unfathomable realms

The Italian Coast, by Luisella Avaro.

the darkness who knows

my loved one walks a distant city
she is entranced with city life
the silly shallow beat of city songs
she walks home alone at night
heels clicking past suburban lawns
she pauses to unlock her door
and feels the wind and pauses once more
a beautiful woman in city clothes
the darkness who knows

my friend soldiers with a ready smile
in lands of fire lands of ice
where people love a soldier boy
he's set his star he's built his life
he's danced a jig to the marching tune
now he patrols lebanon
and feels the evening gloom draw on
he will not fall to daylight foes
the darkness who knows

i am alone in my room
i toy with memories in the silence
themes of the embittered past
tortured dreams violence
upon the living and upon the dead
dreams that know no sense
the dying demand recompense
alone my pain grows
the darkness who knows

********
(1980's)

the monica leech laugh in

John Wayne goes into a bar.
He approaches a women working as a prostitute at the bar.
She is nobody we know.
That is to say she is nobody Judge Liberal could order me to pay 1.87 million quid to for libel.
She is purely a figment of my imagination.
John Wayne says: "How much are you charging for the pleasure of my company tonight Mabel?"
The woman working as a prostitute replies: "That will be twenty dollars John."
John Wayne turns towards the door and calls out: "Company hey, Company ho."

after nine eleven

During World War Two the British rounded up Germans living in Britain and detained them for the duration.
This meant Hitler had no spy network and no saboteurs on mainland Britain.
The policy was possible because there was no Sky News or CNN to launch a propaganda campaign to get the poor master race Nazis out of jail.
The British legal establishment did not betray the country by running pass defence for the Nazis or possible Nazis who had been so imprisoned.
The British newspaper industry did not start whining about civilian casualties every time the Royal Air Force bombed a German city.
After the Pearl Harbour attack, America incarcerated all Japanese nationals on American soil.
This meant Hirohito's entire spy network was incapacitated throughout the war.
Americans did not agonise about whether every Japanese detained in this way was actually complicit in the attack on Pearl Harbour.
Nor did American media groups attempt to win the war for the Japanese.
Nor did American politicians and legal professionals attempt to criminalise their President.
Consequently America and Britain won World War Two.

After Nine Eleven we took no actions to incarcerate the Muslim populations who had entered our countries and declared themselves citizens.
Since that time...

Al Qaeda Muslims have torched French cities and committed a series of grotestque murders across France.
Muslims have attempted to poison the water supply in Rome.
Muslims have attempted to commit mass poisonings in Britain using Ricin, the would be perpetrators of this crime gained their freedom through the agencies of Michael Mansfield QC, a self styled radical lawyer who is happy to accept tax payers money under the free legal aid scheme in order to ensure that Islamic murderers retain the freedom to kill kill and kill again.
Muslims have attempted to organise a campaign of systematic murder in British and Irish hospitals under the code name Those Who Save You Will Kill You.
Muslims have attacked Glasgow airport.
Muslims have attempted to bomb night time revellers outside London discos.
Muslims have bombed trains in Madrid.
Muslims have bombed trains and buses in London.
Muslims have attacked India's parliament, bombed trains in India, and late last year committed mass murder in the streets of Bombay.
Muslims have murdered the Netherlands Prime Minister Pym Fortyn and a Netherlands film director.
Muslims have murdered a teenager on Grafton Street in Dublin using a baseball bat to beat him to death, yeah it's not much compared to all the rest, but I figure we should remember his death, and we should also remember the manner of his death, and we should also remember that Judge Liberal released the Algerian Muslim who committed the murder after the Algerian Muslim found other Algerian Muslims to state in court that the Irish teenager had made racist remarks to the Algerian Muslim, because apparently Judge Liberal has decided that even though there is no official death penalty in Ireland there is now in fact an unofficial death penalty in Ireland for people Algerian Muslims claim have made racist remarks to them, and apparently Judge Liberal is content that Algerian Muslims can carry out the death penalty on Irish teenagers themselves.
Muslims have murdered thousands of people in Thailand.
Muslims have obtained the Presidency of Thailand through an army coup even though the country is preponderantly Buddhist.
Muslims have bombed planes in Russia, murdered theatre goers in Moscow, murdered hundreds of children in a school called Beslan.
Muslims have attacked China, killing hundreds just last month.
Muslims have continued their insurgency in the Philippines.
Muslims have continued to commit race war and genocide in Sudan.
Muslims have continued to attempt mass murder and enslavement in Somalia and across Africa.
Muslims operating out of Lebanon and the Gaza Strip have continued to commit acts of terror against Israel although this last hasn't been a lot of fun for them as the Israeli response has been robust.
Muslim males in Lebanon murder 90 of their serving maids every year.
Muslims have within the past two months murdered seven Muslim women in a Canadian small town for the crime of somehow being inconvenient to their male relatives.
Muslims on planes regularly create security incidents by shouting loudly in Arabic in an attempt to terrorise their fellow passengers, test the aforementioned security procedures and damage the aviation industry.
Muslims in Britain just yesterday attacked the police who were trying to keep order as British people protested against the building of a Mosque in their neighbourhood.

