Work in Progress

This site is (as you can see) a work in progress, after a haitus, gap, disappearance...for a couple of years.

Do check out the pages listed in the right hand column here for some elements of work to date.

Please keep an eye on the site over the next few weeks for new work, new back stories...and maybe some new tankas too!

See you soon ;-)

 

And Death shall have no Dominion

In memory of Uncle John, who died last month in Wales.

RIP John Penri Hillman

Uncle John’s Hands

Big enough to hold the baby

In his palm, my uncle John had

Shoulders like a giant

The safest place

Was the palm of his hand

He walked the Valleys in seven-league boots

Leapt over mountains

He knew where black frogs hide

And rabbits have tea parties

When the tip at the pithead slipped and

Covered the school,

With big hands he shovelled all day

Holding little bodies in the palm of his hand.

***************

From Postcards

Vaynor Churchyard, Merthyr Tydfyl

It was cold all day, we were

leaves blown among the graves and

John spat on Crawshay’s stone ‘The Devil’s

Got a mate’ he said. God Forgive Me said

the stone, but its voice was lost in moss.

Though the foundry tips are grassy now, still

The bitter scent of iron’s in the air.

Red Wharf Bay, Anglesey

Beyond the horseshoe of fields

Is another world. I’ve written

letters in it, watched tiny crabs

Swim to a cold doom until the sun

Sank away. Now the water rises,

And everything’s washed free.

Trefusis Point, Cornwall

We’re sitting on the dragon’s head, and

The sea is bubbling with its breath -

I saw the whole dragon once, it was very

Green, smelt of soil and salt.

Of course, that was before I lost

My innocence - before I found you.

***************

And this, from the wonderful Dylan Thomas...

And Death shall have no Dominion

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead man naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion. 

That Butch

That Butch

That butch is made of

hard wood, ebony and bone

holds me in the 

palm of her hand

woman gives me 

oceans full of dragging waves

turns me inside out, steers 

me with her constant fingers

no need to stop

no time for no

my cunt swims when I

see her, smell her

hell for leather, 

I'd crawl for that butch

(c) Hayley Fox-Roberts, 1999

Saturday Night Fever in Carrick on Shannon!

Northwest LGBT Pride presents

THE BIG PROUD TABLE QUIZ!!

Saturday 9^th August @ Burke’s Back Bar

Bridge Street, Carrick on Shannon, Co. Leitrim

Followed by heats of Ms/Mr Gay Leitrim and then

Al Fresco Disco: Retrosexual!!

100% Vinyl Oldies

Doors open 7.30pm / Quiz 8pm /

All events €10/€8 concessions

                             Disco only (from 10pm) €6     

www.lgntpridenorthwest.blogspot.com

northwestpride@gmail.com

Winter-Went-Unblogged

The Winter-Went-Unblogged 

Two Tiny Tankas

Four winter months slush past, not counted
In hours but in weather effects and the labour of love
Electronic blogs don't get written.

Hiss in the ground as of sap rising
At least three mice have migrated from the house, it's time
To dust the cobwebs from my corners.

Mothers and Farmers: more poems from the shelf...

More delving into notebooks...I've photographed the poems written on walls but not done anything with them yet. So many poems, so little organisation, but what matters to me is that they're there with a life of their own, even if they need some polishing. So today, here's two more...this time from the Red Notebook.

My Mother's Trees (2007)

From the bathroom window, my
Mother watches her trees. She says the
Aspen is the lady in a crinoline, the
Tall poplar the gentleman. The lady
Twirls and light catches her as she dips and turns.
Other trees would like to dance, but they
Crowd together to watch the lady. No room for
Other dancers here. The wind carries
Music for accompaniment: the
Sunlit jewels of her gleaming leaves shine
As she gavottes. My mother
watches the dance, enthralled.
Soon my mother may not remember
Words to describe her. But
She will still be dancing.

