Recorded during a live-streamed 'show' on Periscope. Paul O'Mahony reads from Walt Whitman's poem "Song of Myself"

Unfortunately, this recording ends abruptly after 30 minutes. I must find out why.

I sent a message to support @ Audioboom.  It seems you can only record 30 minutes on the website - if you want to record a longer episode you have to record on Audacity (or something like that) - and then upload that file.

At least I'll know in future.

1. Je Suis Charlie

2. Je Suis Paris

3. Lost on Bastille Day

4. Born in Aleppo

5. We Are Humans

6. They are Dead 

Recorded specially for #AudioMo Day 30 2018

The Islander

Chapter One

He could have been on Sherkin, Inishbofin, Skelligs or even Rathlin...

He was an outlaw, cast away from the land,

away from his people.

His face didn’t fit,

his family were not from the right side of town.

There was no time for him, he could rot there.

Eventually his spirit would break,

he would comply, he would conform,

he would be broken 

It would teach them,

it would show them not to meddle with our family,

not to get above themselves.

Yea, 27 winters on Sherkin

27 springs on the Skelligs

27 summers on Rathlin

27 years of nightmares on any island you fancy.

It was good to keep him there, disappeared.

Our family had need of safety,

his family were dangerous,

thugs, revolutionaries, communists, rapists. 

oh yea, uncouth, uncivilised, Untermenschen.

Chapter Two

Our family is special,

we have survived our own wars.

We’re used to feeling superior

Our family before all families 

our tribe before all tribes

Our village the white man’s burden

Everyman is an island

We have not balked at blood sacrifice

We have buried our enemies in unmarked graves 

We survived war against an Empire of superior force - that gave us backbone.  

That gave us good enough reason to turn the tables on families of inferior beings.

Oh yes, our family is special - forever.

Chapter Three

You will not leave that island

You will languish in your dreams

You will scratch your balls

You will scrape the fleas in your hair

You will freeze your bollocks off.

We will control you.

When we let you out - it will be to die.

Our family is ordained to carry the burden of ruling this land.

Yes, your family is bigger than our family

Your family’s so big it’s disgusting.

Your people are everywhere - but your people are worthless

The sea the sea the sea

the waves the wind, the ocean, the cold 

the fish the seaweed the waves the wind the cold the ocean

the seaweed the waves the wind the cold the ocean the seaweed

Eat your heart out Islandman - we have you. 

Oh yes, we’ve had you now for 27 years.

How did you pull through?  (continued in audio)

#audiomo

I stand

against the crowd

I stand out from the crowd

I am an individual

Odd

Different

Singular

Misfit

Awkward in my comfort

Edgy in my skin

Alive in my own little way

I live my say

I give the best shot I can

Every day.

I stand against the crowd

of wasters who fritter

their life away their way.

I waste my life my way

I fritter my days into

the oblivion I fashion

every step I say.

Because I am who am

Me

Condemned to be myself

I stand out from the crowd

comfortable in my discomforting way

that comes from every pore

every sore

every score of my expressions.

It's my art

The heart of my song

The liver that cleans my spleen

seen in all my glory every time

I stand against the crowd

Each and every difference

Friction

Grating

Unconforming

Uncomplying

Understandable me.

See that fella

hovering on the edge

the one who isn't fitting in

the one with the shifty eyes

the glint of his own

You can smell that he's

An outsider

A weirdo

An awkward one

An individual

Heart

A body of imagining

Power

Wealth

Stealth

Scheming to survive

The crowd

The collective view

The "what we all think"

Thinkers.

I stand against the crowd

I stand out from the crowd

Away from the crowd

Proud of my own way

Fiddling the melody

Composed of notes

I've assembled from the crowd

Playing the game I've invented

The rules I've annunciated

Predicated on the shoulders

of giants who have fallen

in battle

Against the crowd

Castigated on shoulders

Of heroes that have died

For the cause of being

Themselves.

I reject the way of the crowd

Every time my heart pumps

Blood from the flat of my soul

To the peak of my imagination.

