Algo Poetry-Behind the Lines
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No more Re:Versing:And in The End….. a blank page.
Which is where it all began anyway. I have been, up until today, re-posting all poems weekly ,in order, from “A Light Goes On” . This was in celebration of, and synching with ,the release of Season 3 of the Behind the Lines podcast which gives you unprecedented and maybe unwanted! access to what was…
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Re-Verse: On a Wing, In a Prayer.
I am re-posting all poems weekly ,in order, from “A Light Goes On” . This is in celebration of, and synching with ,the release of Season 3 of the Behind the Lines podcast which gives you unprecedented and maybe unwanted! access to what was in my mind when I wrote each poem from the collection.…
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Ovid exiled just off the Edge of Humanity
“A Song Of Exile (For Ovid)” is the triumphant third of three brand new works that have been exclusively written for and published by the wonderful Edge of Humanity Magazine. A huge thanks to them for their continued support. Blown away with the positive reaction to this new work and being able to reach so…
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Re-Verse : “I want them to turn black”
I am re-posting all poems weekly ,in order, from “A Light Goes On” . This is in celebration of, and synching with ,the release of Season 3 of the Behind the Lines podcast which gives you unprecedented and maybe unwanted! access to what was in my mind when I wrote each poem from the collection.…
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Climbing at the Edge of Humanity
“Climbing” is the second of three brand new poems that have been exclusively written for and published by the wonderful Edge of Humanity Magazine. A huge thanks to them for their continued support. Blown away with the positive reaction to this new work. You can read “Climbing” HERE!! There is quite the classical European sensibility…
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Re-Verse: Fruit of The Womb
I am re-posting all poems weekly ,in order, from “A Light Goes On” . This is in celebration of, and synching with ,the release of Season 3 of the Behind the Lines podcast which gives you unprecedented and maybe unwanted! access to what was in my mind when I wrote each poem from the collection.…
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Exclusive new work by Algo at Edge of Humanity Magazine
“The Loss Of The Healing Tree” is the opening piece in a new triumvirate of poems that have been exclusively written for and published by the wonderful Edge of Humanity Magazine. A huge thanks to them for their continued support. Blown away with the positive reaction to this new work. You can read “The Loss…
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Re-Versing: Down the Champs Élysées
I am re-posting all poems weekly ,in order, from “A Light Goes On” . This is in celebration of, and synching with ,the release of Season 3 of the Behind the Lines podcast which gives you unprecedented and maybe unwanted! access to what was in my mind when I wrote each poem from the collection.…
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Re-Verse :Perhaps a Bit of Shelley permeates this work?
I am re-posting all poems weekly ,in order, from “A Light Goes On” . This is in celebration of, and synching with ,the release of Season 3 of the Behind the Lines podcast which gives you unprecedented and maybe unwanted! access to what was in my mind when I wrote each poem from the collection.…
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Re-Verse-Nuclear Moon or Nuclear Moon? or how I learned to love the Sonics of Phonics.
I am re-posting all poems weekly ,in order, from “A Light Goes On” . This is in celebration of, and synching with ,the release of Season 3 of the Behind the Lines podcast which gives you unprecedented and maybe unwanted! access to what was in my mind when I wrote each poem from the collection.…
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Re-Verse-“Haiku 1” and announcing some bonus content!
I am re-posting all poems weekly ,in order, from “A Light Goes On” . This is in celebration of, and synching with ,the release of Season 3 of the Behind the Lines podcast which gives you unprecedented and maybe unwanted! access to what was in my mind when I wrote each poem from the collection.…
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Re-Verse-“Sense”
I am re-posting all poems weekly ,in order, from “A Light Goes On” . This is in celebration of, and synching with ,the release of Season 3 of the Behind the Lines podcast which gives you unprecedented and maybe unwanted! access to what was in my mind when I wrote each poem from the collection.…
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Three Exclusive New Works by Algo published by The Kleksograph.
