Gilhooley had ordered a meeting
Everyone had to come round
St. Patricks day will be upon us
And a venue just has to be found

We have to find somewhere authentic
Our normal old pub just won't do
We can't celebrate with the punters
Where the beer isn't green, it's dyed blue

Gilhooley awaited suggestions
It had to be somewhere close by
There were all sorts of names on the table
So they decided to give them a try

It needed to be "somewhat old Irish"
with no dee jay, and a folky type band
they had to have red headed women
And a barman, with drinks poured and at hand

The first place they went was McKenna's
It seemed like a great place at first
but the service was slower than treacle
and a man would just die here of thirst

They found one that looked rather Irish
It was known as the new *** of gold
it had a rainbow outside on the awning
this should have been a warning fortold

the next one they tried was a classic
The green and gold tavern....a hit
but, it was booked on the day for a party
and this didn't please them one bit

they finally found one to their liking
full of guineess and pretty colleens
a punjabi bar by the  name of  ben doury's
where everything was curried and green

it was a party that no one remembered
that meant that it must have been good
nobody went to the jailhouse
even though three or four of them should

The beer and the curry were epic
the singing was like nothing we'd heard
a sitar and cymbal based trio
played so loud that nothing was heard

Gilhooley said next year we have to
come back here and do it again
It was the best St. Patty's ever
most of them passed out by ten

The next time you go out to party
call Ben Doury, the place is  spot on
the food and the beer are one colour
with a Punjabi Mumbai Leprachaun

It’s 1:30am and we were at a cute little dance club in Dublin called “The Sugar Club.” It’s a converted movie theater with tables in stadium seating rows. That night was Salsa themed, and the regulars were stylin’ - the men dressed in white Havana or Colima, Italian Linen and women in bright salsa dresses.

The DJ was mixing a gr8 groove - with music from Bassia, Brazilian Girls, Kate the Cat, with some ElectroSwing thrown in from Tape Five, Pink Martini and Doja Cat (Yes, I asked the DJ for his playlist). The tiny, darkly-disco-sparkling dance floor was crowded and refrigerator cold.

We had a good time. Irish guys are funny and unpredictable, they’ll say practically anything, “Shall I buy you a drink, or do you just want the money?” and those brogues make everything they say spankin’ hot.

We all danced a few times, but Sunny’s a gwyn who never seemed to tire. Guys kept asking her to dance and she seemed happy to oblige - I would have collapsed already.

There was a dead-fit guy, Rían, throwing a strong Chris Evans vibe, who seemed completely smitten with Sunny. He seemed a real dean but he didn’t 404 that Sunny’s femme-facing and that he might as well be offering lettuce to a shark.

We’d discussed the possibility that things might come up and decided to avoid delicate public acts of disclosure (Sunny’s gay, Leong’s a communist, etc..) - we’re trespassing different cultures on this trip, after all.

We explained to Rían that we were students, just in town for the Duran Duran concert, and consoled him with a couple of “Black & Golds” (Kahlua, whiskey and orange bitters) - he was a LOT of fun to talk to.

The bartender asked me if I was one of the colleens with “Margot Robbie” - he was referring to Lisa - which Anna found amusing - but I think Lisa’s way phater than Margot.

Knuckling under weatherworn predictions, the salt is down. There is a limit to preparedness and at some point, faith that the break shall come to a blizzard's infamy, must supersede. It's just fluff and slush after all. Barely, this white blanketing is made, before the brine trucks are revving, ready to tear up the sheets. Shall I slumber too long, I may miss the hush of placidity. Who will be the first to break silence? That inevitable metal scrape against cement, I dread its' brashness. Can the missies' ice morning not roll by without delusions that these snow damsels must be shoveled off? Let the winter lassies lie for briefness of their coolness brings me to a dream scene. Colleens of a cold front, you blew upon me so softly this way, how dare I snow blow you, away?

THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
      RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON

( for John Smith )

It was...
Oct 5th - 1970.

A Monday.


The day had gone
from dry to drizzle to

wet.


It was the 278th day
of the year...only

87 days remaining
until the end of the year.

I knew I had to act now.
It was now...or never.

Time? I forget the time.
Time was standing still.

Huge clouds
menaced the horizon

impersonating an Armada
of Spanish Galleons.

Full sail ahead then.
I took a step into my future.

The smiling President drawing
nearer and nearer.

In Nass
the drenched crowed cheered.

In Newbridge now
flocks of children chase the car

like he was some
kinda Piper from Hamelin.

I kept a close eye on
the secret service

all dressed in the same suit
looking like clones

of one another
talking into their sleeves.

My gaze searches and settles
upon him

like the cross-hairs
of a ******'s rifle.

Sure he had called his setter
King Timahoe

after where his folks came from
another American looking for his roots

bolstering the Irish-American vote.

And now here he was
the man himself

in person
the 37th President.

Irish colleens dancing
upon a make-shift stage

in the square
of Kildare.

He's here oh so near
I can see the pores of his skin

a bead of sweat trickles into
that infamous Nixon grin.

Dare I do it now?
My hair falling into my eyes.

My mind flashes back to
1729

when his Quaker ancestors
fled the Emerald Isle.

Three centuries pass by in a second and
we're here

in the middle of
The Vietnam War

and he speaks of
"a passion for peace...preventing war...building peace."

Yeah yeah...sure sure!

Carpet bombing Cambodia
the famous Nixon duplicity

the "credibility gap" opening
between what he says and what he does.

Oh there are protests
he has 5 eggs hurlers.

