Ode on winning of de Entente Florale
Ode on winning of de Entente Florale
For Joseph Lordan
Told ye so. Told ye we could win it
‘Spite de filth o' de likes o' ye
With yere baseball caps and yere baggy pants ,
Yere ghetto blasters and yere nigger music,
Yere flagons and yere Mitsoobeachies*,
And de trainee hoors hanging offa ye.
Rollin in muck ye are, de flays ating ye.
Manged an’ stinkin like tinkers’ mares
like yere faaders and mudders before ye,
but I’d say yere not too sure who bore ye
Shir who pished you out Twishty? De milkman?
De coalman? One o' Fossetts’ weepin clowns?
This here’s ‘come a champion little town
All down to good people like me.
We’ve patched every crack with vines ,
Blossoms cover every stain. Tis like paradise,
‘ceptin ye, ye shnakes, ye divils, ye dirty filthy
feckin animals. Ye give us all a bad name.
*Mitsubishis are a brand of E
******
Ode on winning of de Entente Florale is from my 2007 Collection The Boy in The Ring.
Fearless
Fearless
Fearless
I’m fuckin fearless
Try me now why don’t ya
An’ I promise ya faithfully
Ya won’t last too long
Cos I’m the wan they’re all on about
When they’re drinkin their fuckin coffee
Above in Sullivan’s café
Yeh I’m the wan that ripped the fag machine
Down off the wall above in Bernie’s lounge
I’m the likes that spreads myself out on a bench
Above in the square of a summer’s day
Suckin a flagon with me shirt tore off an’ me pot belly out
Fuckin an’ blindin anyone who’d be passin
Tellin dem I’m fearless fuckin fearless
Last Friday I got shteamed above in Cork
Got fucked outta Henry’s for bitin some youngfella’s ear off
Well as I was passin out beyond the viaduct
I got a mad tashpie to run out on the road
An’ I screamin into the headlights how I’m fearless fuckin fearless
I’m the laziest oul bollox that ever you met
But I’d ate your fuckin eyeballs in a shot
I ’m barred from every pub in town an’ every bookies too
But I’d walk to Tipperary for a drink an’ a bet
Yeh I’d walk to Tipperary for a drink an a bet
Cos I’m fearless
Fuckin fearless
Don’t believe me?
Doubt me now?
Watch me go so.
Till I stick a pint glass into me brow
An’ lepp up onto the counter like a pure fuckin tiger
An’ kick the heads wan by wan off the beer taps
And I watchin meself in the big bar mirror
As I dance in the blood an’ the fountains o’ beer
Yeh as I dance in the blood an’ the fountains o’ beer
******
Fearless is from my 2007 Collection The Boy in The Ring
Fishing Trip in Gatsby’s
Fishing Trip in Gatsby’s
After a while leaning out over the balcony railing
and peering down
through strobes and dry ice
at the dance-floor
swarming with underage drunks
you swim back towards your seat
quizzing yourself:
now that I have put my fist through the jukebox
and the sleeve of my finest white shirt
is a sponge of blood
what is the worst?
Are these people whirling beneath me
or are they only fish?
Are they only fish
gagging to be netted
And gutted by the bucketful?
And do fish have feelings?
You’ll answer these riddles in Gatsby’s tonight.
A fish or two will tell
how much or not it hurts
Though you'll goof for a while
on the way
the rotating lights warp
like spooky luminous fish
in a bowl
on the fat jags of a smashed pint-bottle
before flipping it over your shoulder
into the shòal
*****
Fishing Trip in Gatsby’s is from my 2007 Collection The Boy in The Ring.
Snoogliffers
Snoogliffers
The Masters cackled the gossip at break-time
over tea and custard creams at the back of the class,
omadáns all of a kind useless sons of useless fathers.
Snoogliffers we called you. Your whispered names
like the stones we bled on or picked up to throw.
Garda Flynn made more than one of his special school visits
to explain the signals, the long term effects-
red spots around the mouth and nose, glazed over eyes,
mood swings, fivers missing from purses, brain damage-
Keep away don’t speak turn your back and walk away.
Mom overheard talk of an epidemic in the churchyard
while Monsignor damned you through a winter of mass
to strait necked glazed men and women of the pews,
I hid behind my father’s leg in the huge doorway
waiting with him for communion and the getaway.
