Only yesterday
you were feeling generous and full of pity, taking
the toll-bridge (70p flipped in a yellow bucket),
to flirt with the outskirts, driving wildly to eat badly
and park near the front. There you unhooked the locket
from your neck and a new road drove a coach and horses
through a nineteenth century of flaking trees.
Later, after checking into ‘Stepaside’, ‘Tiranog’,
or ‘Buena Vista’ (or something similar), you could banish
the blues with a walk against the turn in the coast
or visit the Joycean dead. To eat again - a danish
and Bewley’s - and watch girls push prams with no babies,
the air so bracing it cut the back of your throat...
This was the junket you never wanted, the plot taking
a turn for the worse. You bought a poke and forgot
the locket, and at some stage chatted to the oldest punk
in Eire Nua (so he said), stitched and studded and already
out-of-date with dayglo spikes, his junkie sockets
hammered into the crude fist of an ancient head.
You caught him carving a heart around the word ANARCHY
in the bark of a tree, and adding a whimsical arrow,
for he wanted to be seen for what he was: a rebel.
Tried to explain all this (the heart) would be gone tomorrow.
Said he had nothing else to lose on this planet anyway.
Then offered water in a bottle by testing his cupla focail.
You gave it a miss. Maybe he wanted the ice-cream,
maybe he wanted you. Perhaps he had nothing better to do.
It didn't matter. The sea grew dark and went away,
and, early to bed, the night crashing at your door
(the esplanade lights and drunken songs), you would dream
of getting lost and waking up only yesterday.
the toll-bridge (70p flipped in a yellow bucket),
to flirt with the outskirts, driving wildly to eat badly
and park near the front. There you unhooked the locket
from your neck and a new road drove a coach and horses
through a nineteenth century of flaking trees.
Later, after checking into ‘Stepaside’, ‘Tiranog’,
or ‘Buena Vista’ (or something similar), you could banish
the blues with a walk against the turn in the coast
or visit the Joycean dead. To eat again - a danish
and Bewley’s - and watch girls push prams with no babies,
the air so bracing it cut the back of your throat...
This was the junket you never wanted, the plot taking
a turn for the worse. You bought a poke and forgot
the locket, and at some stage chatted to the oldest punk
in Eire Nua (so he said), stitched and studded and already
out-of-date with dayglo spikes, his junkie sockets
hammered into the crude fist of an ancient head.
You caught him carving a heart around the word ANARCHY
in the bark of a tree, and adding a whimsical arrow,
for he wanted to be seen for what he was: a rebel.
Tried to explain all this (the heart) would be gone tomorrow.
Said he had nothing else to lose on this planet anyway.
Then offered water in a bottle by testing his cupla focail.
You gave it a miss. Maybe he wanted the ice-cream,
maybe he wanted you. Perhaps he had nothing better to do.
It didn't matter. The sea grew dark and went away,
and, early to bed, the night crashing at your door
(the esplanade lights and drunken songs), you would dream
of getting lost and waking up only yesterday.
Page(s) 61-62
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