Tom Conyers has a number of Short Films, Clips, Plays, Short-Story's, Poetry and Illustrations, some of which will soon be available to view and/or purchase through this site.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS WORK BELONGS TO THE AUTHOR, CONTACT US FIRST IF YOU WISH TO USE ANYTHING YOU SEE HERE. IF YOU WISH TO USE SOMETHING BUT LACK THE FUNDS, CONTACT US FIRST AND, PROVIDED YOUR NEED IS SINCERE, WE WILL SPEAK WITH TOM CONYERS ON YOUR BEHALF.
Short films
Window Shopper (youtube ) (vimeo )
Hands On (youtube ) (vimeo )
Bear Tiggy (youtube ) (vimeo )
SMS (youtube ) (vimeo )
Artworks by Tom Conyers
Mum Beset by Snails
A little Night Music
Dad with Snakes
After Reubens
POETRY BY TOM CONYERS
Arrested Development
From a bud to a flower,
From a seed to a tree,
Only to be cut in this hour,
And never more be.
Gariwerd
I love these angled rocks.
Yes, Gariwerd, Gariwerd,
What colours seen, what chirpings heard.
In green and greyish shocks;
In fringes frilled, refined;
In trees and shrubs and wood.
Yes, here the poets brood.
And here, a creek defined
By boulder, bank and shrub,
Flows out, out, out
As one expressing clout
To me, the merest grub.
Oh, it’s hard to understand
Nature, whose senses command
Inclusion in her joy
For me, an oldish boy,
Who loves her painting hand.
O what a silly art
Is mine, drawing, when this
Creek occludes me in bliss,
Flowing through mind and heart.
My artwork should ensnare!
Its viewer’s five senses,
Yet it recompenses
Not its tired maker’s care.
Nature’s art evolves through time;
Mine struggles to its feet,
In seconds, vapid, fleet,
Before its couches lime.
Yes, I think I’ll go retire,
Why not? Yes, why indeed?
Before I go to seed,
And fumble in faith’s mire.
And what if, you say,
What if called upon
To take my pen and don
A cape and come this way?
Well, if asked to create
This wonder, Gariwerd,
I’d close my eyes, turn away,
Pretend I hadn’t heard.
Leaving Home
The stick’s form belies a crumpled scroll,
And now the papery, crinkly bole,
Its former home,
Is less one family member: fifth cousin on
Its daughter’s niece’s husband’s side, who’s gone.
Gone where? To roam
Around betwixt the jaws
Of an animal mostly on all fours.
The Time and Place
When the stars are in their zenith,
Or the sun is in the sky,
When people are joyous and happy,
That’s when I want to die.
This Is the Way the World Is
Nothing lasts forever,
All things decay and rust,
And what you could not find in the heavens
You often find in the dust.
An Epigraph
Now that my coffin’s burst its tacks,
That I am dead, killed unawares,
Please, who is watching through the cracks
The things I do alone, or cares?
The Watermark
She’s dead, John, she’s dead, John, and never more will be.
She’s gone, John, she’s nought, John, that must be plain to see.
But how, John, yes now, John, it’s time you ought to know.
So listen, John, and ramble on, but don’t you think to go.
Now she was always a quiet and lonely lass,
Yet she took with a terrible crowd,
Whose leaders were schoolgirls, not more than fifteen,
But who had all their classmates cowed.
And in their rooms that smelt of pressed flowers,
Of jasmine, and filigree, and Dunne,
One night they stayed up when Sister was soused,
Telling stories for hours and hours.
They whispered of Wights, and of Witches, and Ghouls,
While around them the manor house slept,
And the bright chintz, and the firelight,
Were all of the company they kept.
They picked upon your sweetheart, John,
In her lace-trimmed dressing gown,
And Mabel smiled, but it was not of the mood
Of smiles you had courted and won.
They dared her to enter the Newbury Cemetery,
And hunt out the tomb of young Tom;
And they wrapped her shoulders in a fleecy Madeira
Shawl for the prowling to happen.
`We dare you, we dare you,’ they chorused together,
And not one noted the look in her eye.
It was a look that betrayed she was frightened,
And held an unanswerable fear she might die.
‘Go to the grave where he’s lain these past weeks,’
The leader of the girls huskily ordered.
‘It’s in the shadow of the church, away from the rest,
`Under lichen, and by ivy bordered.
‘And once you’re there, on his dirt-cheap mound,
‘Lift up a pitchfork and plunge it in.’
And they poured her a parting vermouth in a cup,
Which her hands eventually found.
So she climbed out the window and down the pipe,
That had so often led to you, John,
But now it descended, like a fire pole,
To arms more tight than strong.
For it was the night which held her now,
As tightly as she held the fork.
And all her liaisons with Tom,
Were busily at work –
Busily remaking themselves,
In her cold and clamoured mind;
In the wind and in the workings
Of a ghost, unwept, unkind: –
Young Tom, who had come in the morning,
While the morning dewdrops gemmed
The pale blade of the verdant green
And her gown, so neatly hemmed.