Doing harm to no-one but yourselves you
spent a year at it in the shed before better things.
You would call me on my way home from school
“Lordan , Lordan, tell us about the constellations
the men on the moon, the stars in the sky,”.
******
Snoogliffers is from my 2007 collection The Boy in The Ring
The Ear
The Ear
Like a canine embryo in a chemical dye
Like a burst calf's lip
Like snails in wine
Like a bleeding purse
the bitten ear
setting in its blood
on the white stripe
in the middle of the road
the man with the sovvies
cupping his hands
to the gouting cavity
in the side of his head
did not ask the boy for help
doesn't need his towel
or his basin of salty water
*****
The Ear is from my 2007 collection The Boy in The Ring
Scrobbers
Scrobbers
Tread quiet now boys
all in line
down the boreen
Step soft
on the whip of grass
For a stray foot-fall
on that sun-leatherned muck
Or a pebble kicked
off a can in the ditch
Or even so much
as a cracked twig
Would set the wild dogs
to warning
And draw the farmer down
out of his stony house
With his screeching wife
And his two blind sons
And a bloody fine end
then
They’d make of us
With a scythe
And a shovel
And an oul shot gun.
*****
Scrobbers is from my 2007 Collection The Boy in The Ring.
A Game of Donkey
A Game of Donkey
It's Christmastime in Matty Googan's pub.
The men are all brothers.
The women in love.
The kids have been sitting on Santy;
all are merry having fun .
The boy finds a ring in his lucky bag
and the grown-ups start playing a game.
They're making a ring
around a man and his wife.
She's pretending to be a stubborn donkey
down on all fours and braying.
He's the ass's owner in a hurry,
kicking it in the belly,
and dragging it along by the mane.
*****
A Game of Donkey is from my 2007 collection The Boy In The Ring
A few bob short
A few bob short
Just a few bob son, if you're carryin, an' we'll see you the next day.
Tellin you again how well the German's used pay out
how the weekends and the nights were double-time,
treble over if you worked a holiday,
how you'd only be scratchin yerself the half of it
but once you kept an eye out you were fine.
The way t'was all functions an' outings.
Dunmore house hired out for the Christmas,
oul Paddy Nolan, god rest him, as Santy,
and a sack full of presents for the kids.
They got the turkey and ham, sherry trifle after,
mints an' cigars, any drink they might fancy.
Or about that time the 'pool were playin away in Portugal
the little chat he'd had with Beckenbauer,
(to his face they called him Mr Heinkel, his real name)
don't go askin him how or who had fixed it
but didn't Heinkel go an' charter 'em a jumbo jet
an' book three hundred tickets for the game.
In Lisbon they'd wallets fat as millionaires
and the beer was weak as piss and cheap as water.
Some lads'd be in deep shit with their wives
if half what they got up to traveled home,
three whole days they spent as drunk as lords
an' the quare ones all over them like flies.
Now, it's only half way through the long slump
of a Tuesday afternoon. You're getting laughter
from the lounge bar but its canned.
He's sucking the arse out of a Johnny Blue.
His glass is damn near empty. He's a few bob short.
On his mother's life you'll get it back into your hand.
********
A few bob short is from my 2007 Collection The Boy in The Ring
Today John Lennon will die
Today John Lennon will die
Cold enough for gloves.
A sky the colour of tripe
Clings to Clonakilty’s rooftops.
Our two spires hide in fog.
At school we warm our fingers
twisting little figures out of mála,
The last flecks of rainbow congealing
into shit-brown as we roll.
At small break the big boys beat
the babies up. At big break
they beat us up again. My belly hurts.
Mrs Crowley scolds “Only Cows Have Bellies“.
At home a young woman is suddenly old.
She stretches on the settee weeping.
A man on the telly keeps standing up and falling over,
standing up and falling over.
******
Today John Lennon Will Die is from my 2007 Collection The Boy in The Ring.
The Boy in the Ring
The Boy in the Ring
Where is the boy?
The boy is in the ring.
And where is the ring?
The ring is in the school-yard.
And what makes up the ring?
The ring is made of other boys.
What kind is this ring?
It is a spinning ring, and a jeering ring
a hissing ring
a rhyming ring
a kicking ring
a spitting ring
a teeth, tongue and eyelid ring , a hair and eyes ring ,
a snot and nostrils ring , a knee and knuckles ring ,
a fist and boot and mouth and ear and elbow ring.
