tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79938323685103982952024-03-13T20:07:26.143-07:00Michael O'LearyThis is an occasional blog by New Zealand poet, novelist and artist, Michael O'Leary.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05661943134499983480noreply@blogger.comBlogger192125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993832368510398295.post-23493628431960842612015-02-09T19:14:00.001-08:002015-02-09T19:14:49.307-08:00<iframe frameborder="0" height="500" seamless="seamless" src="https://givealittle.co.nz/widget/cause/supportmichael/light-skyscraper" width="250"></iframe><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05661943134499983480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993832368510398295.post-52400959412766140022015-02-05T13:12:00.001-08:002015-02-05T13:12:13.413-08:00Beattie's Book Blog - unofficial homepage of the New Zealand book community: John Lennon in conversation with Tony Taylor<a href="http://beattiesbookblog.blogspot.com/2015/02/john-lennon-in-conversation-with-tony.html?spref=bl">Beattie's Book Blog - unofficial homepage of the New Zealand book community: John Lennon in conversation with Tony Taylor</a>: Michael O'Leary writes: To start 2015 Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop is publishing a unique interview with John Lennon which was rec...Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05661943134499983480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993832368510398295.post-60444401045262396982015-01-23T22:53:00.001-08:002015-01-23T22:53:07.233-08:00Fences Fall (Songs From The Lyrics Of Michael O'Leary) | Amplifier NZ Music<a href="http://www.amplifier.co.nz/release/79022/fences-fall-songs-from-the-lyrics-of-michael-oleary.html#.VMNBFa58vKU.blogger">Fences Fall (Songs From The Lyrics Of Michael O'Leary) | Amplifier NZ Music</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05661943134499983480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993832368510398295.post-51461687856188101752014-08-11T15:48:00.002-07:002014-08-11T15:51:20.830-07:00Livin' ina Aucklan' CD on Pledge Me<iframe scrolling="no" src="https://www.pledgeme.co.nz/projects/2406/embed_card" style="border: none; height: 362px; overflow: hidden; scroll: none; width: 420px;"></iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05661943134499983480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993832368510398295.post-25983678175426686502014-07-08T22:06:00.001-07:002014-07-08T22:06:45.316-07:00Fences Fall (Songs From The Lyrics Of Michael O'Leary) | Amplifier NZ Music<a href="http://www.amplifier.co.nz/release/79022/fences-fall-songs-from-the-lyrics-of-michael-oleary.html#.U7zN24A5kBw.blogger">Fences Fall (Songs From The Lyrics Of Michael O'Leary) | Amplifier NZ Music</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05661943134499983480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993832368510398295.post-28524420519973013792014-05-06T21:22:00.001-07:002014-05-06T21:22:16.612-07:00Beattie's Book Blog - unofficial homepage of the New Zealand book community: A (Self) Portrait of an Artist as a Young Musician...<a href="http://beattiesbookblog.blogspot.com/2014/05/a-self-portrait-of-artist-as-young.html?spref=bl">Beattie's Book Blog - unofficial homepage of the New Zealand book community: A (Self) Portrait of an Artist as a Young Musician...</a>: Off the Shelf By Suzanne Donahue | Tuesday, May 06, 2014 If I did not already love Bo...Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05661943134499983480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993832368510398295.post-88438072726933882702013-12-20T01:20:00.001-08:002013-12-20T01:20:23.665-08:00Beattie's Book Blog - unofficial homepage of the New Zealand book community: ESAW Christmas Surprise 2013<a href="http://beattiesbookblog.blogspot.com/2013/12/esaw-christmas-surprise-2013.html?spref=bl">Beattie's Book Blog - unofficial homepage of the New Zealand book community: ESAW Christmas Surprise 2013</a>: Getting in to the Christmas spirit, Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop , the Poetry Archive of NZ Aotearoa (PANZA) and HeadworX Publishers ha...Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05661943134499983480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993832368510398295.post-80222094720895594552013-12-08T00:39:00.000-08:002013-12-08T00:39:26.886-08:00y poem <b><i>Flip Side of the Ballad of John and Yoko</i></b> was written the day John Lennon was shot but today is the 33rd anniversary of that tragic event. Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming autobiography, ‘Die Bibel: The Authoritative History of Michael John O’Leary, Earl of Seacliff’, which describes the circumstances around the writing of the poem:
I wrote ‘off the cuff’ the moment I heard the news that Mark Chapman had murdered John Lennon in New York City: Que pasa New York? Que pasa New York? Hey, Hey! It was a great shock to me and many of my generation all around the world. That night I went to the Captain Cook and met Peter Olds and we had a wake for John in remembrance for all he had done for us over the years. It is interesting that Bob Dylan, not noted for his eulogizing other artists of his generation, has written a song, ‘Roll on John’, in praise of Lennon for his 2012 album Tempest – everyone copies me eventually!
