#goodwriter

That peace that comes

I thought the age of miracles had long ended,

that Gods, because they no longer cared, had forgotten the Earth.

But then I saw her honey coloured hair.

That days, filled with anger

when men turn to guns instead of books,

made me believe we were slipping into chaos once again,

as we do each century;

but then I gazed upon her smile.

A selfish joy, perhaps,

when all I want to do is hold her in my arms

and there, together, forget the terrors that lonely humans

inflict upon each other.

I thought a morning was meant to be lonely,

but then I held her to me, and found the sun, even before it had risen.

A memory, a conversation. Words written in a quiet, sad moment.

The Sun drops, heavy with life

A cold white Moon ascends.

How often I have been blind to beauty, that falls softly

Secretly, silently,

Like the night dew.

She pointed out the sun to me

Not by making me look

But by showing me warmth.

Too late you find

Too soon it’s gone.

At the quiet moment, a young man asks

What is the best way to love?

The older man says;

With the heart.

Heavy thoughts kill what is important

But what is important always dies.

Time waits, but then steps forward

Knocks down what you have built

And snatches away all wealth.

Two visions

An elderly man stands in the art gallery,

Before a picture of the Virgin Mary, and weeps.

I see him, tears on his cheeks, eyes swelled in red-dreams.

I can only imagine what he is thinking.

The years have washed upon him

In a frenzy, unexpected, unstoppable

Time has stepped upon him and moved on.

Now in front of such beauty, he weeps and in weeping feels sorry

For all the things he missed, either

In long nights at home in suburbs, wondering what could have happened if only…

Or

Merciless nights in bars, finding new lovers, never settling down and finding, too late

That it is too late.

Both, both miss much.

You cannot have it all,

And if you are lucky

At 90, stand before the Virgin Mary and weep.

 

 

This morning, at the bookstore where I meet old friends,

A man shouts into his phone

“We pay the payroll not them!”

He continued beside a shelf labelled ‘Literary Classics.’

“It’s not those guys who call the shots. Well you try it your way and if that works

Then well done,”

he stops before a shelf of poetry, and his hand reaches for but stops mid-stretch

“But I’m telling you; it will not go down like that!”

Speech finished, he hangs up as he passes Shakespeare.

He leans against a pillar as if he is out of breath

Out of life

And then pushing his phone deep into his pocket he takes the stairs,

Ascends to the street,

And is gone.

Something had taken his appetite for reading

A payroll will starve a poet.

There must be no prison.

All good things are wild and free

Kindness drops from her like rain from a leaf

She loves and wants love for all

She gives and takes, but never more than she needs.

She could be sitting next to me, but then turn

And she is gone.

Whatever makes her happy

Do not stand in her way

She would never stand in yours,

As the months go by, if she has not returned

Try to remember her face,

Try to remember her voice

Remember her standing in the kitchen

Turning to you and smiling

Glad you had come.

Remember the things she said to you,

But like all wild things

You cannot hold them,

If you do, you kill them.

Hand on the telephone

Do you get sad, sweetheart?

Sitting in the park rotunda writing on your phone

When a man comes in and sits near you; He smells of wine and faeces

You leave, hearing him cry out as you go.

You tell me how horrible it was at that moment, his yellow teeth, yellow face, black eyes

I saw him sleeping on a blanket outside a café yesterday, or someone like him.

The flowers of the city have been trampled

The trees are wrapped in protective boards

 men work through the night cutting up the tiles

the scream of their drills echo in the city streets as I walk home.

But alone is really alone.

You have to close the curtains because the glow of the buildings

Light up your room

With painful, sharp white lights

I See the white steam rising from the building rooftops

And wonder where she is

Most likely she isn’t thinking of me.

Instead, she has a hundred phone messages to answer

Remember though-

Sitting in the Roman Room of the museum

How she sat and read her phone, not looking up at the 2000-year-old jars.

How that annoyed, how I complained

Those artifacts of human history, made before Caesar ruled,

Are not as interesting as what Michael or Brett are doing.

Close your eyes and forget,

Life is hard enough without recalling the past, reliving regret.

How will you get out of bed in the morning

If you let the fears of life

Sit on your chest like fat angry devils.

 

city

You don’t own anything

I lost my sunglasses the other day

I’m not sure exactly when,

But they were good ones

Expensive ones.

I think about them occasionally

I wake early, and I wonder where they are

That empty feeling enters my guts

And I feel sad

I tell myself it doesn’t matter.

But it does matter, a little.

I wonder if other people lose things

And if it worries them.

