Algo Poetry-Behind the Lines
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Keep on Poeting* in the FREE World
To celebrate the arrival of Season 2 of the podcast, Algo Poetry-Behind The Lines, the second collection of my poetry, “Unreconciled Doors” is FREE from tomorrow for five days only on Amazon in Kindle format. This means you can read along to all 41 poems over 41 days whilst following the podcast as a new…
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Fragment #19-Most Wished For
In the liminal spaces between poetry collections, I will be periodically posting previously unpublished hand written fragments,the orphaned odes that did not find a home in any collection. This is the 19th such fragment of some of the copious couplets and isolated ideas that did not turn into full form poems, but that you may…
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Fragment #18- The Jigsaw Jinxed
In the liminal spaces between poetry collections, I will be periodically posting previously unpublished hand written fragments,the orphaned odes that did not find a home in any collection. This is the 18th such fragment of some of the copious couplets and isolated ideas that did not turn into full form poems, but that you may…
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A well timed Fragment…..# 17 !!!
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!. No sales pitch today, just have a pint if you’re that way inclined!!. Saint Patrick was Welsh. Taken as a slave to Ireland, he escaped after six years of captivity, went home and then…came back. Using the shamrock to represent the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, he spread Christianity through the…
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Fragment #16 -Murmuration at Twilight
In the liminal spaces between poetry collections, I will be periodically posting previously unpublished hand written fragments,the orphaned odes that did not find a home in any collection. This is the 16th such fragment of some of the copious couplets and isolated ideas that did not turn into full form poems, but that you may…
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Edge of Humanity Magazine publishes third of three works by Algo
What a start to the week to have brand new work featured at Edge of Humanity Magazine Check out “Grieve for the Shadows (Nonsense)” here! This brand new work, unpublished elsewhere, is the third of three poems for Edge of Humanity Magazine over as many weeks. And while you’re checking out “Grieve for the Shadows(Nonsense)”,…
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Fragment #15-Everyone crosses the finish line
In the liminal spaces between poetry collections, I will be periodically posting previously unpublished hand written fragments,the orphaned odes that did not find a home in any collection. This is the 15th such fragment of some of the copious couplets and isolated ideas that did not turn into full form poems, but that you may…
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Fragment #14-Bloodshot
In the liminal spaces between poetry collections, I will be periodically posting previously unpublished hand written fragments,the orphaned odes that did not find a home in any collection. This is the 14th such fragment of some of the copious couplets and isolated ideas that did not turn into full form poems, but that you may…
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Fragment #13 -The Act of Balancing
In the liminal spaces between poetry collections, I will be periodically posting previously unpublished hand written fragments,the orphaned odes that did not find a home in any collection. This is the 13th such fragment of some of the copious couplets and isolated ideas that did not turn into full form poems, but that you may…
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Edge of Humanity publishes second of three exclusive new works by Algo
Wonderful end to the weekend to have brand new work featured at Edge of Humanity Magazine Check out “Bury Me’ here! This brand new work, unpublished elsewhere, is the second of three poems for Edge of Humanity Magazine over as many weeks. And while you’re checking out “Bury Me”, why not check out the whole…
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Fragment #12-On being the remainder to the equation
In the liminal spaces between poetry collections, I will be periodically posting previously unpublished hand written fragments,the orphaned odes that did not find a home in any collection. This is the 12th such fragment of some of the copious couplets and isolated ideas that did not turn into full form poems, but that you may…
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Fragment #11 “Untitled”
In the liminal spaces between poetry collections, I will be periodically posting previously unpublished hand written fragments, the orphaned odes that did not find a home in any collection. This is the 11th such fragment of some of the copious couplets and isolated ideas that did not turn into full form poems, but that you…
