WELCOME TO VIRTUAL DODO
EIGHT – MARCH 2022
We hope viewers will enjoy the show – your support remains of
enormous value to us.
The latest show begins with two excellent featured acts, Isabel Bermudez and Lantern Carrier, followed by 21 open mic contributions.
Isabel Bermudez has published two full collections of
poetry: Sanctuary (2018)and
Small Disturbances (2016),
both with Rockingham Press. She has three pamphlets, Serenade, Paekakariki Press, (2020)
Extranjeros, Flarestack Poets
(2015) and the prize winning Madonna
Moon, Coast to Coast to Coast (2019) . She has worked as a waitress,
journalist, documentary film-maker, grape-picker, receptionist, schoolteacher
and private tutor. She lives in Orpington, Kent, with the artist Simon
Turvey.
LANTERN CARRIER
Manatita,
a.k.a The Lantern Carrier, is a creative writer and author with 21 years on the
poetry scene. He grew up writing poetry from age four, but switched to
inspirational and meta-physical poetry when he took up the meditative life.
Equally
at home with performance pieces, Lantern Carrier has won a Hammer and Tongue
(H&T) Slam, featured at Run Your Tongue, Spoken Word Online, Gestalt, Dodo
Modern Poets, Global Fusion, Ooobehive, BYOB and several other venues. He has
been runner-up in slams, as well as making the finals in the H&T National
Final (Brighton).
He has
read at the famous Nuyorican Cafe and also in Nairobi, Kenya.
Lantern
Carrier is a poet who tries to serve, to bring light through his pieces, to
elevate and enlighten understanding. He endeavours to reach the heart and is a
specialist in imagery, music, light, colour and dance in their kaleidoscope of
different forms.
His
poetry addresses the varying moods of the soul and the human condition, either
in mystical harmony or in separation from its source.
We hope you enjoy the show and welcome your feedback.
Springtime wishes,
Patric Cunnane
PR Murry
DODO MODERN POETS
01303 243868
POEMS ON THE PAGE
Our show continues with poems on the page
Patric Cunnane
BLOODY
SUNDAY
Where
bullets tore
You
could see their lunch
Meat,
potatoes, peas
Unarmed youth
Felled
by troops
A priest’s white handkerchief
Waved
a victim through
An
image that grew in power
Fourteen
dead in Derry
Decades
pass
Before
the guns fall silent
Fourteen
souls
Cheated
of the moment
When
hope and history rhymed
As
a president left his throne
And
peace replaced the stone
On 30 January 1972 British paratroopers shot 26 unarmed civilians taking part in a civil rights march in Derry, Northern Ireland. Thirteen died on the day and another man later died of his injuries.
Loraine Saacks
DON’T SWALLOW
SNAILS’ SHELLS
[ © LORAINE SAACKS]
Yyou’ve fought on every
front, downed each panacea;
the internet’s of no
help – it’s fake medics’ propaganda –
one site promotes
carrots – there’s no need to fear –
another
stresses shallots are poison, so be sure to steer clear;
so
reject and don’t follow the spells,
and
decline to swallow snails’ shells;
resist
a king’s ransom, it’s a fortune you’ll pay
for
those website Gods all have feet of clay!
GGPs and clinics aren’t easy
to access;
since the virus attacks
left GB in a mess;
waiting
rooms don’t exist anymore –who wants to infect, or contract, a flaw?
it
should’ve been set in stone, years ago as a law,
seeing
such a crowd of folk’s diverse ills ‘en tout’
was
a hell of a job for GPs, to wade through the queue.
LLike an illusion, the new
routine arrives like a mirage:
you’re drawn out of the
medics’ ‘raffle barrel, to form a triage,
it’s no
vis-a-vis, outdated, ‘appointment’ – it’s now on the ‘phone –
the
GP’s been anointed, from high, to listen to your moan!
thus
His or Her Excellency, will then give you hope,
as
long as you ask for an ‘Audience’ from the Medical Pope!