"Splatsplatsplatsplat and splat!"
Only one near hit.

And one man protesting
the price of a pint

up'd( for the occasion )to
one shilling and jaysus seven pence.

What's the world
coming to?

School kids waving
their plastic( in slow mo )

American flags
on little plastic sticks.

I raise my flag.
I raise my...voice

shooting my mouth off
with a great shout:

'TRICKY DICKY! TRICKY DICKY!
WOULD YOU BUY A USED CAR FROM THIS MAN!"

Several secret service scowl.
My words hit him...Nixon frowns.

Character assassination.

Mr. McCann
aka "The Bicycle Man!"

curses me
in Irish.

After all he is
my Irish teacher.

D'anam leis an diabhal...Ó Diomasaigh!"
("Your soul to the devil...Dempsey!")

"THE TIME HAS COME TO CALL
A ***** A ****** SHOVEL..."

I yell as
I get a clip around the ear.

McCann holds his hand
over my mouth.

Then suddenly Nixon
is no longer

there.

The hurled words
disappear into the air.

Us school boys
***** damply back to double Maths.

The De La Salle
Academy looming up before us.

Mr. McCann
hoovers near.

I cover both
my ears.

But he only tousles
my hair.

"Ahhh mo amadán beag cróga!"
( "Ahhh my brave little fool!")

"Maith an bhuachaill...maith an bhuachaill!"
( "Good boy...good boy!")

He grins.
Slips me a sixpence.

I sing the new Led Zep
only released that day.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Being only 12
I had done what had to be done.

My political life
had only just begun.

Knuckling under weatherworn predictions, the salt is down. There is a limit to preparedness and at some point, faith that the break shall come to a blizzard's infamy, must supersede. It's just fluff and slush after all. Barely, this white blanketing is made, before the brine trucks are revving, ready to tear up the sheets. Shall I slumber too long, I may miss the hush of placidity. Who will be the first to break silence? That inevitable metal scrape against cement, I dread its brashness. Can the missies' ice morning not roll by without delusions that these snow damsels must be shoveled off? Let the winter lassies lie for briefness of their coolness brings me to a dream scene. Colleens of a cold front, you blew upon me so softly this way, how dare I snow blow you, away?

THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
      RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON

( for John Smith )

It was...
Oct 5th - 1970.

A Monday.

It was the 278th day
of the year...only

87 days remaining
until the end of the year.

I knew I had to act now.
It was now...or never.

Time? I forget the time.
Time was standing still.

Huge clouds
menaced the horizon

impersonating an Armada
of Spanish Galleons.

Full sail ahead then.
I took a step into my future.

The smiling President drawing
nearer and nearer.

In Nass
the drenched crowed cheered.

In Newbridge now
flocks of children chase the car

like he was some
kinda Piper from Hamelin.

I kept a close eye on
the secret service

all dressed in the same suit
looking like clones

of one another
talking into their sleeves.

My gaze searches and settles
upon him

like the cross-hairs
of a ******'s rifle.

Sure he had called his setter
King Timahoe

after where his folks came from
another American looking for his roots

bolstering the Irish-American vote.

And now here he was
the man himself

in person
the 37th President.

Irish colleens dancing
upon a make-shift stage

in the square
of Kildare.

He's here oh so near
I can see the pores of his skin

a bead of sweat trickles into
that infamous Nixon grin.

Dare I do it now?
My hair falling into my eyes.

My mind flashes back to
1729

when his Quaker ancestors
fled the Emerald Isle.

Three centuries pass by in a second and
we're here

in the middle of
The Vietnam War

and he speaks of
"a passion for peace...preventing war...building peace."

Yeah yeah...sure sure!

Carpet bombing Cambodia
the famous Nixon duplicity

the "credibility gap" opening
between what he says and what he does.

Oh there are protests
he has 5 eggs hurlers.

"Splatsplatsplatsplat and splat!"
Only one near hit.

And one man protesting
the price of a pint

up'd( for the occasion )to
one shilling and jaysus seven pence.

What's the world
coming to?

School kids waving
their plastic( in slow mo )

American flags
on little plastic sticks.

I raise my flag.
I raise my...voice

shooting my mouth off
with a great shout:

'TRICKY DICKY! TRICKY DICKY!
WOULD YOU BUY A USED CAR FROM THIS MAN!"

Several secret service scowl.
My words hit him...Nixon frowns.

Character assassination.

Mr. McCann
aka "The Bicycle Man!"

curses me
in Irish.

After all he is
my Irish teacher.

D'anam leis an diabhal...Ó Diomasaigh!"
("Your soul to the devil...Dempsey!")

"THE TIME HAS COME TO CALL
A ***** A ****** SHOVEL..."

I yell as
I get a clip around the ear.

McCann holds his hand
over my mouth.

Then suddenly Nixon
is no longer

there.

The hurled words
disappear into the air.

Us school boys
***** damply back to double Maths.

The De La Salle
Academy looming up before us.

Mr. McCann
hoovers near.

I cover both
my ears.

But he only tousles
my hair.

"Ahhh mo amadán beag cróga!"
( "Ahhh my brave little fool!")

"Maith an bhuachaill...maith an bhuachaill!"
( "Good boy...good boy!")

He grins.
Slips me a sixpence.

I sing the new Led Zep
only released that day.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Being only 12
I had done what had to be done.

My political life
had only just begun.

THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
      RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON

It was...
Oct 5th - 1970.

A Monday.

It was the 278th day
of the year...only

87 days remaining
until the end of the year.

I knew I had to act now.
It was now...or never.

