Sunrise. A.M.Monaghan

"Sunrise"

Bloom life! and part the skies, oh bringer of light.

Come, warm and quicken the heart beat off the day.

Shine on brightly, undaunted, until your last beams fade,

then saturate the world with your colours of dusk.

"Sunlight" by A.M.Monaghan

Just for a moment

the sun fell upon your face

illuminating your deep red lips

and your skin, illuminated pale and perfect.

I noticed the fine blonde child's hair
on your cheek catching the light
the outline of your legs visible through

 your pale printed summer skirt.

A brief moment, seared onto my memory
to be stored and revisited at random moments
how happy and content we were then
until you moved into shadow and where gone.

"Murphy O'Malley The Alley Cat" 

by A.M. Monaghan

 

Murphy O'Malley the alley cat
Walked into town in his bowler hat
In his right paw he carried his cane
He bought some fresh fish and walked home again.

Murphy O'Malley the alley cat
Hung up his cane and his bowler hat
He cooked his fish and ate it with ale
Then licked himself over from whiskers to tail.

Murphy O'Malley the alley cat
Read for a while as he lay on his mat
He brushed his teeth and got into his bed
And dreamed kitty dreams in his alley cat head.

For Danny...

"The Transience of Life" 

by A.M. Monaghan

I found a dead Monarch butterfly
lying in the garden, 
it's frail brilliant wings flapping in the
cold winter morning breeze
and I thought of the transience of all
life in the universe and I was
grateful for the passing moments
I have experienced and all the
passing moments I have yet to experience.

"If This is a Man" by Primo Levi

     You who live safe
     In your warm houses,
     You who find, returning in the evening,
     Hot food and friendly faces:

     Consider if this is a man
     Who works in the mud,
     Who does not know peace,
     Who fights for a scrap of bread,
     Who dies because of a yes or a no.
     Consider if this is a woman
     Without hair and without name,
     With no more strength to remember,
     Her eyes empty and her womb cold
     Like a frog in winter.

     Meditate that this came about:
     I command these words to you.
     Carve them in your hearts
     At home, in the street,
     Going to bed, rising;
     Repeat them to your children.

     Or may your house fall apart,
     May illness impede you,
     May your children turn their faces from you.

"Hangover" by A. Monaghan

Am I surfacing,
becoming lighter, slow
and still drink sodden.
Coming up for air,
rising, rising, dizzy,
everything spinning
in the dimness,
a diver with the bends,
a bestial, filthy wretched thing,
face stuck to carpet,
in three day drunk
tortured clothes.

Pure, black pain
everywhere, no
prayers or tears will
save me. A victim
of myself, beaten
by my own hand,
bruised and battered,
broken and mad.

No amount of water
can wash away this thirst.
Everything is dried
and petrified.
Horror piles upon horror,
delirium Tremens!

I swat imaginary
flies and they
dissapear, nothing
left, but they
keep coming and
buzzing all night,
visions and voices.

This room is dark
but I can't get it
dark enough to ease
the pain in my skull,
in my soul. I need
to dissolve into
the night, into oblivion.

Shaking, and shocked,
solidly I try to breath,
with a huge, humming
sound in my ears
and I sweat and sweat
and still sweat.

My brain feels like
a day old turd,
floating in a bowl of piss,
and I drop and vomit,
my lungs emptied out
crushed and breathless, 
and I faint momentarily,
my legs have gone, knees
buckled and useless.

I come around
freezing cold but cleansed
and pure, if only
for a moment,
like the saints,
all their names
charging through
my brain finishing
with Francis, the
great sufferer,
and his prayer...

"Lord make me a vessel,
off thy peace..."
that's all I can
remember, and I laugh stupidly
with my head resting
on my hand, slowly
sliding to the floor.

And a tiny flower floats
down from the open
window, but with no
breeze behind it.
It is purple
and yellow and I
hold it, and it
seems like it is
enough to help me
through this terrible,
endless night.

I tear off my angry,
soaking, slept in clothes
and fall on the bed.
It is too hot and too cold
and those awful words, raging
in my head, with guilt,
and fear and madness...
never again! never again!
but I'm really saying
never enough...

I know I am destined,
doomed to repeat this
insanity and repeat
it again and again
and it will BE me
and it will be my hell.

