The ghost of myself is haunting my life

Category: sky

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!

Swimming on Wednesday 11 to 12

So I quite alcohol back in December 2022.
Part of my recovery was lots of exercise, including swimming every Wednesday at the Uni pool, a cycle ride away, down the hill.
The quietest time was Wednesday between 11am and 12pm.
My cycle ride took me past many churches from multiple faiths.
Read the rest

Sticks

I wrote this poem from a hotel room in The Lakes, looking out at the mountain, covered in trees, as the light faded down…

Sticks
Standing
Still
Together

Look up hill

In front of my window
Waiting
Banded white
Dark vee
Reaching up
Fading light

Grey
Formally blue
Previously green
Feathers rise up through the gloom
Slopes to me

There is small kindness hiding in all

Canopy heaving dark green dreams
A slow breath
Damp

I have to get up
Turn the lights off
No longer black
Never gone

Carpet climbs fingers
Up to the moon
Clasping each other
In desperate love

Can’t fiddle, with the mountain

Drape your blanket of sleep
Across my blue paper fields

Burnt sticks
Charcoal dreams of dawn
When fire again
Releases me

I can smell rainbows

I can smell
rainbows
in the beads of
sweat on
your brow

It’s a tiny
thing that
we’re looking at
through a
frown
a lens
a cow
lying down

Little Aeroplane

Into the storm
The little aeroplane flies
Tipping it’s wings
To the rhythm
Of the skies

It’s propeller corkscrews through
My stormy view
A bubble in a bucket
Bouncing on pillows
The dream of a minnow

But I’m not the pilot
And I’m not a passenger
I’m a casual god
Observing my creation

Finally lying down
Being careful
Not to twist
It’s wings
Out of shape
Or squash
The canopy
Down on his bean

God’s eyes close
And I wander in

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén