Writing | Martin O Regan

The Changing Times

Posted on October 18, 2019 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

We are the traders, upstanding us all
Merchants, purveyors, at your beck and call
Ready to help you, relieve you of cash
Just one thing we beg you, no change should you pass
Only paper is worthy, and coins if worth much
The lower in value too filthy to touch
It’s your duty to hoard it, in boxes to keep
And never reveal it to bury it deep
For what is this coinage but the pointless remains
Of the money you gave us, so spare us the pain
And please don’t insult us demanding your right
For if you had any then what here could I write?
In fact it’s a privilege extended to you
So please stop complaining that this will not do
Moreover, how dare you even challenge this quo
And say that it’s we who have burdened you so
For what would you be if it wasn’t for us
So please just be quiet and stop making a fuss.

The Unfinished Hotel

Posted on October 18, 2019 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

The homeless woman in the homeless women’s line

Always gave me the time to take my change with her sweet smile

The drunken Gypsy begging for a coin

Pointing at my bulging belly when I said that I had none,

As if my rotundness was my wealth

Any man who can build a belly must have money too.

Miklós shouting at me from two floors below

Never sober always drunk then never more

My reflection if I made my life that choice

His face remains but time has lost his voice.

The Jewish centenarians living right next door

TV blaring into the evening

To compensate a faded hearing

But deaf and drunk next door with my guitar

Their apologies unnecessary

Mine greeted with such gentle smiles.

The flower lady made her garden just downstairs

Smiling up at me in all my states

But my brother never felt but focused evil eye

Why me? he’d ask Not you?

I had no answer not that any could ever do

She was the flower lady with the changing mood

To turn her into an angel would do no good.

The courtyard queen sitting watching all

The kindest watchdog I have ever met

The Gypsy family scaring her away till they did leave again and she did stay

The skinhead bar the gauntlet to be run

On Friday nights the kicks would fly but wined up it mattered none

Except to the poor soul coming against me in the haze

No drink bravado to help him along his way

Then turning left or going straight ahead

To wherever this night that night it led

To Tina Turner’s bar at Podmaniczky’s end

The crooked smiles and tilted tongues,

The cheating, daring, hours lost and friendships won

From every side of day no end in sight

A springboard, a pillow, a hunger, till night took flight

Rub a dub dub three men stumbling in

The bodyguard the soldier the chef

A slip on the ice brought the big fellow down

But the helping hand winning free drinks.

Up Pod’s North East the two hearts did beat

The young lady for beauty

The old lady for speech

In our lingo the bar eponymously called

The Old Lady’s Now lost

At Immeasurable cost.

Such news learnt through a bath time discussion

Such things lost with education, progression.

New generations forsaking old ones’ schemes

Themselves in search of future dreams.

The trainyard calling in the depths of night, the tunnel farther up connecting in a howl on the drunken bike

The loneliness on those dark nighttime feats

The memories reflecting on the wet cobbled streets…

The Production Line

Posted on October 18, 2019 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

In the depth of a drink
Editing, considering,
I raise my eyes
Just for a moment
And watch
And I allow this distraction
And I allow it to grow,
Grow into the image
Of motion, movement,
Towards…?
The end of the line.

Impressions

Posted on October 18, 2019 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

Friday fifth of July
Just over on Leitrim Street and Watercourse Road
Sun gleams through the freshness of the morning
Heating me from the inside.
Up at the Revenue’s Maedbh is nice
Her voice over the phone courteous, kind.
Next up and over through older and new
Along Lansdowne terrace then the top the Hill
To the school, my next stop, and where this summer will…
The laughter the smiles the general avoidance
Till mentioned and breezed over
Short-changed on overdue promises
Back through the city
Doing Pana at a stretch
Trusting and coiling till the Mall once again.
The bank building
A beauty, a glimpse of times past
The twenty on the floor
Unclaimed then named mine.
And last but not least
To the corner, Union Quay,
Not to Charlie’s but next door
Into the Grind and coffee
The comings and goings
The stories the chat
Another place I could drop into
If I ever really came back.

If I ever came back
On my own terms only
A nine to fiver would kill me
Of this now I am certain.

The title Lost

Posted on October 18, 2019 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

Inside, the tap-ad-slap of falling raindrops soothes.
Outside it drenches to the bone.
All adventure set aside,
all such plans they dissipate…

along the fear inflected path…
“Enough,” I say “Enough of that!”
And yet the pen in fruit-continual
Bears Hope in words residual.
The easing of the ex-hibitions
Perhaps to failing my contrition
At every corner subterfuge
The ego does the man delude.

They can’t have it

Posted on April 30, 2018 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

They shall not have what we had
They can’t.
“Aw but I remember my first time seeing an elephant”
Yeah, I’m sure you do.
That sideways dance, head nodding, tongue lolling?
I’m sure you do.
They cannot have what we had
They never will.
“But it’s unfair to deprive them of that wonder”
The one that makes up your childhood memories?
Try living for them for a change,
Not through them.
Their lives will be eventful, of that you can be certain.
They mustn’t have what we had,
They can’t.
“ Surely it’s up to them to decide”
Fine by me, but what do you allow a one year old? A razor blade for tea?
Might as well if you keep excusing the present because of a past.
Seems odd to me.
They won’t have what we had
They never can.
“But…”
But what? It’s fucked, all of it.
Clean air, what a joke
Free to travel, that old lie
A future, perhaps
But not on our terms – no more.

Storms Prolonged

Posted on April 25, 2018 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

The round faced woman with the tight Jewish curls
Let’s the sunshine sheen her face to milk chocolate brown
Red-faced I pass by complacent after storm
The mind’s eye reset one more time.
The depth of the darkness and the thick thorny thoughts
Once more a surprise here at hindsight.
In the throes of the horror all ships had set sail for the shores of respite elsewhere hidden.
The fleet, an Armada, bedevilled being broken
Sunk e’erfore a sanctuary succeeding.
And now in the aftermath I salvage from wreckage the hope to once more move on forward
Yet a scar that runs deep now further extended
A reminder of a forest and bone frailty

Trudell’s* Therapy

Posted on April 12, 2018 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

In the dappled moment deranged
The orange glow growing
Cancer chosen again.
The despair spelled out in Circus
The cold brought in from the spy
Douma denounced, despaired over, denied.
Sabre rattling no more
Giants braving the brawl
Borders inundated, shattered –
No divisions in blood.
A child’s nightmare comforted
While one’s own sleep deprived
Fists pummelling the shadows, haunted again,
The dark days returned.
And the people despair
Or delight or don’t care
And the people morphed out again:
No men in no man’s land.