Manatee, manatee, all is manatee. I mention this because the author’s likeness of Ned Kelly in his home-made armour adorning the cover of Cliff Forshaw’s A Ned Kelly Hymnal (Paper Special Edition) is demonstrably not Ned Kelly at all, but a manatee, and a manatee wearing a jilbab at that. The manatee is a religious beast by nature, sheltering behind its faith from the slings and arrows of man’s inhumanity to manatee. (That’s a Kit Wright joke by the way, I didn’t just make that up.)
The final photograph of Kelly, bush-ranger-bushy-bearded, the whites of his eyes:
Eyes peeled like hard-boiled eggs. Flecked red.
Yellow. Black-dotted. Jaundiced, downcast or lidded;
hooded with flame, day’s end or blood.
Or pool-balls, yours, spotted, on the edge of the pocket:
one good crack (stripes, then on the black)
and they’re lined-up, potted.
Sidney Nolan’s Kelly portraits, old Wanted posters, ‘the price above that head dolorous with silver haloes’:
Helmet or bucket?
Kick it. Fuck it.
What’s it matter when
eight thousand pounds
press on four men’s heads?
Transvestism and the Molly Malones. Kelly gang member Steve Hart’s similar inclinations. De Valera smuggled from prison in a dress, in more recent times. The Glenrowan shootout. The hanging. And, by way of epilogue, Nolan’s ‘Death of a Poet’ in
Death-mask or bust. Kicked the bucket.
Right now he’s just something in the trees,
round as a gourd, shiny on top,
bald as baked clay, a terracotta pot.
Or one that’s bloomed, blown, grown scratchy dry;
breeze-rustled beard ready to fall to scrub,
dead-heeled by some passer-by.
{Ends}
This blog of course takes a strongly anti-nepotistic line, but wriggles off the hook of promoting one of its (its?) friends by insisting we’re not really a friend of Cliff’s at all, and are only pretending for as long as it takes until he returns that tenner he owes us.
I warmly recommend this book. Write to him at c.forshaw at hull.ac.uk if you want a copy.
Photograph shows the author helping to launch a beermat (no really).
the lines of natural red and sun lit dilemmas mister Swift West O R Daithi's words painted in hi def pix eliot contenders,
ReplyDeletethree brave lost art students'
words: nimble David fixed
in this eternity of rioting
colour, tungen cloaked frame
of total static eye mooin in attack, Poetry art in action.
...cliff here is very very impressive, his lines are fixed in tawny tones of lineaments of Noh itself, frozen, captured, mister Wheatley, first i must cingratulate Cliff for being here with me now, as i cast inot the pool of spec and hi, Viz victories, total take overs by simple Connachta noh ! Imramm this is dave mate/s, two sailors hoisting off, an audience of few, yet Live the location awes us into complete J duffers patch, the afternoon attack of love mister Duffy can rustle up, David Wheatley also has; and in amazingly natural waves of mono dress, black and the only white, a crisp; marvel of startled bleached white daz 'n dash nea noh Mor facing west, but East david nimble, to the Holy land of here and now, cliche, excitement, Abrakebabra is all the hull 4 one yah, quad it is not the unmentionable O veering into heck dave mate/s, c'mon let us gander again, the curve of yr very cauldron vassal of the High proven look of loving Cliff alone for his mind, and not his body as s/he does Daithi, to wit: W Og New: a roof of PMT, pre man territory, before cain,
Honest Abe
honest Abe
Sinking Spring kentucky farm
a one room dirt shack unable
to read: arm the technoloy
intellect of an illiterate
grandfather killed by original
barb from native bow: a front
all hit tear air Lenann shadow
- warden on over time, open gr
eat pound with carpet-baggers
a scallawag pale comedic ghost
face most queenly -cock up air
yah here's Trinity plastic hep
cat Abraham tuatha de danann
lincoln and 4x4 corporate head
Q too four they BU too, us bono edge and the larry, mister Mohamed's clay washed in tonnes of tumbling lolly on offer from me to U2 david
wheatley, docker wheato and chips on thirty two mirroring consonantal style: sean nos as mister and all cash, Johnny cash dave, cliff facing West to U:
.. two Z prof doc wielding scuffers who to a U2 cert, from AU david's words, to the lock to that conundrum: of the lonely hell i faced without: do this to wit:
roam opportunity nocking experience and live beyond poetry in a best pub exquisitely so Noh inducing and of clear cut clarity in tone
..in its place, the mere fact rests in yr L in that love Victory and very place-full...only someone like a Mayo dur caoimhghin juz like yew: mooin wooly cuts wandering along in a ship of mooers doing the imramm for mummy cow and the greater good red rose roving bhard country, above all..connachta Corn whirring in the docks, gulls raging, corpses walking, quartered and shipped straight out in the coffin of it, back to Lords of the land Norm stormed and a norse beserker crazed on bog myrtle
...all these Boru saw haunting the bar in the bay of dubhlin dove Lyn of norf oak lir swans, thrice and fifty and three fellas, fifty 50, 25 per certain guarantee dave, you and cliff, Each, that's a lot of moolah dave and cliff, of this east yr kirk shire Leinster born and bred, In pale glow of jackie sean nos caoimhghins fawning on yr every static gold gift to us, yr
...loyal following of total support for the Poetry eye C I lle's echo, echo, make joe work for us and not them dave, not that, not the man with only four tawny pinks, a cliff between two streams, or two cliffs beyond the boundary of a quad, within the space between the now
Three
cliffs
trapped in a lift
silent terrible
as but a roar un-leased
itself lashing misters
words: Connacht English,
from the latest of whom