Young Tom, who had handed the letter
So delicately watermarked
With a multi-foliate rose,
Bled from a passionate heart.
Oh how, thought Mabel, he had flung that heart!
And how, as assuredly, she would fling it back;
And how, with his death, she had wished to start
All over – and wring it back.
Yet here she was on an errant dare,
With the trees in rows like soldiers;
And their branches, stripped and bare,
Reached out to pinch her shoulders.
Through a dark and winding shrubbery,
Past villas new and old,
To an iron-gate at the cemetery,
She stumbled in the cold;
And saw stunted cypresses and aucubus,
And walls of impenetrable black,
While the pasty white of tombstones
Crawled like leeches in her sight.
And she found young Tom, and she crossed her breast,
And with calf-like movements, she raised the fork,
But in plunging it down it caught up her dress,
And she cried in a manner berserk.
For she mistook the pull for a hand,
As she had mistaken the lad for a fool,
And the touch of the wind was nothing
If not indelicate and cool.
Thus, fainting upon the earth, her breath condensed to a cloud,
The mist about her face was both mantilla and a shroud;
And the cold, the frigid air, quietly caught up her heart,
And slowly stopped it from beating, and as slowly tore it apart.
And now two gravestones lie,
Ill-defined, disordered.
They’re in the shadow of the church, away from the rest,
Under lichen, and by ivy bordered.
So she’s dead, John, she’s nought, John, that much you must forgive.
Yes, she’s gone, John, she’s gone on, and never will you give,
And never more receive, and never will you lie
With her, John, no never, John, she’s forever gone.
10-Line Elan
Take of this,
Take of that,
Draw of bliss,
Steal a hat,
Wear a smock,
Run amuck,
But do not harm,
Nor wreck nor charm,
But gather me
Within your arm.
Measuring Up
Her calibrated eyes conclude,
‘He’s tall, yes, good, but handsome nude?
‘These two features – one good, one bad –
‘Delete each other, all he had.’
What A Shame
We should have parted in the room
Where we first met.
A friendship that would never bloom
Was ours, and yet
Just how is one to know by sight
That a person isn’t ‘right’?
Short Little Love Poem
I worry when you catch the bus
That it might crash, and end us thus.
A World Of Sensible Things
One day in May my friend and I, incurious
About the world of sensible things, imbibed
Each other’s thoughts then made thereafter to caress,
But though the wind’s a peculiarly distant thing,
Less distant than the mind which moves the hand to touch,
We saw it playing in the grass, and then ourselves.
The Fool’s Ditty
I’ll tell you what,
That I’m as me as you are you,
And that, together,
We make two.
Sleeping Beauty
I met you on a cold and loveless night,
The moon had somehow withered, and the sea had taken fright,
Crashing upon the pier. And there, lying among the gathered shells,
Was you, a slumbering beauty partially hid,
But not so well as to escape my view.
So I tapped my sword upon your casket,
And I kissed your pickled lips, and I touched
Your fetta skin, and I held your salted hips.
But nothing could arouse you, could raise your heavy breast.
‘Oh, darling, oh what life we had, there’s time for that, for rest.’
And that, it seems, aroused response, in trebles, palsied, seer;
One horrible, horrible cry: ‘Oh lover, come not near!’
I screamed, I fell, your demon yell awoke in me desire.
I feinted, parried, rushed in and tarried,
Fell back, enduring, made a thrust,
And watched in horror, watched in fear, watched the rising dust;
And even so, and even then, there came that horrible cry again:
‘Oh lover, come not near!’ And such is how I found you,
On a cold and loveless night, the moon had somehow withered,
And the sea had taken fright, crashing upon the pier.
No Repeats
Once, just once, no repeats,
You and I, together,
But we didn’t put bums onto seats,
And now it’s aired, over – forever.
Oh, I was the favourite girl,
Just destined for fame and for honour,
And you an aspiring dissembler;
And neither a prima donna.
Yes, I remember your short-cropped hair
(Mine was a natural disaster),
And how we’d run for the number six,
Breath coming faster and faster;
And how we’d retire, each alone, in the evenings,
Each alone in their respective pursuit:
Me, glazing yellow on ochre,
You, rehearsing that old King Canute.
But England was so far away!
And scumbles took so long to dry!
And then, in a wink, it was day.
Oh, well, it won’t rectify…
But why did you not pick me flowers?
Yes, flowers – with a root attached.
And why did I sleep all those hours,
When minutes I should have snatched?
Why? Yes, why did I slumber those nights,
Rugged-up in those blankets I bought?
The cold was never outside. Besides,
What was the worst I could have caught?
By God we were stupid people,
And now the days coalesce into this:
Your hand upon my hand one time,
And one platonic kiss.
Alright, you gave me a flower once,
But it didn’t come in a batch.
So, what is one to do with a rose?
It’s pretty, but where’s the catch?
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