Flip Side of the Ballad of John and Yoko
6pm News, Tuesday, Ninth of December, 1980
“We have just heard from New York
Ex-Beatle John Lennon was shot today . . . !!!!!!”
i
There I was sitting on a sofa
In one of the southernmost cities of the world
Listening to the radio whilst thinking about cooking tea
Well, how can you be honest about how you feel?
I’d just turned the station over
To get the “real” news of the world
When I heard the words written above: well fuck me!
What else can you do but swear at a time like this
I am thinking about my mother, his mother
Two of the responsible for bringing us into the world
And now John, you’re gone! There’s only me
Yoko and me, and the rest of humanity together in grief and love
Yoko’s in a black scumbag, I left the sofa
Wandered aimlessly around the room the day you left the world
Your death is a climax of events forcing mortality on me
Everybody’s talkin’ ‘bout Pol Pot, Nazism, Socialism, I.R.A. and junkies
Give me a chance, brother
You have helped me understand this world
Now you’re dead, am I enslaved or freeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!
Fuck the revolution, we have bred another generation
ii
When it all began, I was just another
Beatle fan. A teenager from the other side of the world
Looking for something more interesting than school’s authority
Distances travelled in space, time and sorrow add up to one thing
Your songs and books helped me discover
In myself, what all the education in the world
Could not; that I could write and illustrate my own story
Knowledge to one is ignorance to another, unless there is love
1968, Hey Jude, the death of my father and mother
Like a lost black sheep I entered the outside world
Sold my records, went to work in a dark, thankless factory
If a person makes enough of one thing, he or she becomes a thing
While I got lost in nothing, you found your lover
For whom you left the Beatles, left the wife, shocked the world
Yoko, through the years of illusion, offered you reality
Eternity may be a stone in Wales, but it is now we must live
And so, lest the press smother
You and your love both withdrew from the world
Which had built you a boat of fame, then left you all at sea
How many oak trees have been allowed to grow from the acorns?
“Just like starting over”
Is not starting over, you are now dead to the world
Sean and Yoko no longer have the shade and strength of their tree
That fallen tree made them a house which they must make a home
iii
We were always a decade away from each other
Yet we were of the same generation
You were the spiritual pathfinder
I followed to the point of penetration
And I never lost you, but let you go
It was not lack of love, but life itself, caused the separation
Now you too have joined the dead and living dead
Who haunt and torment my existence
On this quaint and sadly crazy planet on which
To live is not just to breath, but an insistence
That each such breath is a test of courage and will
Which we understand at a metaphorical distance
Christ!
I know
It ain’t easy!
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05661943134499983480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993832368510398295.post-32801262597959063612013-12-02T00:19:00.001-08:002013-12-02T00:19:24.082-08:00Beattie's Book Blog - unofficial homepage of the New Zealand book community: HeadworX book launch report:rugby poems and legend...<a href="http://beattiesbookblog.blogspot.com/2013/12/headworx-book-launch-reportrugby-poems.html?spref=bl">Beattie's Book Blog - unofficial homepage of the New Zealand book community: HeadworX book launch report:rugby poems and legend...</a>: “HeadworX Publishers and Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop released two new books at Quilters Bookshop, Wellington, on Saturday afternoon, 30 ...Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05661943134499983480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993832368510398295.post-83611162612902598912013-11-18T19:32:00.001-08:002013-11-18T19:32:56.518-08:00Beattie's Book Blog - unofficial homepage of the New Zealand book community: New HeadworX Releases: Rugby Poems and Legends<a href="http://beattiesbookblog.blogspot.com/2013/11/new-headworx-releases-rugby-poems-and.html?spref=bl">Beattie's Book Blog - unofficial homepage of the New Zealand book community: New HeadworX Releases: Rugby Poems and Legends</a>: Title: Sidelights: Rugby Poems Author: Mark Pirie Publisher/distributor: The Night Press (a division of HeadworX) ISBN 978-0-473...Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05661943134499983480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993832368510398295.post-30402188708938959022013-11-13T16:38:00.001-08:002013-11-13T16:38:01.492-08:00Fences Fallhttp://www.youtube.com/v/TQBiUmk6D4o?version=3&autohide=1&autohide=1&feature=share&showinfo=1&autoplay=1&attribution_tag=TlN5BvFEPjAD2JQCOXBnSAAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05661943134499983480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993832368510398295.post-26609839280641433992013-11-04T20:32:00.001-08:002013-11-04T20:32:44.869-08:00<a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=as_acph_kb_pearl_417_on?