ODE TO FANNY BRAWNE
‘My holy see of love’
John Keats
I can’t see beyond my-
Self, lost in a world of dis-
Ability. A post-card came
Through my door, a tiny
Touch of humanity, the tiny
Clumps of colour took my mind
Away from wheel-chairs, monkey-
Poles and grab-rails, shower-chairs
Beside disabled toilets, beside me.
For a moment
It truly amazes me how John Keats
Stood away from his death dressed
Only in his negative capability.
Fanny Brawne must have been a woman
And a half. Forty five years of my memory
Was erased in a stroke so I can’t see beyond
Myself, memory has been ten years in hell but
I’m beginning to see the light.
SNOB
The raindrops fall on my window
And drip like tears of yesterdays?
Grief. Life is all about money, greed
and killing not love and respect.
I phoned ‘Life-Line’ to find a positive
To this negative but all people can do
Is listen. Humanity is supposed to
Cancel out the suicidal negativity but
It’s full of killing and war for money.
There are no rights to cancel the wrongs
There is no good and evil. There are
No answers just questions so my only
Positive is within my negative. Duality
Life isn’t a one way street but every road
John Keats
Self, lost in a world of dis-
Ability. A post-card came
Through my door, a tiny
Touch of humanity, the tiny
Clumps of colour took my mind
Away from wheel-chairs, monkey-
Poles and grab-rails, shower-chairs
Beside disabled toilets, beside me.
Stood away from his death dressed
Only in his negative capability.
Fanny Brawne must have been a woman
And a half. Forty five years of my memory
Was erased in a stroke so I can’t see beyond
Myself, memory has been ten years in hell but
I’m beginning to see the light.
I go down leads to a barricade of the mind.
Just like when I was a refugee child,
now I’m a refugee man with no way out alive
You have left me no choice but in.
A MEMOIR BLOG OF POETRY AND PROSE
1.
The clouds in blue go drifting by
finding formation, smeared by light.
A ballet of dancers upon my stage
piroetting thin air, in my mind their true
just like the lie that becomes my truth.
My Father lived within a lie all his life but
he knew no different, left on a doorstep in
a basket, north Belfast, by a blood red door.
That to might be a lie, but the lie lies buried
in the black hills above Belfast
back where it all began.
2.
The only truth he ever knew was my Mother.
Big Pat as she was known because you could
trust her with your life.
Born the daughter of a Dublin Mother, 1933
trying to rare a young family. Growing through
the hard days of Ireland becomeing an independant
nation and losing her husband, just 27 to T.B.
Margaret Keogh was a proud independent lady
against her families wishes she upped-
sticks and moved her family to London
where her children could find work
despite the signs that read
NO BLACKS!
NO DOGS!
NO IRISH!
THE SON OF A BASTARD SON
PART 2
I loved my father but he was the biggest
Bastard in my world. So began the fight
Of a life time that still goes on to this day.
He started my anti- authoritarian attitude
we were fighting for the love of the same
woman, my Mother. He made my life hell
but it wasn’t his fault, I was abandoned in
childhood just like he was left at a door.
It all began when I came out of the high-
Chair and freedom of speech became my
Barricade, I was going to fight for my prize.
He said I was a spoilt brat who needed to
Much attention but I was just a boy an you
Were just a mum. He found his mother in
You, I don’t want to knit pick but he was
A bastard but that wasn’t my fault.
He’s dead now but I’ll never forgive the old
Bastard for making me look down at the floor.
I was forced down from the day I was born
All because I love my mother. Pity he couldn’t
See that she was the best thing that happened.
I was the son and he came down on me. He doesn’t
Have to fight no more, he’s in the earth with
Mother earth. When I was sixteen I said no more
And hit him a dig in the head and he found the floor.
Mum I’ll have to go before I kill, the bastard.
THE SHELL-SHOCK SHELL
Do I wear a shell-shock, shell that
guards me from the horrors of
Humanity like a Dickensian cloak
of optimism?