Time? I forget the time.
Time was standing still.

Huge clouds
menaced the horizon

impersonating an Armada
of Spanish Galleons.

Full sail ahead then.
I took a step into my future.

The smiling President drawing
nearer and nearer.

In Nass
the drenched crowed cheered.

In Newbridge now
flocks of children chase the car

like he was some
kinda Piper from Hamelin.

I kept a close eye on
the secret service

all dressed in the same suit
looking like clones

of one another
talking into their sleeves.

My gaze searches and settles
upon him

like the cross-hairs
of a ******'s rifle.

Sure he had called his setter
King Timahoe

after where his folks came from
another American looking for his roots

bolstering the Irish-American vote.

And now here he was
the man himself

in person
the 37th President.

Irish colleens dancing
upon a make-shift stage

in the square
of Kildare.

He's here oh so near
I can see the pores of his skin

a bead of sweat trickles into
that infamous Nixon grin.

Dare I do it now?
My hair falling into my eyes.

My mind flashes back to
1729

when his Quaker ancestors
fled the Emerald Isle.

Three centuries pass by in a second and
we're here

in the middle of
The Vietnam War

and he speaks of
"a passion for peace...preventing war...building peace."

Yeah yeah...sure sure!

Carpet bombing Cambodia
the famous Nixon duplicity

the "credibility gap" opening
between what he says and what he does.

Oh there are protests
he has 5 eggs hurlers.

"Splatsplatsplatsplat and splat!"
Only one near hit.

And one man protesting
the price of a pint

up'd( for the occasion )to
one shilling and jaysus seven pence.

What's the world
coming to?

School kids waving
their plastic( in slow mo )

American flags
on little plastic sticks.

I raise my flag.
I raise my...voice

shooting my mouth off
with a great shout:

'TRICKY DICKY! TRICKY DICKY!
WOULD YOU BUY A USED CAR FROM THIS MAN!"

Several secret service scowl.
My words hit him...Nixon frowns.

Character assassination.

Mr. McCann
aka "The Bicycle Man!"

curses me
in Irish.

After all he is
my Irish teacher.

D'anam leis an diabhal...Ó Diomasaigh!"
("Your soul to the devil...Dempsey!")

"THE TIME HAS COME TO CALL
A ***** A ****** SHOVEL..."

I yell as
I get a clip around the ear.

McCann holds his hand
over my mouth.

Then suddenly Nixon
is no longer

there.

The hurled words
disappear into the air.

Us school boys
***** damply back to double Maths.

The De La Salle
Academy looming up before us.

Mr. McCann
hoovers near.

I cover both
my ears.

But he only tousles
my hair.

"Ahhh mo amadán beag cróga!"
( "Ahhh my brave little fool!")

"Maith an bhuachaill...maith an bhuachaill!"
( "Good boy...good boy!")

He grins.
Slips me a sixpence.

I sing the new Led Zep
only released that day.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Being only 12
I had done what had to be done.

My political life
had only just begun.
*

The long forgotten "never-to-be-forgotten" visit made to Hodgestown near Timahoe in the county of Kildare back in the day as we leave the Sixties sadly behind us for the austerity of the '70's and the "Yes we can" of the Sixties begins to loose its lustre.

The Timahoeans are not exactly proud of giving the world Mr. Nixon and stay quite quiet about it. The Kennedy visit was the golden one and Clinton and Reagan had theirs but Tricky Dicky's one has faded into the fog of history.

"Jessamyn West, who has written so eloquently about the background of our family, has said, the Quakers have a passion for peace. My mother was a pacifist. My grandmother was a pacifist. Jessamyn's mother was, her grandmother, her grandfather, going back as far as we know."

President Nixon in the Timahoe graveyard.

Don't know what happened to him then!

"The time has come to call a ***** a ****** shovel. This country is in an undeclared and unexplained war in Vietnam. Our masters have a lot of long and fancy names for it, like escalation and retaliation, but it is a war just the same." - James Reston.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Led Zeppelin 111 - Immigrant Song.

THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
      RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON


It was...
Oct 5th - 1970.

A Monday.

It was the 278th day
of the year...only

87 days remaining
until the end of the year.

I knew I had to act now.
It was now...or never.

Time? I forget the time.
Time was standing still.

Huge clouds
menaced the horizon

impersonating an Armada
of Spanish Galleons.

Full sail ahead then.
I took a step into my future.

The smiling President drawing
nearer and nearer.

In Nass
the drenched crowed cheered.

In Newbridge now
flocks of children chase the car

like he was some
kinda Piper from Hamelin.

I kept a close eye on
the secret service

all dressed in the same suit
looking like clones

of one another
talking into their sleeves.

My gaze searches and settles
upon him

like the cross-hairs
of a ******'s rifle.

Sure he had called his setter
King Timahoe

after where his folks came from
another American looking for his roots

bolstering the Irish-American vote.

And now here he was
the man himself

in person
the 37th President.

Irish colleens dancing
upon a make-shift stage

in the square
of Kildare.

He's here oh so near
I can see the pores of his skin

a bead of sweat trickles into
that infamous Nixon grin.

Dare I do it now?
My hair falling into my eyes.

My mind flashes back to
1729

when his Quaker ancestors
fled the Emerald Isle.

Three centuries pass by in a second and
we're here

in the middle of
The Vietnam War

and he speaks of
"a passion for peace...preventing war...building peace."

Yeah yeah...sure sure!

Carpet bombing Cambodia
the famous Nixon duplicity

the "credibility gap" opening
between what he says and what he does.

