Poguemahone, p.10
Poguemahone, page 10
all I can say is
it’s just a pity that them
effing squealing doodlebugs
that they wouldn’t target Trump.
Who never seems to have a problem
in this respect
or if he does
doesn’t appear to have any trouble
disguising it
standing up there in the Oval Office
blabbering on about healthcare &
Obama
& Mexicans & walls
& who knows what the fuck he’s going
to come out with next
all I know is he’s not threatened by
any V-1 bombers
with the only pity being, as I say
that I wish he was.
They had him again
on Fox Rolling News this morning
& after watching his performance
I have to say that I genuinely do not know
which of the two of them is the worst
him or that other steely-eyed
óinseach
who goes by the name of
Putin, over in Russia.
A grand parcel of rogues to be coming on anyone’s television,
if you ask me.
As Nano might say.
& all I can do is wonder
just what she & all her old-time cronies
yes, what the old gang
would have thought of it all
or anything else that’s going on now
in the world of computers
& Sports Direct
filming your little ‘bud’
aye, your wee mickey,
& sending it to strangers
not to mind
recording crashes &
live-streaming them as they happen
even killing yourself sometimes
in front of a camera
you can do that too
& say maybe now you’ll love me
ha ha
yes, now you’re sorry
yes, now you’ll freaking love me
ha ha
take that!
o yes, they’re quare old times
& that’s for sure
but it’s the way it is
& it’s not going to change
night noon & morning
24/7 they’ll tell you if you ask them
that’s if you manage to catch their attention
& they’re not watching
some new game or other
& which seems to have got worse
ever since Spudhead Central, that big fat
orange-faced prata, as Una calls him
managed to get himself into
The White House.
Any time she hears him she’s over straight away
shaking her little bony fist at the screen
chewing her jumper
giving out about his policies
only sometimes then saying
things you mightn’t expect
or approve of
such as
as a matter of fact
I think Donald is right about the Mexicans
send the whole frigging shower of them back
Enoch Powell’s right
every last single one
into the wagon go the lot
back to the kippeens that they came from
haw haw, she says
how would they like that
& goes laughing away
scratching her backside
o now our Una
the things that she gets up to
so you see what I have to
tolerate
but what about us I says to her after that
did we not do the same
us Irish
in our time
yes Paddy & Biddy the so-called wandering Irish
we exiles
what about us our Una I says
& all the places that we settled
across this world
only to hear her saying
as she looks at me, tugging on her threads
yes, picking away at the strands of her cardigan
why was I ever born, our Dan
can you tell me that
cen fáth gur rugadh me?
Why did I have the fucking
misfortune to get born?
& to which what answer can I possibly
give except
at least you
Una
you were actually, properly born
which is a lot
fucking
more
than
can be
said
for
me,
poor old stray and
rootless
Dan
Fogarty.
It makes me glum, thinking back
on those times.
With the smoke coming drifting across the fence in that suburban
garden, a flute solo lilting through an open upstairs window
succeeded by a soft staccato of hand drums and a
mellifluous melange of Eastern strings
with Tanith Kaplinski preparing another great big pot of chilli in the
kitchen
& Big Peter Hanlon from Dundalk regaling everyone with tales of
his travels
among the hills of Afghanistan where he’d scored some more
amazing poppies
bringing them back to his homeland
the spiritual garden that was Mahavishnu.
Where had that day gone
yes, where had it disappeared to
&, indeed
where had we gone to, ourselves
for, in the aftermath of Don Butterworth’s visit
one almighty fucking shadow
seemed to have fallen
yes, come out of nowhere to spread out across
the interior of
Brondesbury Gardens.
Where, once upon a time
under the guidance of Troy McClory
& Tanith Kaplinski
a unique collection of like-minded individuals
had come together to go on a never-before
travelled journey
yes, psychic cosmonaut souls
inner wanderers
intent on creating a whole new Nirvana.
