I almost gave up drink
                      for Lent this year, not
the length of it, the full
                   forty days, frothy days
I called them because
                I never stopped thinking
of the creamy Guinness
                  tops. Yes more than one,
eight a night was how
                     many I'd been putting
away, a gallon. Often as
                      it approached closing
time I'd order two, just
                  to be sure I had enough
to keep the night dark.

If I was a Muslim I'd
                  never manage Ramadan
because I was only twenty
                days into Lent and I gave
up. Giving up is a better
                   word than breaking out.
It is 1982 and I am truly
                      ashamed of myself for
nor persevering, especially
        after the Hunger Strikers, who
had no hope of breaking out
        yet ten of them fasted to death,
longer than Lent, at the 'Kesh.


Ps.

This is a poem I wrote in 1982 a
year after 10 Irish Freedom fighters
died at Long Kesh prison in N.Ireland.
(Found it in a copybook today)