***********

Cotton Farmers: India 2007

White bolls like rabbit scuts
Fill your hands; goes nowhere.
Your double hands full can't compete with
10,000 acres of mid-west America.
On a downward slope, pay out for GM seeds
No sale. No return.
The pesticide you bought on loan
To protect your artificial seed
When swallowed, does the trick.
No return.

The Upturned Boat

"Art is the air pocket in an upturned boat" Jeanette Winterson
http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/



For the past few years I've been writing on available surfaces - walls, backs of envelopes, scraps of paper, occasionally my skin...
This autumn I' decided it's time to start pulling the fragments together. In no particular order...some are dated, some I remember from where I wrote them, or what ink, pencil or lipstick I used...there doesn't need to be logical progression in writing, any more than there's logical progression in how we perceive the world. We are living fragments, and around us the world takes shape through own imagery. Some of those fragments are mysteries to me. Surprises from my own life and my own art.

Two poems from A Little Black Notebook
- works in progress, y'dig

[@ National Portrait Gallery, Dublin. 2007?8?9?]

Dead art, voices of dead men
A hung rabbit, slaughtered
Cocks, lobster boiled blood red.
These are their banquets:
Old men's faces, dead hearts
In dark oils. Breughel
Lays his venom of venious
Life in layers of paint.
the darkness of the soul -
No life or beauty leaps out
But sinful dark and wormy age.

************************

[@ County Clare...can't remember the place name...]

Lake's like the Lady with her mouth wide open
Calling from the bottom of her throat
Calling 'come and swim here' calling 'come and fall'.
You can't resist it, taking up the note

Water pulls like gravity: reed coils.

When you hear Her, the world begins to slip
Slick and smooth, she breathes and draws you down
Rope of reed and rushes tightens and is pulling
Don't resist it, follow up the call...

Road coils down below you, sticky...

Lake's like the Lady with Her mouth wide open
Calling from the bottom of her heart.
Calling 'come and swim here', calling 'love and fall'
Lake is like the ending or the start.

Ache with the loss of Her watery redemption

**************************

Treasure

Grey day. Umbrellas' red, yellow burst / 
punctures clouds. Like gold found in mud, sweet in salt; treasure / 
is simple; glory easy; movement.

Fridge Poems

yes, I had to clean the fridge eventually...all those words back in a box ready for more!


Today's Tanka...for the weather that's in it

Rain pours, flows, floods, bites a trench through road /
Grey sky; window. Crane fly thrashes in spider's web, 
trapped /
Rock of cloud smothers the mountains; black.

Autumn tanka...

Welcoming us into autumn...today's tiny tanka

Feel bonfire's heat. High wind rages/
Blows sheets of sparks: run and stamp and rescue / 
Our precious home, our lives, from burning


And today Shoemaker Kennels have their dog show in aid of Halfway Hounds Greyhound Rescue - so here's a pic of our much-missed Mollie at last year's show - Best Veteran Dog indeed!

Hillsborough 96...

Yesterday the Hillsborough Report finally proved the police cover up and stupidity that caused all those deaths 23 years ago at the Liverpool match. Took 23 years for the police to own up...and Norman Bettison just can't give it up

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/hillsborough-police-chief-continues-to-blame-1323347 

Documents published by the Hillsborough independent panel relating to the Sun's April 1989 "The Truth" front page splash, which falsely alleged that drunken Liverpool fans had urinated on police and pickpocketed the dead:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/sep/12/documents-hillsborough-panel-sun-story?intcmp=239

I remember in 1990, someone reading The Sun in a railway station -  a guy flew up to him and ripped the paper out of his hand and stamped on it...seemed fair enough. Liverpool fans could be a scary mob alright, but pickpocketing the dying? Don't think so.

Alexi Sayle did a TV programme a couple of years ago where he filmed people's response to being offered a free copy of The Sun in Liverpool. Excellent. They all refused it; said Hillsborough was why.

So let's honour the dead and respect the living. And think especially of the 43 who would have lived if the cops hadn't decided to call off the rescue at 3.15.

Rally for Justice (we could be saying this all the time these days)

RALLY FOR JUSTICE!