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Edge of Humanity Magazine publishes exclusive new work by Algo- “Infinite Loop”
Wonderful to have brand new work featured at Edge of Humanity Magazine Check it out here! https://edgeofhumanity.com/2023/02/28/infinite-loop/ This brand new work, unpublished elsewhere, is the first of three poems for Edge of Humanity Magazine over the next three weeks. A true thrill to be on such an artist focused platform! And while you’re checking out…
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Fragment #10-Return To Sender
….Address Unknown. In the liminal spaces between poetry collections, I will be periodically posting previously unpublished hand written fragments,the orphaned odes that did not find a home in any collection. This is the 10th such fragment of some of the copious couplets and isolated ideas that did not turn into full form poems, but that…
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Fragment #9- Number 9, Number 9… number 9
… Less Revolution Number 9 and more Evolution Number 9 today. In the liminal spaces between poetry collections, I will be periodically posting previously unpublished hand written fragments. These works are some of the copious couplets and isolated ideas that did not turn into full form poems, but that you may find resonance with. I…
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Fragment #8- Dinosaur Envy
In the liminal spaces between poetry collections, I will be periodically posting previously unpublished hand written fragments. These works are some of the copious couplets and isolated ideas that did not turn into full form poems, but that you may find resonance with. I wanted to highlight where even the embryonic nature of two lines…
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The secrets behind “Unreconciled Doors” and some massive Thank Yous
Today’s blog goes Behind the Lines of the 41st and final poem of my second collection, both titled “Unreconciled Doors” and reveals some cool secrets. The 1st Secret of Algo- Where the title of the poem and collection came from… I had been lucky enough to have had a poem selected in 2020, to be…
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Escalation Hypothesis-No, I hadn’t heard of the term either.
I am always looking for crazy terms, titles and theories from left field, or from areas such as scientific theory to use in poetry, to let me see where the term or it’s subject matter will take the work. “Escalation Hypothesis” , the title of my penultimate poem of my second collection, Unreconciled Doors, came…
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My Mother does not read WordPress….
…. thankfully, as she would not be very impressed with some of the contents of today’s blog, which goes Behind The Lines of the 40th offering from Unreconciled Doors, “White Wash”. I once painted a landscape, that proudly hangs in my friend’s house, using only one colour-blue. This piece of poetry tries very hard to…
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BE.aGaIN released today worldwide on Apple Books
I am delighted to say that my first collection,Be.aGaIN,has been released globally on Apple Books. This is a dream come true for a life long Apple fan and a poet who wants to reach as many people as possible with their work. With that in mind, It’s available from it’s very first day of release…
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“Like the violence and urgency of a distress flare”
I was looking for something sudden and shocking to start what would end up becoming the 39th poem from Unreconciled Doors. The image of a distress flare had lodged in my mind from childhood cinema visits in Ireland in the early 80’s ,when sandwiched between Winnie the Pooh,(which always preceded the main feature and was…
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The (He)art of Golden Repair
Poem number 38* from Unreconciled Doors is “Kintsugi”. I will admit that I had never seen that word until I came across an article in an Irish newspaper in early 2021 ,about an upcoming exhibition by an Irish artist This exhibition! by Kilkenny born artist Patrick O’ Reilly stuck in my head, as did the…
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Crowstep Journal publishes exclusive new work from Algo
I am thrilled to say that a brand new, previously unseen piece -and my favorite poem written to date (just don’t tell the others)-has been picked up by Crowstep Journal. In India, crows are believed to be the spirits of our ancestors and so Crowstep Journal is a space that explores themes around ancestry, the…
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Fear and it’s many Disguises
I once overheard someone uttering the phrase “He was born afraid”. They were talking not to me, but about me. The “He” was Me. Maybe I was, it would explain a lot (but how would I know). Perhaps it was also a little bit of justification of genetics rather than environment, from a biased party.…
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I caught the knife and the knife won.
