Open Mic: Kieran McGuigan's Midnight Cat (and Other Bodies)

Kieran McGuigan is a writer & performer of the lyrical, mystical & experiential human condition. His themes aim to focus on the acts of transformation. Recently graduated from Falmouth with an English & Creative Writing degree, he hopes to build upon these foundations into the publishing industry.

He had a debut book of poems released in 2014, Let us Resolve our Silence, alongside a catalogue of personal projects that he hopes will be finished in 1000 years.

Drawing inspiration from performers & writers such as Dante, Ezra Pound, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, Marlon Brando, Alan Watts, Lorca & Rumi to name a few.

When he isn’t writing, or busy turning up early for everything, he’ll be out looking for his wallet or keys, lost from the previous night.

The Spindle

-Speak nothing of meaning.
-Look out for a stranger (soon seen as a friend)
-Take no superstition to chance.
-Focus on breath. Sense her falling.
(& always remember to look up)

her body

Like the skeletal webs of a silver leaf
sketched beneath her shawl
her shirt shall soon be torn by teeth undressing
obsessing whispers along her neck.

Come see her sitting on a ledge,
        outside her door,
signing to herself in a silent
but stunning nervousness.
& along the smoky lit streets
               of the Cornish coastline
   flakes of flame
               fall before an Autumn sun.
As a spindling experience shines tonight,
              alit from her eyes
   smiling soon weeping, forever changing time.
She feels suffocated by urgency.
   & a season is slowly shifting all around her
She is calling someone over
   someone to undress her;
   a stranger to love her slowly.

Myself, I find her lonely
   a holiness of vulnerability
without a serpent snare of a staring vanity
        forever eternal in certainty
that I wish to take her into me
  again & never again.

Spindle

ATLANTIS Regained

Like a spring aqua storm
            caught amidst the streets of Venice
she stepped into moon, out of the sea,
      shrouded in a gown of thunder;
Our New Lady of Atlantis.
& her smile of luminous spider lighting
Held the highest secret of our sky.
                     (& all the while)

She wore desire
along the lily shores of
Illumination

Renew

Forgive
yourself. Rise
from guilt. Every soul
will separate.

Alone at last with these words
& the sound of still time;
A remedy of memories, in melodies of mind.
Bless these lines with comfort; worship us
only weakened, with stoned eyes
swollen inside.

Tonight, we’ve made it. Tonight
we’re alive. Despised maybe
(a fistful of lies) reminds me
each morning how strangers speaking,
talking, telling endless stories; lying
wishing only for glory, worshiping
with so many
at a time. Invisible love, how longer
may we deny ourselves?
& since the curtains are sealed, door enclosed
into the wall, may we,
for a moments smoke, have nowhere else to go
‘til every ghost is spoken of & laid at last
to rest inside this empty joke of suffering.

O Flame of Creation, strip us from pretention.
Patience to every word (may nothing be heard)
except those steps that pound against the pavement
outside; the impossible rain chase’s us in tonight.
Even music couldn’t sing
a word alright to suit substance. For some time
we’ve been missing. Remaining still; remembering
without movement;
‘til all is still & silent between us & I have you ready
to speak over me, in a way that I must pretend
to understand pain
when all I wish to do, is undo this time between us
& stand up alone in vertigo, as you
On verge below, with hair swept behind
slowly & kindly take me & let me go.
Go now, demon in matter, angel in ghost
& leave me as if we never bowed. Leave me
knowing nothing & being enough
(except) for that moment, satisfied by spontaneity;
swallowed at once by delightful pride, stomach
the bitterness of each empty night.
O Flame flicker abruptly. Grant me the lines
along these waters of mind; for tiredness is calling
& falling asleep kills, the vibe gathered from
the greatest day of this life.
May I be so lucky as to enter? Before the fall?
For we’ve seen the same. We’ve seen
the likeness of sight, cast between a separate shade
of light; yet still, the kind of similarity understood
is irrefutable to deny us this chance to die
honestly & nakedly as one once again
& be ourselves forever more after.
Belonging to others, yet strangers alone,
fading like the tiny heat at the heart of this star
we hide our eyes in darkness, only to disguise
the light. The white-heat ever burning insight
seeks itself by sight, unknowingly blind.

Surrender to unknowing. Attack the truth.
Rise up wounded warrior, guilty of freedom
& type something newly grown
from effortless glory, effortless play
befall the moments coming.
Speak silently with everything, show
nothing to fear. Honour the One Mother & Father
regardless of blood
& see to it
that this desk be alit by the shadow of light
‘til we blend silently into tears.