Where the lake meets the quaint red roofs
Where the water is chill fresh despite intense July heat
Where cloud hangs as if tied atop mountain high
Is the imperious Lago di Garda  

As the Peler bounds relentless until it finds the Ora in fine fettle winning the day like the plume of a freshly boiled kettle

The windsurfers and kite surfers enter their domain only too willing to jump on the nature train

Take me there
Let my heart rule my head
Let it’s beauty win the day
Let Lago di Garda have the final say

I find myself in a coverless Italian summer.
Grass browned. Skin freckled.
I find myself impatient,
no longer willing to entertain
the destinies of the salt and sea.
I edit video of you in a cobbled basement.
There's a knowing look that lasts four seconds.
I split it into six fragments and set it in reverse,
an unknowing, a deletion.
The crook of your neck
and shoulder blade. The red of your hair.
Some nights I hang from the rails. Five minutes.
Ten. And pull myself up.
Tented and mad by August,
stabbing ice with a little
black cocktail straw.
How can I change my
How can I love my
How can I erase my
body?
The rains wet me.
The wind wrings me.
This city we used to walk
under streetlights.
Now I bike through,
pedaling, furious and blind,
toward a place I don't know until
I arrive, and I kiss a young woman
who looks a lot like me. I ask her
to say my name over and over.
I want to fully occupy the moment,
the space, this time. Her lips
remain closed and her
hands linger on my shoulders
and no music plays and
there are voices, loud and
happy, speaking a language
that's completely new.

This is a beautiful "Barry Hodges" poem.*

Ah, sweet memories of that night in Blarney
In the stout-soaked suburbs of ould Cork City.
How clearly through the mist of alcoholic memory
I recall how we all piled out of Johnny's bar at closing time
****** as a load of proverbial ******* newts;
'Where to now me boys, which bar's still open?'
Shrieked spiflicated Sean O'Shannon
(that's notorious sixteen pints an hour Sean,
the man who won Strictly Come Boozing twice)
As he tottered over to his Pa's new BMW convertible,
Lucky ****** that he is to be son to a Fianna Fáil MEP,
And one not adverse to trousering a Euro or two.

'Sean, me oul' potato, de ye think ye should be driving
With that record-breakin' skinful o' stout
I just seen you put away down your greasy gullet,
Not to mention the quadruple whiskey chaser?'
Enquired loopy Liam O'Lephrechaun as he leaned over
And puked up another gallon of warmish Guinness
Over yours truly as I rolled helplessly in the Ballygrohan road
To the amusement of the gawping bystanders,
Bearing in mind there were a good dozen gobbets
Of half-digested pork scratchings in the froth
Which was causing havoc with my apparel.

So without another feckin' word being spoken
My dear drinking companions and ***** buddies
Left me prostrate and clambered gaily into the waiting car
And roared off into the enchanted Gaelic night;
Singing and smoking themselves silly simultaneously,
So full of the joys of life and the blessed bottle.
And then some ****** stupid American tourist
(doubtless dressed in hideous checked golfing trousers
with a backwards-facing baseball cap on his ugly head,
not to forget his overweight wifey crammed into the front seat
just like a huge white bloated fat-faced hippo),
Came round the next corner in a clapped out rental car
And the two of them got sent to Kingdom-sodding-Come
With a terrible metallic crash which destroyed them completely.

'Oh begorrah and *******, would ye just look at the mess
The feckin eejit's made of me Daddy's Beemer,
And it's his pride and joy so it is to be sure!'
Cried Sean O'Shannon in an alcoholic rage,
As he contemplated the largest insurance claim
In the County Cork for the past six decades,
(at least the largest legitimate one anyway).
Whilst I was trying to get my hipster pants down
To avoid filling them up with beery diarrhoea
Brought on by my involuntary bursts of joyous mirth,
(bejasus, 'twas the second time in the space of a single week
and my new girlfriend was getting a bit fussy about hygiene
bearing in mind she was thinking of taking the veil).

How fortunate old Father Tucker and Garda Sergeant O'Toole
Could both (when they'd sobered up sufficiently)
Testify later from their secure vantage point
In the rear compartment of a nearby parked hearse,
(where they were having a ******* with Deidre,
the filthiest wee **** in the whole South-Western counties)
That the accident was not dear Sean's fault at all, to be sure,
As the other stupid sober yankee ****** was driving at 75
On the wrong friggin' side of the ******' street
Or probably in the middle, come to think of it.
'Sure but Sean's the best driver this side of the Blarney Stone,
And there's no way himself would ever drive under the influence'*
They agreed sagely before going off for another jar or two
And maybe a double knee-trembler with Deidre's fat sister,
One up each of her gaping hair-rimmed orifices.

Each time I attempt to conclude
this equation,
I arrive at the same intersection of doubt,
as if fate sees me coming.

1) Highway ****** Crash
2) The Evasive Goings-on in The Puppy Court
3) A Picture of Susan Howe in a Man's Grey Overcoat

These sequences of event all appeared to me in dreams. The same dream, repeated, over a succession of winter nights. The first few sober, the last an alert blur, wherein the images seemed to make the most sense.