Consternation

I will cause

Conflagration to

instigation of the self

Opinionated

Author of my fate

Creator of my faith

Born to be wild

Not filed away in a box

I defy

I stand against the crowd

That would

Categorise me

Classify me

Entomb me in place

where they could ignore me

where they could make me safe

from causing a splash

from making a difference

from changing

The course of history

The dreams of others

The Universe.

For such a cause

I stand against the crowd

I stand out from the crowd

to welcome you

Fellow traveller

Fellow awkward person

Follower battler

For your way.

For your way is my way too

Your way is yours

My way is mine

Our way stands out from the crowd

We stand against the crowd.

We stand up for ourselves

We stand who stand.

Against the crowd

Unto death.

#audiomo Day 28 2018

The City of London 

Cocktail-shaker for the World

Bridge-builder, fortune-maker

City of greetings, grime and grit

City of tongues

City of preachers, teachers and elephants

City of wars

City of screams and exhibitionists

City of Empire

City of fires, plague and drawing rooms

City of parks, love-makers, trouble-makers, heart-breakers, imperial, ethereal, thirst-slakers, pace-makers, peace-wakers

City of dogs, cats, rats, scavengers and paintbrushes

City of players, symphonic stayers, hyperbolic cares

City of ruins

City of wounds, marches and prayers

City of bubbles, stock-takers

City of pain, disdain, refrain

City of shoes, falafel, matzoh ball soup, chopped liver, peppercorns, cardamom, chillies and curls

City of deaths, debts, resurrections, assumptions

City of refugees

City of the poor

City of the sword

City of slaves, waves, graves, sails

Race-gobblers

City of the clock

City of time and charts

City of natural history, kings, queens, nobility, futility

City of the blitz and bliss and bits

City of the Underground and flight

City of hiding places, stones, Sherlock Holmes

City of reinventions

City of anonymous burdens

Melody-makers, sacrifices

City of the heat and the Crystal Palace

Harbinger of malice

Brain of the Serpentine

City of masons, Livingstone, Gladstone, earthworms, sculptures,  sepulcres , sceptics

City of songs and eavesdroppers, towers, bowers, superpowers and sour grapes

City of the chrysalis

Bridge-builder, storyteller, seducer of words, fountain pens, notebooks, fish and chips

City of truth, city of factions, city of the Heath, city of smog, city of the Frost Fair

River banker, clangours, Doppelgangers,

City of joy

City of birth, mirth, thirst,

the witty first city

pitiful playground

foundation of the nation

creation and gestation

pregnant

City of the parties

City of the Open Mind

Martinis

Broad cocktail-shaker for the World.

Brothers

They were brothers, fresh from gathering, 

each clutching a bundle of yellowed leaves. 

Two short pants, 

one took his booty by the hand, 

and waved a sword with pirate fire. 

The other cradled his,

and wouldn’t waste a single one. 

On they went writing epitaphs.

#audiomo

I have not known

your other 

birthdays.

For me, 

this has been the year 

of your birth 

growth and flowering.  

I love you for it.

#audiomo

Calliste 

'Know ye that I fear war with Zeus

She was a beauty once. Her patina endures,

Children

No matter how tall the leaves of grass grow,

the snow will fall again on the field.

The rabbits are running now,

nettles feasting on sunshine,

and the bees are minding their own business,

somewhere else.

No matter my friend has lost his friend,

there will be friends again.

There is a cancer in the fields,

long shadows over hedgerows.

Birds I cannot name sing without melody

and life growing underfoot.

How are the children now?

Who are the authorities?

Are there any youngsters without tears flowing,

without tears repressed, stifled?

There are shards on the road,

and dust,

buttercups and dock leaves,

foxgloves and infants on the roads.

An iron gate opens,

an iron gate shuts,

a horse looking for attention, a gray standing still,

maybe there are fresh eggs.

Why were the children born?

There is horseshit everywhere I look

Clean it up, someone. I’ve said enough

God bless America,

The horses have bolted,

who’s in charge here?

The leaves of grass are growing,

whether we like it or not.

#audiomo

*Pulse *

My child went to dance his night away,

These are not my words.

My child, my child …