Rainbowing guff
Which wasn't whether other wise
The ordeal of love
Was ours, a heart to despise?

Wagers appear
Salt for honey
Quiet for pepper
All out, for the money

Sat urges
Complete the stalking...
When misery has a word...
Isn't a stickler for how, wishes walking?

True...
We have the odor of anxiety
Made to order, made to due
The impossible, in order of tragedy...

Complex cousins
Ready to dance, obligation, into the light
When such, a saving grace, has seen the poison
Blind bell's on the route, to what fate might...

Awash with ***** I peed all over me
   shoes
Well Storm me if I ain't a bad sea
   Captain
I'd had a ton of *** and a whole
   barrel of porter
Now the landlord he's shouting "Last
   Orders"
So where's me Crew, me Swabs, me
   Hearties ?
Yea! where's me Aces and me Deucies
.......Nowhere to be seen, not a one,
Just a pack of feckin' Jokers,
Find me the Fox and show me the
   Shirkers!!!

I'd drunk too much that's what I'd
   done
Well tie me to the mast and chastise    
  me severely for such unseemly
     behaviour
All I wanted, just some fair company, to be lavished by a couple of lovelies
But No! they wouldn't have it,
   wouldn't entertain me
Snobs! Stuck up cows!! *******!!!
We nearly had a Barney
I'd rather wet me ***** in a Jar of
   cold Jellies.

Standing there outside in the cold
   night air
Trying to get me bearings, yea! trying
   to take a reading
Me Northern Star, he must have
   fecked off to the Northern Bar
And my compass, he's whirling
   around like a Dervish,
Well ***** me sausage in a jar of
   malt vinegar
We're sailing blind tonight me boys
Keep a sharp lookout atop of the
   Crow's Nest won't ya!

And so, we ventured out, a brave man
With ***** as big as the bold Hercules
   himself
A wee bit tentative at first I'd concede
Lurching about from side to side, all
   over the place
But not to worry, with me there at the
   helm, both hands on the wheel
Solid and salty as any old sea dog
Singing away to meself a wee shanty
" I'm no landlubber me!
  Just give me the dark and the rolling
    sea"
Steady as she goes me Hearties!
I thought we was doin' alright till one
   of my feet
It trod in a space with nothing there
   in it
And my Ship it goes tumbling
   sideways over
Hell's britches!!! I'd trod in a pothole
   the size of a manhole
"Man the lifeboats Lads, we're going
   over" I cried.

Next thing I know I'm lying on my
   back
And the Moon she's blowin' me kisses
And at the end of the Bar, there! me
   Northern Star
And Him smokin' a cigar and sippin'
   Brandy with some *******
Looking like a Dandy at Christmas
"Hey Judas!" I shouts over, "where's
   me monkey?"

And then suddenly, this woman, this
   woman out of nowhere
Out of the darkness, this Spectre
An old Sea Witch for sure, by thunder
She starts bawling laughing at me and
   pointing her crooked finger,
Well dent me dagger on a cold
   woman's heart
If she doesn't cut the legs right out
   from under me
Every time she opens her big Gob, the
   squeals of her
Makes me feel two feet tall she does
   with her cruel laughin' & sneery
       banter
And her drawin' a big crowd around
   her
(And me! a Giant!!.... a feckin' Whale, a
   Walrus!!).

Well lash me Luger and wake me up
   with a poker
I wasn't wobbling, that was just me
   swagger,
And I ain't lying down here no longer
   either
Heave ** the ropes me lads and haul
   me up me Hearties
Till I stand once more at a proper
   angle,
Yea! Hoist me up like a mast and watch me sails billow again in the
   breeze
Watch me belly bulge out and me eyes
   roll around in me head
Now we're back afloat, buckle up me
   sword on me belt
And roll out me cannons
For the name of this ship, if it isn't the
   Great, the "Great Defiant ",
By the two Horns on Hell's Gate
What am I doing here at all in this
   place, with ye folk
I'll wave me ***** at this world, yea! I'll dangle me dibbler
Did ye not hear, did no one tell ye
I'm off yea! I'm off to Australia.