A great start to the first week of the New Year so thought that I would share with you all. The Kleksograph, THE international journal of Arts and the Subconscious have published three of my brand new pieces. These works mark a step change in my output and are not available elsewhere. I am so…
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Thank you all for reading along with A Light Goes On in 2023!
And a peaceful and Happy New Year to all. It’s appropriate that on New Year’s Day , the 40th and last poem of “A Light Goes On” , should be the subject matter of Behind The Lines. “Crossing” was first published by the wonderful Pendemics Journal in Issue 3, which was themed “Liminal”. I thank…
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An eye for an eye will leave us all blind.
I had planned on using this post to tell you how this poem, the 39th and second last poem from a “A Light Goes On” was a sequel to last week’s, why it was written and how it resolves in some kind of personal triumph, but I have decided not to. It’s Christmas. And what…
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Help me get my feet back on the ground.
The 38th and third last poem from a “A Light Goes On” seems apt for this time of year. The festive season infuses airports with a frenetic energy, the friction of going or coming home and the anticipation of arrival illuminated by landing lights and the nativity or “Nollaig Shona Duit” in neon. For many,…
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The Wood for the Trees- A Forest and Me.
I that hard for me to imagine that the 37th poem from a “A Light Goes On” was written in April 2021. It seems like a million years ago and in an another universe that “Forest Sketch” was created. For context, I was living in a landlocked area of Ireland during this pandemic era poem.…
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At Yeats’ Tower of Song
The 36th poem from a “A Light Goes On” is a reflective recantation of a trip I took to W.B. Yeats’ Thoor Ballylee, a 14th century Anglo-Norman tower house In Galway and it’s surrounds, that Seamus Heaney himself called the most important building in Ireland. My work is not about the tower itself, but the…
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W-interflora
The 35th poem from a “A Light Goes On” is an exercise in free-hand free-form verse. It exists in a universe defined by what is absent from it. The halcyon hallmark occasions of spring and summer have passed and here we exist in a permanent winter of discontent. We find our narrator on his doorstep,…
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Hickery Dickery God?
The theory of a Clockmaker God is at the heart of the 34th poem from a “A Light Goes On”. “Clockwork mice on a carpet” is inspired by meditating on the much theorised hypothesis that if there is a design (humans) then there must be a designer (God),but in the Clockmaker God theory, He/She is…
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Charles Dickens, The Nativity and a t-shirt
Writers take inspiration from anywhere-and in the case of the 33rd poem from a “A Light Goes On” -anywhere is the inside of my wardrobe and the paraphrasing of a slogan on a t-shirt. While the t-shirt provided the title, the opening line – “I’m all time’s three ghosts” -is straight from Dickens’ seminal “A…
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La Bête Noire-Exclusive new work by Algo at Sein und Werden
“Black Cat” is a new piece of mine that has been exclusively written for and published by the wonderful Sein und Werden for their themed Autumn/Winter 2023 issue. They have been incredibly kind to me giving me a platform in the past also, so a massive thanks to them for their continued support. You can…
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Life’s a Beach
But so am I. Today we go Behind The Lines of the 32nd poem from a “A Light Goes On” , the piece of pre-vitrified glass that is “An Accident Waiting To Happen”. The fact that the poem itself in it’s visual structure on the page is uneven, like an eroded coastline or where waves…
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My Favourite Poem and “The Beatles Test”
The fact that a phrase from a line in this work- “A Touch of Unseen Failing” -could have easily been the title of my 3rd Collection, eventually titled “A Light Goes On” , shows how important to me that this piece is. “Ceiling Crack”, the 31st poem from this volume, is my favourite written work…
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Waving at the Waves
“Nonsense By The Sea” is the concluding piece in a new sequence that has been exclusively written for and published by the wonderful Edge of Humanity Magazine.A huge thanks to them for their continued support.Blown away with the positive reaction to all this new work. You can read “Nonsense By The Sea HERE!! This poem…
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Turning in circles and going nowhere. An Auto-biographical poem.
