Friday 1 December 2017

Secret Weapons

We TDs on mission afar to a North behind barbed wire,
bearing gifts we follow the star or maybe it's missile fire.
We're bringing cheer across the miles, our group of wee folk three,
decked out in our very own green style, britches patched at knee.
Tin whistles in our holsters, bodhráns on our backs,
the disdain of Irish voters as our personal soundtrack.
Diddley-idles learned by heart, we've prepared a little medley,
worldy wisdom for to impart, we've the cúpla focal ready.

We're boldly travelling back in time, to the year one-zero-six,
to seek a godman born on high, as mad as it gets in politics .
We're bringing four leaf clover to the head honcho of the lads.
he'll surely be won over by the successes that we've had:
We'll regale him plainly and he'll be beguiled, we feel,
we're proof you can insanely follow your wildest, raving dreams.
We come from an enchanted realm where happiness abounds;
food and shelter, health and wealth lie thick there on the ground.
The waters round our island make crystal look like muck,
our people always smiling and polluted with good luck.
Magic floating vehicles, convey our citizens with ease,
each journey's like a miracle wrapped in glitter and world peace.
Rival gangs of well-wishers run our safest, cleanest turf
and often it's a bystander who receives an ill-aimed hug.
Our budgets are received with joy, ours is a land of plenty,
everyone is gainfully employed, no bank account is empty.

You can't but hear us coming and not just the ballads that we tune,
there's the constant rhythmic drumming of our sean-nós dancing shoes.
To no avail resistance, you've never seen our like,
we're a kind of slick pied-piper band when we're doing a hornpipe.
Our secret weapons are the bones, played mesmerisingly:
We've led dictators and supremos to embrace democracy.

We're just simple ambassadors compelled to rove and roam,
(ironically we have a North much, much closer to home).
Watch out world, for us wee men, in waistcoats and caipíns,
we're decommissioning warheads at international céilís.

Wednesday 1 November 2017

Shapes

Could Hallowe'en be better suited to any time than this?
The nightness so foreboding and the morningness of mists;
the darkness clinging though the day comes riding through,
betraying short-lived shapes and glistenings on paths of shiny dew.

A newness hangs in waiting, there's closure in the air
and community communes in ways it seldom ever dares.
Lights shine, there's a settling, a temporary hold,
a path for nods and greetings before Winter takes control.

Two women shout and gesture at each other across the road:
The younger one looks busy, the older one looks old.
Plans shared, routes discussed, though they stay on their own sides,
maybe they'll meet later, maybe another night.

A window offers moments for exchanges rare and slight
and just as soon it closes, pulls the curtains, dims the lights.
The spell drains and reveals that all is as it was,
bittersweet and then relief that magic's life is short.

The children carve the days, the months and years come through,
to be betrayed by shapes and glistenings new;
the nightness so foreboding and the morningness of mists,
could any time be better suited to Hallowe'en than this?