Oh there are protests
he has 5 eggs hurlers.

"Splatsplatsplatsplat and splat!"
Only one near hit.

And one man protesting
the price of a pint

up'd( for the occasion )to
one shilling and jaysus seven pence.

What's the world
coming to?

School kids waving
their plastic( in slow mo )

American flags
on little plastic sticks.

I raise my flag.
I raise my...voice

shooting my mouth off
with a great shout:

'TRICKY DICKY! TRICKY DICKY!
WOULD YOU BUY A USED CAR FROM THIS MAN!"

Several secret service scowl.
My words hit him...Nixon frowns.

Character assassination.

Mr. McCann
aka "The Bicycle Man!"

curses me
in Irish.

After all he is
my Irish teacher.

D'anam leis an diabhal...Ó Diomasaigh!"
("Your soul to the devil...Dempsey!")

"THE TIME HAS COME TO CALL
A ***** A ****** SHOVEL..."

I yell as
I get a clip around the ear.

McCann holds his hand
over my mouth.

Then suddenly Nixon
is no longer

there.

The hurled words
disappear into the air.

Us school boys
***** damply back to double Maths.

The De La Salle
Academy looming up before us.

Mr. McCann
hoovers near.

I cover both
my ears.

But he only tousles
my hair.

"Ahhh mo amadán beag cróga!"
( "Ahhh my brave little fool!")

"Maith an bhuachaill...maith an bhuachaill!"
( "Good boy...good boy!")

He grins.
Slips me a sixpence.

I sing the new Led Zep
only released that day.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Being only 12
I had done what had to be done.

My political life
had only just begun.

Lined up like village colleens, all waiting for the dance
A nervous last audition, their ballroom of romance
All dressed in scarlet dresses, wearing their Sunday best
Their generation’s finest, the blender’s final test

Grenache, Merlot and Syrah, Cabernets one to four
Waiting on the tasting bench, resplendent in Self-Pour
The winemaker is ready, the arbiter supreme
Nervous giggles, chatter, perhaps perchance to dream

He swirls, he spits, he noses, the PH not quite there
Acidity is lacking, but the perfume fills the air
Lavender, thyme and pepper, the Languedoc garrigue
Bound for the assemblage, will they sadden or intrigue?

Some samples he pulls forward, some he treats with disdain
Some will make the final marriage, others will remain
The wine-stained tasting notebook, the splashes on the tiles
The debris of the tasting room; chin up, maintain your smiles

The Cabernet’s cool and distant, Mourvedre’s in a bit of a mood
The Merlot will pull, it’s certain, the Cinsault will sing and be rude
I lack their front, their bravura, mine’s a subtle sense of style
I need a change of fashion, quiet drinking for a while

Drought and stress I overcame, frost and hail and rain
Treat my soul with gentleness, rejection feeds the pain
Eager, smile and puppy eyes, a dance? why, yes, of course
But after one turn round the floor, a thank-you, no remorse

If the vintage will allow me, I will return once more
An ordinary heartbreak, walk back across the floor
Pick up my coat from the kitchen, stoic, show no pain
Make my way to the chip shop, and a long walk home in the rain

THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
      RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON

It was...
Oct 5th - 1970.

A Monday.

It was the 278th day
of the year...only

87 days remaining
until the end of the year.

I knew I had to act now.
It was now...or never.

Time? I forget the time.
Time was standing still.

Huge clouds
menaced the horizon

impersonating an Armada
of Spanish Galleons.

Full sail ahead then.
I took a step into my future.

The smiling President drawing
nearer and nearer.

In Nass
the drenched crowed cheered.

In Newbridge now
flocks of children chase the car

like he was some
kinda Piper from Hamelin.

I kept a close eye on
the secret service

all dressed in the same suit
looking like clones

of one another
talking into their sleeves.

My gaze searches and settles
upon him

like the cross-hairs
of a ******'s rifle.

Sure he had called his setter
King Timahoe

after where his folks came from
another American looking for his roots

bolstering the Irish-American vote.

And now here he was
the man himself

in person
the 37th President.

Irish colleens dancing
upon a make-shift stage

in the square
of Kildare.

He's here oh so near
I can see the pores of his skin

a bead of sweat trickles into
that infamous Nixon grin.

Dare I do it now?
My hair falling into my eyes.

My mind flashes back to
1729

when his Quaker ancestors
fled the Emerald Isle.

Three centuries pass by in a second and
we're here

in the middle of
The Vietnam War

and he speaks of
"a passion for peace...preventing war...building peace."

Yeah yeah...sure sure!

Carpet bombing Cambodia
the famous Nixon duplicity

the "credibility gap" opening
between what he says and what he does.

Oh there are protests
he has 5 eggs hurlers.

"Splatsplatsplatsplat and splat!"
Only one near hit.

And one man protesting
the price of a pint

up'd( for the occasion )to
one shilling and jaysus seven pence.

What's the world
coming to?

School kids waving
their plastic( in slow mo )

American flags
on little plastic sticks.

I raise my flag.
I raise my...voice

shooting my mouth off
with a great shout:

'TRICKY DICKY! TRICKY DICKY!
WOULD YOU BUY A USED CAR FROM THIS MAN!"

Several secret service scowl.
My words hit him...Nixon frowns.

Character assassination.

Mr. McCann
aka "The Bicycle Man!"

curses me
in Irish.

After all he is
my Irish teacher.

D'anam leis an diabhal...Ó Diomasaigh!"
("Your soul to the devil...Dempsey!")

"THE TIME HAS COME TO CALL
A ***** A ****** SHOVEL..."

I yell as
I get a clip around the ear.

McCann holds his hand
over my mouth.

Then suddenly Nixon
is no longer

there.

The hurled words
disappear into the air.

Us school boys
***** damply back to double Maths.

The De La Salle
Academy looming up before us.

Mr. McCann
hoovers near.

I cover both
my ears.

But he only tousles
my hair.

"Ahhh mo amadán beag cróga!"
( "Ahhh my brave little fool!")

"Maith an bhuachaill...maith an bhuachaill!"
( "Good boy...good boy!")

He grins.
Slips me a sixpence.

I sing the new Led Zep
only released that day.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Being only 12
I had done what had to be done.

My political life
had only just begun.

*

The long forgotten "never-to-be-forgotten" visit made to Hodgestown near Timahoe in the county of Kildare back in the day as we leave the Sixties sadly behind us for the austerity of the '70's and the "Yes we can" of the Sixties begins to loose its lustre.

The Timahoeans are not exactly proud of giving the world Mr. Nixon and stay quite quiet about it. The Kennedy visit was the golden one and Clinton and Reagan had theirs but Tricky Dicky's one has faded into the fog of history.

"Jessamyn West, who has written so eloquently about the background of our family, has said, the Quakers have a passion for peace. My mother was a pacifist. My grandmother was a pacifist. Jessamyn's mother was, her grandmother, her grandfather, going back as far as we know."

President Nixon in the Timahoe graveyard.

Don't know what happened to him then!

"The time has come to call a ***** a ****** shovel. This country is in an undeclared and unexplained war in Vietnam. Our masters have a lot of long and fancy names for it, like escalation and retaliation, but it is a war just the same." - James Reston.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Led Zeppelin 111 - Immigrant Song.

THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
      RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON

It was...
Oct 5th - 1970.

A Monday.

It was the 278th day
of the year...only

87 days remaining
until the end of the year.

I knew I had to act now.
It was now...or never.

Time? I forget the time.
Time was standing still.

Huge clouds
menaced the horizon

impersonating an Armada
of Spanish Galleons.

Full sail ahead then.
I took a step into my future.

The smiling President drawing
nearer and nearer.

In Nass
the drenched crowed cheered.

In Newbridge now
flocks of children chase the car

like he was some
kinda Piper from Hamelin.

I kept a close eye on
the secret service

all dressed in the same suit
looking like clones

of one another
talking into their sleeves.

My gaze searches and settles
upon him

like the cross-hairs
of a ******'s rifle.

Sure he had called his setter
King Timahoe

after where his folks came from
another American looking for his roots

bolstering the Irish-American vote.

And now here he was
the man himself

in person
the 37th President.

Irish colleens dancing
upon a make-shift stage

in the square
of Kildare.

He's here oh so near
I can see the pores of his skin

a bead of sweat trickles into
that infamous Nixon grin.

Dare I do it now?
My hair falling into my eyes.

My mind flashes back to
1729

when his Quaker ancestors
fled the Emerald Isle.

Three centuries pass by in a second and
we're here

in the middle of
The Vietnam War

and he speaks of
"a passion for peace...preventing war...building peace."

Yeah yeah...sure sure!

Carpet bombing Cambodia
the famous Nixon duplicity

the "credibility gap" opening
between what he says and what he does.

Oh there are protests
he has 5 eggs hurlers.

"Splatsplatsplatsplat and splat!"
Only one near hit.

And one man protesting
the price of a pint

up'd( for the occasion )to
one shilling and jaysus seven pence.

What's the world
coming to?

School kids waving
their plastic( in slow mo )

American flags
on little plastic sticks.

I raise my flag.
I raise my...voice

shooting my mouth off
with a great shout:

'TRICKY DICKY! TRICKY DICKY!
WOULD YOU BUY A USED CAR FROM THIS MAN!"

Several secret service scowl.
My words hit him...Nixon frowns.

Character assassination.

Mr. McCann
aka "The Bicycle Man!"

curses me
in Irish.

After all he is
my Irish teacher.

D'anam leis an diabhal...Ó Diomasaigh!"
("Your soul to the devil...Dempsey!")

"THE TIME HAS COME TO CALL
A ***** A ****** SHOVEL..."

I yell as
I get a clip around the ear.

McCann holds his hand
over my mouth.

Then suddenly Nixon
is no longer

there.

The hurled words
disappear into the air.

Us school boys
***** damply back to double Maths.

The De La Salle
Academy looming up before us.

Mr. McCann
hoovers near.

I cover both
my ears.

But he only tousles
my hair.

"Ahhh mo amadán beag cróga!"
( "Ahhh my brave little fool!")

"Maith an bhuachaill...maith an bhuachaill!"
( "Good boy...good boy!")

He grins.
Slips me a sixpence.

I sing the new Led Zep
only released that day.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Being only 12
I had done what had to be done.

My political life
had only just begun.

*

The long forgotten "never-to-be-forgotten" visit made to Hodgestown near Timahoe in the county of Kildare back in the day as we leave the Sixties sadly behind us for the austerity of the '70's and the "Yes we can" of the Sixties begins to loose its lustre.

The Timahoeans are not exactly proud of giving the world Mr. Nixon and stay quite quiet about it. The Kennedy visit was the golden one and Clinton and Reagan had theirs but Tricky Dicky's one has faded into the fog of history.

"Jessamyn West, who has written so eloquently about the background of our family, has said, the Quakers have a passion for peace. My mother was a pacifist. My grandmother was a pacifist. Jessamyn's mother was, her grandmother, her grandfather, going back as far as we know."

