Michael O'Connor
Bio
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Stories (18/0)
Madness Needs Direction
Madness needs direction - I've not a doubt in my mind about it. Madness must be tamed with a gentle whipping that corrects the act like a lion in a circus. Madness needs a cigarette in the morning before the day begins, since the day would be wasted did it not begin with joy; the joyousness of drawing deep into our lungs a puff of smoke for the iron horse that continually holds the power to bring soothing, to bring ease, to bring calm into the revolting state of existential dread. The morning smoke brings purpose to an otherwise meaningless curiousity that we all too simply label as life. And our purpose is death, or at least that's what it becomes. We age - graciously or otherwise - and learn to be less concerned with all the atrocities that this thing called life brings about. Or we don't learn this, and we delve deeper, we seek further the blackness, or the psychotic absurdity that is the will to live and to survive. I smoke the morning smoke, not because I'm a punk rocker defying authority, nor because I believe that good health and the enemy of natural endorphins are something to be shunned or ignored, good health is a healthy choice. I smoke the morning cigarette, each and every morning, in an attempt to partake in the devastatingly tricky game of accepting my inevitable fate, which is of course, death. It comes to all of us, and it makes us all the more mad knowing it. Whether old age, cancer, or being struck suddenly by a passing bus, it comes to us. It makes us mad, this is the reason for insanity. Love is a losing game, she said, but I say that to live is a losing game. This madness needs direction. Us curious ones are like the puppy without a leash, a dog without an owner. We wander the streets and look into the shop windows and see the things we can't afford to buy, we then resolve the nagging curiosity by staring into the sky and pondering the cosmos, the great abyss, as if that is going to solve it. I've been like the lost dog. I've stood on main roads and watched the headlights barely miss me as I contemplate no longer whether fate or luck is at work. It's fate that I was mad enough to stand in front of the cars, it's luck that they narrowly missed me. I write. I write because madness needs direction. I strum and I bash at the strings of my guitar as I sing my heart out when I've drunk too much red wine, because madness needs direction. I spend the last of my money on booze, or what little I have on a gamble, because madness needs direction. I sit here in this bar, spending my money and writing this story and listening to the bar room chatter and my headphones playing and staring out the window and smoking cigarettes because madness needs direction. And I had no where to be today. I see the lady outside pushing a trolley full of parcels she's collected and a baby strapped to her chest and her toddler following along. She has direction. The men who don't mind drinking in the mornings continue their chatter and all of our days go on. I think I'll go and have a cigarette.
By Michael O'Connorabout a month ago in Humans
Only By Chance
I'd managed to get a decent rest and wake slowly, my eyes adjusting to the later morning light and my mind free of overbearing, scattered thinking swirling around in my skull as it certainly does at times. Last night I tossed and I turned for quite some time before smoking a joint made up of scrapes of tobacco from the fireplace shelf and stems of weed snapped and broken up into a smokable product. I chewed another half a pill along with it, enough to cause a temporary numbing effect, and after finishing the remainder of wine I managed to doze into a restful slumber. I stirred a morning coffee from the jar I'd been given by the help service that offers food and toiletries and bus tickets, those sorts of things for people in need. There was no kettle in my room and no kitchen for us to use, so I made a lukewarm coffee with hot water from the bathroom tap. Returning to my room from the wet street outside where I'd smoked two cigarettes I fell into a state of unwanting. My consciousness told me I had to play guitar and I ignored it for a moment. It told me I needed to write down a line that I'd just thought of and I ignored that too. I decided I needed to do nothing at all except simply watch the drizzling of rain fall from the clouded view of the sunlight-struck windows in my upstairs room. To pause and observe the supposed necessities that my brain conjured up, when all that was needed was to be, brought peace. It was becoming quite obviously easier to sit with myself and allow myself to be present, right here in the heart of life where nothing peculiar or spectacular occurred. Many days in the past week since I'd arrived I had enjoyed people watching in the way my Mother had taught me. This, and watching the birds and feeling the sun and thinking of the clouds and reading a book and tasting the wine, all things I could do, to be. I am here.
