Deceit

Historical ideas sold as genius in minds focused
on selfish greed, lauded by themselves and those
they surround themselves, spout thinly veiled lies.
Greed plays the leading role to immoral thought,
finding history favours them not as genius,
but as immoral deceivers writing legacies in blood.

Collateral damage to narcissistic egos.

Inconvenient emotion pushed aside, convincing followers
this way benefits their wants and needs for a comfortable life.

We only take from those who want to take from you.

Cementing ideas for patriots to suckle father’s teat,
milk was never there, empty promises that don’t hold water
leave masses eternally thirsty on deceitful hypocrisy.

No clear line’s drawn between politicians, emperors,
or religious leaders, donning the same oppressive dictator’s gown;
the West embroiled in corporate wars around the globe.

Politicians feed corporate greed, corporate greed feeds politicians,
burning swathes of forests, dragnetting ocean floors,
robbing the planet of natural carbon dioxide consumption,
choking those forced into hideous living standards
forbidden to consume ill-gotten gains so enjoyed by the West,
sanctioned by the masses.

After all, they would do the same given half the chance.

Where’s the genius in this?

It’s now up to us to stand on the right side of history, not leave it to the pleas of children; for the final time…

James G Brennan 2023

Thank you Somsubhra Banerjee Priyanka Srivastava Rahul S, for accepting this piece. 🙏☘️🙏☘️🙏☘️

Thank you, Priyanka Srivastava for publishing this piece. 🙏🙏

Thank you all for reading and your precious time. Always. J. 🙏☘️

There’s still time to join this writing challenge until the end of September, please feel free to join in. See below. Tagging a few wonderful writers… Penofgold @Joseph Lieungh julia Hawkins Darrin Atkins KAKA LAM 嘉嘉 @iamkakalamkk Ema Dumitru

We’re Back And How!

Misguided Genius was originally published in Literary Impulse on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A Tribute to Susannah MacKinnie and Husband Steve

Although I never met you, you were my friend.
Always encouraging, nurturing like an elder sister,
too young to be me mum, now forever young in me head.

Your Kindness, and kindred spirit,
leaves me shocked to hear you left us, dear Susannah.

You left us with your tales, weaving wonderful creations,
stories entwined with poetry and art in your own unique style.

We miss you dear, Susannah, may you have the peace you deserve
along with pianist husband Steve, tripping the light fantastic
with nibble toe to twinkling piano keys, amongst nebulas, stars,
and supernovas, while skirting event horizons leading the way
for the rest of us to follow.

May your daughters, Jessica, and Rachel be comforted by the tributes you both receive for the memories and talents you left behind.

Always, my dear friend. See you soon enough. J. 🙏❤️✨✨❤️🙏

I learned of Susannah and Steve's tragic departure from this world today.
04 06 2023 Six months later…

for Rachel & Jessica

James G Brennan 2023

Thank you David Rudder for accepting and publishing this piece. 🙏🙏

Thank you all for reading and your precious time. Always. J.🙏🙏

Gutted was originally published in Woodworkers of the World Unite!!! on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Muhamad Ali & Bernadette Devlin.

Imagine the power in that room — 
when two respected fighters met.

Imagine the power in that room — 
two revolutionaries either side of the water.

Imagine the power in that room — 
respect for each other at the top of their game.

Imagine the power in that room — 
acknowledging each other’s struggles.

Imagine the power in that room — 
electric ideas fight for civil rights.

Imagine the power in that room — 
both serving time for their beliefs.

Imagine the power in that room — 
intelligent minds thrashing out ideals.

Imagine the power in that room — 
influential orators run rings around listeners.

Imagine the power in that room — 
a first-generation Irish fighter
alongside a fourth-generation Irish fighter.

Imagine the power in that room.

