Yeah! There they are …..They’re a bit like mushrooms , I suppose.I was having my little daily ramble .You’ve got to make some kind of an effort to exercise those flabby muscles….take that old body for a stroll and ” Get a bit of air around you!” …as my late mother would say. Well, […]
Politics-free Zone
As I’ve said in the main section, I’d like to use this part of the site for stuff that’s not got a political bent – more concerned with creative writing. I’ll put up stuff of my own from time to time and invite comment. If you’re interested in giving something you’ve written – non-political, remember, or at least with creativity the main element – then by all means put it up and let’s have a bit of discussion around it. I know people feel tentative about exposing creative stuff, especially if you haven’t done much of it yet, but believe me, it’s the only way. An un-audienced piece makes the sound of one hand clapping…
THE DOLPHINS by Harry McAvinchey
Did anyone see the recent programme on television”The Girl Who Talked to Dolphins”, concerning Dr John Lilly’s attempts in the early 1960s to communicate with dolphins? The thinking was that because the dolphin had one of the biggest mammalian brains that they could be as intelligent as humans ….just more adapted in evolutionary terms […]
IS IT STILL ALL RIGHT TO LAUGH THESE DAYS? by Harry McAvinchey
I used to love the Marx Brothers and Laurel and Hardy comedies from the 1920s and 1930s.I would watch them on television, as a boy with my father He saw them first in the local cinema when he too was a boy in the 1930s . I could see how these old comedies tapped into […]
‘Mind your language at the Giant’s Causeway’ by Randall Stephen Hall
By Randall Stephen Hall 7.6.14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnN5HQe1Fvk&list=UUjBuqkbiVGJNpj9E0HmyZRw I’m raising an issue of “CULTURE”, here in this poem. That in Northern Ireland, sixteen years after the 1998 Peace Agreement, there is no evidence, at all, of the Irish Language, the Ulster Scots Language or even Scots Gaelic at the newly built Giant’s Causeway Visitors […]
‘All for the love of a tray bake/Bobby Bun Face’ by Randall Stephen Hall
All for the love of a tray bake. By Randall Stephen Hall. https://soundcloud.com/hugh-midden-speaks/bobby-bun-face-6-5-12 He was born into a tough life and his mum would soon be gone. A tale of transformation. The story of Robert Duff, whose mother has died from heart complications, yet still, follows him throughout his daily life. Lucky for […]
EARLY MORNING KNOCK UP by Harry McAvinchey
“You’d better get up sonny….” Those were the first words I heard behind the blazing incandescence. I was groggily aware of a looming shape within the halo of roiling light as I rolled dreamily awake in my duck- down sleeping bag. There was a torch shining in my eyes and a heavy pistol at my […]
‘Flags and Ashes’ by Randall Stephen Hall
Flags and ashes. Our auld flags issue, in Belfast Continues to stand on street corners. Continues to stand on our hopes and our children’s hopes. Continues to hang out from our lamp posts, to chill. To chill the hearts of the optimistic and the bold. To narrow our gaze and freeze our pipes. The ones […]
‘Stuff’ by Randall Stephen Hall
[ Started 2004. Developed 23.1.05 Finished 25.7.07 First performed at Glencree Summer School. Dublin 2007] www.randallstephenhall.com/music We all have stuff. You have stuff, I have stuff. We all have . . . stuff. Some hide it in their pillow case. Some in a drawer. Others, around a corner Or under a bed. In […]
‘NO ONE MENTIONS THE STINGS’ by Harry McAvinchey
“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.” – Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955) “… that little wild bee, half starved, ignorant, is the ancestor of all the civilized bees. And, what is more important, as the scientists point out, it is probably to her […]
‘One Hand and the Whale’ by Randall Stephen Hall
“One Hand and the Whale” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_56zE8d_u4&list=UUjBuqkbiVGJNpj9E0HmyZRw By Randall Stephen Hall © www.randallstephenhall.com For all of my life I have related to the outsider. The person on the periphery of things. Travelling on the outer edge, not seeking the centre. For everyone looks to the centre rather than the edge, of the wheel. The outer […]