The 30th poem from my latest poetry collection, “A Light Goes On”- “A stranger in every town” could not have been written without two things. The first of the above came from watching “Western Stars”, the film by Thom Zinny and the Boss, that accompanied the album of the same name. Each song in the…
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After Sun and the Edge of Humanity
“Après Soleil” is the third in a new sequence of pieces that has been exclusively written for and published by the wonderful Edge of Humanity Magazine.A huge thanks to them for their continued support. It is so good to reach such a wide and knowledgeable audience with new work. You can read “Après Soleil” HERE!!…
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The Rush of Judgement…
…That comes from a rush to judgement. Judging others is easy. Our brains are wired to weigh up others immediately, place them in a hierarchy of “worth” and ultimately limit those in our subjective gaze by labelling them. This poet is guilty of doing exactly that in today’s blog, that goes Behind The Lines of…
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Hibernation 2 at Edge of Humanity Magazine.
“Hibernation 2” is the second in a new sequence of pieces that has been exclusively written for and published by the wonderful Edge of Humanity Magazine.A huge thanks to them for their continued support. I am blown away by the reaction to the works. You can read “Hibernation 2” HERE!! This poem is one of…
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Waiting for the Moon to come home at Edge of Humanity Magazine
“Lunar Return” is the first in a new series of pieces that has been exclusively written for and published by the wonderful Edge of Humanity Magazine.A huge thanks to them for their continued support. You can read it HERE!! The poem is a view from a hotel window where a leaden lamppost becomes a cheerleader…
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Projection and Pretending to go Home.
Today’s blog is an excerpt from the 28th poem of my third collection, “A Light Goes On”. It is a sketch from a scene encountered in my home town. A God’s eye view of life at a micro level. There are many tools that a writer can employ in their craft, and when you have…
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“Oh and While the King was looking Down…
…The jester stole his thorny crown”. This couplet from Don McLean’s opus , “The Day The Music Died” , is the seed that grew into the 27th poem from “A Light Goes On”, which today’s post goes Behind The Lines of. Art is revered…eventually. Initially, however, it is laughed at, derided, mocked or worse, left…
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An Un-Restrained Refrain
“End All Wars Now” is the refrain referred to and the title of the 26th poem from “A Light Goes On”, which today’s post goes Behind The Lines of. Language is indicative of usage and it is symptomatic of the systems we are parts of and ultimately live inside the constraints of. It is those…
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A Post Colonial Mind?
“Freedom-Horrible,Horrible Freedom” These, the subtitled, panicked utterances of ants when released by a zero-gravity Homer Simpson from their glassed colony by his wayward head whilst floating absent-mindedly around his capsule, chasing a potato chip, above a cartoon earth. The ants first concern on realizing their impending demise had been to “Protect the Queen”. The Simpsons…
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Do Worry Darling
Note- “Last Man” is a societal condition ,coined by Nietzsche, concerning a society that becomes populated by archetypal, passive nihilists who are tired of life, take no risks and seek only comfort and security. The death of God leads to a world where pacificity and decadence replaces individuality, creativity and the will to power. Today’s…
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Love Is….Not This
Kim Casali’s “Love is” cartoons created and syndicated worldwide in the 1960’s, gave single sentence examples of what positive love should look like. Where that artist’s aesthetics and aphorisms were a comic strip, today’s piece, by contrast, is a crude cave painting of what love should not be. “The breakdown of language”, the 23rd poem…
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From Calvary to Online Check In
“Travel”, the 22nd poem from “A Light Goes On”, was originally published in a beautifully themed anthology- “Way Words Issue 7: Vacation” -presented by the Writer’s Workout. I have always been fascinated by the etymology of language, and this is perhaps where the title and the world view laid out in this work originated from…
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If you write long enough into the abyss….