John Hurley
PEAT
I WISH I COULD RETURN TO MY CHILDHOOD
ONCE MORE TO WALK THE BOGLAND AND THE MOOR
SEE AROMATIC SMOKE RISE UP FROM THE CHIMNEYS
THE CHOSEN FUEL AND INCENSE OF THE POOR
WATCH THE CEANNABAN SPREAD ROOTS IN PROFUSION
THEN SEEK POOLS AS IF TO WASH ITS FEET
SPREAD ITS TINY BUDS LIKE FALLING SNOWFLAKES
AND STAND UP TALL WITH ITS WORK COMPLETE
I WOULD FEEL THE SATIN SKIN OF LUSH GREEN RUSHES
REST AND TAKE MY EASE ON SUN KISSED ROCKS
HEAR THE SOUND OF BEES AS THEY SEEK NECTAR
DRINK TEA FROM A BOTTLE WRAPPED IN SOCKS
GAZE AT STRONG MEN IN HOB NAILED BOOTS
DRIVE SLEANS THROUGH YIELDING PEAT
STAYING AHEAD OF QUICKLY RISING WATER
NO STOPPING HERE FOR SUN OR RAIN OR SLEET
SLURPING SOUNDS AS SODDEN SODS SURRENDER
DARK INGOTS HEAVED ON TO THE MOSSY BANKS
PUT IN CREELS BY THEIR WIVES AND CHILDREN
LAID TO DRY IN TIDY ORDERED RANKS
A GRATING SOUND AS SLEAN ENCOUNTERS TIMBER
THEN BOG OAK IS EXTRACTED FROM THE SOIL
BY THESE BRAWNY MEN WITH MUSCLES RIPPLING
FOR MANY DECADES NOW INURED TO TOIL
Yan Li
An eagle on a pole.
A rooster on a
willow.
Wherever we roost, at
dawn we call.
A goose on a dock.
A swallow around a
roof.
Wherever we stay, in
Spring we miss home.
A daffodil on a
track.
A lotus in the mud.
Wherever we grow,
wait till we bloom.
The East Wind
Doth Blow
There's an East Wind
Which literally
could cut you in half
Blowing across the Patio
Which reminds me
Of the East Wind
Which used to blow in nineteen sixty three
When I lived in condemned rooms
Let by a church going Irish man
Up in Crouch End
He had an agreement
With the Council
Giiving them backhanders
To let the condemned properties to his fellow countrymen their wives and
children
Who had nowhere else to love
I was setting out on my great adventure
At the age of twenty-three
After failing abysmally at school
Intent upon becoming a writer
By attending night school
And sitting in warm libraries
For hour upon hour studying
Trying to
Catch up
On my neglected Education
With millions on the dole
Because of the cold and the East Wind which still Doth blow
Not that I am
Still at the mercy
Of the East Wind
As my life is heading towards its end
Never knowing then
That I was going to end up a poet
Which in retrospect
Is due to the East Wind
Which has shaped and changed my life.
Joseph Healy
Covid – In
Memoriam
Along
the dark waters of the Thames stands the memorial
Long
it stretches along the wall bordering the hospital
Where
many it commemorates spent last hours
Alone
terrified struggling for life with every breath
Thousands
of hearts adorn its surface
Some
once bright red now a pale shade of pink
Others
gone so faint
Like
memories of the lives spent in safer times
Names
given meaning by messages of love
A dear
father, taken too soon, missed by all
Taken
by a visit to the shop, a drink in the pub
A chat
in a neighbour’s house a queue in the post office
Everyday
acts innocent before
now
poisoned with death’s sharp arrow
Nurses
bus drivers shop assistants laboured through the lockdowns
Could
not escape the locking down of life of breath
On the
opposite bank of the Styx sits the grand palace
Site
of endless talk and lies
Whose
masters watched indifferent as wretches struggled
Gasping
desperately for air clutching at the straw
For
them the dollar and the pound the sandwich shops
The
heaving pubs the cut and thrust of commerce and commute
The
centre of a universe of Moloch which suffering and loss do not touch
Nor
tears nor entreaties move from its predetermined axis
The
graves stand silent the mourners gone
Accusingly
the monument stares across
Waiting
the moment of truth when accounts will be settled
And
murderers names writ large in blood upon its tragic surface
Barry Coidan
the earth tilts /
winter follows
the earth tilts 23 degrees out of the vertical
its orbit round our sun gives us the seasons
in summer we lean towards the sun
in winter we turn away nights lengthen
frosted country lanes
and fallow fields follow
you turned away unaware a whole
hemisphere chilled leaving me out in the cold.
|
|
There Is No Light:
There is no light
To brighten the night
As I pass
Along the churchyard path.
Just gusting wind
Eternal as the rain.
John Sephton
weeping dove
White angel soaring
in the darkening sky, the
weeping dove of peace.
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