President Nixon in the Timahoe graveyard.

Don't know what happened to him then!

"The time has come to call a ***** a ****** shovel. This country is in an undeclared and unexplained war in Vietnam. Our masters have a lot of long and fancy names for it, like escalation and retaliation, but it is a war just the same." - James Reston.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Led Zeppelin 111 - Immigrant Song.

This book ain't worth a posy-scented candle, 𝘚𝘢𝘵𝘢𝘯'𝘴 84-𝘠𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘘𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵
𝘵𝘰 𝘔𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘕𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘙𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘌𝘹-𝘏𝘰𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘹𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘈𝘤𝘵𝘰𝘳 𝘛𝘰𝘯𝘺 𝘍. 𝘙𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘭𝘭
I'll lovingly beat you like a hunter with a seal-beating stick lovingly
stick-beats a seal because, anywhere but Canada, lovingly beating a
fat-**** **** with a big, seal-beating stick ain't no Earth-ending deal
that could make Phil Collins, at gun-point, change his name to Bill,
eat waffles with a pine-wood bed slat or adopt a titter over a squeal
It was too late for sorrow, as her witch-*** was froze until tomorrow
I danced with your dad who doesn't dance bad for a *** dad in plaid
Once I'm buried in a hole, because I was so sick that I was declared
by a doctor dead, I'll never be alive to toast again your Cuban bread
You puked runny puke on my mom's T.V. 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘳 𝘛𝘳𝘦𝘬 dishes, so now
we will have to live on your raft & **** in water like ******* fishes
do when they swish fish bones out of whack with bone-fish swishes
Here I am, hiding behind my Maserati during World War Two with
nobody violent around me; eating dead rabbits & taking things easy
Easy does it during World War Two when ***** & brassieres were
in short supply along with ice tongs, lip gloss & mink bikini thongs
I could've ate my pelvis-breaking weight in frogs & puppies, cuddle
fish & guppies. I could've loved you for your flat warts, like a 6-ton
elephant spurting in gray quarts. But you were so ecstatically crazy,
******* out on my pretty-boy face, that you had to cram it up with
everybody everyplace. Your buck-toothed **** dentist won't never
dentally-know how you pull apart stringy roots underneath, with 16
of your 22 black-rotted, misaligned teeth. I spiked your wine with a
harsh laxative to get you going more often, then I shot your **** &
crammed his rap-crapping *** into a 55-gallon-steel-oil-drum coffin.
“Jesus Christmastide! Why do ****** call you 'Stubby,' Stubby?” I
asked Stubby. He just sat there, clinically dead & grub-stiff grubby;
so I #22 scalpel-stripped him to make him less chubby, because gay
Stubby had visions of ******* an eye surgeon & calling him hubby.
Picture me 20 years ago, after the amputation of my toe. Picture me
20 years from now, married to a beef-cow. Picture, picture, picture,
then picture me pictured badly: with a crack-***** grinning madly.
**** who know know, by January you're ******* Iron Man noodles
through rear tubing & improving your high sight with a ladder-rung
eye-band & 2 days later you're dying of long cancer on Lung Island.
It was scary when the bottom fastened itself upward onto a lump &
when Jesus blessed Cebunese kids scavenging pagpag at the dump.
David René de Rothschild tethered 2 purple ***** to a dollar stump,
while Our Lord rescued Irish colleens chewin' garbage at the dump.
It is rumored that Bill & Hillary have shared ****** intimacies with
each other, that were interrupted 3 times by Roger, Bill's ½ brother.
***-******* like to wait 40 years before making insane, ******-****
accusations against all men who live in white-built African nations.
I was slurpin' yogurt & smashing white maggots in bare feet & hair
dryer-drying my blond hair in my windowless room, 3 floors above
my street on a Friday, 1 day after Walt Disney's gayest gay day yet,
before full rubbers broke through to make the sidewalks gooey wet,
to knock Mama off a donkey that had been her lifelong donkey-pet.
I hate bus trips! Oh, God! When will the God pain train trend end?!
As I grew to love her neighboring orifices & chocolate-milk glands,
Naomi Campbell smacked my white **** when I called her Bonnie,
with the same baloney handful behind what makes my nuts manful.
I don't care for the stiff-**** fluff & flare, or the slimy guff & glare,
of naked ***** gettin' axles lubed at the naked **** axle-lubing fair.
My syndicated business share differential queered the poor nusance
as it gave me a primer glued with solid gander ******* goose sense.
Prickling something is better than prickling nothing I suppose for a
bug-zapped minute that cuts a snail in a harpsichord or in a spinnet,
made by piano-tunin' ****-buddies in the Georgian city of Gwinnett.
You dumb, ***-******! I can't believe that you are more gay than 92
Rob Reiners, ***-******* 600 raunchy Biskra Province coal miners!
Rob Reiner ****** a pygmy during the holocaust when Polish Jews
felt lost & he walled in his father-in-law 'cause dad was pygmy-tall.
Coal moaners surrounded me like a rash. I fought them with bullets
& bull ***** after I ran out of cream cheese, Kotex & blue crayons,  
in hopes that 1 day, I might skip barefoot again through grey lawns.
A quick look-see at any cemetery puts things into perspective, dead
& deceased, no hens riding *****, no soccer, no mismatched socks.
You removed your cold lips from mine in the coal mine making me
mad, so I took off my wedding dress to make a baby with your dad.