James G Brennan 2023

This ties in with the previous piece about Irish Penonomon, Bernadette Devlin when she was an independent civil rights MP, having dinner with Muhammad Ali before his fight in Dublin 1972. Both of them civil rights activists punished by their respective governments. At that time, the conflict was raging in Northern Ireland, Ali had a good grasp of the situation. Bernadette confirms in an interview for the B.B.C. in 2022, Ali had the most perfect male face she has ever seen…

Thank you Somsubhra Banerjee Priyanka Srivastava AAWEG I *We put ghosts in machines * for accepting this piece. 🙏☘️🙏☘️🙏☘️

Thank you, Priyanka Srivastava for Publishing this piece. 🙏☘️

Thank you all for reading and your precious time. Always. J. 🙏☘️

There are a few days left for entries to this Anthology competition below. Time to get scribbling!

Tagging a few wonderful writers… Bob Jasper Pseu Pending (Seu) Connie Song Imad Melissa Bee

We’re Back And How!

When Ali Met Bernie was originally published in Literary Impulse on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Support for Our Medium Friend Sad to Say Melissa Didn’t Make the Semi Finals.

Is Melissa Blanchard a Super Mom?

Our dear friend Melissa Bee is in the quarter-finals for Super mom, the winner will be featured in Woman's World magazine, take home $20,000, and a weekend getaway in Palm Springs! It’s nerve wracking watching Melissa progress, she still has another three weeks to go and is currently second in her group. It’s easy to vote for Melissa, costing just a few seconds of your time. Let’s help out our kind hearted Medium friend who very much deserves this win! Please, show your support. Oh, and sharing is caring.

Tanks a million as always for your precious time, dear friends. Always. J. 🙏☘🍀✨💎💝🙏

An Irish Phenomenon

It’s twenty five years after the Good Friday Agreement and recently celebrated by those who engineered it. Arms have been laid to rest and paramilitary murders have largely stopped; it’s certainly an achievement. However, bickering politicians interested in their own agendas, and now corporations, are not paving the way to unity. Here is an Irish Icon’s story for civil rights and true unity.

To unite the whole people of Ireland, to abolish the memory of past dissensions, and to substitute the common name of Irishman, in place of the denominations of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter, these were my means. — Theobald Wolfe Tone.

High heeled boots and mini skirt, fashion in the late 60s, belonged to articulate sneering defiance with the raised fist of a young Bernadette Devlin. An anti-establishment, civil rights activist icon, sent her to Westminster as the youngest woman MP, holding the title for 46 years in April 1969, regarded as a phenomenon. Even Muhamad Ali had to meet this firey kindred spirit for dinner when he came to fight in Dublin 1972. Nine years later, after re-election, an American tour, unjust imprisonment, various civil rights campaigns and elections, Bernadette survived an assassination attempt… Now aged 75, she is still fighting for immigrants, travellers, and those with learning difficulties civil rights.

Excitement followed this fiery spirited young woman in our home whenever she was on TV, all be it years later in documentaries when we were auld enough to understand her Irish spirit a wee bit. Our dad let out a “wu-hoo!” and rightly so, at Bernadette Devlin’s phenomenal achievements.

Josephine Bernadette Devlin was born and raised in Cookstown, County Derry, Northern Ireland, to Irish Catholic parents, John James and Elisabeth Bernadette Devlin, where the Catholic majority was manipulated by politics to become the oppressed minority. This oppression gave Bernadette her dissident voice.

A young Bernadette was taught by her mother and father to recite speeches and sing songs, upholding Irish Republican ideals. Her father died when she was just nine years old, the family now relied on welfare to survive. Bernadette’s mother passed when she was a nineteen-year-old University student of psychology, and a founding member of the civil rights movement, People’s Democracy; leaving her to partly bring up her younger siblings, paving the way for the human rights activist she still is today.

Queens University barred Bernadette before she could sit her finals for participating in protests.

“Because of my extra-curricular activity there had been a complaint made by the Tyrone Education Board largely made up of unionist politicians.“The university as a result of that cancelled the last two months of my scholarship and refused to allow me to sit my exams. “And have never apologised for it to this day. “In case they’re thinking of it — too late, don’t bother.” Bernadette Devlin McAliskey. 2022

Devlin stood for independent party “Unity” in the 1969 Northern Ireland general election and lost, only to gain a second chance. The death of George Forrest, MP for Mid Ulster left an opportunity for Bernadette, she won against Forrest’s widow. Devlin took her seat in Westminster Parliament in the April, aged 21, the youngest woman to be elected at that time. She remained so until a 20 year old Mhairi Black claimed the crown in May 2015.