I don’t do that silly angelic sentiment
That makes the world a nice place
To live in. I live in the horrors of hu-
Manity everyday as if I’m doing my
Fathers bastard life time, this is my
White noise.
I’m in the helicopter being flung out
But I’m only six inches of the ground
With a sack over my head, my foot-
Plates still get stuck on the ramps.
Being beaten with rubber hoses
This is inhumane. We live on a land
Of peace now. Gone are the days
When I visited my father in the crum
With my mum.
A shy little boy holding his mothers
Hand. Outside there was war on
The streets. This waiting around
To die is a suffering fucking hell
In this suffering fucking cell.
We have survived the first second
World war the holocaust and
The troubles, we haven’t had one
Day’s peace on this earth ever?
I face life, head on. I live in honesty
And truth. We’ve been through
the rope, the guillotine and the gun
lets not go back to the middle ages
now let’s live in peace.
This is Inhumane
THE RAVEN
My right hand like a talon
Up turned, a dead bird.
A raven, these are my cries
Of Lenor. Forever perched
Upon this wheelchair, once
I watched from the ramp-
Arts. Looking down at
The barricades, I now live
In peace time. No longer
On Edgar Allen Poe’s wing.
I’ve seen war and darkness
Bearing down on me.
The wheelchair repair man called
From somewhere up there on
the east, I’m down here on upper
Bann like a dead bird waiting to fly
fly away from this dirty boulevard.
Fly on the wing of Lou Reed, I am
His raven at heart.
RAISED TO THE GROUND
Words cling to life like the hinges of negative
space carrying a poem. Waking up in an-
other dimension, the trauma of death
almost catching you up. We come from dark-
ness and go to darkness, a formless being
being formed. An infant in an adult shell
shock, without language to take you along
the rails. Dark then light, light then dark,
then there is nothing but light, time travelling.
Life is there in the rubble of time but debris
Is hard to build, begin anew. Death hasn’t got
the best of you yet, build it back up to fall in
the ruins. Raised to the ground in a shell shock
mind, doing time..
BEING HUMAN
When life is desperate
We create a negative-
Capability within us.
When we can’t find
A way out or into life.
At this time of need we
All need a spiritual centre.
We dig deep to find a dharma
Or god that ejects us from
Despair and takes us to that
Higher ground where we
Can settle and almost be free.
THE INTERIOR CASTLE
After Rilke
This is my un-adopted castle
The world exists within me.
The external slowed in motion
Where once stood a house
A family, a Mother, Father
And a god, now images take
Their place. To flow through
Imagination from the well of
Life, time transmits an energy.
We no longer worship in temples
The energy omits an old way
Where we can be secretly saved.
I am the king of this un-adopted
Castle, this is an expression from
Within that needed pillars, statues
And a throne but I’ve got a wheel-
Chair a brain and a left hand, home.
But I’ve got a wheelchair
A brain a left hand, home.
THE RHYTHMIC CREATURES
I thought the whole point of poetry was to reach beyond that egoless ego
And reach beyond snobbery, I’m just a spineless confessional poet.
Adrian fox
Poetry is in the air, were bombarded by words.
We are the catalyst, the rhythmic creatures
That find form in these words, labelled signs
And un-labelled signs like street, cars, house,
Road, tree, me, words are in our blood with-
In our D.N.A. Whether you’re creating a novel
A short story or a play it must be poetic. Even
Art is a poetic image of what you want to re-
Present, it’s up to us to make sense of this
World even that name is created by words
World is made up of word, this is a pome
Created by the world we live in:
The sun shadows the street, the cars go by
in style. I’m within this waking dream of me
and you’re within this waking dream of us
so let’s start waking to the dream.
I have to put the break-
Fast dishes away
and make room
for my day.
A MEMOIR BLOG OF POETRY AND PROSE
1.
The clouds in blue go drifting by
finding formation, smeared by light.