I was paralytic with fear when your **** came near, as I was out of
chicken feed; so I slit open my ulnar artery & quickly bled to death.
I answered your pathetical moan for help, like a collie ***** in mid-
moan whelp. My dog's a godless pagan like you too & she wants to
drink from the toilet like any pagan guy; but she's a chihuahua dog
so, unless she is fed wolf hormones, she'll not rise toilet-bowl high.
Elton John offered lots of **** attention if, when regardin' his ****
as he's porking park cops, I'll not ever jam a big monkey wrench in.
Elton John proffered love & attention if, in regards to his **** when
buggering Central Park cops, I will never ram a steel park bench in.
I was eating pig-kidney with a **** Vietnamese woman in a shed &
she asked to split my kidney & I jumped 'cause she wasn't well-fed.
I was puking oily French Canadian porcine kidney gristle onto your
Michigan-made robe of silk, as I lactated luke-warm pig buttermilk.
I barfed slimy French Haitian ****** brain stem treats onto your 34
devilish Voodoo ******* of silk, to make you lactate spicy pig milk.
A mean-spirited queer attacked me, when I was not looking queerly
around for bad queers. Lord Princely Jesus, these preter-neo pseudo
ultra modernistical queer times are upon us to ***-******' seize us.
Oprah's teats were bound to her chest by mucho ****** rings, which
made her want to use a milk-goat's milking-machine for **** flings
when she was alone ****-******' ****** & ***-porking ding-a-lings
I sermonize & preachify, as of late, against ***-*** at the going rate
for hooded rods trimmed to helmets, as circular cuts are a boy's fate
Like walnuts crackin' at dawn between the lumpy thighs of ******,
I pop plasma-filled blisters to render them into itchy, fiery-red sores
Because ******* riot after lines are drawn, I hide 2 pink scrotal nuts
to save them from ablation, because when they're gone they're gone
& devoid of vitally-vibrant, dual-testicular sensation by stimulation
In the world of Yip Harburg, everyone must die, you know it's true,
like a wasted ****** who's turned blue, all-the-way speared through
I want movies of Ava Cherry with no clothes on, lounging softly &
luridly, pulling me with Afro curly-cues on a **** trimmed torridly
as cool chick Sita Chan flies over a Hong Kong bridge discordantly
I trace your Nordic-loving *** sidewise across Conneaut Lake when
I'm 3% sober, from January the twenty-third to the ninth of October
Across the vast expanse of your ever-widening *** I mark my space
to keep my place before the next ship arrives from Pluto moon base
When peace is declared, my mistress will put away her war nuggets
for good, because as she aches for a half foot of timber I will slip to
her my thrill-hammering, impregnating, baby-broth-squirting wood.
See my Mongol eyes? See how far apart they are? The preterhuman
distance 'tween them has kept me from being smashed flat by a car.
When I was tiny small I'd scream brattily as a bratty tot, “Mommy I
want to watch 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘝𝘢𝘯 𝘋𝘺𝘬𝘦 𝘋𝘪𝘤𝘬 𝘚𝘩𝘰𝘸 with old Hose Prairie a lot
whilst me & the hot baby sitter **** on a cot & **** Mexicali ***!”
**** chick laboratorians, working for the forensics lab, use ****-kit
combs on their red bushes when public **** outrage pulls & pushes
You'll be alright, no doubt, after you have twin infants to straighten
your *** out. We'll have fun with white vitamin D from Earth's sun,
while I  twist your hair into a fashionable bun, 'cause you got a gun,
& you say that you will shoot me 9 times once your bun is all done.
“Who's it?” Asked a cook cookin' corn pone, to which I bemoaned,
“It is a phone call from a chickee who combs her ***** hair alone.”
A guy can count, when he runs, on his biggest right-foot toe, just as I counted on you camper-crammer Breanna, 15 little boyfriends ago
when you chirped like a meadow crow in an '05 red Dodge Shadow  
before folding 2 **** lips over in a corporate, ****-lip-folding show
for bread, dinero, gelt, mula, cash & seventy other words for dough
On the porch I was wildly horrified from this haunted-house fear as
Grandma struck me with cheer over her **** so sharp & **** so near
to my rock-hard-pronghorn projectile & manly, wedding-tackle gear
“At the bottom of the finest menu is offered wren mignon, captain”
a crew man proffered, before his wife got pimped by Peter Lawford
A million dead love-birds littered my dream-life & dream- girlfriend
after I epoxied her pate beyond the apex of the fore-crown's top end
Last month we ate turkeys from pointy beaks to wrinkly **** holes
while our wife crones were fingered like ****** Mao finger bowls
Breanna, I fear you, to be near you and to hear you when you boil a
chicken in the kitchen, when you turn on me with merciless *******'
to precipitate the most tremorous of Parkinsonian, lard-*** twitchin'
Breanna, I fear you, to hear you near you when you boil a wren like
a California chicken kitchen cook who sews ***** by hem-stitchin'
in dawning hours when plane Earth's keen on night-to-day switchin'
I wouldn't let you down like I put the window down, like I put your
mother down, or when I peeled your fish-net hose that wrap around
your creamy thighs that ruin our seedy *******/constructed lives
to make us want left states to turn right or men high up to fall down
upon a Battle Creek holt in the snotted knot of a carpet bomb round
that'd blow the shell off a turtle & a goose off its soft, goose mound
into a better diet whereat gay waivers are paced to England's pound
I'm forced to live in the woods & eat moles 'cause I really do love it
and I'd never ***** that I am too royal toward it, or very far above it
or *****-***** to ream & **** it, even when I'm 768 miles from it