With everything now
in the aftermath of Butterworth’s elaborate speeches
appearing hell-bent on conspiring to thwart
every single laudable ambition
destroying in the process everyone’s private
Hy-Brasil
as Dessie McKeever, aka Lord Offaly Of Down,
had once described it
in a memorable phrase.
With the neighbours banging on the doors
at all hours of the night
having had their sleep repeatedly
and constantly interrupted
or so they said
by all kinds of robust argumentation
& various episodes of profane behaviour.
These affronted community representatives
included Roystone Oames
who, along with Butley,
quite by coincidence,
arrived here in
Cliftonville
& which I have to say pleased me
reminding me as he did
of those good old Killiburn days.
‘You’ve got a bloody nerve, you lot!’ he
shouted up from the street
outside No.45
one night in his dressing gown.
‘When decent working people are trying
to get themselves some sleep
people who, more fool them,
fought for the likes of you in the last war!’
There had also been numerous telephone calls
to the police
with less-than-veiled imputations
of ‘devil worship’ being practised on the premises
of 45 Brondesbury Gardens
a consequence, probably, of Don Butterworth’s
intervention
with his van, of course, being noted outside
along with Troy’s insistence on playing
Black Sabbath records through the open window
at all hours.
Having been warned by the police to
‘at the very least curb some of their
unfortunate tendencies’
there ensued a period of relative tranquillity
at least until Troy, considerably
emboldened by a prodigious intake of amphetamines
one day, holding a book of poetry at arm’s
length and attired
in a purple ‘wizard’s’ cloak
clambered out onto the windowsill
and informed ‘North London’ to be prepared to
‘be addressed’.
Which it was, as his hair flew around him
& he gestured with all the extravagance
of which only he was capable:
how many pigeons
do you think you can break today
my friend
not one
not two
no
no pigeons at all
Mr Death
so attend to me
as I stand here tonight
speaking ha ha for the dignity
of man
& all those blue-eyed
boys
that you have threatened
for not
one fig
do we care for you
do you hear me
Mr Death
Can you hear me Mr Death?
Mr Death
can
you
hear
me?
I hope you
can
For not one fig do I care for you
you hear?
You hearing me
Mr fucking Imminent Erasure
for make no mistake
I fear you not!
& now
so he said
all was quiet
& everything was again
back to normal
because nothing
no ‘Man’
no ‘Fuzz’
no ‘Death’
could ever begin
to threaten
the magnificent
unassailability
of the citadel of freedom
the Hy-Brasil of Possibility
that The Mahavishnu Temple
in spite of all the attempts to
undermine it
had so proudly become
‘Ain’t that right, lady?’ he said to
his adoring Una
‘Ain’t that the case, my lady,
Lady Ocean?’
And did that great big ball of
fudge blush!
Right to the roots, I kid you not.
O how she loved him, that silly stupid
colleen!
In those leather trousers
& Ian Hunter-style shades
of late having begun modelling
himself on the front man of
Mott the Hoople
chewing the stem of his aviator
shades
talking about laying down some
more ‘groovy’ tracks
naming some of the other bands
that he ‘dug’
such as Mom’s Apple Pie
whose latest album
has just been banned
on account of it featuring
a ‘chick’s cunt!’, he had laughed
as one’s poor old sister
why, she flushed again
even worse this time
Lord if she didn’t wish it
the ground to swallow her up
a chick’s cunt, no less!
But, as Nano always says –
sin e an bhealach.
Yes, that, I’m afraid, is the way it has to be
when someone has the misfortune
to fall in, head over heels
& there’s divil the bit
it would seem
we can do about it.
