the wandering

young and dumb, when i
was enticed to a
fruitful wilderness
a phantasmagorical oasis
where i went
i could not tell
parts of the journey
i could not spell

i met many
they spoke and dressed like me
seductive words dipped in poison
unbeknown to us

i was unschooled in this form
of skullduggery
the Word? familiarly unfamiliar
to me

i went in
wholeheartedly, forsook
friends and family
i was taken...

don't regret many
but these actions 
i regret regrettably

caught in a web
of deception from my inception
born again?
the travesty of a false reality

imprisoned by the ghostspell
bewitching false messiah
serving man not the Man

followed man's opinion
on what's profane and holy

don't regret many
but these actions 
i regret regrettably

yet i journeyed
thought i was a freed slave
but really an enslaved freeman

oh, how it's taught me
this journey
went wandering to find me 
only to finish at the beginning

with me


Copyright © 2013 Otis Matthew a.k.a psykoe
All rights reserved. No portion of this post may be reproduced, 
stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by 
any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or 
otherwise without the express written permission from Otis Matthew a.k.a psykoe.

tossers by denis o'brien

this is a piece that i wrote about four years ago. it came about as a result of a creative writing lesson i was taking part in; the tutor asked us to put our hand in a bag and pull out a word, we were to then use that word as inspiration to write for 15-20 minutes (i always find this a useful exercise when i need a kick up the arse). the word i pulled out was 'sister' and at that particular moment in time my relationship with my sister was not a positive one, so i asked my pal who was sitting next to me if he wanted to swap, he immediately said yes, the word he had pulled out was 'golfball' and he had drawn a creative blank. the word 'golfball' for me, however, instantly invoked a nostalgic memory from my childhood. consequently, this poem literally spilled out of my pen onto the page; to use an industry phrase- it wrote itself. it was one of those extremely rare creatures that needed hardly any editing at all.

we was just kids

snotty little kids

with pennies in our pockets

out to shock, cause trouble

if authority spoke

we’d mock it.

pushing boundaries

with our bad manners

bad haircuts, bad breath.

just how much bad could we do?

waterbombing cars from the bridge

was great for a laugh

and good for a chase;

balloons exploding softly

across unsuspecting windscreens.

some drove on, some stopped

nobody ever got hurt.

mark riley, always the first to throw

and last to run;

riley rice ‘n’ peas

we called him,

our cultural stereotyping,

like us, in its infancy.

sundays- we snailed into church

strung along by youngish parents.

after stale mass us boys would meet,

while weary mums walked home

to prepare the roast, dads hit the

bookies, laying a tenner down at

fifteen-to-one on the holy ghost.

one easter sunday we marched

to the canal in our catholic best

mooching around in the shadow

of the bridge, as a wicked

concrete breeze cut by.

riley rice ‘n’ peas really pulled

it out of the bag that day

and split our little gang, forever.

a golf ball…

he rolled it in his sweaty beige palm

a golf ball…

with its cute little dimples

a golf ball…

just how much bad could we do?

Copyright © 2009 Denis O'Brien 
All rights reserved. No portion of this post may be reproduced, 
stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by 
any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or 
otherwise without the express written permission from Denis O'Brien.