A three a.m. worry, when it is dark outside, and you are missing something

And you look at the other side of the bed

And it’s empty.

I lost her too,

She left me

That feeling when you know you will never see her again,

you remember following her out of the apartment,

seeing her leave through the front door of the building

Into the cold misty morning

knowing that you will never see her again.

And I woke up thinking about my glasses.

Hard covers and How to write a poem

My hard covers of The Bomber arrived today and I am excited.

They are real collectors items!

Have a look at my instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamdavidosullivan/

Now how to write a poem:

 

  1. Live a life where you do your best by everyone
  2. Remember all the best times
  3. Remember all the worst times
  4. Make notes to help you remember in steps 2 and 3 if needed
  5. Find love
  6. Lose love
  7. Sit by a window on a rainy day and watch the drops on the window slide to oblivion
  8. Walk about a forest
  9. Walk about the city
  10. Buy a pen and a note book
  11. Be aware of things you see, hear, smell and feel
  12. Remember that person you liked five years ago? Remember that kiss?
  13. Read a lot of poetry
  14. Write, write, write

 

 

Pizza Poem 

I ate the pizza

we could have had together

but you left me

so I had the pizza to myself.

 

 

Fading light

She is a thin girl

in a pale blue kimono

it hangs around her body like a fragrance

and covers nothing.

I sit in the dark looking at her

she smokes a pipe

and blows blue haze into the gently lit room.

A little man with a yellow shirt comes along and offers her a drink

and then drops snow over her

and she smiles,

laughs

as the ice melts onto her skin and forms drops

that run down her golden brown body.

Like diamonds, the water runs past her breasts.

 

The man looks up, he is sitting on a hard bench

the men around him are smoking

the pungent smell of tobacco and sweat

the growl of too many angry people

locked together in a hot room.

In the distance the soft sound of laughing comes

through the window.

There is the sound of women talking in the street below

All the men, at once

fall silent and listen

they all hear the happy voices, the gentle laughter and think

about things they did years ago, far away.

On the night train by Henry Lawson

Have you seen the bush by moonlight, from the train, go running by?
Blackened log and stump and sapling, ghostly trees all dead and dry;
Here a patch of glassy water; there a glimpse of mystic sky?
Have you heard the still voice calling – yet so warm, and yet so cold:
“I’m the Mother-Bush that bore you! Come to me when you are old”?

Did you see the Bush below you sweeping darkly to the Range,
All unchanged and all unchanging, yet so very old and strange!
While you thought in softened anger of the things that did estrange?
(Did you hear the Bush a-calling, when your heart was young and bold:
“I’m the Mother-bush that nursed you; Come to me when you are old”?)

In the cutting or the tunnel, out of sight of stock or shed,
Did you hear the grey Bush calling from the pine-ridge overhead:
“You have seen the seas and cities – all is cold to you, or dead –
All seems done and all seems told, but the grey-light turns to gold!
I’m the Mother-Bush that loves you – come to me now you are old”?

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Writing Wednesday! How to build a setting in your novel

This is the first of my writing Wednesday series, tips to help you create your work.

Today I will talk about creating settings for fiction before you start to write.

When writing a novel it is a good idea to brainstorm, to get ideas down about character, plot and setting.

Working out the setting fore your novel can be a fun activity.

When I am beginning a new work, I go for a walk. I don’t have to be anywhere fancy or exotic, I don’t have to be in the place where I will ultimately set the novel, all I’m looking for in the early stages are buildings, trees, streets anything that my characters might end up seeing, walking down or living in.

The best settings are the ones you know intimately. For example, if you are writing a story about a professor in a University in New York State but you’ve never been to the USA, take a walk at a nearby university or school and see how the buildings look, what does the library look like in the  morning when the professor may arrive at work.

Seeing how the trees look along the main path when the sun shines through the leaves will help you novel immensely. The proffer walks this way to class every morning, so how does the sun look against the trees in the morning. When the wind blows do the leaves make a noise? Do students sit in the shade of these trees at lunch time. These facts, facts you can glean from a simple walk, will create a great sense of truth in your walk.

I was considering writing a novel set in the 1930s, I wanted an art deco look to the world I was creating so I went for a walk and took photos of all the art deco building I could:

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I could easily set my novel in these buildings, I can tell you how water has stained the side walls, I can tell you where the mail boxes are, I can tell you how the sun glints off the side windows because I walked around these buildings, I went up the side and back lanes. Now when I come to write my book I can add these details.

The Bomber will be at the Frankfurt Book Fair. 

Pick up a copy today!

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