Tag: Featured | Peter O Regan

Zöld Kancsó

Posted on February 23, 2022 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

Just dropped in for a cuppa between jobs. Had intended to take the Metro 2 downtown but having passed this place recently, and hoping to resurrect my exploratory verve, I chose to go to the end of the line, Örs Vezér tere.

A front area that opens to the street on hotter days, I’m currently being baked alive by the heat, such is my desire for people watching. There is a back area with booths, cozy, no doubt, for those sessions with friends.

Today, and alone, I’m merely absorbing the early afternoon sunshine and chilled out vibe. A radio plays hits from a time, and people come and go.

In front of me there lies a menu. Full of burgers, a veggie option to boot, a few quesadilla options, and sides such as onion rings and chicken wings. Oh, and the mandatory melegszendvics in a few flavours, ropi and other typical bar snacks.

It seems to cater to all tastes, from snacker to meal seeker, dare I say drinker to dancer.

The Facebook page says it has a young people’s vibe but for now on a sunny Wednesday afternoon the average age is upwards of fifty, what with the old couple behind me and the border collie (dog years!!!) with its young owner farther down, and myself of course.

For now it offers all that I require, a little peace and quiet, but I can imagine when up at Ikea next time, I might actually forego the swedish meatballs in favour of a burger here. I think the kids and Andi will agree. Let’s see😁😋😁

https://www.facebook.com/zold.kancso/

To Joe

Posted on July 28, 2020 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

Last night
Or this morning a’round dawn
A thought
Wandered in on its own
Twas an idea
Of who you once were
The stories
Regaling us all
The devil
Residing in you
No different
To the ones in us too
And this morning
Or last night Or whenever
You returned
From that place of forever
And I lent
You an ear, or mind’s eye
Leaving
A vision of horror subside
Realising
Just how much I cared
Surprised
Yet not drawn to tears
Tony

missing you as he will
Honestly
I think of you still.

Once upon a time in Arranmore

Posted on April 13, 2020 by Martin O'Regan • 0 Comments

Pat, Auntie Pat

Both the plaintive moan and tell tale tattler

to myself and Killian’s attempts to flee for a fag by the wayside.

The spy in our midst, at once our traitor and our watch dog bred.

No chance to escape his torment, we suffered him in silence.

Or at least in muttered curses themselves by the wayside fled.

Pat, Auntie Pat

The, at once childish, though distinctly cunning, call to arms of all attention

His will to have us be undone and yet not knowing, even then –

The true power of addiction, the urge which must be answered.

We slipped his noose from time to time but his nose thereafter sharper

Calling attention to our scent, “like old men in a pub” –

the crusty beard-stained-yellow troubadours of hapless pints and memory.

Pat, Auntie Pat

And so the buoyancy of teenage prattle was exposed,

to blushes forth the information that in secret had been cast.

Not to be trusted evermore

The boy to arms alone like many times before

A schoolyard had dared to bully but he bit back

And so he disappeared from out that car and on into his only life

Till time and distance solidified but a memory

Till one cruel Sunday morning and his life cut short

Pat, Auntie Pat

The echo of a time forever more.

A Place Called Grange

Posted on April 12, 2020 by Martin O'Regan • 2 Comments

Through the veil of a vague remembrance
something tries to shine distinctly
Something claims the honour of
being remembered beyond the pale.
And whether truth or wishful thinking
it vies for recognition
And whether relevant to a fact
it remains relevant to us all.
It is not the collective notion
of a notion of our past
Nor the romanticised rebellion
in delusion against the truth
It is rather just a memory
mixed and mattered by circumstance
For it is our pain and how
we each deal with it in the end.