I would say it's time to arrest all Al Qaeda suspects, contacts, friends, family, relatives and execute, incarcerate or deport them.
I would say we should do this now rather than later.
Unlike the plush bottomed liberal atheists of our fast failing media groups, I feel it incumbent upon me to warn you.
We are losing this war on the home front.

home thoughts from a heelers

Wandering down Main Street Kilcullen.
Bright clear September afternoon.
My hear soars.
Suddenly I begin singing Clifford T Ward's song Home Thoughts From Abroad.
The one in which he references the English poets.
Work of art again.
Yeah there's as much art in this age as in any age.
You just have to know where to look for it.
And if you're reading my blog, obviously you do.
Arf, arf.
Clifford T Ward was another of those rarities.
A true poet.
Home Thoughts is just effortless.
I remember the album had a picture of Clifford looking dozy and long haired and 1970's-ish.
Like my uncles and brothers used to look up until 1995 when they finally figured out the 1970's were over.
I had seen that album as a child and thought it must contain pure undiluted cretinism.
I thought I'd hit the mother lode of idiocy.
Then I listened to it and realised how wrong I was.
Pure poetry.
Impossibly poignant.
Heart on sleeve.
But sincere heart on sleeve.
Free verse.
Occasional rhymes that don't try to hard.
Elevated lyric.
Swelling theme.
Best song of all time.
God bless you Clifford T Ward wherever you are.
You were one of the good guys.

And so I'm singing:

"I could be a millionaire,
If I had the money.
I could live in a mansion.
No I don't think I'd like that.
And I could write a song that would make you laugh.
Now that would be funny.
And you could tell your friends in England you'd like that.
Now I've chosen aeroplanes and boats to come between us.
And a line or two on paper wouldn't go amiss.
How is Worcestershire?
Is it still the same between us?
And do you still use television to occupy your mind?
Am I being too unkind?
It's just I'm very lonely.

Can you stand another week?

Does the cistern still leak?

Or have you found someone to mend it?

Oh and by the way.
How's your broken heart today?
Is that mended too?
Mines not.
I miss you.
I really do.
I've been reading Browning
Keats and William Wordsworth
And they all seem to be saying the same things to me
I like the words they use
And I like the way they use them
Home Thoughts From Abroad is such a beautiful poem
And I know how Robert Browning must have felt
When the Johnston Press took over his newspaper
Would they fire all the long term staff
And hire cheap teenagers to try and make back their exorbitantly cretinous investment
Like they did at every other newspaper they took over
Like when they paid 138 million for the Leinster Leader
Which was generating maybe a million a year in profits
And that's if you believed our Accountancy Tricks Department
The real figure was nothing like that
Twits
They bought the paper and didn't even get ownership of the buildings
Absolute clowns
They paid out 138 million
And still ended up paying rent for the premises
I kid you not
And those were the people who fired me
You couldn't make it up
Oh and by the way
How's The Scotsman trading today
Has that gone bust too
Or have you found someone to mend it
And how are things at the Blackpool and Stockport Advertiser

Is that kaput too
And do you still use parvenus

To downsize the staff

Every time the wind changes
Am I being too unkind?
You low rent scum.
Do you think you can just walk away?
You'll answer to God
Those of you haven't already answered by being fired themselves after firing so many other people.

Oh and by the way
What's the staff attrition rate at the Johnston Press today
I gotta tell all you teenagers out there
You'd have a better chance of drawing a pension working in a corner shop for some Al Qaeda supporting Muslim
It would be a cleaner more moral environment too
I despise you
I really do.
I could be a millionaire
If I had the money
I could work as a Johnston Press executive
No I don't think I'd like that.
We could take over newspapers
With money borrowed from idiot banks who are themselves collapsing
Faster than you can say Fake Accounts
And you could tell your friends in England you'd like that
Now I've chosen the high moral ground to come between us
And a blog that reaches the parts your failing newspapers seem to miss

I mean actual readers
How is Derbyshire?
Is it still the same between us?
Do you still use phone tapping equipment to occupy your minds?
Am I being too unkind?
You disgusting amoral swines

Can you last another week?
Does your board of managment still leak
Tip offs to me about what you're doing
Oh and by the way
By my last reckoning everyone involved in the decision to fire me is either dying, dead or congenitally impoverished.
Makes you think doesn't it Fry?
You'll answer to God.

