Octo-Centenery Greenery

The garden of our city is undergoing regeneration
Just like any farmer’s land undergoes crop rotation

You have to burn off the scrub for cultured cultivation
Weeds and obstructions will get in the way of proper propagation

Is Liverpool’s bed well mulched for the dawn of Octo-Centenery?
Have we done enough to rid ourselves from the sceptical scenery?

It’s not enough to just have an exhaustive itinery
Fertile ground, nice arrangement, well looked after, elementary

I hope these new gardeners are better than the last lot
I mean how can fruit and veg be so shit when you have the best plot?

I thought we’d rid ourselves in the 80s of greenfly and blot
Time is now, new everything, so the vegetables are good enough for the pot

I just want a nice, well presented, productive patch
Manchester has done it for years, let’s see if Merseyside can match

Of course there’s life there, if only the surface we scratch
Just a matter of how many raindrops and how much sunlight we catch

What will happen to bounty from these scouse seeds?
Wait and see what happens to product and what this greenery feeds

Will never be a country garden, will always be a few weeds
Let’s see what becomes of harvest, I wonder if our blossom bleeds

No good having trees scraping the sky if only the tallest can reach the fruit
The fruit has to be accessible, right down to the root

Too many outsiders have eloped with Liverpool’s laboured loot
Let’s see how good we look in our 800th birthday suit.

Dead Kelly

Dead Kelly

To myself, no-one has ever been any snider
I was bold and malicious, yet I couldn’t make cider
Difference between Damien and his potential, like Les Dawson, could not be wider
So I harped on of my history
And became hysterical, heretical, hideous hider

I orienteer, I know the terrain, had a map yet still got lost
I’m going to my own embassy, to place an embargo with two fingers crossed
I will beat my damaging demeanour, I will challenge my cost
You could set your watch by my frequent, frivolous frost

How you stand out, is only what our schizoid embellism embossed
Akin to vegetables in a salad bowl, and what extent they’ve been tossed
The ladder of my life, every rung was meticulously mossed
Nastrovia! Skol! Bottoms up! Cheers and fucking Prost!

But I’m not bitter, I could be a lot worse than I am
For, like a magician, abracadabra, deh deh but couldn’t remember shazam
Miss Marple is only a backwards Spanish guy called El Pram
Nearly fooled yous, only me in my life, that aint no scam

Do you not see, I told Mr Warburton to get into bread
Mr McDougal only made flour till I introduced him to Father Ted
But I never flew or flourished, I strolled upon street cred
Never thought of what I spoke, thought of only what they said

You see, I need me like a cavernous hole in the head
I still believe in fraternity, the cause for which I’ve bled
Me and myself, not married, sort of whimsically wed
I walked uncharted path, where others fear to tread

Decapitation, le guillotine, off with his head
I need to examine why I chose famine and never got fed
I wear a thick jersey in the Mersey, should’ve been shorts in the Med
I am my own outlaw, last name Kelly, first name Dead.

Damien Kelly - Biography

Fast making a reputation for himself as one of Liverpool’s most talented up n’ coming poets, 35 year old Damien Kelly has a unique style all of his own.

Bending words and sentences into unusual shapes and gifted with a streetwise delivery that transforms the written word into an often surreal scouse stream of consciousness, Damien’s poetry deals with big themes; personal identity, political corruption, human nature and the city of Liverpool and its people. Yet, he does so in a thought provoking yet humorous manner, always providing unusual and unpredictable perspectives on everyday life and his own personal demons.

Although Damien has been writing poetry for over ten years, it is only recently that he’s been performing his work, recently blowing away the audience at the Dead Good Poets Society. With his constantly inventive turn of phrase and deep scouse delivery, Damien is a breath of fresh air in a city that claims to have poetry in its blood, yet seems unable to break free from the shackles of the sixties.

Damien Kelly is a truly modern poet, using the REAL language of Liverpool to describe universal truths. A selection of his work will be included in a forthcoming volume of poetry and prose by The Spider Project.