The wife and I have packed our bags,

  going our separate ways.

We'll hug and kiss each other tomorrow morning,

try not to show the strain.


Thirty years of married bliss,

now it has come to this.

I know I can be difficult,

It's just my Irish ways.


I always blame the Famine, or the bad old,

Imperial British days.

But it's my own fault, claustrophobia,

I can't take the Plane.


  I'm catching the Ferry,

and tomorrow evening ,I'll meet her,

when she gets off the Plane,

We  booked two  weeks in Menorca,

our holiday in the sun, no rain.


By Holly Barrett

I think someone told a joke to the trees,

they are laughing and swaying, falling about on their knees.

They pause for a break, sway gently as if in Tete-a-Tete.

In unison bow their heads, whisper opaque.


A sudden explosion of unremitting tremulous,

chuckling quietly, and shooting the breeze,

Akin to Marineros  on a ship, in a calm sea

aimlessly drifting , timeless and free.


A mistral gust, inward rush, leaves flutter,

on branch'es robust, Summers vigour enjoyed

before an autumnal retreat,

leafless and bare, at Winters feet.


                By Holly Barrett

I'm bereft of Ideas at the moment

my mind has gone all a Blank, Dead,

I have a few Bob in my pocket

and a roof over my head.


the T.V. lies mute in the corner

The Wall Clock is still loudly, TICK TOCKING

The wireless is mocking, glaring , saying nothing

and the Cats gone out to the parlour,  trotting.


Three men in a Boat, Jerome K Jerome, wrote

IF, Rudyard Kipling, had  just one inkling

Of the Vacuous mental Black Cauldron,

I now find I sit in,


Would He shout, ''What the Dickens ''

This poor man is not sicking or Homeless

His mind has gone Blank,

Sad'ly he is  Poemless.

            BY Holly Barrett

Oh, to be in Knocknagree, where the beer is cheap,

and the women are free.

You can travel all over Ireland,

but seldom will you see,

The Lakes  and Castles, round Knocknagree.


Wild Mountain Hares, traipse through the street,

on their way to the Hanging Babylon Gardens,

Where a tress of hair, from a Princess,

the locals in secrete keep.


Darby O' Gill and the little people,

built Tigeens (Houses ) near the ' Rainbow's Wishing Stream ',

But the County Council put property tax on them,

and put a full stop , to their little Dreams.


  By Holly Barrett

It's a funny thing,  I just don't understand  the meaning.

About 30 of Spain's finest ' brains, are in Jail.

Ex Ministers, highly educated, College , University.

They held the highest posts in the land of little rain.


Ex Treasurers, Bankers,  Ministers of transport and trains,

they were all caught 'red handed ' by  their sloppy paper trail.

One ex Treasurer  had 50 million Euro stored away,

and lived like Aristotle Onassis  without a care.


They are marked down , as the intelligentsia,  the bright lights,

But what puzzles me, is not their blatant greed,

  but how easy they were caught,

I constantly , ask myself, what is intelligence  and 'Brains '

I'm puzzled, maybe I don't have any,

I think I missed the train, when they were handing out ' Brains '


By Holly Barrett

If the United States of America,
one of the biggest countries in the world,
Freely elected a President, who is deemed,
to be a semi illiterate *****.

What chance have we in Ireland,
with a population of just over 4 Million
people, and 3 million  of those are
   Alcoholics...?

I'm not a misogynist by a long shot, in fact i'm  au contraire, which means

the opposite for those of you who are ignorant like me ,

and had to look it up.

My question is, and I'm coming from a European Country viewpoint., Spain,

Why are so many young girls and women, intent on making themselves

look unattractive...? Every second female has either a 'ring on their nose,

or have blackened their slender legs and arms with Tattoos.

Some have even gone and shaved half their head, making them look

like a Mohican.

One woman I saw on the beach, had the painful face of Christ over her *******.

he had  his crown of thorns on  and was bleeding .

Now how could you possibly make love to a woman like that,

Not in the ******* anyway....


To me , as I'm very old fashioned, a woman should smell alluring,

and not like an Ashtray of Marlborough  stub ends .

As most women in Spain smoke,

So there you are trying to make love to a smelly stale smoker ,

staring at the face of Christ,  and admiring the rest of her Tattoos

in various places in her body .

I'm coming , but don't wait up for me.

I' m surprised at the amount of people,
who know nothing at all about composting.
They  have no idea , what or what does not compost,
One neighbour said, ' Cartons and Iron' do not compost.

' Everything' I said,    composts, including ourselves,
this got a huge laugh,
Cemeteries all over the country,
are just composing fields, why else do we bury our dead,
If we didn't want them to compost,
We'd have put them into lead coffins.

They all thought I was hilarious,
' "Cartons, tin cans ,  bits of Iron,
clothes ,timber, will all compost,
faster than you can say , Kirk Douglas,
forget that last bit,
Only 'plastic' can live that long"

Holly EverGreen Barrett  2/ I /

There was a young man from Macroom,

Who thought he could fly on a Broom,

He left in the  night, with a scream of delight,

Now he is in a Hospital room.

Fallen leaves clustered together, like corner boys,

ready to cause mischief in swirling eddies,

chasing each other in never ending circles, by gusting winds

ignoring onlookers in their Mistral ecstasy.

Autumnal frolics will soon cease, before prevailing snows and ice,

A final Hooley before they tire in Compost mire,

or blown out to the seas, denying a rebirth, a Deciduous Tree.

another Season ends with glee, lively, dead leaves sleep till Spring,

budding to bloom, start all over again, anew.

            
                  By Holly Barrett