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&docId=1000764551&linkCode=ur2&tag=pukabook-20">Shop Amazon Books - Unearth Forgotten Literary Gems from Nancy Pearl's Book Lust Rediscoveries Series</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=pukabook-20&l=ur2&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05661943134499983480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993832368510398295.post-31041163962305010702013-11-04T20:19:00.000-08:002013-11-04T20:19:06.686-08:00<a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=as_acph_ms_ess_111_1231?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=ur2&node=5917231011&tag=pukabook-20">Shop Amazon - Essential Music for Your Collection</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=pukabook-20&l=ur2&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05661943134499983480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993832368510398295.post-78739400646483053152013-10-28T00:35:00.001-07:002013-10-28T00:35:21.314-07:00Tingling Catch: Cricket Society Journal reviews Out of It<a href="http://tinglingcatch.blogspot.com/2012/10/cricket-society-journal-reviews-out-of.html?spref=bl">Tingling Catch: Cricket Society Journal reviews Out of It</a>: Michael O’Leary whose cricket novel I edited earlier in the year got a brief but good review in the Cricket Society’s Journal. Out of It ...Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05661943134499983480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993832368510398295.post-43862712306984334362013-10-15T04:08:00.001-07:002013-10-15T04:08:31.698-07:00Beattie's Book Blog - unofficial homepage of the New Zealand book community: Livin’ ina Aucklan’<a href="http://beattiesbookblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/livin-ina-aucklan.html?spref=bl">Beattie's Book Blog - unofficial homepage of the New Zealand book community: Livin’ ina Aucklan’</a>: This project involves the recording and manufacture of a CD of songs based on one of Michael O'Leary 's books of poetry. The co...Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05661943134499983480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993832368510398295.post-37984992776754100772013-10-08T17:30:00.001-07:002013-10-08T17:30:12.427-07:00Beattie's Book Blog - unofficial homepage of the New Zealand book community: John Lennon is remembered on his birthday by poet ...<a href="http://beattiesbookblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/john-lennon-is-remembered-on-his.html?spref=bl">Beattie's Book Blog - unofficial homepage of the New Zealand book community: John Lennon is remembered on his birthday by poet ...</a>: In Memoriam John Lennon would have been 73 today: this is a poem I wrote for him at the time of his murder but there are still aspects ...Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05661943134499983480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993832368510398295.post-77280176715565513922013-10-03T20:59:00.002-07:002013-10-03T20:59:21.909-07:00Livin' ina Aucklan'<a href="http://https://www.pledgeme.co.nz/1437"></a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05661943134499983480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993832368510398295.post-86907475841403407852013-10-03T20:53:00.003-07:002013-10-03T20:54:14.005-07:00Funding for new CD Livin ina Aucklan' sought on PledgeMe<a href="https://www.pledgeme.co.nz/1437"><b></b></a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05661943134499983480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993832368510398295.post-25928920440758913862013-10-03T17:29:00.000-07:002013-10-03T17:33:35.821-07:00Kia ora - I am trying to raise funding for my new CD project through PledgeMe /www.pledgeme.co.nz/1437 please check out the link and any pledges will be gratefully received, thanks, MIchael<a href="/www.pledgeme.co.nz/1437"></a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05661943134499983480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993832368510398295.post-26569250460088300112013-08-18T22:24:00.001-07:002013-08-18T22:24:12.744-07:00Beattie's Book Blog - unofficial homepage of the New Zealand book community: Tumult in the Book World<a href="http://beattiesbookblog.blogspot.com/2013/08/tumult-in-book-world.html?spref=bl">Beattie's Book Blog - unofficial homepage of the New Zealand book community: Tumult in the Book World</a>: Sunday Dialogue: Tumult in the Book World J oost Swarte Published: August 17, 2013 The New York Times To the E...Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05661943134499983480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993832368510398295.post-84307674160321051802013-05-16T01:09:00.001-07:002013-05-16T01:09:58.046-07:00Tingling Catch: The New Zealanders at Lord’s 2004<a href="http://tinglingcatch.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-new-zealanders-at-lords-2004.html?spref=bl">Tingling Catch: The New Zealanders at Lord’s 2004</a>: Good news this week about New Zealand bowler Tim Southee now fit for the Lord’s Test, and that they are considering four seamers. It sur...Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05661943134499983480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993832368510398295.post-63396227082052116532013-05-13T21:35:00.001-07:002013-05-13T21:35:17.387-07:00Paneta Street<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Y3XlaX-wc1U" width="480"></iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05661943134499983480noreply@blogger.com0