Saturday, September 2, 2017

Being good enough, is rarely the criterion.

Oh, Jesus, what can I say. It's been so long. I'm used to FB, or worse, twitter, the Haiku of social media. Here (Blogland) you can breathe, luxuriate in space and freedom. So much water under the bridge. You can never step into the same river twice. I think you can but you won't be the same person. What has there been since I last stepped into this river? Death, my mum and my mother in law, my nephew, and ridiculously amongst such gravity, but yet perhaps not quite so ridiculous, my dog. Ostricisation by virtually every poet and poetry outlet in the whole of Ireland. Hell hath no fury like the fury held for a whistleblower. Ill health, depression, drink, writing, surviving, living, yearning,hoping, enduring, fading if not quite yet failing. I should post a pic of my dinner,or a cat wearing a hat, this is no place for hurt. The mag I co-edit is possibly/probably the best in Ireland, the most neglected, reviled.How dare a non-university (un)educated prole try to enter our hallowed hall? Where will it end, if we let them in? Poetry may be (should be) truth, but truth stands no chance against lies and deception. I think we'll call PB 'The Mag they Couldn't Hang'. If we survive. PB7 is due soon. It's wonderful. Not that anyone will admit it. My second collection, 'The Death of Poetry' is , somewhat ironically, a lifeline. It won't be liked, no doubt it will be shot down like REd Kite in the wrong place, or worse, totally ignored, because it won't be their story, it may contradict their lies, but it will be my truth. Somebody recently mentioned (and like all (occasional) ego maniacs I thought it pertained to me and even if it didn't I could see how it (mistakenly could), 'blank white flags' Well TDOP will be (please God, it will 'be') many things, but white flags, it won't. I'm envisaging poems more along the lines of Red rags to bulls(hit).Watch out for it! We are all dying, we are dying from the day we are born, it is not the result that matters, but how we played the game. Except it isn't a game, that's where the elite go wrong. This is it, this is serious, this is real.