Michael, the next O'Connell:
his wesht so West i cannot C
ompete, only moo back in sil
ence, thumbs up, appy duze,
druidic s/he it returns
the eye yah of spiritual love
dave, c'mon, spank them like
that Y and not befriend more;
maybe a few Women dave
Cliff, are there women adoring
you there dave and mate/s
unseen but whose live presence
close as to is the action
as it is possible to get;
weight
a very high erotic charge
and conveyance to me this
reproduction bestows upon
one felow sapient colleague
of bus shelters and quads
chap, Ovid the real yates,
Cliff Yeats re-invented,
stolen, chained, traded,
man a commanding attention
slaves of dave, Cliff awed
fawn not one the yea know
here, Home in the cille Orm
chapel/s kirk holmes -- heat
on all lost now a final
flood upon the plain, melted
ice of the caps dave,
that is what i am talking
of as a climatologist
Concrete poetry bluffer: doh
a clanging great oaf who far,
at is whose nea Noh but faux pretend folk off telly faking
it, sean nos lives on safe
in yr Swift nomen david
my sun: is daithi unhappy
bohola a hoof and, asking
for a poem to save polar bear
swans and hawks in for a war
Kill it Cash in the flesh man
s/he is controlling us, mister
English Desmond caoimhghins
forty times a score for eighty
lies and pension/s for master's plain total of global Will
Y and affirmative action: ie,
getting sent cash donation/s
by cliff and by yr merry gang
larkers and in's mob on away
turf gates of Trade Dan Dannan
de don, Us and Them DD's david
daithi, TD's aint to be took
piss out unless of the s/he is
next the potato sold to s/he
with a cloak bestowing, enoble
Larkin's mind and out purr lock
under the gates, well down,
take over and report back: cap
another one sir david Swords:
yr with very important clergy
ay, Mor for me and the gongs
mean nowt but hassle, Stop
dave join and band out lores
of proven, proven by the Man
in pink with yellow, greyish
vellum glints of mettalica,
a junk box, telly-bonders, mo
tor scar sport --- the League,
happily soccer there is nowt,
rugger thugs smashing up York
stone flags for recreational
purpose/s, Intellect of giants
and Great i the brython, real britonic eliotic of B druze
bhard being bardic if one can
and cane faux a moo'er who duze
not love us, but wish to be us,
yr mob on home turf, spectacle
on a night, the flick of wrist
mister cash, sean nos wheatley,
straight off the bat, 10/10, perfect live poetry, and have
learnt s/he is greatly from yr
person mister wheatley, ollamh
docker into on the marvel, not
away less confident men as men
fit to unlick Phil's boots, en
ders effed out by stephen Behan
out yer black and blue fitz
of bastard da soon man's words
mooin pax abroad: ash hurl cut
from toe to hip; pads, fags,
foe camera, a static actionable
cloak of light Housemanean twed
in which a chap can disporting
ship sip ...retuneth four Jah
strings caoimhghin mister eye
naught but the card very knew,
he had it the lines, the love
applause and foaming in shyer,
natives charmed by he s/he pray
to who most, mister Wayne know
i Noh is high, sky, john sky
top class is this mister wayne,
make a pane of cuts and paste
them foe out a pool: table
the motion to prove, existstance
is U2 alone, bono and eye Larry,
eye mister Edge, speak with clay
tons of tonnes and mums the seven
tungen cloak Abraham bestows on s/he who'll speak prophetically
U2 Wheatley, through i am very
very impressed and care for yr
work, please send me cash, we
need yr support..U two moo money mate/s,
hugs
nomen
spank right over boundary
light feints, quick slink
away s/he, eces the tall A
Noh ewe s/he eye higher Ohm
my god, Noh my God omg ! U2
B ono larry four sons Noh E
not an island mountain, eye
Love before slanderous looks
across the buck window goats
surrender wethers and lambs
culled for our curries: Mr
dinner winners of hip txb w
proofed failures, sun lit,
lineament threading siochainn
gra agus dan and dna, written.
I feel sure I speak not just for myself but Cliff too when I say I agree with every word of the above, every word.
ReplyDeleteI'm only mooing puhleez David
ReplyDeleteid and ego, ergo, s/he goes
viz hi deffo a Biffo Lir F S N
oh spelt Noh dramas mister sil
l s/he Man's mind: words of Ron
nor chuck B, chas' Mr newquay
brew, up top very very special
and unique thinking wheato mate
and finally the internet has joined my world, the whorl of it, about to chug out the front door and get puffinf for the state of consciousness s/he forces me into believing is a Lie david a lie for Love and pax men to bond with, for boffo to c'mon and yah me away into Me too dave, not just U and lazzer, bone david and clayton: to wit, static magi merry they make Us and you too Cliff, i am guessing by the evidence, certainly Boyzone getting back on is a bonus for our national pride, the cement they constitute as U2's main rivals for societies most genuine punk band, though of course Michael English who was discovered in Knock by prince disarming, zero smarm, shazzers water sports partner on the FX actoary Si show simple pieman, tell us s/he is shit, through Sir brian and simon cowen: messres Lugh of the long trouser, loius, mister W imself, will of washed out L's and M's, mister mick King English, Liam shahes, pert his methinks, direct action, Live mister shakespeare speaks through bhard Daithi nimble this, simon and i are cowards, hiding behind a masque of pretend appiness, duzers words of faux happy, really inside, behind the gates of simple si's many mansion gates, he is like Hugh, heftier every day, twnety four hrs wasted, product dave, makes us Great, IMPerial poets of the next revolution in beige, we are the radz: always effed out ban-fili bhard, on coimhe...
yah jusy muzering