Poem Of The Week 'Dada and the “Hall of Fame” award' by Donal O Flynn

Dada and the “Hall of Fame” award

How hard you found it rise so slowly from your crippled chair

Out of a world of spirals and circles intertwined, came the word
Which jarred and knarled for want of oil, for awhile….
But the same steep steps that made the squares, forged new shapes.
Time and space were turned and moulded in mute attire.

The way forward went back and time lost meaning, three one two…
Jumble and tidy went awash in a green sea azure.
Layri laughed happily in cuckoo land, one three two…
Ah ha! For the want of a word.



A song came to me,
“Rambling Rose ---- how you ramble – no one knows”
Your speech took you back, they had reminded everyone you were born in 1914…


“I remember …how…how......how me and… and …and Billy O’Neil….It was in 1931…
You forgot and then bumbled rambled with the Roses for the longest stunted time

Briary thorns cut deep in you
Dog Roses wrapped themselves tight around you
finally choking you…for the longest minutes…

Then someone mercifully shouted … “Give us a song Dan”

Further moments silence…………. Recollection.

You gave us a faultless rendition of “The West’s Awake”

Water retention and bloating large nappies incongruous
The peace of his room and the lock clicking shut gone forever
The nightmare when conscious of lost past all round him is torture
Stark colours that are lost forever in night vision

The inscrutable Sphinx holds the secret, four two three
The desert coins song in the blistering air
“Sing a song Dan” “Sing a song Dan”

The old pointer sits ramrod the hidden pheasant paralysed
Nudge pounce fly sky sky
Fly high fly high fly high.
Bang. ….. ……. Your dead.

Donal O'Flynn is from Charleville, Co. Cork. He has for a long time been developing the craft of his particular form of poetry. He hopes to have a collection accepted for publication in the next year. An engineer, he has lived and worked in the Middle East, the Far East, Africa and America.