step 3. Add a series long sex/love theme
i.e. John is in love with Mary, but is sleeping with Mary’s sister Karen who use to be married to Michael, who’s now gay and dating John’s brother .. who has slept with Karen .. and Mary .. and the fat black girl who sarcastically notes he was rubbish in bed (this should last 5 sessions until a lesbian should be introduced to the mix)

Step 4. Write the episodes
Episode framework
I’ve slept with my housemate/friend/workmate (sister – for Fox network only)
Hilarity ensues as this fact is a badly kept secret and then revealed to all
We have a problem let’s solve it as a group
A serious of tearfull looks to camera with trendy music by Coldplay (any shit band will do)
Group hug
Finally joke (I thought you were your sister/brother in the dark .. any similar gag)
Canned laughter

Step 5. Repeat ad nausea and add new Characters when rating go down
new characters

Parents (famous actors looking for work)
A stoned young person
a long lost sister/brother
a long lost husband/wife
a duck
a dog
a gay man
two gay men
a naked guy in a window

Happy Birthday

Birthday Morning
a dawdling dawning of all that has transpired
the falls and fumbles
isn’t it strange
how we first remember the bad times
but a half-turn in the half-sleep interjects
and injects a happier spell
a second kiss
a first victory
a sickening excitement


Birthday dawning
slow morning with a tick as long as an eon
and a tock
echoing in a watched kettle
dull grey Irish day with the bentheads
on the way to toil
watched from the window sill by
the birthday suited boy
tick
tock
tick


Birthday morning
Teeth show yawning and fall back
onto the messy bed
head swimming with years of reminiscence
like some hack of a poet
attempting to rewrite an ordinary life
into windswept whimsies
another sleep
another dream
a second kiss

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Object

Fear made her
fists made her black
slaps made her eyes blue

Something old
he was old
cheap vodka aged

Something new
she was fifteen
a doll-like child

Something blue
eyes like Coventry skies
wild sapphires

Three babies bourn
and she was aged too
worn as an old door handle

Yellow stain in her knickers
when he beat her
outside the school

This is what made her
something
not someone

Dawn at Midnight

In here
it is cold

only the surface is thawed
by radiation
by the touches of certain fingertips
by thoughts of idealised friendship

Inside
at the heart

far from the fake illumination
a diamond is forging from blackness
a coal face that does not yet show
a cold face to a ceaseless Sol

Dreams
and all the

Dawns of each rebirth and re-death
dreams have faltered
dreams have almost stopped
dreams waste even in the midnight sun

What
Is wrong here

Someone from childhood has died
and I can think of nothing but sad living me
and I have no remorse not even as a crocodile
and I can do nothing but watch the Blackpool lights blaze

for
Dawn at midnight

An Ending

A hand reaches out
touches
not touching
feedback wired into the cortex
it feels more than real
high definition vision
each compression of the skin
is exquisite agony or orgasmic ecstasy
no mediocre sensations from heaven
to hell without moving
just a blink of the electronic eye
purgatory is for the poor
reality for the downcast
the masses of the left-behind
just inches away behind the glass
the screen
the firewall
blazes
touches
while the dreamers dream
and night folk mare
the toilless workers reduced to scum
floating along the broken streets
waiting for the light to fail and it all to end
a hand reaches out
touches
nothing
we have passed from this reality
and become a mathematical memory
a fossil
a shadow
just radio voices in he dark cosmos
echoing what we were and could have been

A Prick in the Conscience

Cardboard cut-out boy
2D person
face from a book
black & white
but I never read on
ignorance is bliss
and we’re all mostly happy
to walk on by
our 3D steps clicking on the pavement
and like all the other ‘well rounded people’
I didn’t study the cardboard cut-out
genuine or not
how could I tell
he’s not real
cartoon qualities
thinly painted against the wall
just another 2D thing
I left behind on a Dublin side street
September 2009