By Michael O'Connor3 months ago in Confessions
One Bar For Me
I awaken likening a cold slab of butter left to refrigerate too long as I pull myself from the flashing of a wild dreamscape and fasten my newfound feet to the Earth. Welcome back. The echoes whisper and then raise their ugly voices out into the neighbourhood. Instead of melting softly in a pot with sips of my morning coffee, tenderizing to the touch of warmth surrounding my exterior, I remain cold and hard and tense in my position on the shelf beside fresh and unused resources. A beer is required. I ride to the garden cafe - not walk, and sit in the restaurant - not the cafe. The lady knows my order too well and produces precisely one, Saigon beer “cam on chi”. I blast fast guitar paired with wicked lyrics to match my enraged and unstable mind. I take out a fine liner pen which is mostly the only one I draw with anymore. The sketchy pictures are a simple way to portray the facts of my inner turmoil. The faces are all both jagged and smooth with patchy and dark coloured edges, all screaming to be heard as they leap from the page to the person. I notice the awareness of the faces around me, they surround me with an awareness that a screaming soul is present and determine that it’s in need of soothing. They gently nod their heads to the sound of music outside the cafe, and ensure it’ll all be okay.
By Michael O'Connor6 months ago in Humans
Love Is True. And I'm Just Thinking In A Garden.
The hoe in the gardener's hands gently nestles itself into the soil of the garden; the giver of life and nourishment broken into millions of tiny fragments all coming together as one to help the leafy greens grow. Swing, swing, swing. Such otherwise tiring work is complete in each moment with peaceful ease. Less than with great effort it continues on its path between the gray spot connecting sky and land and the floor of dirt below. I sit back and observe whilst pinching hairs on my chin in twos and threes to search for the rogues and the strays left behind after the clipping process days ago. I seek and I find and I pluck the lengthy wires. Perhaps the process is for pain or to be present, perhaps it is to be groomed so neatly and clean or perhaps it is simply to watch the moment of time that is both trapped and unfolding in the present.
By Michael O'Connor6 months ago in Poets
Explosive Heart
I want at times for my fiery soul to burn luminously under the hue of the blue lights in the red rooms late evening. I want for the delicate, guiding hands of a gentle and hardened female to take my mind to the moon as I explode in a furious, passionate moment of lust brought on by existential humility and wonder.
By Michael O'Connor6 months ago in Poets
Get Your Head Out of the Way
Sometimes we just need to have our heads out of the way. We need to find the connected screws and unwind them slowly until we hear a giant ‘pop’ when our head finally is removed from our ass. Today, the coffee acts as a mild sedative for my unhinged, racing mind that creates difficulty in finding awareness in the midst of the racetrack running to first place. It has difficulty in seeing the splash in the river by the fish that just flopped by, or the breeze that blows through the trees so tenderly. The motorbike is exhausted. I increase the throttle to push through the patch of emptiness that lives inside the fuel tank, throttle, throttle, throttle… It runs out of stamina regardless and it’s right as I arrive aside the fuel station where I pull in on the last gasp of the night and roll safely to meet the man with the giant nozzle I’m requiring.
By Michael O'Connor6 months ago in Humans
Good Luck Next Time
I take the motorbike down to the beach. I decide against the paid parking spot and go further down to where the locals go, I’m a local after all. On the way I thought a Coca-Cola would suffice to defeat the pit of guilt for an angered night that burned alongside a steady, scattered hangover. There’s a little restaurant there that’s overpriced and sells those ‘I’ve been to Asia’ type tourist meals that people flock to. They’re fixing the side of the restaurant and the aqua blue tin sheeting has been pulled off and they’re using a drill to reconnect it. I remember that I, too, know how to complete such a task. I walked to the sand and seated myself on a red, leather cushioned lounge chair parked under a large umbrella, along a line of red, leather cushioned lounge chairs parked under umbrellas. It’s satisfying enough. I remember how my ex-girlfriend - the woman I asked to marry me and was engaged to for a short period - used to require sculling a can of coke as a means of curing a hangover. I remember my sister saying the same thing just a few days ago. I remember that my Mum loved Coca-Cola in a can too. Before she passed, after I’d finished a long day at work and finished all of our grocery shopping, being sure to bring home the coke that she asked for, she sent me back to the supermarket to exchange the Coca-Cola bottle for a can. She always preferred it in cans - nay, required it in cans. I sipped away before agreeing and sculling, thinking maybe it will help. “Hi sir, you want something to drink?” I knew what was coming. “No Chí cám ơn. Oh I can’t sit here? Ahhh..”
By Michael O'Connor7 months ago in Confessions