A ballet of dancers upon my stage
piroetting thin air, in my mind their true
just like the lie that becomes my truth.
My Father lived within a lie all his life but
he knew no different, left on a doorstep in
a basket, north Belfast, by a blood red door.
That to might be a lie, but the lie lies buried
in the black hills above Belfast
back where it all began.
2.
The only truth he ever knew was my Mother.
Big Pat as she was known because you could
trust her with your life.
Born the daughter of a Dublin Mother, 1933
trying to rare a young family. Growing through
the hard days of Ireland becomeing an independant
nation and losing her husband, just 27 to T.B.
Margaret Keogh was a proud independent lady
against her families wishes she upped-
sticks and moved her family to London
where her children could find work
despite the signs that read
NO BLACKS!
NO DOGS!
THE SON OF A BASTARD SON
PART 2
I loved my father but he was the biggest
Bastard in my world. So began the fight
Of a life time that still goes on to this day.
He started my anti- authoritarian attitude
we were fighting for the love of the same
woman, my Mother. He made my life hell
but it wasn’t his fault, I was abandoned in
childhood just like he was left at a door.
It all began when I came out of the high-
Chair and freedom of speech became my
Barricade, I was going to fight for my prize.
He said I was a spoilt brat who needed to
Much attention but I was just a boy an you
Were just a mum. He found his mother in
You, I don’t want to knit pick but he was
A bastard but that wasn’t my fault.
He’s dead now but I’ll never forgive the old
Bastard for making me look down at the floor.
I was forced down from the day I was born
All because I love my mother. Pity he couldn’t
See that she was the best thing that happened.
I was the son and he came down on me. He doesn’t
Have to fight no more, he’s in the earth with
Mother earth. When I was sixteen I said no more
And hit him a dig in the head and he found the floor.
Mum I’ll have to go before I kill, the bastard.
THE SHELL-SHOCK SHELL
Do I wear a shell-shock, shell that
guards me from the horrors of
Humanity like a Dickensian cloak
of optimism?
I don’t do that silly angelic sentiment
That makes the world a nice place
To live in. I live in the horrors of hu-
Manity everyday as if I’m doing my
Fathers bastard life time, this is my
White noise.
I’m in the helicopter being flung out
But I’m only six inches of the ground
With a sack over my head, my foot-
Plates still get stuck on the ramps.
Being beaten with rubber hoses
This is inhumane. We live on a land
Of peace now. Gone are the days
When I visited my father in the crum
With my mum.
A shy little boy holding his mothers
Hand. Outside there was war on
The streets. This waiting around
To die is a suffering fucking hell
In this suffering fucking cell.
We have survived the first second
World war the holocaust and
The troubles, we haven’t had one
Day’s peace on this earth ever?
I face life, head on. I live in honesty
And truth. We’ve been through
the rope, the guillotine and the gun
lets not go back to the middle ages
now let’s live in peace.
This is Inhumane
THE RAVEN
My right hand like a talon
Up turned, a dead bird.
A raven, these are my cries
Of Lenor. Forever perched
Upon this wheelchair, once
I watched from the ramp-
Arts. Looking down at
The barricades, I now live
In peace time. No longer
On Edgar Allen Poe’s wing.
I’ve seen war and darkness
Bearing down on me.
The wheelchair repair man called
From somewhere up there on
the east, I’m down here on upper
Bann like a dead bird waiting to fly
fly away from this dirty boulevard.
Fly on the wing of Lou Reed, I am
His raven at heart.
RAISED TO THE GROUND
Words cling to life like the hinges of negative
space carrying a poem. Waking up in an-
other dimension, the trauma of death
almost catching you up. We come from dark-
ness and go to darkness, a formless being
being formed. An infant in an adult shell
shock, without language to take you along
the rails. Dark then light, light then dark,
then there is nothing but light, time travelling.
Life is there in the rubble of time but debris
Is hard to build, begin anew. Death hasn’t got
the best of you yet, build it back up to fall in
the ruins. Raised to the ground in a shell shock
mind, doing time..