Anglo Bank committed fraud, the Quinns were sentenced to jail. Why?
Money was advanced by Anglo Bank (then a commercial bank) to Sean Quinn and his family, When Anglo was nationalised by government decision, this money became a taxpayer liability. The Quinn  family offered to repay all monies advanced within 7-10 years without dispute: Anglo & the government refused, instead they seized the Quinn  Group and sold Quinn Insurance for €1.
Free Sean Quinn. RALLY FOR JUSTICE, Ballyconnell, Co. Cavan 5pm Sunday 16th Sept.


"...Bankers stroke their wallets 
While the workers take the chop

Selling off the country piece by piece
Ink don't dry on the landlord's lease
Fracking in the Northwest, fracking in the east:
Repossession new aggression, NAMA is it's name
Whichever way we walk it, it all works out the same..."

from 'Community Development Blues' - yup, it's a work in progress, just like community development...

The constant motion of life

Yikes, I really will get it together to post more regularly...my, how time flies.
The indestructible corrupted behemoth that is our government cuts health services with a slash hook and we just keep going...staggering from pharmacy to a&e without any plan for the future...

and the rain pours sullen and the potatoes are blighted...well, not mine, actually, since I used the old spuds from the bottom of the veg basket. Phew, spuds for Christmas.

and winter came...
Yes, I'm having one of those days.
So, here are two tankas. Different days, different emotions. Illustrating the wonderful constant motion that keeps us alive. And that what goes down will rise again :-)

I

Moon floats on the sea of sky clouds waves / milk truck bobs along country road, bouncing curve of fields / Moon’s rudder pulls our wet boat home

II

Can’t even see this pass for grey mist / the road’s gone: holes in the track, soaking wind and no way home / Keep driving. Cliff edge is near, but blurred.

Pussy Riot & Today's Tiny Tanka

Cold ore smelted into prison bars / salt tears rust them through: cry for the Pussy Riot girls / pool two years corrosion; break them free

So much for free speech - 'keep the rebels quiet' say state agencies, keep them down. Three girls imprisoned for expressing their political views...risking losing their children...can we sit back and let it happen? Come on, come on...at least read more, sign petitions, create your own Pussy Riot in a town near you...)

http://freepussyriot.org/news/human-rights-watch-conviction-blow-free-expression

The conviction of three members of the Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot on August 17, 2012 is inappropriate and disproportionate. The three women were convicted on charges of hate-motivated hooliganism and sentenced to two years in prison.

The three women have been in detention for over five months and should be released. 

Pussy Riot is a Russian feminist punk-rock group based in Moscow.  Founded in August 2011, the band stages politically provocative performances about Russian political life  in unusual locations, such as Lobnoye Mesto on Red Square , on top of a trolleybus or on a scaffold  in the Moscow Metro.According to the group's co-founder: "Pussy Riot’s performances can either be called dissident art or political action that engages art forms. Either way, our performances are a kind of civic activity amidst the repressions of a corporate political system that directs its power against basic human rights and civil and political liberties."

Well, I let this slip by me for a wee while there - I will get the hang of this soon. One of the reasons for not posting was being part of the passionate, powerful and proud Northwest Pride. Oh, the joys...such happiness, so much laughter. This year's Pride was really achieved by everyone involved - practically no funding and volunteers exhausted - but the new blood stepped in, oh I was so Proud! Yesterday I packed up the banners and flags and my heart soared as I folded them - we are so beautiful, all of us.

So today's poem isn't a tanka and it isn't tiny. I wrote it for Dublin Pride in 2002, but hey, things hold true...so here it is.

A Poem For Pride…

(Dublin Pride 29^th June 2002)

Pride is lined with Purpose; there’s changes to be made

The Purpose is to stand up tall and not to be afraid

The Purpose is remembering who fell to put us here

And Purposely I’ll raise my voice and celebrate the Queer

Pride has Perversity, it’s quirky and capricious

It’s scary and it’s hairy and it’s meltingly delicious

Let’s go and flaunt our colours, the colours of our dreams

With indiscreet Perversity that pulls at bigotry’s seams.

