After the wolves and before the elms
the bardic order ended in Ireland.

Only a few remained to continue
a dead art in a dying land:

This is a man
on the road from Youghal to Cahirmoyle.
He has no comfort, no food and no future.
He has no fire to recite his friendless measures by.
His riddles and flatteries will have no reward.
His patrons sheath their swords in Flanders and Madrid.

Reader of poems, lover of poetry—
in case you thought this was a gentle art
follow this man on a moonless night
to the wretched bed he will have to make:

The Gaelic world stretches out under a hawthorn tree
and burns in the rain. This is its home,
its last frail shelter. All of it—
Limerick, the Wild Geese and what went before—
falters into cadence before he sleeps:
He shuts his eyes. Darkness falls on it.

We met a young girl
in Damascus

And although we're
not Muslim, did ask us

Are Youghal from Kanturk and Mala
Because if not then best pray to Allah

Before the Tallaght Band
starts playing and blasts us.


ps.

Youghal, Kanturk, Mala & Tallaght
are all towns in Ireland.

Under the flooring boards
was where people hid their
money in the old days in
Mallow, close to the river
where all the commerce was.

The expression, burst its banks
came from the first flood which
penetrated the low lying houses
on Bridge Street, uplifting the
tongue and groove, over rafting
the caches of the merchants off
down to Youghal where they
each got to share the spoils.

It was after this incident the idea
of a water mark for money was
coined, so, from then on, they
stored it in the attic, beyond the
tide line left by the Blackwater.