Bryan Oliver

Poet in Residence at 5th London Poetry Festival 2009

Bryan is a writer/actor/ director. He has had plays produced by the BBC and Radio Telefis (Ireland) and many plays performed on the London Fringe with several touring the country. He won the Festival du Cinéma de Paris best actor award in 2007. He is  currently resident writer with Utopia Arts and also writes for and directs The Poetry Show.

Bryan has been writing poetry since he was a teenager but has strayed away and come back to it over the years. He thinks everyone has poetry within them and it can be expressed in many varied ways. Poetry can be exciting, scary, uplifting, impenetrable, funny, even depressing, but ultimately he finds it to be very life enhancing. Poetry can move the emotions and stimulate the brain. Poetry is a life force and he hopes that he won't stray away from it again.

Breath Before Dying

Matted hair
Blood caked hole
Eyes stare
No breath reflected there.

Siegfried is down!
Siegfried is down!

Sitting in coffee bar splendour
Smiles lighting up slow nights
An ancient pen scrawls out
Obligatory kisses.

Siegfried is down!

Walking hand in hand
Feeling proud and afraid
You’re only four
Blonde and bubbly
And I could lose you
In the traffic.

You look up reassuringly and say:
“Nice daddy!”

Siegfried is down!
Siegfried is down!

Torn jacket
Muddied boots with a plop of..?
Fingernails blackened
Trousers soaked in pools of red
No breath reflected here
No Stars or Moon to show
The way
No white light
No glorious Technicolor heroics
Only a soundtrack of hatred
And fear.

Siegfried is down!

It’s not fair!
Why do they stand and stare?
Don’t they know
It’s dinner time?

Ding-a-ling!
Ding-a-ling!
Ding-a-ling!

Running through a mountain of corridors
“Walk don’t run!”
A universe of Giants and Unicorns
Safely wrapped in fish and chips
And Shepherd’s pie in steel containers
Dobbed out in unequal portions
Followed by lumpy rice pudding
With the blob of strawberry
Red
Dead centre
Like the other.

I could have been anyone.

Siegfried is down!

A barber shop razor
Cuts the skin
Oh so gently
But it’s enough.

Brakes on
Car skids
Body bounces off
Stands
Wobbles
But it’s enough.

Arms embrace
Lips frantically
Kiss away the tears
But it’s enough.

Going numb
With cold
With shock

No time for despair
Get up
Get out of here
Smell her Kenco coffee lips
Taste her milky bar breasts
It’s enough
Isn’t it?

Siegfried is down!
Siegfried is down!

How blessed is sight
Smell
Taste
Touching
Hearing.

Siegfried is down!

Only that
A recollection of old time Roses
The smell and touch of you
In semen stained beds
Warm
Unafraid
Planets
Swirling in a night of possibilities
Cocooned with love.

Siegfried is down!

Go Up

Though You Enter the Darkness


Though you enter the darkness

feeling subdued

and alone

frightened

like

a little girl

without a parents

guiding hand

know that I am here

willing you through

admiring your bravery

as you grab for

the light.



Though you enter the darkness

into a world of

doubt

and

confusion

through a door

that locks

behind you

know that my thoughts

go with you

my heart

beats

with yours.



I would enter the darkness

vanquish

all demons

your St George of

the psyche

If only I had

the key.



Never be afraid to share

the darkness

with

me.



I will understand

comfort

and

sustain you.



Though you enter the darkness

there will always be

the light

and I will always

be waiting

for

you.

Go Up

Copyrights @ Bryan Oliver

Walking With Robeson

Shakespeare’s birthday
I’m with my cousin
Following you through ancient streets
Filled with fluttering flags
Calling out: “Paul! Paul!”

I’d seen you on the telly
Now you’re here
In my home town
Leading the Mayor’s procession
Past the Garrick Inn.

Shakespeare may have dreamt of you
His colossus of an Othello
Who with a smile that lights up the universe
Beckons little me to walk hand in hand
Through crowded camera clicking streets.

I look up proud and amazed.
I’m walking hand in hand with Paul Robeson!

All too soon
We reach our final destination
As all too soon
All final destinations are reached.

We say our goodbyes
Our hands
Release
Drift apart
You to act
To sing
To march for human rights
To confront the McCarthy Tribunal
With courage and dignity.

You never sold your comrades
Down Old Man River.

They took away your passport
But they couldn’t take away
Your wisdom
Your dignity
Your place in history.

They “white listed”
Banished you from your art
But you still sang for the Welsh miners!

Did they finally take away your life
In slow poisonings?
In countless electric shock treatments
At The Priory?

And in moments of deep despair
Did you ever remember that cheeky Stratfordian kid
Little white hand in large black hand
You holding on to me
Me holding on to you
Walking to our destiny?

Well I’m grown up now
But I’m still holding on.

Holding your hand into eternity.

 

Go Up



The Tourist



Where am I going with this?

I don’t know
I just have to travel
Without thought
Without care
Just go on the journey
Connect
Flow
Go with.

It’s okay
No one will hear
No one will read
Not if
You go on the journey
Alone
Without clothes
Without luggage.

Open out
Open up
Damn the pauses
The wrong turnings
The station
Without a schedule
A train of thought
Off the tracks.

There are no tracks
Only connections
Screaming
Embracing
Loving without
Thinking.

A natural state of tourism.



Go Up
 

 

Dead Weight


Who’s going to type the fuckers up?
All the poems
All the thoughts
And does it really matter
If no one even reads them?

But then what’s the point?
Who is this all for?

Someone
Somewhere
Rolls over and reaches for
A partner
Who is no longer there.

An empty space
A warm stain
A trickle down the pan
A last gasp
A sudden realisation
An eternal pause.

Who’s going to type the fucker up?
 

 

Go Up

Copyrights @ Bryan Oliver