Unlike you, with your greyish bumps, I ain't scarfed corn dogs with
stinkin' garbage men, in garbage trucks, speeding to garbage dumps
My ditzy ***** went crazy from a street drug so, like they did with
father Grigorii Rasputin, I shot her twice, then wrapped her in a rug
While I'm swingin' an ax in an abortuary to unsettle my calm bones
I find quiet consolation listening to near-dead, half-deaf Tom Jones
who dreams of Earth minus lesbians grooming dads as mom clones
Sharing my lunch with an out-of-work ****** makes me feel larger,
just like after my big ****'s been slammed in the jamb of a car door
The snow Christened Christ, freezing hot after-birth iced. His Mum
was a ****** who had babies, while Daddy bit a dog that had rabies.
Hey you *******, I am ***-high in the Jakarta Turbine project
so I got no time for them or Lloyd Bridges & his hemorrhoid ridges
as my tick-bit chihuahua'd sooner *** on what is left of Bruno Leon
With dour Vince Edwards it was a horror to power-rinse head warts
I inhale the stench of birds being cared for in the privacy of a closet
where fruits ripen after paying a homosexual closet security deposit
In the future all good people will act like Donny Osmond a little bit
when they're comfortably seated on a heated toilet seat taking a ****
The ****** nurse in fancy nurse uniform, through which I saw ****
fur, led me to the hospital bed so that I could have my way with her
like the fakes who were John Forsythe, Sam Jaffe & Raymond Burr
could, if they had not died as rabid dogs like Allāh said they should
as the eternal souls of those who are bad shall be shredded for good
“Listen Missy,” I said, “I could spend many nights ******* you raw
or brushin' my curly **** bush on my million-dollar yacht instead!”
My thumb's numb where a dog bit me, just after I ****** his *****
in Satan's kitschy church for a mass that was less camp than witchy
among Hillary's ****-suckin' pigs who're no less shaky than twitchy
It's Kung Fu in reverse, the adoration & the adulation that paces me
across sad, fairy-land meadows where I chase fairies of race fantasy
Pry wide your gob, goofy goober, wolfin' waffles in the men's room
ain't never got 1 ****** locked up for gay pimping, we can presume
A clock's ticking *****, like a sticking stitch stuck in a witch-*** snit
on the bald nog of a drained chimp **** from the massacre at Tikrit
Green rhymes with spleen & a spleen that has gone green is seen as
being badly corrupted by a putrefyingly-deadly, infarcting gangrene
Suicidal tribes, I think who link upon the brink must not, of course,
drink pink ink from a sink as it could push bowel twist knot & kink
I was haunted by wraiths, sprites, leprechauns & hobgoblins till ***
Mark D. Chapman cured x-singer John Lennon's medical problems.
Beause who, minus spinal pain, might for sure say that ****** bare- backing made the normally heterosexual, rough & tumble Ben gay?
Ben is gaily bathing done with Obama at bath houses for **** fun.
Don't you remember that when we were in love we'd hide at Burger
King and secretly eat out each other's burgers until late September?
When we were in love (Don't you remember?) we'd meet at Burger
King to secretly eat out each other's fur burgers till mid-November?
For ****'s sake I shall **** with coffee sippers during coffee breaks
on schooners & rafts crossin' the greatest of America's Great Lakes.
I **** early in the morning to avoid the pre-afternoon ***** & shakes
I **** in the early morning to avoid the pre-afternoon ***** & shakes
In the early morning I ****, avoiding runny afternoon ***** & shakes
I evacuate pre-breakfast to obstruct copious supper squirts & quakes
I pathologize fetid droppings to classify scatological frauds & fakes
I could hurl ***** on cue in the sight of jail-house grits & pancakes
I may sail west within the under-belly pits of poly-finned sea snakes
that slither hither, thither & yon up, if not over, deadly rays & rakes
in pre-gutted conditions, before they are trucked by drays from bays
on sunny days when fillets are flayed; when pay-grades induce gays
who Walmart pays in minimal ways that x-Sam said was a pay-raise
lifted by the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, & Mao's praise
that launched the Cultural Revolution's ****-everyone-you-can craze
to the tune of Chou En-lai's burn-*******-Tibet-to-the-ground phase
which obeys the policy of crushing prisoners' faces with lunch-trays
which adores the practice of caving in faces with prison lunch-trays
I'm eating yogurt, nothing fazes me: 11 stays & electric-chair delays
that outstrip the switch poles of Western Electric's antiquated relays
that strip the switching poles of Western Electric's antiquated relays
that strip the switched poles of General Electric's negative tree days
that play General Electric's plane, pointed up over negated key bays
to soil Edison's electrical datum line, croacked west where fur frays
in gay burnt victim pink fashion where blistered, skinned skin flays
sons wallow in pig sties where godly cleanliness forever never pays
while men swallow grizzly plies; where the *** of King Jesus brays
to bluff, brag & boast not; to blow up the pretense of pitiable praise
in the firmament beyond whereat the water may no higher be raised
above the bosoms of fairy maidens, whose fealty amazed Our Lord,
says the holy Hebrew Testament; affirms high-oxygen giants crazed
In infancy I happened upon Mithra, including trivialities Mithraical
& later, with Jesus, new Biblical nuances of Prince Jesus Christical
Michael Jackson's paederastical dancing made Brillo-headed Tito a
badder dancer as it acidified Hindu Vinod Khanna's bladder cancer
Here on 2 limbs hobbles a 110-year-old pervert, Kirk Douglas, who
fugged fugging Marilyn Monroe fugless like 1 Aussie **** Kug lass