Bernadette’s slogan was “I will take my seat and fight for your rights.” Giving a rousing speech, described by some at the time as the finest maiden speech since Benjamin Disraeli’s in 1837.

“There is no place in society for us, the ordinary ‘peasants’ of Northern Ireland.. because we are the have-nots and they are the haves… The situation with which we are faced in Northern Ireland is one in which I feel I can no longer say to the people, ‘Don’t worry. Westminster is looking after you.” Bernadette Devlin.

Devlin stood with Irish catholic residents in the Battle of the Bogside, a three-day riot in August 1969 protesting their treatment by RUC police and unionists, who now, had marched on catholic homes. They fought back with stones and petrol bombs inciting riots across Northern Ireland; British troops were deployed… this is seen as the start of the thirty-year conflict known as “the troubles.” In our family, we called it the struggle for freedom.

Soon after the Battle of the Bogside, Bernadette embarked on a tour of America to garner support for the civil rights movement, giving her support to oppressed African Americans.

In Philadelphia, Bernadette had to encourage an African American singer to perform “We Shall Overcome,” a gospel song which became a civil rights protest song, to a largely unresponsive Irish American audience. In Detroit, she refused to take the stage until African Americans were let in.

Devlin was given the key to the city of New York by Mayor John Lindsey which she graciously accepted. However, she sent it back with friend and colleague Eamonn McCann who gave it to a representative of the Black Panthers Harlem Chapter saying it belonged to the poor people of New York.

Frustrated with conservative Irish Americans Bernadette left, chiding Irish immigrants for not standing with the oppressed African American community, reminding them they were once abused by their English oppressors. This reflection was an uncomfortable one.

Unfortunately, Irish American tour organisers used Devlin to fill their coffers, buying weapons to support Irish republican paramilitaries, something Bernadette was opposed to… civil rights support was her objective. Bernadette left the tour to much criticism aimed at her by many to further their own ends.

Devlin was arrested for her involvement in the Battle of the Bogside in December of ’69 and imprisoned for a short term. In 2003 Bernadette was refused entry into America on this conviction, as a threat to national security, even though she had visited many times before. No Irish heritage in the Bush camp then. Bernadette’s dissidence was now aligned with Mohammad Ali’s, whose licence has been revoked by then governor of California Ronald Regan, who was at a Dublin hotel when Ali and Bernadette met.

After re-election at the 1970 general election, Devlin declared that she would sit in Parliament as an independent socialist.

Constantly denied the floor, against parliamentary convention, after witnessing and fired upon at the Bloody Sunday massacre in Derry 1972, Bernadette launched at a smirking Home Secretary Reginald Maudlin, grabbing his tie and backhanding him across his face in the House of Commons for excusing the massacre by the British parachute regiment, of unarmed protesters in cold blood, known as Bloody Sunday. They shot twenty-six of which fourteen died and injured many others. Devlin refused to apologise saying in her infamous Northern Irish accent, “I’m just sorry I didn’t get him by the throat.”

Thirteen years later, former prime minister, Edward Heath recalled.

“I remember very well when an hon. Lady rushed from the Opposition Benches and hit Mr Maudling. I remember that vividly because I thought that she was going to hit me. She could not stretch as far as that, so she had to make do with him.”

Bernadette scorned Irish landlords who took part in human rights marches besides tenants they charged inflated rental prices. This is a woman who takes no prisoners…

Standing with blanket protestors, dirty protestors, and hunger strikers at the Maze prison’s H block, Bernadette was a vocal critic once again of cruel British policies against Irish Catholics, winning a seat as an independent candidate in the 1979 elections to the European Parliament in Northern Ireland.

She was a leading voice for Smash H-Block Campaign, supporting hunger strikers led by Bobby Sands who died along with nine others in protest at the British government’s refusal to recognise them as prisoners of war. There were a further thirteen who were either taken off the strike by their families for medical treatment, or came to the end of the strike.

Anger and disbelief filled our home while the British government seemed to will death after death to prove their strength. I can not and will not type the name of that woman who led the conservative party at that time.

