Three Poems

I’m with you in Egypt, where streets are filled with fire,
women dance in the flames, casting off
the muck and tyranny
of ages now past.
I’m with you in Egypt, ten thousand Muslims kiss the ground,
guarded by Christians, Mohammed and Jesus
married in the violence of the class
ah Israel,
how you quake in your blood soaked boots.
I’m with you in Egypt, where Coptic chants
imbue my spirit with
mystical revolutions.
I’m with you in Egypt where El Baradei
wont leave the house.
I’m with you in Egypt, where the Muslim brotherhood
are talking to the monster state.
I’m with you in Egypt where Hossam El Hamalaway
leads the vanguard, stands up, lies down,
gets shot, then returns home tired
and bleeding to inform humanity
of his adventures.
I’m with you in Egypt, where you defend your factories
– workers of the world unite!!
I’m with you in Egypt where you strike
the spark that will set the world on fire.
I’m with you in Egypt
in dreams of love
I’m with you in Egypt
where you bare your soul.
I’m with you in Egypt
where you risk your life.
I’m with you in Egypt
and I share your tears.
I’m with you in Egypt
shoulder to shoulder.
I’m with you in Egypt
and I love you.
I’m with you in Egypt
People of Egypt,
you are beautiful.

– Conor Kelly 2011

We continue the dance, irregular steps in snow, around the fire,
respite spinning, swirling, burning, through carnal modes and beats.
we continue the dance, lying, hating, stealing and giving,
singing to our sky Gods above, imagining, imagining and dreaming of love
we continue the dance, so many bucks and falls, headlong through walls,
diving in and out of wombs, loving, smiling, weeping and dying.
we continue the dance, forging our own lights to chase, out of consciousness and grace,
and truth, conceptions divine, that can split primeval blackness time.
we continue the dance, spreading cloths of light beneath our feet,
christening our delusions, purging our illusions in ritual amusement ceremonies.
we continue the dance, treading on no-ones dreams but our own,
dreams of dancing, dreams of our own divinity – we continue.
we continue the dance, two-stepping through pristine fields of white,
Just keep moving! March on through the night!
frost on our boots, lead in our hearts,
if we fall asleep, well die in the snow.

– Conor Kelly 2011

I imagine you now, wrecking your mind
Over words that fit, and lines that rhyme,
Pondering Heaney, Longley, Muldoon,
Your perfectly poised pen on the page; earning it!
Ahh, the bullshit spills from the sacred poets,
Obscuring feeling in fumbled form!

For I know poetry, love streaming words
Bursting from the mouths of Buddha Bards,
Sound exploded to crash through skulls,
And free the mind within!
Potter, Lordan, Keegan, Mulligan,
The Tempest, Williams, Oliviera and Brown.
Channel and spit epileptic contortions
Amrita opium for dispossessed souls
Unrepressed lust for divinity beat
Angelic prayers to the politics of love!
Ginsberg wriggles his thumbs in their brains,
Kerouac forces the wine down their throats,
Their penniless penitent butterfly hearts,
Mask nothing.

So, when youve swam through shit that could drown a horse,
Noosed up rope for a fuckhead love,
Died three times and come out alive,
And been mushroomed high in the desert wilds.
When youve sucked cocks of angels in cold water flats
Fireworks streaking the cum stained sheets,
And declared your love with back arched high,
To melt at the sound of your lovers cry.
When youve run away in a fit of ambition
To return the next week a broken soul
And trampled for miles on the road of excess
To piss on the palace of wisdom

And when you can truly live in moment now
Cast off nostalgic shit ridden past
And bath in divine poetic light
Then you stand on that stage and begin to recite.
And travel this land from top to bottom,
Expounding this truth till your hair turns grey,
And your soul turns black and your heart dismays,
And you havent a penny to your fucking name
And then you can tell me earnest and true
That I really ought to Earnit!

– Conor Kelly 2011