Friday, December 3, 2010

KATOS BUS TICKET!!



Still waiting to do a funny one but in the meantime and in case I don't make it by Monday here's these things. The first one is new.


Stretford. End.

Oh Lord doncha know it?

Cheers! For eleven years

I was as pissed as a poet,

parrot sick in The Vic,

frightened now to own it

how much skin was split.


On payday, come what may

I would have my say

talking to the walls in Tommy Ducks,

surveying knickers on the ceiling, among

somewhat less than appealing clientelle.


Meek as fuck ,oh so meek

in Peveril Of The Peak!

And singing? Lord did I sing,

midst the bling the blag and swag,

the sharp tongues, the razor blades.

Nothing quiets ,nothing fades.


Steaming, screaming mercy, Lord have mercy!

On the Ordsall estate, saving for grace,

boiling ,writhing, reeking, in The Kettle,

hard chaw lads from the flats,

uncool cats with baseball bats,

mental mettle tested, none found wanting,

safe for another pint.

Bluff and bluster

Bleep and Booster, blood and guts,

beside Robinson’s Timber yard, minus 5,

battered Bertie Blue Noses-

Salford Lads , red till dead!


Monday mourning reality dawning

early doors only for the hard of heart,

battle scars running deep, cheap?

Less than minimum wage pay

all the rage for those with more say,

more Salford keys in Salford Quays,

more of this life flying to sunny days.

A Dublin Doorstop in O’Sheas,

12 pints by lunchtime

Inner city grit, multicultural grime,

a multitude of ways

to survive to fight

(mainly run)

keeping on

in the White Lion

Jesus, Mecca, and Zion.


Downstairs Inn,

The Withington Ale House

Bursting noses

no composer supposes

like symphonied rainbows arced in blood,

never mind the deluge,

this was our flood.

Pool cues saved teeth from rotted,

Nick Lowe would love the sound

when people were potted

wearing Scarface disgrace in

The Fallowfield.

(Flats now, holy cow!)


The misery was on tap,

Mad Mick was quick to try

Special handshakes

I knew why he would try

to break my bones if I slipped

explained,in pained plained English

people from broken homes had nothing on me.

See? I kept the noose loose,

Nothing personal, even if it was.

He didn’t get it, while he got it,

in my drunken mind

easy after the first time

Hardly a crime punishable by the law

who can talk with a broken jaw?

So, rough justice don’t make a fuss

(Now go! Do one!) this

is how we live,

factory fodder five days a week,

which is odder, the weak, or the weekend?


And now I don’t sleep

a quivering coward,

reality freak.

And now I search the shadows,

afraid of the light, afraid of my life,

afraid of the ghosts.

knowing

that now, and now ,and now,

too little is too late,

and still I have to wait, I cower,

and I wait, I see, I seal,

my hate,

my fate, my fate, my fate.





At my wake.


Inconspicuous in my absence,
eyes thumbed shut,

best-suited arms stiff by my side,

unable to reach the tasty snacks or

pour a pint down the parched gullet.

Deaf ears cannot hear how much they miss me,

on the rigor mortis scale- I’m ten,

even when young they said

I was ‘Dead-but-for-the-washing.’

Do I remember the last supper?
Butter on toast
on Sunday,
before the mourning on monday,

the craic here now on Tuesday

I’ll be ashes by Wednesday.

Time’s still winding clocks and watches like clockwork,

there will be clean shirts at Easter,

roasting hot days in summer with

tar bubbles bursting for joy.

If you take a walk as far as the bridge,

or the canal , buy me a red lemonade

in a black glass in Gleesons’-

at least I was never the poor craythur with a choc ice,

trying to keep his teeth in.




(Ps for those outside Ireland, Translation of 'the poor craythur' = literally 'poor creature' but meaning more like ' poor old sod')

Published in The SHOp 31 Autumn Winter 2009


Jewel

Along Capel Street I stagger into Slattery’s
and stagger out again to be sure I have my wits.

What the hell have they done?

Is nothing sacred?

Is anything safe from their blandiose renaissance?

A curse on them whoever they are.

I barrel on to the Quays singing or talking to myself,

corpulent with drink and struggling

to re-inflate between bursts of song.