In 1981, Bernadette, now McAliskey, and her husband Michael, survived an assassination attempt by Ulster freedom fighters, a cover name for the loyalist paramilitary Ulster Defence Association. Bernadette was shot nine times in front of her children. British soldiers on patrol opposite the McAliskey home took half an hour to respond; their home phone wires had been cut. Eventually one of the newly arrived troops giving first aid commandeered a neighbour’s car to get help from a local councillor. Bernadette and Michael were eventually airlifted to a nearby hospital.

Shock engulfed our home, fearful Bernadette and Michael would not survive this deadly attack.

Bernadette has claimed that the patrol, “were there to make sure that the gunmen got into my house and that they were caught on the way out.”

A vocal critic of the Good Friday agreement, Bernadette criticised all parties for not considering the people of Northern Ireland’s juxtaposition. Segregation still exists, as does animosity on both sides of political and religious dogmas. Power sharing through Stormont talks are at a standstill.

In Bernadette’s own words…

The “shared spaces” are the shopping centres and to some extent workplaces, but not the places where people live. The peace process was never about ending sectarianism, but about “managing it and keeping it within the parameters of nonviolence and political control.”

“If you reflect back on it, the explanation for me is that this is a militarist philosophy, afraid of democracy. It doesn’t trust the people. [The parties] work in government in exactly the same way. It’s not that they don’t understand democracy. They don’t believe in it. And the institutions that arise from that are institutions of control.

It suited both the British and Irish governments to acquiesce in this, she believes. “If they were serious about changing Northern Ireland, they would have insisted on a 20-year strategy for desegregating housing, desegregating education, ending our private and cultural segregation.” Source: Interview in the Irish Times with Kitty Holland.

In 1994, Bernadette addressed funeral attendees after carrying and kissing the coffin of her close friend, Dominic McGlinchey. He was a former chief of staff for the Irish National Liberation Army and Co-founder of The Irish Republican Socialist Party with Bernadette. She chided the press and journalists responsible for recently tarnishing McGlinchey’s name, labelling him a drug dealer. Devlin said that they are, “curs and dogs. May every one of them rot in hell. They have taken away Dominic McGlinchy’s character and they will stand judgement for it. He was the finest Republican of them all. He never dishonoured the cause he believed in. His war was with the armed soldiers and the police of this state”.

A few months later in an interview, Bernadette was asked if her tirade was to counter act press defamation of McGlinchey. Devlin praised McGlinchey for his democratic thinking, and “the finest republican of his generation”. Of course, Bernadette, in her usual wit, said. “The rest of it I might take back…I don’t even believe in hell.”

Unfortunately, an insightful out of print memoir, The Price of My Soul covers Irelands pre 1969 history and the civil rights movement. It also gives a little of Bernadette’s background.

Bernadette now works for the human rights of immigrants, travellers, single parents, and people with intellectual difficulties, in County Tyrone. She set up STEP, South Tyrone Empowerment Program. As always, challenging those in power on behalf of people discarded by the affluent.

James G Brennan 2022

For Sylvia Wohlfarth, our own human rights worker in the Republic of Ireland.

The first link below is a fascinating account in Bernadette’s own words…

Sources: https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/bernadette-mcaliskey-i-am-astounded-i-survived-i-made-mad-decisions-1.2798293

https://tribunemag.co.uk/2023/04/the-phenomenon-of-bernadette-devlin-2/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernadette_Devlin_McAliskey#cite_note-13

When Northern Irish civil rights activist Bernadette Devlin came to America | IrishCentral.com

Thank you, Somsubhra Banerjee, Priyanka Srivastava, Rahul Sharma for giving my words a platform.🙏✨🙏✨🙏✨

Thank you, Somsubhra Banerjee for publishing this piece. 🙏✨

Thank you all for reading and your precious time. Always. J. 🙏☘✨

Bernadette Devlin was originally published in Literary Impulse on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Free Verse Poetry

A forthright preacher addressed his avid listeners with a commanding tone in his eyes and steely look in his voice, put forth the proposition…

You can petition your poetry, with prose.