By Persuasion you will get there, be you nervous or unsure

Persuasion of the people is our strong and salty core

Your Persuasion is your happiness, your future and your lust:

Persuade me that you’ll be there - for if you can, you must!

It may be Pandemonium, the gods of chaos rule

In Pandemonium all kinds of love pour in the pool

Pandemonium is the laughter of volunteers in action

And making (out of dreams and hopes) a wild and Pure reaction

Do you frown on Promiscuity? I always thought that lust

For Power or for Freedom or for Loving was a must.

Promiscuity is breaking all the rules that held you back –

I’m Proud of Promiscuity if that’s what hiding lacks.

(Pride is dangerous and wilful and will not be contained

And every queen of every gender graciously will reign.

Pride is happy and hysterical and cannot be ignored

And every queen of every kind deserves to be adored).

By Persistence we will win, we’ll take the streets back, claim our space

Persistence through the year, and on the day a wave of grace.

Persistence is what keeps us here, what keeps us all alive

With Persistence we’ll be free and help the weaker to survive.

Pride is quite Peculiar, it’s horny and it’s hot

It’s full of flair and showing off the kind of Pride we’ve got

Peculiar’s what strangers say who can’t accept your style

Come out and play and gladly be Peculiar with a smile.

With Perseverance we will see the world around us rage

As in glorious diversity we take the centre stage

With Perseverance we can see the future not so dark,

But brighter than the closet, so walk fearless through the park.

My Politics are basic – it’s the Politics of Pride

I want Freedom and I’ve got the right to kick the crap aside.

It’s Passionate and Powerful, this love that we all share

With Passion we will take our Power from those who do not care.

ImPassioned we are out there, on the street or in our heart

For we are Powerful and Beautiful, will not be kept apart

Our Potential is unlimited, with Pride let’s hear the shout –

“We’re here and getting stronger and we’re Proud of being Out!”

Today's Tanka...

Sun bakes. Flying ants patrol windows / trickle like sweat down speckled glass, reflects flat sky back / no barometer can measure this

Today's Tiny Tanka

Today's Tiny Tanka, I said...

Tanka is a Japanese form of poetry, cousin to the haiku. There are any number of places and sites that will give you the background, different forms, exercises and such....http://www.articlesbase.com/poetry-articles/an-easy-approach-to-write-a-haiku-or-tanka-poem-5633348.html would be one.

My understanding of the lovely Tanka form comes from Susan Carleton (link when I find her latest blog!). She described it as a form that

Uses natural phenomena to illustrate emotions

I've been writing them most days for the past while: a kind of journalling and a creative focus for the day.There's many forms that use a 5-line shape with structures like 5-7-7-5-5, but I've evolved a 9-13-9 form - the Tiny Tanka - or even sometimes a 7-9-7 which is more of a Teeny Tiny Tanka...

I'll be posting  a Tanka most days, and would love it if you, Dear Reader, did too.

So off we go. here's a couple I wrote earlier

28/5/12

Dusk silky grey. Dust settles, roof sighs / Edges blur, day lets go to night, insects creak and whirr / in the low ground. Dog barks at the moon.

11th June:

Those damn clouds keep appearing / Psyche’s delicate shell sunburnt: earth splits, heals dusty / On the horizon, clouds move away. Look.

Welcome to a bit of my world...

Pap & Polemic, indeed.

Welcome! I’m making a space here for poetry, political rant and whatever else springs to my mind. This is a link to some of my work as poet / performer, and also to opening debates about society, standards, new moralities and the role of the personal / political in our lives.

Pap [noun] Something resembling a nipple. Sustenance, easy to swallow nourishment.

Middle English pappe, probably from Latin papilla.

Polemic  noun [poh-lem-ik]  

1. a controversial argument, as one against someopinion, doctrine, etc.

2. a person who argues in opposition to another; controversialist.

And of course Poetry. My love, my life.