Jul 2022
A BOY MADE OF LEAVES
( for Paul Kearney )
The Curragh!
5,000 acres of fun
where a boy
could roam
through all the realms
of a 1960's childhood.
Our house is gone now
only two pillars still stand
leading into an empty
nothingness.
I shoo a sheep
out of the bedroom
once ours
our voices carved in the air.
Here a sheep pees furiously
in what had been the bathroom.
The house has become
a ghost
haunting itself..
I still the little boy
hiding in the Marian Shrine
invisible to one
and all
under an ocean
of leaves
startling the passerbys
with a quick "Booo!"
Or a "Poo to you!"
The ****** Mary blushes
upon her pedestal
frowning upon
such antics.
My shame
telling it in confession.
The wind scatters
my childhood.
I walk into the mist
erasing me bit by
...bit.
*
Chatting to Paul Kearney on facebook and tripping down memory lane...he remembering me from a time I couldn't even remember myself! The Marian Shrine beside the church somehow came up and we both had memories of playing amongst a myriad of leaves.
I used to hide under them...so many...so many and call out things to make a statue of the ****** say: "Oh sweet Jaysus!"It was great fun to see people startled out of themselves trying to figure out where on earth( not even thinking of an invisible boy drowning under lots of leaves)the voice was coming from.
My Godmother Breda Ryan passed by and was given the treatment only to say: "Those leaves have the voice of a boy I know...how strange! I hope those leaves go to confession!"
So it was I was given 10 Holy Marys and three How's yer Fathers and advised not to startle the good folk of the Curragh with my leafy voice. Oh I was a bad leaf when I was small. But I have since turned over a new leaf. I never did it again or since...though now I am sorely tempted!
( for Paul Kearney )
The Curragh!
5,000 acres of fun
where a boy
could roam
through all the realms
of a 1960's childhood.
Our house is gone now
only two pillars still stand
leading into an empty
nothingness.
I shoo a sheep
out of the bedroom
once ours
our voices carved in the air.
Here a sheep pees furiously
in what had been the bathroom.
The house has become
a ghost
haunting itself..
I still the little boy
hiding in the Marian Shrine
invisible to one
and all
under an ocean
of leaves
startling the passerbys
with a quick "Booo!"
Or a "Poo to you!"
The ****** Mary blushes
upon her pedestal
frowning upon
such antics.
My shame
telling it in confession.
The wind scatters
my childhood.
I walk into the mist
erasing me bit by
...bit.
*
Chatting to Paul Kearney on facebook and tripping down memory lane...he remembering me from a time I couldn't even remember myself! The Marian Shrine beside the church somehow came up and we both had memories of playing amongst a myriad of leaves.
I used to hide under them...so many...so many and call out things to make a statue of the ****** say: "Oh sweet Jaysus!"It was great fun to see people startled out of themselves trying to figure out where on earth( not even thinking of an invisible boy drowning under lots of leaves)the voice was coming from.
My Godmother Breda Ryan passed by and was given the treatment only to say: "Those leaves have the voice of a boy I know...how strange! I hope those leaves go to confession!"
So it was I was given 10 Holy Marys and three How's yer Fathers and advised not to startle the good folk of the Curragh with my leafy voice. Oh I was a bad leaf when I was small. But I have since turned over a new leaf. I never did it again or since...though now I am sorely tempted!
