Poguemahone, p.37
Poguemahone, page 37
creatures
they all, in the end, made their way
up to the attic.
Wondering what small little biteen
of her
they might snack on
or ferry away
to their homes under leaves
in Queen’s Park
behind the Killiburn Road
– a long way, surely,
from the very last memory
of this world as our
mother had perceived it
in those last few seconds
before she departed to meet her Maker
& where, in full glorious colour,
she saw herself
as just about the happiest
little girleen in the world
aye, as ever had been given life
to stroll upon the soft green swards
of this golden earth
aye, and the warm green fields
of Currabawn in particular
where she imagined herself feeding
hosts of birdeens by the river.
Yes, all the thrushes and sparrows
and blue tits
as they wheeled awhile and
then came finally in to land
on the boughs of the rowan
reaching out across the bower.
Why, then, do little birds sing?
Is it to transfigure?
Or, perhaps more cunningly, to deceive?
Which begs the question – might it be, perhaps,
that, like hares, they’re
simply another species of
gruagach in disguise?
Ah would you go along out of that,
Auntie Nano, in her cups, used to always
say,
sure there’s no such thing as
gruagachs,
or what is wrong with you –
have you lost your mind?
& then give you this
wink
&, whatever way she did it
faith, make your fuil
run cold, so it would –
as if she knew, all along,
that there was indeed such thing –
& that only a fool or a pure-bred
ommadawn
would ever dream of doubting the fact.
Like on a night
when the whole blessed
schkale
of the Fogartys ended,
or perhaps began,
on the grey wet slopes of
what is known as
The Killiburn Brae
ironically located
on the far distant side
of the city,
by the water, further to the east
where, upon those lonely slopes
what, in our time, would have been
called a brae,
a sloping bank,
Doreen ‘Dots’ Fogarty
cast away all she owned of
me
just the littlest mawla bag
containing a small caubeen
& pair of sweet velvet britches
stitched in green
& a pair of buckled black brogues
for a babeen that never was
to be,
not
properly,
anyway,
ha ha.
Val-de-ree
Val-de-raah!
she whistled all the way home –
the happy wandering tune of
a little bookil who never got properly born
her would-be son
with his schoolclothes arranged inside in a bag
tossed right across the side of a bridge
beneath the coastal lights of early morning –
lying, in unpeace, at the bottom of
‘The Brae’.
So that was the end of Dots Fogarty’s
career in Soho –
yes, Doreen Fogarty’s
own personal History Of London –
The End.
No, no more early mornings
blinking in the daylight
making her way through tall Georgian townhouses
along darkened alleys where cigarette butts
and empty packets littered the cobbles
where the wind liked to sharpen itself
between the old brown-brick walls
and where on Sundays
it always, ha ha, seemed to rain. . .
But that wouldn’t matter anymore
now that she was finally gone
& where for a long time
they would still often speak in puzzled
whispers of the Irish mystery girl
& who she’d really been
because the mysteries
in those times
they were the colleens who had no
proper names &
came and went, without ceremony, in the night
the housewives
the part-time nurses
like phantoms
coming & going
on buses
not full-time
pleasurers like themselves
at all.
Ah, The Mystery Girl, they would fondly sigh,
recalling the nights
when she’d tipsily ascend the stage
in Nano’s –
at first a little shyly
& then, when she got going,
singing her pretty little heart out
becoming ever more
emboldened.
& how boisterous &
rowdy
the clientele would become
when she’d raise her dress
just that little bit
above her knee
aye
& shake her hair
and along came three middle-aged
men onto the tiny platform
alongside the rows of wine barrels
as they tuned their instruments
more in preparation for a funeral than a party
it seemed
but oh how wrong you would be
thinking that
with their evening dress
white shirts
& ready-made bow ties
one sporting a jet-black toupee
the drummer with a pronounced limp.
as the leader, melancholic
& exotically quiffed
attired in a two-piece black suit
& spotless, stiff-collared white shirt
continued with the process
of attaching a cumbersome contraption to the piano –
ingeniously transforming it into an electric
fairground organ.
& then giving Dots her long-awaited
thumbs-up
As the ‘Mystery Lady’ once more
assumed the stage
& launched into her showstopping
signature tune, one she had learned
from observing Johnny Dankworth:
about those little bebop mouse-rascals
which never failed
to bring the house down
that impertinent little novelty jazz tune
probably because she put her heart and
soul into it
because that was how she felt herself
that all her life she had been toyed
with,
solely there to provide amusement
for someone, or some
thing.
Before disappearing into the Soho night
is that you Doreen
Doreen Fogarty
is that you
Dots
come back here Dotsy
Dotsy Fogarty come back here a
moment
splashing through oily puddles
with a headache
& then what happened
didn’t she go & break a heel
Mary I’m sorry
for doing the dance
I’m sorry for slighting you
and your father
I’m sorry for entertaining
doubts & wicked thoughts
O Mary conceived
without sin
pray for us who
have recourse to thee!
With a tear in her eye
as she folded her fingers
around the silver
miraculous medal
yes, the very same one
which Una, to this very day,
wears on a string
of blue wool
beneath her vest.
Screams,
indeed,
if
she’s
left
without
it.
Yes, if my sister happens to be
deprived in any way
of that sparkling little oval
which consistently,
even to this day, brings her solace,
here in the afternoon quiet of Cliftonville
fingering that polished little escutcheon
as she murmurs, giving it a kiss:
O Maria concepta sine peccato qui ad te
confugiumus
O Mary conceived without sin
pray for us who have recourse to thee –
and which can explain
that faint, distant smile of
gratitude
you can often determine
on her countenance
when she’s sitting by the
window eating her meals
or by the high window,
staring off into space
when the rest of us are watching
Planet Earth with
Attenborough,
or Emmerdale,
or any of the rest of
the programmes which are
on during the day.