Who is the god of this ring?
The god of the ring is unknown.
Jack O the Lantern maybe
or the scarecrow with the two axes
or a wailing midnight wind
or a sack of smashed glass.
What is the boy doing in the ring?
The boy is looking
at himself in the ring.
He is sitting down
and crying
and looking at himself
in the ring.
Why did the boy go into the ring?
The boy never went into the ring.
When will the boy get out of the ring?
*********
This is the title poem of my 2007 collection The Boy in The Ring.
Anti-fracking poem
Anti-fracking poem
Beware the one who talks to you of your children’s future
for he carries an Earthquake machine
that will rubble the lives of your children.
Beware the one who talks to you of Investment and Community Projects
for he will bribe the weak and the craven among you
and invest in division and hatred.
Beware the one who talks to you of protecting the environment
and of safety procedures. She is getting millions
to lie and will protect herself
from every consequence
with an army of lawyers.
Most of all, beware the one who talks to you of jobs.
He is searching for loot and, after he gets it,
will leave you all to drown in a hole
you might never get out of.
I’ll tell you how I know this:
Years ago a Jobsman came to my old town
spitting hundreds of jobs at us.
He opened mines and factories,
looting the earth and the people.
Even greater loot came to the Jobsman
by way of the politicians
who made sure that, just like them,
he didn’t have to worry about taxes
or for paying any rent for the factories and mines,
which, by rights, belonged to the people.
Of course, the people did not (and yet do not)
even belong to themselves. The Jobsman paid the people
just enough so that they
would unproblematically belong to him
for the little while he needed them for loot-extraction.
To cut a long, sad story short:
a few years passed and then, of course, the Jobsman fucked off
with all the loot, and all the jobs.
All he left was a great big hole,
a great big magnetic hole in the side of my town.
This hole has had many different names
for all of the different people
who have fallen into it over the years.
For most it’s called The Unemployment Hole.
For many, it’s been Addiction Hole.
For other’s, Black Depression Hole.
So many have fallen and fall and are falling
into The Suicide Hole.
Over the years I have heard many women screaming
unanswered in Wife-Beating Hole.
This great big hole in the side of my old town, gouged out
in one swoop by the Jobsman: I call it Memory Hole.
I call it Memory Hole
because thirty years on
people are still falling into the hole
and very few remember
and even fewer will ever admit
who it was that dug the hole.
So, my advice to you-
from someone who knows-
is this: when the Jobsman comes,
gather your strength,
gather your greatest numbers around,
march as one in his direction
and run the lying cheating bastard
out of town.
Explanations of War
Explanations of War
See all those bright lights whizzing around in the sky-
They are only the stars throwing a party.
And the shaking you feel beneath you,
The shaking that jars your teeth and your bones-
That is only the way the earth dances.
And the bangs and roars, the cracks and blasts and booms-
These are only the sounds of little spirits tuning their instruments.
And the horrible wailing that rises and falls, rises and falls above the buildings-
That is only the rooftops shrieking their envy that they cannot fly off.
And the high fires that climb above the rooftops-
These are the rejoicing souls of our city flying to heaven.
And the black clouds of smoke blotting the beautiful woman of the moon-
These are our dark acts evaporating.
And you my child, lying still in my arms,
Lying stiff as a mould of ancient clay,
You my child, you are only sleeping.
Explanations of War is from my 2007 collection The Boy in the Ring
Skinny-dipping, White’s Cove.
Skinny-dipping, White’s Cove.
For Richard Boyd-Barrett
We had plenty of fags,
cans, matches,
The stereo was working.
We lit nightlights
and set them in the sand
between shells
and fossil-patterned stones.
Between us
We got a joint together,
Passed it round.
We lit sparklers,
Set off fireworks,
The night had many colours.
The breeze was alive.
We had leaves in our hair
And stuck to our clothes
from the forest.
Huge birds squalled inside sea mist.
We stripped off, first one,
Then the rest
Ran whooping and hooting and howling
Into the bay.
I was worried about the Guards
Sneaking up on us,
But fuck the Guards. Fuck them.
Braced in the water, ghosts
Fled my blood and swam away,
I forgot the tug of time and doom,
I forgot.