Planned to be sent

Posted on March 18, 2020 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

I’ve decided to write this letter on paper just because, in the face of redundancy, I think all things should get at least one last appeal, and here within the artform that is letter writing, once an actual means of basic communication, be it humble or great, I have found need to defend the very form itself. It is dying so they say because of what? Our sense of urgency, our brevity or is it perhaps because little utterances conveyed too often form the emalgamated whale that swallows all sea life, including the beauty that would convey at least dramatically but a slice of all life? In sheer verbosity through quantity of snippets we have served up execution to the draft and thought, to the long evenings delivered into the arms of wonder as we delve, in search of expression, vying with every pen to paper push, a sinewy pleasure, for the perfection which, as writers we should always fear eludes us, for it must, and without attaining that spectacle of greatness, further purpose to ourselves that fair dangled destiny, that truest of beauties, the fatal enterprise, forever flawed for such is its nature.

The Future

Posted on November 7, 2019 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

It may feel all so benign
But it’s not
And no longer.
That flagrant flame of youth

-Misguided, burned out, upended-
All but floated and away
Into the flighty fancy of a memory
But things change
Have changed
And the energy expended
Now finds fruition.
The shadows of ideas
Pilfered in the half-light
Of fear and misunderstanding
Grow clearer, defined
And spell hope, recognition
The Phoenix forlorn
Mistaken
Spreads wing to take flight
And at last in the darkness of a globulus eye
Peering, searching, domineering,
I see reflected the being
That I had many years ago created
And which I’d sheltered
As I dared
Against the world
But it’s time has come
No longer hiding against the tide of criticism
That may or may not follow
On toward the destination
Plotted many moons ago.

Puskin played his part Why not I?

Posted on November 1, 2019 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

That I May yet across a summer glade brooding

Imagine love true love through my boyish vision

And yet may I remember it hence

At a time this time of writing

With the clarity that would as it was passing now.

That I May yet paint a picture truly

Not guided by a dream not dreamed but stolen

That I may figure such words as love

From a canvas freshly met and at points still dripping.

That I May yet open up to my losses

Counting them fairly not feigning to carefree

That I may recognize each moment’s worth

Or accept that at times I could have done and more bravely.

What’s In A Name

Posted on October 28, 2019 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

We gave ourselves a name

Each and every day we valued it just the same.

We didn’t deride it even when others did

Or we did only at the very end –

Broken, resigned, or perhaps just disappointed:

But we were motivated just the same.

Now our name precedes us

Into the realm of everything we do

And because it’s not unique

We change it,

Design it,

So as to be understood.

We feign indifference

Presume normality

But we have yet to draw the truth from out the stone.

We probably don’t even recognise

That what we’re doing makes us more alone.

We have become disfigured by our fantasy

Where our friends, benevolent,

Fulfil our testimony

Until the moment that we no longer just agree

And then we realise the extent of self-made tragedy.

We sign in, log out, and never stop to think

That we have changed because

That we are not because

That we are because

Of what we’ve chosen.

What I want is

Posted on October 26, 2019 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

I want to create again
To write that poem
With proud held pen
I want to write it perfectly
As I imagined when read
It would be.
I want it to express everything
To capture the essence
To finally take wing.
I want it to soar like that Russian’s*
Like that love
And to forget nothing.
I want it to be
remembered for the words it spent
And for posterity.
I want it forgotten
To be misquoted
And turned to something rotten.
I want it to have
A life of its own, organic,
And then I’ll be glad.

*Yevgeny Yevtushenko: ” Poetry is like a bird, it ignores all frontiers”

The Black Fume

Posted on March 31, 2013 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

Degree drops from

The digital display.

Once as hot as hell

Now unbearably less.

There is a coolness

For the damned.

In the soft yellow-orange of sunset,

There may yet be respite.

For the meek there

Is nothing, not till

The very end.

They don’t shelter

In the glory of shadows

And the rising and the setting

of all things celestial.

Their wait is longer –

Bound in time,

If legitimate,

But maybe not their lifetime,

And therefore,

They may never know.

“If I die into nothing

I will forever remain ignorant,

Unknowing as to

My own fate.”

Amen

[And this will be the only true infinity. Timeless. Unbound. Nothing!]

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