Today we go behind the lines of the 35th poem of Unreconciled Doors, “The Knife Catcher”. This poem is complete stream of consciousness and followed an if not intense, but I would say, disciplined practise of daily meditation, that really opened up the universal stream. I will attempt to decipher what the language used in…
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Superb Owl Sun-day
To football fans reading this in America, I guess it’s a case of Go Birds! or Go Home or maybe its- Change the name and stop the chop?. In either case, enjoy the annual spectacle. To fans of “What We Do in the Shadows”, enjoy the blog title!. Speaking of shadows, this is what the…
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I love the smell of cis-3-hexenal in the morning
Today’s 33rd poem from Unreconciled Doors, goes Behind the Lines and fences of suburbia’s meticulously manicured lawns and into the dark heart of grass hell. That olfactory offering which conjures nostalgic gnosis of summers past ,is ,in fact, an early warning system that petrol powered genocide is literally at hand for our green bladed buddies.…
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The One Where De Niro played Al Capone (kind of)
Today’s voyage behind the lines of Unreconciled Doors makes a stop at “Untouchable”. The 32nd poem of the collection came to me as a thought experiment. What would happen if you could hit rewind on your life, on the life of the planet and all the things that live on it? “The un held hand…
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A.ll L.ife G.oes O.n
Through cracks in the hardest surfaces, in the harshest conditions, life will always find a way. It will grow and flourish- in spite of whatever ground it has to grow up through. Today’s blog goes Behind the Lines of “Where There Is Life/All Life Goes On”, which expounds on this sentiment in a very personal…
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These are a few of my tsavorite* things
….to let go of. Today we go behind the lines of “All Things`”. I believe that this is the most technical poem that I have written or published to date. There are five verses of four lines.(5 quatrains….I think?, but don’t quote me!!). Four of the verses (the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th) have a…
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The Risen People
Today we go Behind The Lines of the 29th poem from Unreconciled Doors, entitled “Resurrection”. I will do something a little bit different today-some self-analysis. I can clearly remember writing this in less than five minutes, even where I was sitting when I did, but other than paraphrase the work itself,that- Up was the only…
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Steve Jobs Changed The World
and whether we like it not,it just goes to show just how diffusive and defining radical ideas can really be when made concrete. His most transformative concept was how he changed the listener’s (end user is a horrific term) experience of music on the go. Before the iPod and a thousand songs in your pocket…
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Lend me your ears…Free Poetry on Demand Daily
Just a reminder-ideal for your daily commute, me time,or to occupy front of mind whilst getting on with your day, Go Behind the Lines of my first collection, BE.aGaIN. It’s available now as a free daily podcast You can find it Here!! Enjoy, Algo P.S.-Read along here with it free too in past posts or…
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A Book Too Far
I never realised when setting out to write my second collection, Unreconciled Doors, that a story of a personal journey would have so many Biblical references. It was not deliberate, but here, Behind the Lines of the 27th poem of the collection, we are treated to a work that began with a rumination on a…
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“And The New York Times says God is Dead”*
* This line from “Levon”, by Elton John and Bernie Taupin, has always bothered me. It was in fact, Time Magazine that had this (as a question rather than a statement) on it’s front cover. Any reference, whether correct or not, featuring this kind of statement always leads us back to Nietzsche. Today’s incursion Behind…
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The God Spell and the Ink Well
As a child, I can clearly remember seeing a book on a bulging, buckled shelf that was entitled “Good news for Modern Man”. It struck me as different from the repeatedly reached for “The Spy’s Guidebook” or “The Enchanted Wood”, and its pages were gilt-edged, so it looked cool, if not a little scary!.I had…
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The Poet’s Gambit….
…questioning God! I would love to say that today’s poem on Behind The Lines is smart enough to be 8 lines of 8 words or syllables,making up the 64 squares of a chessboard,but it isn’t. There is a broken,jarring rhythm to this questioning of existence.I guess this is my attempt at a psalm,shouting at a…
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The Price of Re-Entry
“Orbiting the Everything”-this phrase jumped into my head one day and would jump start what became “Solo in Earth Minor”. Whilst yesterday’s piece on Behind the Lines dealt with Outer Space, this one deals with inner space and a tricky re-entry-into “normal” life. For a long long time, I did indeed orbit the everything. Before…
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In Space,No One Can Hear You…Sleep.
