Martin Mooney

A poem for the day – Crowd Scene after Kung Fu – the Headcrusher

Martin Mooney on August 5, 2011, 10:00 am

| Readers 22

Alias raised a point last night about whether references in a poem to the facts or symbols or lexicon of local politics automatically made a poem political. And earlier in the week Pippakin said there was no reason why I should stick to ‘political’ pieces. This, then, started life as an exercise in 1970s nostalgia even if it goes elsewhere en route. The crowds are hordes of kids leaving the cinema after a Saturday afternoon double-bill of kung fu movies …

A poem for the day – Blue Lamp Disco

Martin Mooney on August 4, 2011, 10:00 am

| Readers 93

The title poem from my third collection. Not actually about a real blue lamp disco – we all remember those, right? – but a more or less true account of a night in my home town when I was young and foolish, to coin a phrase. Is this a ‘political’ poem? I sort of think it is, but would be hard-pressed to say how. Personally, I just like the rhyme-scheme… Blue Lamp Disco We lay down for ‘The Queen’ and …

A poem for the day – The Pipe-bomber

Martin Mooney on August 3, 2011, 10:00 am

| Readers 38

This is another one from the late 90s, that I think is a response to or expression of a sense of depression at the low-level post-ceasefires violence from loyalist organisations that didn’t ‘get it’ or see anything in the ‘process’ for themselves or were just too plain sectarian to care (delete as applicable). Though I hope there’s more going on in the poem than just a middle-class whinge – in fact, maybe it’s a satire on the middle-class whinge as …

A poem for the day … Decommissioning

Martin Mooney on August 2, 2011, 10:00 am

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One from my 2003 collection, Blue Lamp Disco. Decommissioning His uncle’s last Action Man, stripped of everything but a crown of miniature barbed wire, is pinned, the arms outstretched, inside the door of his granny’s jakes. She’ll bust a gut. This nephew gets a box of cast-off weapons, tools and uniforms and half a dozen figures sprawled in materiel. ‘That’s lush,’ he says. ‘That’s wheeker.’ Martin MooneyAuthor of four collections of poetry, the most recent, The resurrection of the Body …

A poem for the day… Bonfire Makers

Martin Mooney on August 1, 2011, 10:00 am

| Readers 32

Mick has generously let me take up his offer to guest bloggers a while back, and the idea is that, a la Moochin Photoman, I’d post a poem a day for the month of August, with the odd book review or other more or less ‘cultural’ item thrown in. In deference to the appetites of Slugger’s bloggers and commenters, I’ll probably draw on my more ‘political’ poems – and I suppose raise two questions. First, do the creative arts have …