BEING HUMAN
When life is desperate
We create a negative-
Capability within us.
When we can’t find
A way out or into life.
At this time of need we
All need a spiritual centre.
We dig deep to find a dharma
Or god that ejects us from
Despair and takes us to that
Higher ground where we
Can settle and almost be free.
THE INTERIOR CASTLE
After Rilke
This is my un-adopted castle
The world exists within me.
The external slowed in motion
Where once stood a house
A family, a Mother, Father
And a god, now images take
Their place. To flow through
Imagination from the well of
Life, time transmits an energy.
We no longer worship in temples
The energy omits an old way
Where we can be secretly saved.
I am the king of this un-adopted
Castle, this is an expression from
Within that needed pillars, statues
And a throne but I’ve got a wheel-
Chair a brain and a left hand, home.
But I’ve got a wheelchair
A brain a left hand, home.
THE RHYTHMIC CREATURES
I thought the whole point of poetry was to reach beyond that egoless ego
And reach beyond snobbery, I’m just a spineless confessional poet.
Adrian fox
Poetry is in the air, were bombarded by words.
We are the catalyst, the rhythmic creatures
That find form in these words, labelled signs
And un-labelled signs like street, cars, house,
Road, tree, me, words are in our blood with-
In our D.N.A. Whether you’re creating a novel
A short story or a play it must be poetic. Even
Art is a poetic image of what you want to re-
Present, it’s up to us to make sense of this
World even that name is created by words
World is made up of word, this is a pome
Created by the world we live in:
The sun shadows the street, the cars go by
in style. I’m within this waking dream of me
and you’re within this waking dream of us
so let’s start waking to the dream.
I have to put the break-
Fast dishes away
and make room
for my day.
Adrian Fox does odes:
ODE TO KEATS
My heart aches a numb and lonely pain
as though a sad elixir were shot through.
A pale faced melancholy rises evaporating
rivers of sentimental happiness.
The winged leaves of nature sing
the notes of spring, summer, autumn
And winter. It’s as if at birth I was
given a dose of negative capability
and even in this death of life
my poetic mind is tinged with a glimmer.
Flying in this moment on wheel-chaired
Chariots, I feel the flowers at my feet
and the rains upon my brow
embalmed in un-adopted darkness
within this waking dream.
ODE TO TRUTH
' beauty is truth, truth beauty,-that is all
ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'
John Keats died for humanity
it came to me like a bolt from blue
it galloped right out of a dream
as if he was speaking his blue true.
The truth of his negative capability
is walking around in you, do you
want the truth of the stable-boy
do you want what's living and true.
he died from disease, his dis-
ease was his truth and the truth
is better than fiction and that's all
you need to know.
SWOON
1.
I cannot swoon at nature be-
cause it cannot swoon at me.
I’m coming and going against
The grain of life. Plain-ed
And ground down by time, I can-
Not find my absent mind. My
Paralysed hands can’t even hold
This pome down in a pen. This
Is my syn-drome, my cadence?
And my assonance of un-sound.
My head coming to a head,
The light within me.
2.
The blossom on the tree
Hangs like raindrops
On the sky. Through an-
Other window it looks
Like he is going by. Leaves
Are his nose and eyes
He’s the horseman riding-
Drifting by, the poet of all
Poets in a Keatsian sky.
Nature hangs there off
The branch, his mood
Changes like the hanging
Wind that contours every-
One. He is the man of each
And every season, he tells
Me that summer is
The reason. Why the blossom
Rains in June and fruits are so
Pleasing, life is so true says he
Beauty is there in winters-
Freezing, the bare tree in-
Ticing twigs are knitting
Nests of hope for us
To cope, gems of light
And wonder.
COLOURFUL BLACK BLOOMS
For Franky
I woke this morning to cold water music trick-
Ling my room full of black full stop blooms.
That’s what i‘ve surfaced to every morning for ten years
a symmetry of black full stop blooms to start my day, like
womb dreams blotches before my eyes.
