Boundary Commissions!

Boundary Commissions!

I wrote this poem during the Brexit negotiations and it's one of those 'Stay out of my back yard' type of poems. Not 'Copperhead Road'. But you catch the drift. From Youtube.

Boundary Commissions!

There were certain legacy issues here,

Leftovers.

Conversations,

That were not about the conversions

That were known to the Guards

Paid handsomely.

Due diligence on the green diesel

And you could be out for hours

Fly tipping.

The drones 

Up for the discussion

There was money in the mattress

The disposables.

Sterling stuff

The sprouts.

Twenty five after four

Of a Friday

And sure who'd answer the phone

Anyway!

Down here 

It was Dublinitis

Out there....

We look after

Our own!

Frank Murphy. 

The Class of Fifty Seven!

 The Class of Fifty Seven!

This is another one that was sent to the SiarScéal Festival and is about emigration and especially refers to 1957 when it is estimated that at least sixty thousand people left Ireland. The figure given for the period between 1945 and 1960 is about half a million. Extraordinary! I spent about a year in London around 1970 and the poem above harks back to all those who talked of going home. Not many I'd say.

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.

Frank Murphy

Cowboy Poems!

Cowboy Poems!!

Following on from the last posting and in keeping with the day that's in it or something like that, I've had a "shot" at one or two of those poems myself. Spent too much time watching westerns I suppose. Anyway here's one from "Excursions".

One for the Road.

Quick Draw Competition
Scurlogstown 2010.

Just another old town

As the afternoon seeps

Through a chink in the blinds

Not a word on the street.

And the second hand sweeps

Through the minutes

Drawn out,

To the creak of a sign

As the afternoon sleeps.

And the metronome beat

Of the feet on the boards 

As you chamber the rounds

While the bartender pours.

To the chairs scraping back

And the swing of the doors

It was just an old town

And the one for the road.

Frank Murphy.