"This Dark Star" by A. Monaghan

This dark star is all sadness, all sorrow.
It is blinding, deafening and unforgiving,
offers no light, no sound and no relief,
to the one caught in it's orbit.
Like a door of thick, heavy glass.
Frosted and warped, distorting all reality,
it reduces the entire cosmos into
a single dot of pure black pain...an atom of despair.
a black hole that sucks everything into
an eternal and endless night,
shooting cold shards of ice
to pierce the heart and freeze the soul.
This dark star is always present,
it has no future and no past.
It is the weight of the whole of creation
pressing and diminishing everything
into a drowned nothing,
in a soulless and drowned world.

"The Critic" by A. Monaghan

He stands at the mirror and doesn't like what he sees, hates it and turns away. After a few minutes he drops his shoulders and turns back and faces himself, looks himself in those grey green eyes for a long time and sees nothing.

He rubs his coarse chin, picks up the toothbrush and starts to clean his teeth. The water brings a sharp pain to the broken tooth, the decaying tooth, a thought passes through his mind "You deserve this pain, this decay. You deserve THIS".

He begins the routine, washing his hands. The icy water is a shock, he starts to turn on the hot water tap but turns it off again. "You don't deserve hot water, You don't deserve warmth or comfort. You're a bastard, you're a drunk, you're a waste. You don't deserve anything"!

He washes his face in the cold water and as he rinses he sees his sons tiny toothbrush in the cup on the edge of the sink, "You're a bad father, you're a failure, a shit, a selfish, impatient asshole, not a man, not a person, you're nothing"

He rubs his face dry and feels a familiar wave of heavy remorse settle on his chest. He sighs loudly, turns off the light and moves towards the bedroom. Their is a weight now in his stomach, a ball of pure black hate. Hate for this bed, hate for this night, hate for this body, hate for this life. "You are unlovable, you are ugly, unbearable. You'll be alone forever, live alone, die alone and it's all you deserve".

"Stop...stop"! he says out loud, and then, "Just stop" in a quiet, defeated voice. He turns out the light and gets into bed, staring into the darkness and the silence for a long time. Finally he closes his eyes and allows himself to sleep.

"Mallard Duck and Raymond Carver" by A. Monaghan

You are a well fed, bold and barking Mallard duck,
and you approach at an alarming speed.
I give you bread, I give you banana,
and that's all I have to offer.
You gobble up the bread,
and hesitantly eat the banana from my hand,
lightly nipping my finger, snapping your beak for more.
That is all I have to give you Mallard,
so, I read to you from a book of poetry by Raymond Carver.
You "quack quack" and turn away.
"Harsh critic", I say, as you waddle to the next customer.
Poetry will never feed a duck.

"4:01 AM" by A. Monaghan

It's 4:01 AM

I'm wide awake, it's the rats in the attic.

I curse, take a piss, dress,

and step outside.

It's a clear moonlit night.

I'm bent out of shape.

I want to wake the whole

Goddamn sleeping world,

so I walk.

The cold air on my face.

The first blackbirds.

A large ginger and white cat,

on the gleaming wet street.

He stops and sprays ,

looks at me, and walks of.

The cigarette tastes good

and walking calms my jangled nerves.

The outline of a cabbage tree against

the darkness of the sky.

I stop and breath the beginning of dawn.

I feel foolish living this life,

and walk home.

I rub my face hard,

and smell the smoke on my fingers.

I drink some tea

and wait for the day to come up.

It's 4:30 AM

"Blue Heaven" by A.Monaghan

Sparks of blue heaven
release seas of tranquility.

The sense memory of childhood,
blooms to an overwhelming innocence.

It carries me on the shoulders
of a huge and calm, rolling wave.

"We Fall Into Love and We Fall Out Of Love" by A. Monaghan

In moments...
I remember falling in love.
Watching you walk across a room
from a distance for the first time.
Seeing you in shadow, outlined by the sun,
a hand on your hip,
a dark blue strap,
slipping from your pale shoulder.
Watching you swim and
kissing your dark wet hair.
In moments...
I remember loving you.
Holidays, laughter, reading books out loud together,
wedding rings, markets, moving houses, adopting a cat,
buying a bed...the bed where we made love and babies.
Holding your head in the pains off labour,
with a child, our child!
Watching that new life
spilling from your heavy body.
In moments...
I remember love losing it's way
in uncertainty, confusion and dread.
You still look so young, I feel so old and we fade.
Shared photos become pictures off strangers,
and we wake and find nothing between us,
no love, no laughter, no more life.
A love, once clear becomes blurred and glassy.
Silence replaces words, we become two
different things, and in the end,
it's not the loss that is hardest to bear,
but the slow creep off change,
that gradually tears the heart into a million shreds.
The night arrives, the last night at home,
and then the first night alone,
then nothing.

