The ghost of myself is haunting my life

Category: addiction Page 1 of 2

The Poems of Baz McCarthy

These are a selection of some of Baz McCarthy’s poems. Most poems were written in and around Bristol.  He doesn’t like writing at home, he says he needs the flurry of people rushing or sitting around, doing or saying pointless things to fill in their lives…

He’s always been a massive people-watcher and eavesdropper, so if you see some bloke furiously scribbling into his Moleskine on the table next to you…

Completely irreverent and lacking any formal training or respect for anyone who has, he writes from the gut and the heart and performs his poetry in the same powerful, yet carefree manner!

This year, 2023, he’s performed aplenty, around Bristol, in places such as El Rincon, The Bristol Fringe, Coffee#1, Eldon House, Fat Goat @ Jafra and Grain Barge and the poems get honed by audience reactions (shout-out to the many lovely, enthusiastic, patient and welcoming people who suffer at my poetic hands!).

Also, some these poems may well have changed by now and even grown into bigger and better poems, although I’m not saying bigger is always better!

The grey dance

Long chains of dark grey
Moving along across the windowpane

Another day gets slaughtered by my bitch

There are chirps from little birds
There is movement from the tree
The wind blowing it back and forth
The light changes almost constantly
Shining on my head
Shining on my death
On my bed

And then

The house across I don’t know
The clatter of things that hang down from my blinds
They sound like boats in a pond romantic
But they are like old fashioned clocks counting time with a tick and a tock
And eventually time runs out it runs out it runs out

The grey dance continues

Slipping

Slipping through the cracks
Slipping through the ceiling
Slipping through the raindrops
Slipping through sunbeams
Slipping through the people in between
Slipping through anything that rhymes
Slipping through my meaning
Slipping through the feeling
Slipping through the meaning of you and me
Slipping through you;
The clandestine catastrophe, Of passing pedestriany
Slipping towards my feet
Slipping but not falling
Slipping into my slippers
Slipping in and out, Of consciousness
Slipping like a fish
Scaling currents
Not walls
Not whales
No spout
No scales
Slipping like a vision
A real minute
Of me
As a dream

Mark for life

This morning it was stormy
Lightning and thunder
Rain whipping in
I went to Tesco
To buy wine

I bought a chicken salad sandwich
Left it by his sleeping
Or dead
Head

Surely my country
Ain’t good enough?
Giant green bag
Containing a man
A person
A son
From someone
Not done
Not yet

We can still chat
A conversation
About writing
Me poetry
Him a children’s story
To be so humble
So small
So green
Have you seen Mark?… Read the rest

Drinking wine in the daytime

Drinking wine
In the daytime
On the eve
Of my daughter’s birthday

The only time
To wrap the presents
in time

Write a card
More wine
No time

We work opposite shifts
Me pm
You am
Filling in gaps
Left by me
Left by you

The chiefs of time
don’t care a dime
It’s not worth their time

I’ll always be there for her
You’ll always be there for her

What would I advise her?… Read the rest

First poem

The ghost of myself
Is haunting
My life

All the choices I didn’t make
All the roads I didn’t take
All the things I haven’t said
All the lives I haven’t led

The son I never had
The life I never lived
The wife I never met

So many lives
We miss
But
Only this one
Do I miss

I miss the garden
Behind the fence
Little gate creaks

I am careful
Not to tread
On wild flowers
Warm blue
Air hums

My vision is blurred
By the sun

I push forward

And there is my bed

And I’m so tired

Blue, blanket

My vision is blurred
By my tears

Curled up
Inside my mother’s memory

I wake up
And I write this down

This is the first poem I ever wrote, in June 2021, at about 2am.Read the rest

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