Ashore we couldn’t find
Where we had flung our underwear
So we left it there among the odds and ends,
Then up the concrete steps,
Iron echoes on the railway bridge,
The slow ascent to heavy-lidded dawn.
What old man puffing after
A cocker spaniel,
What early morning jogger
Found our leavings lying in that cove?
Fragments abandoned,
Relics of a lost culture.
**********
From my 2007 Collection The Boy in The Ring
Mirror
Mirror
on the shelf above the fireplace
in front of a dead woman’s mirror
the ring is in the envelope
with the letter and the keys
the boy is studying the mirror
how everything passes it by
how it doesn’t get involved
how it forgets what it sees
*
Mirror is from my 2007 Collection, The Boy in The Ring
For The Tuam Babies
For The Tuam Babies
Nameless in life
we died without names
because without a name
we couldn’t live
& without a life
we couldn’t die
& if we didn’t die
we weren’t killed
& if we weren’t killed
no-one killed us
& if no-one killed us
there are no killers
& if there are no killers
then no-one can lie
about the lives we didn’t live
& the deaths we didn’t die.
Nightmare Pastoral
Nightmare Pastoral
for Philip Coleman
It is a little known lie,
too absurd to be considered a rumour,
that the late South American writer, Robert Bolano
spent a week on vacation
in a remote but unidentified
west of ireland village
in 1969
on his way from a riot in Mexico
to a riot in Paris.
In the often unfathomable code
of the young poet, later novelist’s, diaries
the unknown village
is referred to as ‘Ballylonely’
or, two or three times,
as 'Baloney'.
On the day every screen in the world
shows the US stick a flag in the moon
over and over
Bolano gets destroyed along
with all the local gawkers
in a pub and general store
the writer disguises as'Paddy’s'.
Later that night, fitfully asleep in unnamed
and unfamiliar lodgings,
he has a terrible dream
which he scribbles out
in a feverish rush upon waking.
In the dream two pissed priests are raping
a nine year old girl
up a boreen (he says 'grassy lane')
in the back of a van
not too far from a petrol station.
When they have done with the rape
they strangle and dump
her out the back door
and drive off, stopping for petrol
and cigarettes.
The two guards-
he calls them cops-
who lead the investigation
that follows
are about to move in and arrest
one of the priests
when they are told
in no uncertain terms
by the powers that be
to close the case
and forget all about it.
The two priests are hauled in by the bishop
whom Bolano describes,
in the indecipherable language of dreams,
as having a face like a deck of cards.
The bishop orders them offstage to missions
in remotest Africa
with the ringing admonition
to “bring the lord’s word
as well as his wrath to the savages”.
Next morning, back in Paddy's,
Bolano describes his nightmare
to a pair of local sages
nursing post-moon-landing cures at the counter.
‘Bad Pint you were after’ says one.
A diagnosis confirmed by his friend:
'Bad pint.
The last of the barrel.
The mindbending dregs.'
(This last phrase, hardly Irish,
Bolano draws a line under.)
A hot toddy was all that he wanted
to settle his nerves.
‘Teddy?’ says the Latino, mishearing.
‘Whiskey, that is ’ said
Paddy, a bit of a know-all,
from his leather throne
behind the counter:
'I'll put on the kettle.
First one's the house's'.
'He means it's free'
translated one of the sages
'as a bird' said the other,
'a little bird
in an endless wood
in the middle of winter.'
Then, writes Bolano ,
still paralytic at this stage
no doubt or otherwise
out of his mind,
the two seers and Paddy the vintner
started whistling not like
birds of paradise or swallows
or like starlings or even like crows
but like vultures.'
Bolano drank the hot whiskey, a double. Then another.
That day he ends up getting very very drunk
and, so he tells it,
arrested
for his own safety
and to preserve public order.
This is the kind of thing
he would later go on
to write about.
***********
Nightmare Pastoral is from my 2010 Collection, Invitation to a Sacrifice.
At Oscar Wilde’s Grave
It all begins with an idea.
At Oscar Wilde’s Grave
Who stole the angel’s glory?
Still, you’ve got the rarest grave in Montparnasse,
Granite teeming with lipstick kisses,
A shoal of petals in a mountain lake,
A cloud burst of tropical fish,
And taped to a withering rose there’s a note:
Thank you for teaching me that I was good.