The plucky iguana,
nonetheless,
remaining the all-time favourite
of everyone sitting there,
as Todd Creedence lets
out his trademark cheer
& goes clambering across
the chairs as he lifts
his closed fist and hollers:
‘Motherfucking sumbitch diamondbacks!’ –
meaning the reptiles, of course,
who have been lying in wait all morning
outside the hatchling’s egg
which then cracks open
as off he shoots like a bullet
and against all the odds
manages to leave the slimeball
predatory fuckers of snakes behind
as he stands there triumphantly
on top of the ridge
grinning away as one of the wrigglers
goes ahhhhh!
& loses its balance
& tumbles away
down
the
side
of
the
ravine
towards infinity.
& which is good
she really enjoys that
although I have to be honest
& say that
even since this morning
I don’t think Una,
God love & guard her,
that she is looking at all well.
I only hope she makes it as far as the show.
Although, to be perfectly honest,
I haven’t been feeling all that well myself,
with all this reminiscing
maybe not doing me the good
that I’d hoped it would.
Because a lot of the time I find
I keep getting these headaches
& don’t have the patience I might
have once had with Una
even if I admit I was never
at any time a saint.
It could be my background,
of course,
growing up on the side
of a wet mountain
in a valley far from
any proper code of manners
or civilisation,
with things not helped
by the invasion of a vindictive
clergyman
& his platoon of fellow-travelling
landlords’ agents
who made out to be affronted
by the subversive prevalence
of lax morality
in our homestead
but who, all along,
had wanted nothing
only the little biteen
of land that we possessed
yes, every one of those grabbers,
whose descendants
are still to be found in Currabawn today
& which is why, perhaps,
I had that dream
in which I saw Felix Clohessy,
descendant of the landlord’s agent
coming whistling, it seemed
without a care,
along the road
& I says to him: ah there
you are, Felix, my man!
cén chaoi ar mhaith leat do tóin le hagaidh caubeen?
– how would you like your arsehole
for a hat?
& what does he see looking at him
when he starts & turns around –
only the perkiest little blackbird
yes, a smooth-plumed wee londubh
standing perched in a bower
& it whistling its heart out
although in a manner most
unusual, it must be conceded,
proceeding: skrik skrik! Skrik kraik!
just as the ambulance
– an ambulance, I do declare!
comes tearing around the corner
at high speed,
and ploughs right into the
trína chéile –
that is to say, discombobulated
poor Felix,
leaving him stone dead
there on the road.
Dead, surely
which is bad
but not one whit to compare
with what happened to the local
priest, a youngish curate
& one as wouldn’t be
inclined to believe in gruagachs
not, at least, until he woke
up, having given birth to a hare,
& which, after a portion of time
had elapsed,
he succeeded in attributing to
his indulgence in too much
wine the night before –
before looking over
& there it was, in the corner
watching, large as life –
with the sheets of the
leaba
completely saturated in blood
& it stock-still, not moving
a muscle.
Yes, the giorria
the hare,
with not even so much as the slightest twitch
perceptible in its ears.
The very exact same entity,
or manifestation as had met
the eyes of Troy McClory
one night, long ago
towards the end of that summer
of 1974
when he had done
his share of dreaming too
after a beautiful day
they had all enjoyed in Hampstead
when everyone had been drinking
bicycling and catching
butterflies
yes, pretty fluttering féileacháin
laughing away up there on
The Heath
& even though now it was
the middle of the night
& he knew he was still stoned
yes, very very stoned
and indeed drunk as well
he really ought to have known
that it wasn’t just
any old ordinary
dream
no, not at all,
& that what he was experiencing
in fact
was a premonition
no, no brionglóid
no
not a chance
not a fantasy
not any kind of dopedream
or night-time random wayfaring of
an overstimulated mind
as he heard:
‘May the curse of Calvary
and the seven rancid kingdoms
light upon your brow
this night,
Troy McClory
& any amadán
who is slow-witted enough
ever to attempt ill-rating
the Fogartys!’
& it was then he awoke
to see something
scuttling across the floor
something which he could not
quite make out
& which made a rustling sound
like grasshoppers.
But which, just as suddenly
as it had appeared, was gone.
Troy McClory flicked on the light switch.
It was like someone or something
was reaching down inside his brain.
With matters not being helped one bit
by the fact that
not only had he been drinking & smoking
but had ingested considerable quotas of speed.
In an alternate world, it might have been
amusing,
lighthearted & funny.
Yes, greannmhar perhaps,
possibly even hilarious.
Like something, conceivably, from
the popular BBC television programme
Monty Python.
Way out.
Too much.
But not now, however.
Because right at that moment,
Troy McClory felt truly ghastly.
& couldn’t quite understand it,
for hadn’t their so-called
spiritual decontaminator,
their exorcist,
The Fumigator,
given the building
a clean bill of health?
All he could conclude
was that Mitchell,
yes Phil Mitchell,
aka Donnie Butterworth,
that he must have been wrong
– or worse still, had been nothing
other than a fraud
a charlatan, yes
who didn’t know what
he’d been talking about.
Anyway, this was it,
pretty much,
Troy’s own personal jaunt
up to Calvary –
how it began.
With every type of sound
now arriving in the night
with no other purpose
at least that he could determine
other than to trouble him
to torment him,
aye, and give him a serious
dose of the trimmlins.
Except not only
in the middle of the night
but just as often
in the early morning & middle
of the day.
SHUT UP!
implored Troy,
hands
pressed against his ears
knowing in his heart
he was only making
things worse