The abyss will write back into you. “People Believe in Nothing “, the 21st poem from A Light Goes On , needs little additional description, but perhaps a little context. This piece was written in April 2021, at the peak of a parade of pandemic related restrictions imposed on life in my native country. Thus…
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Fairground Attraction
Theme parks are largely 19th century inventions. An amusement park, built around a central ideology or theme. The mainstay of many is the rollercoaster, the first one in fact, being built in Paris over 200 years ago, in 1812. This poem, the 20th from A Light Goes On , starts with “the world’s oldest broken…
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Forecasting a storm at Edge of Humanity Magazine
“Today’s Forecast” is the third act in a trilogy of pieces that has been exclusively written for and published by the wonderful Edge of Humanity Magazine.A huge thanks to the publication for their support. You can read it HERE!! While on the surface level, this may look like a trend based work about climate change…
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I and sky above and sky alone
Liminal spaces dominate my third collection, A Light Goes On , and no more so than in it’s 19th poem , “Between the door and the shore”. “Poisoned”, “Squeal”, “Devil”, “Writhes” are words you would associate with an exorcism rather than with a charcoal sketch of a man smoking a cigarette on the porch of…
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What have I done with all my days?
“Faith(h) Accompli”, is the second of three pieces that has been exclusively written for and published by the wonderful Edge of Humanity Magazine. You can read it HERE!! Stylistically, this work is sparse and economical. A view from past a certain distance in Life’s Garden in a wistful way and I think , one, that…
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The Voice under the Rubble
“What Rescue Would Mean” is the 18th poem from my third collection, A Light Goes On. The work is unusual for me, in that, the last line,the title,arrived first and then it was a case of sifting through the rubble to find a way out to the starting line, where we meet “The voice”. The…
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New by Algo, exclusively for Edge of Humanity Magazine!
“A Walk In the Park”, has been exclusively written for and published by the wonderful Edge of Humanity Magazine. You can read it HERE!! I am very proud of this piece, this first of three in coming weeks to be featured in such a widely read and artist focused publication. It is also the first…
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Rubber necking at the wreckage of your own life
“The commuting of base metal” is the 17th poem from my 3rd collection, A Light Goes On . I was lucky enough to have this work originally published in May 2022 by the “Red Ogre Review”.You can hear an author reading of it Here!. The poem is from the perspective of a protagonist pedestrianised at…
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“If a lion could speak, we could not understand them”
said Ludwig Wittgenstein. Today’s poem, “Carnival Animal”, the 16th from my 3rd collection, A Light Goes On ,tries to give said same animal a voice. This work started off with the sound of a word that I liked- “Car-ni-Val”, three syllables that seemed to need a rhyme, so were soon joined by “A-ni-mal”. Ironic ,…
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The Sunday Scaries on a Monday
“Sunday Air Strikes” is the 15th poem from my 3rd collection, A Light Goes On. The work completes a four poem foray into the invisible invasion of the mind by intrusive thought that can come “out of the clear blue” and on any day, not just a Sunday. The mind feels like a mine field,…
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Self Care /Health Care
“ Self Care/Health Care ” is the 14th poem from my 3rd collection, A Light Goes On. Apart from having the longest first line that I have ever written, I did not think it would have much appeal. However in 2022, It was published in both the excellent “Avant Appalachia” in America and the wonderful…
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“No colours anymore…
I want them to turn black” The ninth poem from my third collection, A Light Goes On , is “A Rolling Stones Song”. So what is the Rolling Stones Song in question? “Paint It Black”,from 1966,which started out from experimentation on Brian Jone’s sitar,was then brush stroked with Bill Wyman’s Hammond Organ and peppered with…
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Fruit of the Womb
(Other T-shirt brands and ancient prayers are available) The eight poem from my third collection, A Light Goes On , is “Sum of their Parts” This poem originally featured in Backward Trajectory, in April 2022-a wonderful word press site full of contemporary global poetry and I am so thankful to them for providing an outlet…
Algo Poetry-Behind the Lines 