Friday, September 28, 2007

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

Friday, September 14, 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.

Saturday, September 1, 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.