An mhaith leat an mickey-jump-jubbly?
he said to her then
sitting across from her at
the table
in otherwords, would you like to ‘ball’ –
is that what you’d maybe like to do
little colleen
or, should I say, Ireland’s answer to
Ten Ton Tessie
And then away with the pair of them, up
to his room
where it’s off with the leather
trousers & shades
galloping away to the sound of
another of his favourites
the band King Crimson
particularly the album
IN
THE
WAKE
OF
POSEIDON
And such a ruaille buaille as they made
I mean, what an absolute thundering
fucking racket.
Och ah dinnae know
where in the bloody hell
all those words came frae
tha’ night!
the bold Troy had exclaimed
after more or less having wrecked
what few little pieces of furniture
they had, on the night
in question
hopping, I declare, about
like a kangaroo
making all these weird
faces
and flapping his arms
before finally seating himself at
the fireplace, in the chimney corner
speaking in tongues
like someone you might find
in a bothán by the very side
of the wild Atlantic
lighting bong after bong
speaking in verse and the
oddest version of Western Irish
speech, mountain-talk half
the time unintelligible
about all the dreams he’d been
having about The New Caledonia
which he and Una were going
to establish
just as soon as he got his degree
with the two of them deciding to leave
London forever
& across the bright blue sea
in a sailing ship
travel to what would become
their own personal Eden
Caledonia, strummed Troy,
o my Caledonia
beautiful mystic isle
of the imagination
where aglow in the chrism
of a mist-shrouded Arcadia
to that realm of bliss & sunshine
we are coming
& soon
our new republic will
be declared upon your
shores
our own special psychedelic
wonderland
oozing and throbbing with colour
populated by unicorns, angels
& white, cooing doves
freed from war
& the tyranny of
‘The Man’
that phantom island
of which we’ve long dreamed
a revolutionary new society
which they said
could never be
but which, believe me,
very soon will
yes, against all the odds
will become a reality
that no one again will ever dispute
because Caledonia
– we’re coming home!
As he hauled poor Una
out onto the floor
still laughing when he said
that, seeing as she looked like
Mama Cass
who better to sing
about California
except that, of course,
it wasn’t that
but Caledonia he sang
in recognition of the coming new republic
a community designed to be
superior, even
to that of the much-envied Mahavishnu Temple
isn’t that right Una
because this ain’t no dream
no, no dream at all
Una Fogarty agreed
but a reality, cried Troy
a reality
m
a
a
n!
as, all of a sudden,
her Scottish boyfriend began to
tremble and quiver
all over again
only this time even worse
with a line of froth on his lips
& Una Fogarty fell back onto the sofa
helpless
watching as the tears came rolling down his
face
& he committed himself to all
kind and manner of fits and eruptions
as his shoulders shook
& with wild eyes he regarded
them all
through a swaying curtain
of winding purple smoke
before they heard his voice change again
man, said Big Peter
this sure is good shit
as come here to me, Troy demanded
in the tones of an old woman
close on eighty years of age
as he scraked away
come here to me now, are you listening
to me, craythurs
quit your gabbin’ and
be attendin’ to me now
this instant
hee hee hee and ho ho ho
astonished as they were
having them in fits of hysterics
before he’d finished
o ’twas a wild and eerie
night, amn’t I telling you
and me coming home
by the wild and lonesome glen
that skirted the edge of a deep ravine
known as Glounashee Pass
God bless the hearers as I
sit here before you this night
when up out of nowhere it’s
not a word of a lie
I’m telling
for up it rose
the wickedest whirlwind
& there before my eyes
stood an fear beag liath
three foot high and he known
as the old grey man
declaring in tones
that might have been a
death-rattle
commingled with ancient
before Christ
lordly talk
aye, he rattled, I’m the old
grey man of the Fogartys
them that
was cast out of heaven by
an arrogant and vindictive
God
&, dacent man that I am,
I have come to warn you
be careful now, do you hear
what it is I’m saying
before climbing on the back
of the smallest of the little
cattle that were standing beside
us in the moonlit dark of the glen
‘Good luck now!’ he screeched,
‘just be mindful of what I’ve
been telling you!’