                       II

For Sweet Destiny, she visited me this
   night, she kissed me
She came like a gypsy when I was a bit
   tipsy
So exotic with all her bangles and
   beads and her charms
And dresses all the colours of the
   rainbow
With her big crystal ball eyes of grey
Like the Moon she mesmerized me
   completely
And then she kissed me with lips
   sweet as whiskey
And she whispered in my ear a magic
   word. " Australia ".

You see this was how it was
I read it some place,seen it somewhere
A sweet wee lass, a fellow girl poet
   from Australia
She said, she lamented " Poetry, it isn't
   very big over here
The people their not inclined, their not
   of that mind"
Said I aghast, I'll change their hearts
Their hardheaded folk, those folk
   down there
It must be the snakes and the spiders
   down the toilet
So hoist me up onto me pulpit
Them heathen folk they need
   convertin' badly.

O! Give me a Ship, give me a Galley
And like Columbus I'll start a big
   rumpus
We'll sail off over the horizon, and
   keep turning on the globe
Till we sight the shores of that Sweet
    Island
And that lovely Queen of the South
   reclining
Beautiful and wonderful Australia!!!

There's gold in their hearts even
   though they may not know it
And jewels in their eyes big as
   diamonds
Treasures by the thousand
So hoist up me trousers boys,
Me! I'm off to Sligo
Wait a minute, No! No I'm not,
I'm off.... off to Australia.

So gimme a wooden leg and hoist me
   parrot up onto me shoulder
Arrrr! Jim lad.....now where's me
   soldiers
Are ye with me lads
We'll plow through the sharky seas
Then I'll plant me flag on their
   beaches
And claim this Land for Posey.... yea!
   for Poetry,
And if they don't like it
If they string me up by the ***** and
   spit on me
Sure I'll just smile back at them and
   tell them
"I'm just..... I'm just Jim Dandy".

                       III

Alas! It wasn't to be, next morning
   they found me
Upended in someone's garden
The Sergeant he shook me, " What are
   you doing down there? " he said,
"Ahoy there shipmate Sir" says I, like a
   true shipwrecked sailor,
"I had me a dream last night,
I dreamt...I dreamt I were bound,
   bound for Australia.

I laughed in places
   Where Laughter was not asked for,
     In granite market towns
       Beneath refugee palm trees shivering.
                                    

Running from giant hands
That were covered in car wash fluids,
   The back of children's heads imprinted
     On their palms.

I laughed during disciplinary procedures,
  Before authority figures
    With cornflakes in their red beards
       And my laughter crept over the edges of their flowerbeds
         And the grass laughed with me.

I laughed at funerals,
The sounds of horses beyond the churchyard
   And a messenger ran down the aisle
    panting and exhausted,
     He had a message for my laughter
      ' Quick you must come at once'.

I laughed during marital feuds,
Laughter rising out of its own body
  above broken guitars and dried up bonsai,
   Above all the things I said
    That contradict me now.

I laughed during serious films,
The tulips drooping on top of the T.V.
   The sun slumped against the door,
     Behind heavy curtains
        I mistook for pigs on hooks.

I laughed over exercise books,
Above algebra and history
  Behind impossible bra straps
    That appeared out of acne and ink flicked backs.

I laughed at the swimming pool
Hiding birthmarks like stains,
  Drowning above the water saying
   'I am a fish I must get back in!'.

I laughed in surgeries among migraines
and told my mother that robots were taking over,
  in the same rooms where they removed my brothers' verucas
   And I saw the doctors small blade
     escape through the window.

I laughed during friends confessions,
In between the silences of repeated songs
  While pantomime dames walked past windows
     make-up running in black and yellow rain.

I'm laughing while making coffee in a campervan,
I'm laughing because its a monday morning,
  Because everyone else is busy,
   Because we have an oil lamp from a pound-shop
    Burning beneath the sound of rain on the roof,
     Because the radio's silent…..

And because sausages are best done slowly.