Filled with stupid elation

and fuelled on pints of stout,

I gaze wide-eyed and blowing,

at the new found beauty of herself,

Anna Liffey.

Spanned by an arch the whiter shade of pale,

her waters are expressive fecund and inviting.

With undulating, warm, open arms of green

she calls to me in clamshells of desire.

Wanting to be smothered within

and bursting for a leak,

I express myself,

let fly the floodgates,

a stream of pee to the pea green below,

relief and satisfaction in equal measure.

They’ll never take the piss out of Dublin.


(Published in The SHOp 13 Autumn /Winter 2003)




Mulligan's

It’s up there in Nelly’s room, behind the wallpaper,

it’s in the rancid scraps that this mongrel

went to see a white coat about.

Left gnawing on my own bones
,
I curse the pedigree poets,

the multifarious super models,

those alphas of adroitness that

trot out juicy cuts of honeyed ham

left right and centre, as smug

and as arrogant as my jealousies.

Feckit, there’s no meat here, but

a thousand wasted breaths

can soon be soothed

by a truly poetic manifestation-

the voluptuous blackening of a pint glass,

in a not too crowded bar in Poolbeg street.













15 comments:

chiccoreal said...

Dear Sweet Total: ay Tod sa stair..
muses gliondar i dtrí
today in history!
mused delight in three

pléisiúr saibhir go leor le fáil i 'an craythur bocht' agus is é a bhaint amach daft do starry áiteanna den sórt sin faoi úinéireacht cheana féin!
many rich pleasure found in these lacy delicacies 'the poor craythur' and is daft reaching for such starry places already owned! Absolutely adored the pissin' parts in that fancy bar...ah yah that would feel mighty good; you're my soul's delight tonite! totally AWESOMETotally DÁNTA uamhnach
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Totalfeckineejit said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Totalfeckineejit said...

Hey Chicco ! Where you been? Welcome back! Theank ye for the fantastachicco poetic comments, I loves d'Irish bits!You getting on the bus?
Slán Leát !

Dr. Jeanne Iris said...

Maith thú!

This collection reads like a tale from life through death and beyond. Love it!

Rachel Fox said...

Ah ha - the phd in pub poetry!
x

Kat Mortensen said...

At my mom's right now, Peadar - just popped in to pick up the link and put you in my sidebar. Like what I see so far!

Kat

Carolina Linthead said...

Oh, for a voluptuously blackened pint glass to raise in your general direction! My toast to you? May they "never take the piss out of Dublin!"

The Bug said...

These are great - I especially love the part about the bar being remodeled & not being able to take the piss out of Dublin. But my favorite is the wake - that is really truly excellent.

Titus said...

Bloody hell, you've hit a purple patch these past few weeks. Stunning, all of them.

I used to fancy that Nick Lowe a bit.

AquaMarina said...

a veritable anthology - fantastic! - and I recognise your stamping ground in Stretford End - what a wacky pub the Tommy Ducks was!

Niamh B said...

Found the wake especially striking.

And, yes, I thought there was an aunt or someone who was called Nelly, who had a room I just hadn't found yet, with very bulky wallpaper...

Trellissimo said...

Hope the Bus Driver hasn't visited any of your Pubs! LOL :) Ours are tame by comparison...

Enchanted Oak said...

I saw this besotted poet clear as a bell. This was the snippet that grabbed my crazybone:
"... this / is how we live, / factory fodder five days a week, /
which is odder, the weak, or the weekend?"
And I loved Mulligan's, too! These are fabulous lines:
"Left gnawing on my own bones,
I curse the pedigree poets,
the multifarious super models,
those alphas of adroitness that
trot out juicy cuts of honeyed ham
left right and centre, as smug
and as arrogant as my jealousies."
And I feel empathy for the poet after reading all these.

Kat Mortensen said...

First, allow me to point out that every male on the bus has given the old nod to waving his willy about somewheres.

Secondly, let me just say there are far too many absolutely brilliant bits in each of these poems and I'd be here all day, cuttin' and pastin' if I were to attempt to address them.

I gave up on "Ulysses" (temporarily), but you're calling me back to those Dublin streets, Peadar!

God, I loved the one about the wake!

Kat

Heather said...

Amazing stuff Peadar - my head is reeling. The Wake is especially good.