"The Family Goat" by A. Monaghan

“I step across the little brook to feed the family goat,
And, am grateful this small waterway, does not require a boat.

I often sit and contemplate him standing in his field,
And marvel at the produce that this little goat can yield.

He must be very happy in his little bit of pasture,
For, the milk & cheese he has offered up, is twice as much as last year.”

Written in tribute to and in the the style off William McConagall.

*William Topaz McGonagall (10 March 1825 – 29 September 1902)
Scottish weaver and amateur poet and actor. He won notoriety as a singularly bad poet who exhibited no recognition or concern of his peers’ opinions of his work. He wrote some 200 poems, including the infamous “Tay Bridge Disaster”, which are widely regarded as some of the worst in British history. His influence has been sighted by Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Billy Connolly, among others.

"Clean Up This God Damn Room Already". by A.M. Monaghan

An earplug

Tissues

Crumbs (toast)

Sleeping Pills

Paper

A crack pipe

Clock radio

Empty wine bottles

Pain killers

Red numbers

Posters

A reading lamp (that reminds me of you)

A bed too big

Striped pajamas

Odd socks

Tortured sheets

Blood

Hot pillows

A dark blue blanket

Yellow fly swat

Heat

Chipped tea cup

Chocolate wrappers

A French water glass

Dust

Two novels

A notebook

Cobwebs

Head noises

Pens

A roach

Blue cigarette lighter

Notes

Skin

Newspaper clippings

Scissors

Glue

Ash

Tears

Is it any wonder I can't sleep with all this noise going on around me!

"Nobody But You" by Charles Bukowski

nobody can save you but
 yourself.

you will be put again and again
into nearly impossible
 situations.

they will attempt again and again

through subterfuge, guise and

force
to make you submit, quit and /or die quietly
inside.

nobody can save you but

yourself

and it will be easy enough to fail
so very easily
but don’t, don’t, don’t.
just watch them.

listen to them.
do you want to be like that?

a faceless, mindless, heartless

being?

do you want to experience

death before death?

nobody can save you but

yourself

and you’re worth saving.
it’s a war not easily won
but if anything is worth winning then
this is it.

think about it.
think about saving your self.

your spiritual self.

your gut self.

your singing magical self and

your beautiful self.

save it.

don’t join the dead-in-spirit.

maintain your self

with humor and grace

and finally

if necessary

wager your self as you struggle,

damn the odds, damn

the price.

only you can save your
self.

do it! do it!

then you’ll know exactly what
I am talking about.

"Untitled" by A.M. Monaghan

What a life this is,
what a dream,
what an awakening,
what tears of joy,
what laughter.

From our first breathe to our last,
man, woman and child.
And with what pain, anger and beauty
we enter this world, dumb, innocent and blameless,
no reason, but to be.

How similar we are, and how different,
together and alone we live
and with great sadness we die,
all our expectations turned to the wind
and to dust,

and to time,

and to eternity.

"Two Rosellas in a Silver Birch Tree" by A. Monaghan

A fat grey house cat

with sharp golden eyes.
Sitting dumb, behind a window pane,
his face reflected in the glass
furiously watching...

A pair of Eastern Rosellas,
noisy, riotous, rude and overflowing
with colour.
Bold and brazen,
bouncing among the branches
off an adjacent Silver Birch tree,
out of the cat's reach.

I laugh at the cat's frustration, and walk on.
"Mister tigger", I say,

"you aint the king of the jungle today"!

Charles Bukowski – "If You are Going to Try..."

"If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is."— Charles Bukowski (Factotum)

Charles 'Hank' Bukowski. August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994

billy childish - sunday painter

Documentary look at the world of the multi talented Billy Childish...Let the film and the man speak for themselves. Far too prolific to sum up at this time of night...

Billy Childish Documentary...