You can petition your prose, with verse.

You can petition your verse; with poetry.

YOU CAN NOT PETITION PURE POEMS, WITHOUT VERSE!

Here endeth the fun…

Fantasies entwined in the slipstream of life’s temptations
brings a kind of relief other than what was sought,
once the other side is reached.

Darkness is always alluring to the weak mind
in times of frustration and loneliness.

Pulling at threads unravelling that web of self-destruction
somehow managing to avoid the precipice again,
until the final time.

Pray to your universe it never comes.

For J.D. Harms

James G Brennan 2023

This piece is in response to Carolyn Hastings’ prompt “Always Be a Poet” for Paper Poetry’s World Poetry Day. I had the beginning of a Doors song, “The Soft Parade” shout at me to get involved; so I did, messing around with the start of the song. I’m leaving it late, I know. I now have more time for da craic and get back on the horse to fall off more often. Here’s the link should you fancy a go…

Always Be a Poet

Ah go on, here’s a link for The Doors’ song, it’s a poetical piece so it fits, one for the ladies too. Hopefully, this whole piece is just a lot of fun…

As requested, I’m tagging five new engagers to ava go and maybe spark their interest in Paper Poetry… Ema Dumitru Lover Boy in Space Brian Lageose Cher Hin Chong leauuriz & the wonderful, Amy Jasek

Thank you, Suntonu Bhadra Carolyn Hastings Indubala Kachhawa for accepting my words. 🙏✨🙏✨🙏✨
Thank you Carolyn Hastings for publishing this piece. 🙏✨

Thank you all for reading and your precious time. Always. J. 🙏☘✨

Desire was originally published in Paper Poetry on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Release Date 30th January Now in Paper

‎Explorations Calming The Storm In A Young Man's Mind

As human beings, we make mistakes, some weightier than others; we punish ourselves and others when there is no need.

We all have darker sides to our emotions, most of us push these thoughts away refusing to acknowledge them, feelings that are part of natural thought process.

We are all interested in letting out a little thread of emotional experimentation to see where it will lead us; we know the boundaries between right and wrong within ourselves.

If these boundaries are lived within, then mistakes become futile.

These works were written over 30 years ago in 1990 over the period of a month when I was 24, going through a hard time mentally, possibly fending off some sort of breakdown as I tended to go through periods of extreme lows where I would be quiet for days on end, these writings helped as some kind of release from a troubled mind.

I have only edited grammar and punctuation keeping the essence intact. I lost Women’s Oppression Within Religion, so I rewrote that one; I also added “Obsessive you”.

This is not so much a personal journey as it is an observational one looking for and finding answers concerning human behaviour.

Times have changed since 1990 when many things were not really dealt with so well. We have moved on as a society, so many issues are now more in the open, possibly leaving a body of this work outdated.

I’ve decided to go with Draft 2 Digital to get this poetry collection out there, https://books2read.com/u/bxrza6 publicity is up to me, and any who may indulge me. Release date is 30th January for a mere $8. $6 for the first two months’ promo. It’s been a long journey, and I must give out a shout to the wonderful, Eli Snow. It will be released through many platforms, such as Apple, Kobo, Kindle, and Amazon to name a few. Reviews will be a massive help, should anyone feel inclined. Let’s see if I/we can get this writing career off the ground. Thank you in advance for all your support over the last few years, this community has been my writing rock, without which I would have given up ages ago. I am blessed, thank you! From the bottom of my heart and the heart of my…Bigger love. J. 🙏☘🍀🤘🍻💥

OverDrive — Published @ OverDrive
BorrowBox — Published @ BorrowBox
Baker & Taylor — Published @ Baker & Taylor
Scribd — Published @ Scribd
Kobo — Published @ Kobo
Apple — Published @ Apple
Vivlio — Published @ Vivlio
Smashwords — Published @ Smashwords
Tolino — Published @ Tolino
Barnes & Noble — Published @ Barnes & Noble
Bibliotheca — Published @ Bibliotheca
Amazon — Published @ Amazon

Do forgive the slow responses and reciprocation, there’s a lot going on with the death and funeral of another close friend. R.I.P. Alan. And now another close friend and artist, Phil McDaed. This is the worst week to bring out a collection. Can You please stop dying!