I heard yesterday my friend Frankie died, Frankie
Was in my stroke group, I remember that smile behind
his roll-later handing me a cup of tea and sitting beside
me and the woman who took nine strokes that
you saw in her eyes just like the colour of
iris’s blooming in my head. I had to stop going
it was so depressing when those friends began
to work my mind when I closed my blue door a-
lone, that place wasn’t a nice place, I woke to that
symmetry of un-colour everyday like the colourful wall-
paper of my youth. Why is life so harsh, we
have to have a release mechanism to
let our friends go.
I always remember those blooms from my child-
hood like a wreath for Frankie.
I’m there in spirit mate. The cold water music sounds like
a cortege, why is life such a sad son of a bitch.
I’ll always remember them blooms those colourful black
Embers of life, my funeral pyre, his smile will trip you in
The long grass.
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ODE TO KEATS
My heart aches a numb and lonely pain
as though a sad elixir were shot through.
A pale faced melancholy rises evaporating
rivers of sentimental happiness.
The winged leaves of nature sing
the notes of spring, summer, autumn
And winter. It’s as if at birth I was
given a dose of negative capability
and even in this death of life
my poetic mind is tinged with a glimmer.
Flying in this moment on wheel-chaired
Chariots, I feel the flowers at my feet
and the rains upon my brow
embalmed in un-adopted darkness
within this waking dream.
ODE TO TRUTH
' beauty is truth, truth beauty,-that is all
ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'
John Keats died for humanity
it came to me like a bolt from blue
it galloped right out of a dream
as if he was speaking his blue true.
The truth of his negative capability
is walking around in you, do you
want the truth of the stable-boy
do you want what's living and true.
he died from disease, his dis-
ease was his truth and the truth
is better than fiction and that's all
you need to know.
SWOON
1.
I cannot swoon at nature be-
cause it cannot swoon at me.
I’m coming and going against
The grain of life. Plain-ed
And ground down by time, I can-
Not find my absent mind. My
Paralysed hands can’t even hold
This pome down in a pen. This
Is my syn-drome, my cadence?
And my assonance of un-sound.
My head coming to a head,
The light within me.
2.
The blossom on the tree
Hangs like raindrops
On the sky. Through an-
Other window it looks
Like he is going by. Leaves
Are his nose and eyes
He’s the horseman riding-
Drifting by, the poet of all
Poets in a Keatsian sky.
Nature hangs there off
The branch, his mood
Changes like the hanging
Wind that contours every-
One. He is the man of each
And every season, he tells
Me that summer is
The reason. Why the blossom
Rains in June and fruits are so
Pleasing, life is so true says he
Beauty is there in winters-
Freezing, the bare tree in-
Ticing twigs are knitting
Nests of hope for us
To cope, gems of light
And wonder.
COLOURFUL BLACK BLOOMS
For Franky
I woke this morning to cold water music trick-
Ling my room full of black full stop blooms.
That’s what i‘ve surfaced to every morning for ten years
a symmetry of black full stop blooms to start my day, like
womb dreams blotches before my eyes.
I heard yesterday my friend Frankie died, Frankie
Was in my stroke group, I remember that smile behind
his roll-later handing me a cup of tea and sitting beside
me and the woman who took nine strokes that
you saw in her eyes just like the colour of
iris’s blooming in my head. I had to stop going
it was so depressing when those friends began
to work my mind when I closed my blue door a-
lone, that place wasn’t a nice place, I woke to that
symmetry of un-colour everyday like the colourful wall-
paper of my youth. Why is life so harsh, we
have to have a release mechanism to
let our friends go.
I always remember those blooms from my child-
hood like a wreath for Frankie.
I’m there in spirit mate. The cold water music sounds like
a cortege, why is life such a sad son of a bitch.
I’ll always remember them blooms those colourful black
Embers of life, my funeral pyre, his smile will trip you in
The long grass.
