The ghost of myself is haunting my life

Category: Illness

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 last mountain

With no emotion
because I see it every day
“You probably have 6 months to live”

Well, it’s different for me
I don’t see this everyday

I’m tough as old boots
I’m sure I’ll be fine
I will fight to the end

I’m going to climb a mountain
Maybe for the last time
Or maybe I won’t last

I’ve lost a lot of weight
But I’m going to get it back
When my chemo is over, I will bulk up
I will go to the gym
I will do all the things
That I am supposed to do
to bulk up
to get bigger

Big enough
to climb the mountain
Although
I’m already
Climbing a mountain
which is about as big as it can be

The biggest mountain I’ve ever climbed
Maybe this
is my last mountain

Maybe I won’t reach the top
But I’m going to fucking try
because I’m tough as old boots
And I don’t give up
And I’m not going away

I will climb

My last mountain

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

Bone change

Bone change.
My bones have changed.
I can’t work it out.
But my bones have changed.

There’s a little orange light behind my blinds.
I can feel gentle air puffing my face from the gap in my window.

Inside my head sits my brain.… Read the rest

My mum’s feet

My mum’s feet
Writhe
So I know she’s alive
even though she can’t speak
except through her feet

Mum had a stroke but I noticed her feet kept moving

Liquid bastards

Liquid bastards
Hate fuel
For a fool

You give me a party
I go on my own
Strangers mill and hang my words
The teeth I thought were smiles
Are just there to bite my child

Longbar to heaven
As I walk home
On the verge
Sounds back, goes forward

Autumn light
Fades down the fields
Black hedge leads
We walk together
Mixed from a dark palette
My memory takes me

Now
I wonder
Did I ever reach home?… Read the rest

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén