The ghost of myself is haunting my life

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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 right

Have you earned
The right
To write
Something
Significant
Real
Good
Make you feel
Real
Good
We all think
Like this
But can’t
Say it
Can’t
Display it
We’re all children
Trying to
Grow up
Too fast
Too slowly
Criticised for both
Together
Alonely
So have you
Earned the right
To write
To right
What’s right
If you have to
Think about it
A lot
You’ve probably not
Is it easier
To write
At night?… Read the rest

Little sleeping people

Little sleeping people
Not just a childhood
Defined
By
Santa’s boot prints

Mum and dad’s Wellingtons
Across the carpet
Of glistening snow

Glitter powered
Self-raising flower

The door softly
Closing behind

The memory
Of magic deeds

Powering us
Through a life
That needs
Little people
To
Dream

I met a woman who worked so hard she and her husband only had a little time to pretend to be father Christmas when their kids finally fell asleep but they didn’t just creep in and leave presents, they sprinkled flower and glitter on the floor and used Wellington boots to fake Santa’s footprints there and back.Read the rest

People who say nothing

Sitting next to each other.
Lying next to each other.
Used to be lovers.
Maybe one mother.

Has everything been said?
Is it a cosy silence?
A break from quiet lead.
At home
In bed

Same again?
Is said
Again

A grey ballet
In low light
The fighting spirits walked out
Looking ahead together
Seeing nothing

Has everything been seen?… Read the rest

Together apart

Apart.
Together apart.
Don’t know where we start.
Start to come together.
Then we fall apart.
What a laugh.
What a cart.
Of fruit and veg.
Wheeled daily.
By reg.
A fruit and veg.
Man.
All his life.
A wooden cart.… Read the rest

Buoys

Us
Buoys
Drifting
on the current
But tied
To the sea
bed
Stretch
To bump into
Another buoy
Bumpy language
Float code
For this and that
Just in range
To pass pleasantries
As tide
And time
Ping pongs
With the moon

Most of the lines are wavey
Mostly dark
But that’s not the point
The moon is white
Their edge is white

My solitary gull
Straight out to sea
Feather light, Fleck of paint
To a dark, blue, slow, clap

Fishers bob
Between red and green
Lobsters stare up
Through the weave
Aerials tickling doilies
On the ceiling

Trapped together
For life

Muted glows
Invade their distance
Shifting in
Sifting out

Their end chugs

Bright clothes
Sliding
Colliding
Wellington
Collecting
The splash
To season

Then
Together
The pull
Two wet worlds
Born apart
Clash

I’m with Victoria
Walking the shore
Looking for tiny, watery, life
And finding school children
Feet balancing
On green stones

A living, gem-studded, jewelled line
Between us and them
We’re dipping in again


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