1

The Clowns in Brussels Sprouts
have sent me a notebook. Tossers.
The latest thrilling instalment from ******* Creek.

The Animal Events Recording Notebook —
fits in your pocket,
if it happens to be a school bag.
A little picture on the cover
Jack, the farmer, a cow and her calf.
Equally gay as it is oxymoronically inaccurate.

No sign of a tag on either the cow or calf.
The cow has a pair of horns
that would **** any animal, never mind the farmer,
statistically dead. Plus,
the calf’s a bit too healthy looking
and the cow ain’t trying to **** the farmer either.

Between the covers coloured-coded sections
chronicling the animal’s progress
from Foetus to Fork.


2

Though, I do thoroughly enjoy filling out those
additional comment columns.


De-horning

Next to castrating lambs,
I love this job —
all-the-more if there’s a gang.
The first has no idea what coming
and the last wishes they weren’t.
But seriously, I’d say it hurts.
A lot.


Castration

See Revival, issue 6 P.14 —
revised in Inheritance P.26


Weaning

Always good for poem.
I laugh from the comfort of my bed.
Ye’re only halfway lads

And how far along are you?
They inquire back.


3

Ok, I get it. Seriously.
Stop depleting the rainforests please …  
I have my own notebook thanks.

I understand their dilemma.  
They fear mindsets will be inherited
form the old flock, the old stock —
the canners and brass tags —
who never converted.

It’s like auld women and the church
engrained since birth
and no amount of jibber-jabber will sway.
So they concentrate, groom us
weanling growing up
in the Age of A.I.M
on BETTER Farms


4

Regardless, the second you tag a calf,
the ****’ll croak. So wink, wink:
so not to jinx yourself
and have to write a cheque;
adjust your Balance Sheet,
invariably affecting your Gross Margin.

I know … I know
S.M.R 6, 7 and all that $*@#
But it’s so cold the frost is complaining.
Plus, they said on the radio: be kind
leave food out for the birds.
I’m just thinking of the foxes.
And, if anyone asks —
she never came in calf

It could be any night, it just happens to be Tuesday
in the trailer outside Jerry’s
I remark — as he slices her open —
I’m missing Grey’s Anatomy.
Her guts pop out like balloons,
not as neat as the text books in college.

Long enough since her water broke,
hope’s gone home to bed.
(Where I want to be.)
Reaching her womb, he pauses …
blank expression on his face.
Then he sneezes and yanks out the lamb.
Silent, but weak.

The kettle in my kitchen boils,
stream that episode of Grey’s as I,
the Pyrex jug and bottle head down to the shed.
Place the lamb on my lap, kissing his forehead —
C’mon little man, don’t deny me the satisfaction
of taking your testicles.  

He’s slow at first, but soon finds second gear
and discover he’s the stomach to back it up.
Eyes loud. Tiny tongue accelerating …
*****, pucks the *** write off the bottle.

Delays in delivery deprive oxygen.
Sometimes you get away with it.
I’ve seen this before. There’s jelly
in his legs that will never set;
despite all his attempts he’ll never stand.
Whenever I can bring myself
I’ll have to get the sledge.

You can’t even imagine the mess
the first time, now
I use a length of plastic
from the silage pit.
Wrap. Whack.

Amen little man.

The year I would turn nine
Charlie Kelly threw his pint over Paul Brennan
in the opening scenes of a new Irish drama
called Fair City. The 25th Dáil was dissolved.
Ireland got its 1st lotto millionaire.
There was talk of mining for gold in Mayo
and Christy O’Connor Jnr
won the Ryder Cup for Europe.

(Years later playing Trivial Pursuit
one of the questions wanted to know:
what profession gets the Ryder Cup? —
a cousin from Carlow answered; prostitutes.)

I was growing through 3rd class
St. Brendan’s National School; Loughrea —
on the other side of Tiananmen Square
another student stood up
as the Guildford Four walked free
after 14 years innocently incarcerated.

While in Germany, a wall
that had been built to divide: separate, fell.
Pushed over by people. While Hungry, Poland
and Czechoslovakia: all said: enough.
The Russians left Afghanistan and in South Africa
Apartheid began to crumble. Pity
it was allowed to even begin.
Iran was ******* about some book
and on Christmas Day in Romania
Mr and Mrs Ceausescu were executed.

In 1989, the Church of Ireland allowed female priests.
96 people died at Hillsborough.
Haughey was Taoiseach,
Mr. Heaney was conferred
as Professor of Poetry at Oxford
and we qualified for Italia 90.

I was 9 and the only thing I remember
about that year; I fell out of a tree
and broke my arm.

'Anyone sitting here?'

5 minutes ago
we were thrusting in the toilets.

Our clothes take the stance
of opposing forces. Our alibi.
Tongues become txts.
I always have credit when in character.

I would **** half the people here,  
friends and colleagues alike.
Beat them to death.
Cave in their heads with my fists,
stop when punching carpet —
just so the remaining half could see
how tender I would hold you.

Our eyes transfixed, unwilling
to focus on anything else —
the place cold be burning down
and all the love letters wouldn’t change the fact
that I can not read and you can not write.

The field at the back of the house:
last years’ lambs graze
on freshly topped thistles;
an old enamel bath
has replaced mother’s ***;
the tiny hamlet of trees gives shade,
as the blowfly lays eggs in their wool
and the butterflies on the cabbage.

My crunching across this frozen field
wakes sleeping sheep, due to lamb.
The nearby turlough ripples brush across
Moon’s fragmented image,
a lone swan pirouettes–
half a Claddagh Ring.

I welcome the fog
though it snuffs out the moon.
It is still so bright.
No sign of any lamb.

Days later I walk the same field
with a squelch. Incessant rain
has drowned the moon.
Still no lamb.
My watch flashes:
midnight.

Let there be life.
But Dad said that cow has mastitis.
The vet injects a liquid,
may as well be Holy Water.
Just keep an eye on her calf she says.
The calf’s still inside her he says.
Two days later she aborts
on the short scalp in a mucky field.

Smooth, not a single hair,
yet curled into the
distinctive red Limousin bull
it would have been.
No time for pity,
jobs to finish.

Toss the calf, by now
a half-eaten breakfast roll,
over the wall–
slips into a crack.
Sorry little man,
you don’t get to be born.