In the Model Village — Dave Lordan

In the Model Village

We’re not being smart!

Tom Thumb is our blacksmith.

We’ve a dozen Spinning Jennys here

on loan from Lilliput.

The Sly Fella’s calling to arms

from the back of a lorry

the length of a shoebox.

The Big Fella and his penny farthing

would fit in your pocket.

There’s a rosy six inch Irish maiden for you

collecting plastic apples in our knee-high forest.

Mind don’t step on Molly Malone’s first cousin

and she hawking a basket of plasticine salmon.

We’re not supposed to use the church spire

for leaning but it’s handy for an elbow-rest

when you’re smoking and the nave is just

the right height and angle

for comfortable sitting.

And believe me if we needed to

or were ever asked

we could easily dismantle the brewery

stamp on the charnel house

kick in the workhouses’ walls

flatten the schools and the barracks

trample the cotton mills into the ground.

We’d go down on all fours

and like the big bad wolves

we’d huff and we’d puff

till the whole of Pearse Street

and Emmett Square

were just whirling smithereens.

But we’re not that dangerous or threatening

and we never were truly.

One good sweep of a yard brush

would clear away our part in the rising

and we’re at least fifteen score miles

and three generations away

from the slightest need for TNT.

Instead, when we’re suspended

in the long dying

of an August afternoon

between a busload of Spanish artillerymen

and a troop of Korean nuns

we pore over Lonely Planets

and Rough Guides

and Philip’s Maps of the universe

plotting our autumn’s escapes

to the never-ending highs

in Shane McGowan’s Siam.

When the gulf stream is flowing royally

in to occupy Inchadoney bay

and the cavalier breeze

with its muskets of sand,

its acids and powders of citrus and flesh,

is blasting the stink of ancient shite away

then us summer guides can count

on making it through

to our various starlit elopements

to the rainbows of the moon.

While we’re waiting,

we’re here and at your service,

we’ll give you the essence

of four hundred years

in fifteen learned off paragraphs

and recite the short story of how

our settlement grew on a stone

in the wood tripped over

a long time ago

by a very minor Tudor.

That’s our miniature town in a nutshell,

that’s our model village for you.

Do come and visit sir and don’t forget

to bring along your friends -

you know very well Clonakilty’s future depends

on the kindness of giants like you.

So God be with you sir

and God’s blessings on your wife