Language

Of these three submitted poems, two (namely ‘McParland’s Elder’ and ‘McGinn’) are character based poetic fictionalisations of various characters in and around the town (McParland and McGinn being two distinctly local surnames). ‘McParland’s Elder’ is an ode to the elderly of the city whilst ‘McGinn’ is the story of a man observing his own wake and funeral (not very cheery, granted, but very Irish in it’s outlook nonetheless).

The other poem ‘Going to my Hometown’, is a sonnet written in dedication to the city and was inspired by many of the landmarks dotted around the place (namely, the old red-brick of the Hibernian Club on the Mall and the medieval church up on High St.)

Going to my Hometown

Parading a musty clop along the mall;

Redbrick and granite should glimmer in their boast.

Razing a glint in bier-garten toast,

I’m jealous – their sip, lip-locked – I’m enthralled.

The chivalrous sweat in musical droves,

Saluting the weather with world-weary wink.

The steeples, serene, without rain to drink:

A clan wry, a-flowing – a city of mauve.

Borderline bubble I love you so well.

I source you for boredom, ‘tis true, ‘tis true,

For dryness can seem here the hottest of hells

But I would be dead if ‘twas not for you –

A cynic. A liar. A lover. A son –

A soul wracked to bone mass from valley-sought glue.

McGinn

I
Thespian legion of repute and rogue
Wherefore to season my home with your lease?
Cast without shadow and latent in vogue
Celestial yearnings burn without cease.

For human endeavour seems that of beast
When repertoire years are draping the squelch;
No requiem breast nor angel nor priest
In scant distillation can prove what I felt.

And though there were eve’nings in spite of myself,
Where lingered my spoils ‘pon high in the din,
I sired the void, alive and in health,
To slump down, a coward, and die with my sins.

“What friends, indeed, can be said of McGinn?”
Seized up from the swell then through shuffling slits.
‘twas one from my past, though not of my kin,
Who’d shamble my bygones in idler twist.

“Well, let my retort reveal to you this”
Responded my sibling, eye on my corpse,
“He was my brother and though he be missed,
They’ll ravage his ghost with sulphur and scorch;

They’ll send for his passions, singed like a torch,
Drink them to blackness and pluck him from thought.
Heathen of helix and harlequin sport,
Hath thou no inkling, the havoc you wrought?

A bold moment-muse of what we all sought?
Wanting our brother, or what for the word
Could heal you of stealing the years we had brought.
For all that was owed us: a man of the world.”

Only ‘twas then that time, stuck, unfurled
And eve’ning careered t’ward morning, t’ward fate.
When bones hold to dust by death, that old churl, 
My years be reduced to scripture and slate.

For I have been poisoned by seasons in wait –
Weights worth the farthings they stuck to my eyes;
Sliding through epochs that harboured the great
And mock the mere mortals of meaning deprived.

‘tis that, as I laboured ‘mong mirrors they hide,
Residing in pine with beads in their coil,
That creased up and burned my thoughts ‘fore the guide
Of sinner McGinn to a patch in the soil.

II
My screed reads no softer after such toil,
No smoother a tale to be taught at your teat.
That my soul had not descended to boil,
Nor had I with saints or skivvies to speak.

‘twas in my cortege ‘midst eyes without weep
And great sweeping haloes of droves in their drear
Where I’d come to shamble in rambling grief;
My infinite seal – a death without peer.

The chapel then, ceding in vaulted veneer,
Seemed placid, indiff’rent; a tomb without taste,
And I, of the asinine angular weird,
Sat nursing my years in debt and disgrace;

Though steadfast my legion not to make haste –
Not for the glibness nor gallons nor grime;
Nor e’en for wallowing Whitsuns of waste
Which, woven, made whimsical dust of my time.

No, friends! My kin were not even inclined
To whisper a shudder in lieu of myself;
Their benches, distended in line upon line
Had last term to conjuring sobs where they knelt.

And I, a poor reckoner, dumbfound and welt,
Who picked at his scars with bottle and beak,
Have culled from my friv’lous happ’nings health
And smile that my bygones weren’t utterly bleak.

The service, now ended, spilled out to the street;
The heat of the noon scald shapes and disrobe.
Of courage without, I slunk in the speak
And pictured my corpse garrulous and in globe.

With words said and skies pulled the hollow was lowed,
And dignified drops of a soil were dispensed,
And after the shapes had shuffled their shoad,
I stood for awhile to invite forth the hence.

I stood for a decade in sin recompense,
And pleaded with weathering debris and silt;
I stood for my penance, for death to commence,
Though condemned am I to be held by the hilt.

I cornered my prayers then, my flowers in wilt;
I threatened the heavens with nothing to stake –
But, reader, my anguish is always my guilt.
Is this script appendage enough for my sake?

Heaven’s right ‘n sweet, I guess

In no rush to get there

Been a sinner, more or less

Maybe won’t fit in there.

Wicked still, gotta confess

Might just pine a bit there!

---

Heaven’s swell, preacher says

But got so used to earth here

Had such good times all the way

Frolic, fun and mirth here.

Eighty springs ago today

Since I had my birth here.

---

Quite a spell of happy years

Wish I could begin it

Cloud and sunshine, laughter, tears

Living every minute

Women too, the pretty dears

Plenty of ‘em in it.

---

Heaven! That’s another tale

Mightn’t let me chew there

Gotta have me pint of ale

Would I like the brew there?

Maybe I’d grow slack and stale

No more chores to do there.

---

Here I weed the garden plot

Scare the birds from pillage

Simmer in the sun a lot

Talk about the tillage.

Yarns of battles I have fought

Greybeard of the village.

---

Heaven’s mighty fine, I know

Still, it ain’t so bad here

See them maples all aglow

Starlings seem so glad here.

I’ll be mighty peeved to go

Scrumptious times I’ve had here.

---

Lord, I know You’ll understand

With Your Light You’ll lead me

Though I’m not the pious brand

I’m here when’er You need me

Gee! I know that heaven’s grand

But darn it! God, don’t speed me.