Rich Pickings

Rich Pickings

Not much change

an overcoat or two,

tumbling about

the place.

Bones.

Picking at small talk

Laissez-faire.

Different tunes,

words,

out with the Mollies,

the Ribbonmen.

Clipped it to Boston

or the Union had ye.

Scraping at drills,

digging with your fingers.

There but for the grace

you say.

Reading the inscriptions.

Ploughing them into

the ground now.

Eaten bread.

Photograph: Newtown Trim

From across

the Boyne/2007

The Hell I Will's Fine

The Hell I Will's Fine

The pictures on Sunday

The posters and signs

When the land of the free

Was just states of the mind.

Where the legends and stories

American dreams

Played it out on the streets

Of the cinema screen.

An admission paid in

As the credits begin

Will Kane walking down Hadleyville

And the train coming in.

When the law west of Dodge

Some indefinite place

Was a Colt 45

Could beat aces and eights.

The heroes and outlaws

The duel in the sun

With Jesse and Cole

And "Pa, Shane's got his gun".

From a seat on the Boardwalk

The back of the hall

Saw Wyatt and Doc

At the OK corral.

And what made it all great

Well it's hard to define

But just mosey on out

Or the hell I will's fine.

And the old picture house

Now the ghost of a town

I watched them all pulling

America down.

Picture: Pathway through

The Sloping Trenche

Tara Co. Meath 2007.

The Class of Fifty Seven

The Class of Fifty Seven

Back for summertime vacations

Paid for Confirmations made

Last year's Debs

Or school reunions

With the shovel and the spade.

The whole schoolyard assembled

With the writing on the wall

The class of fifty seven

And the boat train called.

Danced round tunes

Played on a sunday

Whiskey talk of going home

On the streets off

Kilburn High Road

Cricklewood

Or Camden Town.

The mission fields of Asia

The States, the sessions

And the craic,

The ones who made it famous

The ones who never made it back.

Photograph: Euston Station London.

The arrival point for

many of the emigrants

who left Ireland.