The school of Cosmism emerged in Russia in the late 19th and early 20th century. One of it’s offshoots was the school of Bio-Cosmism and Immortalism. This group would go on to denounce death itself as “logically absurd, ethically impermissible, and aesthetically ugly”. In 1922, the founder of the Petrograd chapter of the Biocosmists, Alexander…
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Before The Mirror Was Invented
… people had a very different idea of self-identity. In highly polished stones or the distorted flow of moving rivers, they might steal a glance at what and who they were. The mirror would change everything. Today we go Behind The Lines of “The Perfect Reflection” as I gaze back on the shiny surfaces that…
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The Glass Speaks
I wanted to give an inanimate object a voice, so this is the device that is used in today’s Behind The Lines, in the poem entitled “The Glass Speaks”. This construction led me to imagine a representative speaker for every glass that I have ever drank from.If every piece of cut melted sand that I…
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Ignorance or Bliss?
Today, we go Behind The Lines of another poem from “Unreconciled Doors”. This one is entitled “Wisdom”. Wisdom is quite different from knowledge. Knowledge can be gained through study, reading a book, a Google search or watching a documentary. Wisdom on the other hand is like earning “A medal for service”. It is lived knowledge…
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We Are All Made Of Stars
Most of the elements that make up the human body were formed from stars. When stars die and lose their mass, their elements are swept out into space. The poem’s title in today’s Behind the lines would suggest that it is someone reflecting on their “Youth”. The first line, however- “My previous incarnation”-leads us somewhere…
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Reels, Casting and Lines?-Must be a poem about Fishing…
…..Well no, it’s about the cinema screen that is Life. Today’s piece ,in excerpt form, goes behind the lines of “The Projectionist with an Inherent Negative Bias Examines The Life Print”. Catch-y title I know!!.(And yes another Fishing pun…on the -fly). It is the 17th poem from Unreconciled Doors and finds our protagonist as projectionist…
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A double date with both an Ambigram and a Palindrome.
12022021 That’s the title of today’s piece on our trip through Unreconciled Doors, which makes a stop on a most unusual date. As the full version of the poem, rather than the excerpt attached, writes “There was nothing unusual in the day itself”, but looked at in the international date format ,the date was both…
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Not a Trending Topic
The below is from a Google Trends search worldwide for two terms. Peace has flatlined. Peace is not sexy and it is not thought of as a profitable business or it’s opposite would not exist, but Peace is the only concept that allows modern, functioning society . By modern society, I am not talking about…
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What The Centre Can Hold
The 14th poem of Unreconciled Doors ,”The Centre can hold a TV licence”, is today’s focus on Behind the Lines.It is the third wheel in the tricycle of “political” poems in the collection. I have always found political debate or interviews of government representatives on state owned TV stations hilarious. The “poor” junior minister who…
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Reparation for Appropriation?
Cultural appropriation is everywhere. Whether it’s the fashion industry’s use of Native American ceremonial dress, where the end wearer has no context for the garment’s original intention, or, as covered in today’s piece, the appropriation of African American art, style and music by -largely, white men-and it’s repackaging as a consumer good. The 13th poem…
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The State of the Nation(s)
*For context, this, the 12th poem of Unreconciled Doors, was written during the Pandemic, and the accompanying lockdowns and restrictions in Ireland* “The state of you/ya” is a great phrase of Irish slang which translates essentially as -You’re a disgrace. The phrase “all in this together” was oft used and trumpeted by governments across the…
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Poetic Pondering on Paranormal Podcasts
For my first collection, Be.aGaIN, I inserted two poems that were “Westerns”, they were disconnected to the overall theme of the rest of the collection, to allow the reader breath and take a temporary temporal turn off before submerging back into the heart’s dark matter. I have done the same here again, in Unreconciled Doors,…
Algo Poetry-Behind the Lines 