Thank you all for reading, support, and your precious time. Always. J. 🙏☘🍀

Corporate Christmas & New Year

Christmas spirit hijacked by malicious corporations to play on collective western guilt; fecked it. Robbing what little wealth many had, now have less to buy into overpriced celebrations. Soaring heating and food bills, leave little for corporate highway robbery. Even Dick Turpin had the decency to wear a mask.

Inadvertently bringing families together, celebrating Christmas in a traditional way before expensive glitz ruined its true meaning, brings a smile and a beat to a cynical swinging brick of a heart, slightly crumbling to reveal what may just be emotion.

Think I’ll avoid it all, they can stuff their celebrations up their own feckin’ arse leaving turkeys alone. What say you, vegans… I’ll smoke cigarettes while drunk to make me feel awful the following day; complain about traditionally Buddhist bars celebrating a Christian tradition, who in turn, hijacked pagan celebrations, to cash in; gleefully dancing to the tune of their corporate masters.

Don’t they realise most are here to get away from this shite…
So why the feck go to hang out with ex-pats partying away like it’s 1999?
The DJ will not spin Prince. See, there I go, predicting awful celebrations in a most awful way.

Could I possibly feel worse? Of course, I can; annoying me wife while slightly hungover always makes me feel bad. Sack it, I’m not going out, that fried rice Crimbo dinner will taste better. Can’t wait for New Year, traditionally celebrated in Thailand 13th to 15th April; but hey, there’s more cash to extract out of foreigners’ pockets. Aye, it’s decidedly December.

Bah feckin’ humbug.

Writing this while a most awfully loud Crimbo band plays and sings out of tune in a neighbour’s bar, pissing off his neighbours, to very little clapping; has not been easy. Inflated ego is rarely in tune with those around.

I won’t bore you with… Pope Julius I chose December 25. It is commonly believed that the church chose this date in an effort to adopt and absorb the traditions of the pagan Saturnalia festival. Source: The History Channel.

James G Brennan 2022

This is in response to Carolyn Hastings request to join in the joy of Crimbo. I did warn her… Unfortunately, a good friend died, so this has been on hold.

Christmas Is Blooming

Here’s Indubala Kachhawa prompt, there’s still time…

Decidedly December

Thank you, Carolyn Hastings for publishing this piece.

Thank you, Suntonu Bhadra, Indubala Kachhawa, Carolyn Hastings, for giving my words a platform. 🙏☘🙏☘🙏☘

Thank you all for reading and your precious time. Always. J. 🙏☘🙏☘🙏☘

Hijacked was originally published in Paper Poetry on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Things are afoot more like underfoot

Humanity undid karmas knot with belligerence and ignorance;
pulling relentlessly, killing rebirth, shaming their grannies
until they could no longer accept its vitriolic nature,
disowning spawns of their spawn.

Trampling karma underfoot, rendering it powerless
until the balance shifted towards the overwhelming many
finding no recompense;
the human race got crushed within dark matter,
releasing magnetic fields it hides to keep balance
so as never to leave the tiniest human stain
upon this or any other universe. Amen.

James G Brennan 2022

Thank you, Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她) for giving my words a platform. 🙏✨

Thank you all for reading and your precious time. Always. J. 🙏✨

R.I.P Karma was originally published in The Brain is a Noodle on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Irish Word for, Witch, Hag, Bag.

A modern-day Helloween media evangelist horror story.

Some call you an auld hag,
others a witch.
Your black cape flail’s in the wind,
as you scuttle around on your broomstick
cackling to yourself about others.

They say you are a lore unto yourself
casting dogmatic hocus pocus;
but I caught you sitting on the fence
while you sang suspicious minds,
unable to raise Elvis.

I suspect you’re just a flapping auld bag.

James G Brennan 2022

Alex Jones, (conspiracy theorist evangelist) Jim Baker, Robert Jeffries. Trump-etists. Witch, Hag, Bag. 🤣🤣🤣

Thank you all for reading and your precious time. Always. J. 🙏☘💎💥🙏