Won't you
Yeah.
I despise you.
I really do."

The Photographer's Eye (with Enrica Cecchini)

Beauty And The Beast.
*********************

The mythic splendour of Argentina. Wide open spaces, mystic mountains and the eternal sky. And right in the middle of paradise, an industrial facility venting fire. Enrica

epihany is my middle name

Driving through the heartland of South Kildare.
Neil Young starts singing on the radio.
That poignant plaintive voice.
I suppose he's some sort of genius.
Neil is singing The Needle And The Damage Done.
His words would draw tears from a stone.
He sings:

"I heard you knocking on my cellar door.
I love you baby, can I borrow a billion more?
Gone, gone, the damage done.
I see the Johnston Press and the damage done.
One hundred and fifty year old newspapers going bust every one.
Because they were taken over by incompetent British parvenu scum.
I hate the Johnston Press but I love the Leinster Leader
It broke my heart to see the bastards bleed her
Gone, gone the damage done.
I see the newspapers bought out by half witted skanks
With money they borrowed from idiot banks
Gone, gone the damage done.
Yes I see the needle and the damage done
You're not going to walk away from this you evil scum
And every former Chief Executive of the Johnston Press is like a setting sun..."

a letter to a lady

much folly
becomes a man
to make account of it
this place is capital
the sun shines
and there is pleasure
as men may know it
i sleep ill
at a whim i'll walk or write
in the fleeting stillness of the vapoured night
god gave mind to man
to measure with
man saw the breadth and brook
of want and will
he hitched both to a maths book
they rest there still
i might wish you
much laughter many joys
for your name day
i wish you none
my gift to you is an image
couched in gold
only one
of a dog barking at the head of the road
and a traveller coming home

(America 1993.)

the monica leech laugh in

Question: What has to succeed?
Answer: A budgie without any teeth.

tapestry

By Eva Boudard.

secrets of the universe

Uncle James' patented guide to physical attraction.
(Patented in the sense that it's patently insane.)

1. No lissom German med student in the history of the Reich, has ever been attracted to a man she's just seen in the Starbucks Cafe on Dawson Street filching a half eaten chocolate chip cookie from an adjoining table before the waiter can clear it away.

2. No pretty counter assistant, working in a Dublin pharmacy or anywhere else, has in the history of the human race ever been even mildly attracted to a man to whom she has just sold worm tablets.

3. Don't bother with air hostesses. They don't mean it.

4. What Irish women consider a pot belly, Spanish women consider an irresistable and magnificent invitacion de amor.

5. Women with gnarly toes should not wear open topped sandles.

heeler the peelers supernatural tales of yoikes and honey if the house wants us to leave i really think we should go

Mary O'Mara lives in South Kildare.
She is an adult women with three grown up children.
Her hobbies are golf and landscape painting.
Three years ago she travelled with a group of women for a holiday in Italy.
The women were all members of Dunlavin art group.
They stayed at a 14th century villa in Tuscany.
Mary tells me:
"I went to bed one night and woke in total darkness. I didn't know where I was. Yes, we had been drinking. Just a few glasses of wine. I was standing in total darkness. There was a smothering heat. I could barely breathe. I could feel a presence, the presence of something utterly evil. I couldn't speak. I could hear myself grunting as I tried to move. I burst through the door into my bedroom where the light was actually switched on. It was only then that I realised I'd been in the bathroom. I've no idea how I got there. I got into my bed. As I lay down in bed, I suddenly felt his presence again. The moment I turned out the light he was there. In the darkness I felt something touching my stomach. It was like several sharp taps with a hand upon my tummy. Then I could feel him lying on top of me. I said the Our Father. The Our Father is very powerful. I turned on the light. My room mate Brid was laughing at me. The next day all the women were laughing at me. This all happened on Sunday night. There was nothing more until Thursday. On Thursday night I woke up and could hear Brid shouting. She was absolutely terrified. I switched on the light. Brid shouted: He's coming for me Mary and he's got a knife. She described a man with long black hair standing over her bed. I could see nothing. We moved out of the room after that and slept in another part of the house. The next day we asked the maid were there any ghost stories attached to the villa. She said: No, no, nothing like that ever happens here. Later that day the owner of the villa came to see us. The maid must have told her something. The owner was South African. She and her husband had inherited the villa. She asked us had something happened to us and we told her. She told us that she personally had never experienced anything negative there. But she said that soon after she inherited the villa she had to travel back to South Africa on business. Her husband had stayed at the villa alone. Her husband stayed in the room where we had stayed. She told us her husband had spent the night wide awake shaking in fear. The whole night he could hear someone or something calling his name in the darkness. Since then he has refused to spend another night at the villa."