I kiss the teacher too
For you are more than welcome
To the imprint of my gaping mouth
If I can stay awhile in reverence
To watch my wet gift fading,
November sun licking my lips.
********
At Oscar Wilde’s Grave is from my 2006 collection The Boy in The Ring
The Four Honesties
It all begins with an idea.
THE FOUR HONESTIES
The honesty of wind: everything must whistle by, everything must blow.
The honesty of sea: everything must churn, everything must flow.
The honesty of sun: everything must feed the fire, everything must glow.
The honesty of earth: everything must go to seed, everything must sow.
***
The Four Honesties is from my 2022 collection, Medium
Gaff
It all begins with an idea.
Gaff
I recall that we took care of him one evening
we took him out the back and we broke his fucking balls
The Pogues, Boys from the County Hell
After getting off outside the rented gaff in Palmerstown
they, the Kurdish twins, Latif and Khalid, went on in and found
the back door open, and the landlord's wide-screen TV and his
microwave and his DVD and his stereo with the 5.1 surround
all gone , and on a white tile in the centre of the kitchen floor
the icing was a warm, steaming half-pound squiggle of shit.
What a compliment! So they got on the land-line to the landlord
and though they didn't really have enough of the english to explain ( see it
was their near fluent cousin Tariq, who made all the arrangements
for the house), still they did their faltering, st-stuttering pidgin
damnedest to communicate the unwelcome event taken place-
though the crap, they agreed, would just be too indecorous to mention.
Took all of 35 minutes for the landlord to burn up the road from Naas,
by which the lads had both had to flee twice up the stairs to spew up their lunch,
from shoveling that mess up. The perfume of course they couldn't get rid of,
and when the landlord addressed them in sentences punctured with snorts, grunts
and tut- tuts, the two boys assumed invisible spores had this measured
young man in a suit so irate. He seemed to use the wrong parts of his throat.
So they nodded and were jollied when he announced something like he'd return anon
to fix it all up, and took the instruction to sit tight and wait
and by now anyways the stink it was fading, or were they just getting
used ? The nose is a merciful beast; how else could anyone keep
down their food when they, like, live in a dump, or sewer, or trench?
Well half an hour on Mr landlord strode in at the head of a slew of Gardai
who proceeded to read out caution and rights while cuffing Latif and Khalid
who of course didn't have a balls notion what the Gardai were saying, and with the height
of fear and frustration began loud pleadings in Farsi, but their pleadings,
which i suppose in this climate is hardly surprising, were not heard quite
rightly, the coppers deciding to take them for threats and abuse, which
in themselves are gravely offensive, and add a great deal of weight to a charge sheet.
And what happened next? And what were they like? Was there kicking and biting
or did they go quiet? Were they were hauled out in full view of their street?
Were they too proud to cry? Did they shake? Did colour drain
out through cracks in their skin the way water is parched from a lake?
Lost Tribe Of The Wicklow Mountains
It all begins with an idea.
Lost Tribe of the Wicklow Mountains
I believe in them, so they do exist.
Behind waterfalls. In sunless crevices.
In densest rhodendroned foliage.
On slopes of fluttering shadow and scree.
Nothing I know of,
Apart from these lines,
Speaks of this tribe.
They might be waifs that escaped from The lead-mines.
They might be vagrants who dropped out of ballads and poems.
They might be rebels
Who outran the redcoats
Until the redcoats dissolved.
They might be ravers and wiccans
Who squat in high ruins
Holding thousand day hooleys
Cavorting in roofless great halls.
They might change into foxes in moonlight
And paw through the motorway snow
To scavenge the exurban dustbins.
But, sincerely, this tribe has no patterns.
It fits no descriptions.
Nothing about it - beyond its certain existence - translates:
No reason, no theses, no customs, no goal.
The tribe is my credo.
That’s all.
Strong is my faith.
Strong is my beat.
Strong is my magic.
Strong is my want
& wanting, I rise till
I’m vanishing with them,
Spinning in to a mist
Where I’ll never be spotted
Above Mullaghcleevaun.
It’s so righteous to stray.
It’s so good to abandon.
It’s so just to ascend
With the lost and forgotten
To summits the rooted
Cannot even imagine.
***********
This is the title poem from my 2014 collection Lost Tribe of The Wicklow Mountains.
It was adapted by Christy Moore for his 2016 album Lily.