All I can be assured of is this:
because the police officer in the dream was a police officer
Not a garda síochana or police inspector
the dream was definitely set in one of the Midwest United States
where I've never been, yet oddly interests me more than Canada,
where the same applies. It was definitely  freezing
(perhaps the blanket had been pulled off me in sleep?)
and the police officer definitely spoke English and said
"Highway" Hence: American.

The first night the dream arrived
It was that time of year when the night sky
subtly tricks you into believing that
morning is imminently about to break.

Those nights
A reminder that nature
was the first coy tease of suspended disbelief
the first pay-per-view special that took its time
getting going and then ended all too soon.

Two trucks had split in two a mid-size saloon-
That was the first of the dream's episodes-
But a voice arrived like a roll call of ice before an avalanche
-whispering that it was "a setup"-
which I presumed meant "collusion."
So I had a ******, at hand, in my dream-
speaking to the mustachioed Midwestern police detective afterwards-
as mutually understanding as if we had been in the same all-boys Catholic secondary school.
He had the suspects-so we then presided unto-

"THE PUPPY COURT"

Which was-yes, a court whose racial make-up consisted of young Dogs-
(This being a dream ; Dreams which are often the dictionary definition of Surreal and often don't mean anything)
The more I consider it, the Puppies were also most likely Puppets
Acted out by humans who had fists shoved up their *****.
Perhaps this court was a speculative court-it was, most certainly,
A "Kangaroo" court
With no justice being presided over, as such.
Heckles sounded throughout most of the exhibits,
A sternly yapping Yorkshire Terrier banged the gavel to no avail-
He was consistently rudely interrupted by a cocksure Golden Retriever-
who seemed to have as his boyos most of the bench and the jurors.
I never did find out who was responsible
for the horrific collision that spelled the end for the saloon driver,
as at this point I would usually exit the court in disgust
and for some reason found myself reading a poem in front of
an audience of one-
the acclaimed Irish-American L=A=N==G=U=A=G=E (that's how they spell it..) poet Susan Howe.

Yes, she was indeed wearing a Man's gray Overcoat
Resembling herself in the picture I held in my hand
Next to my own text
And as I looked toward her
The room's low lighting seem to reflect
the sparse "Black and White" filter of the photograph
and she was also wearing what looked like
the same Man's gray (Houndstooth maybe?
She Looked ALL filtered through "Black and White")

So the intention seemed to be that I was reading,
or perhaps presenting, maybe even pitching?
to Susan Howe. ("And how!"-might have been the before-or-after gag I might have used to anyone who new how it was going to go or how it happened-what gamey fun, these puns be...)
Susan looked on with penitence, as if prematurely unimpressed...
I look down to the poem I was expecting myself to read, and realised...
why the ******* did I choose that?

It was a poem I had written several years ago (well, if several means seven, lets say six)
Its subject was a young Canadian (possible Motorway Crash Link? Perhaps I misremembered her as midwestern?..) Muslim student whom I had shared a class on Hellenistic philosophy with back in the first or second year of my undergrad in Dublin (oh the hedonistic, sunsplashed, affordable Dublin of those days) and whom I had shared a flirtatious rapport with, innocent enough of course but always backdropped by a underscored leitmotif that instilled the threat of a problematic outcome across religious and possibly less so cultural divides

(Breath)

Nevertheless, she laughed at my jokes and self-deprecation and would squeeze my arm tightly when particularly amused , would hug me enthusiastically at the end of every class and although I never saw the full profile of her under that headscarf her ****** features Vogue beach fashion shoot stunning and after the module ended I never saw her again oh but how rare and strangely puritanical the lust...

Regardless, the poem began as such:

A Stir in Yemen/ must have been the catalyst for the smokey condensation/ in your gaze/ the mocha swirl in your pupils/ and the vex in your smile/ alluding to double meanings/innuendo that treads together like an Ernst canvas/ a blessed triptych/thrillingly

This poem was typed onto a model of Nokia phone which I have been made aware has since gone out of fashion, like it's producer.

Max Ernst-the surrealist painter, of course. A manual in style for most of us.

In response to my reading, Susan Howe merely nodded silently, seemingly all knowingly, as if she had thought the poem written for her or contained an interpretation that I had unintended (or, if asked by the real-life Susan Howe, would pretend to have intended all along.)

And there the Dream Triptych always ended.

As I said at the beginning I dreamt it twice more that same week, once intoxicated. It always followed the same sequence, and I don't read books on dreams so I have no idea what it meant, why it had three distinct parts or whether if most likely it was all a bit of nonsense. But at least it was INTERESTING.

Make the rest up for yourself.

les deux filles se tenaient maintenant debout face a face. elles avaient l'air plus calmées mais ça en était pas le cas. une atmosphère inconfortable régnait dans la chambre et rien ne se fessait entendre appart les gouttelettes de pluie qui frôlaient furieusement les vitres des fenêtres. plusieurs minutes se passaient lourdement en silence.
"je suis folle amoureuse de lui!" hurla enfin Neira
Esra garda le silence, elle ne préférait pas répondre et n'avait rien a dire en tout cas. elle étais mal à l'aise avec le fait qu'une autre était amoureuse de lui. lui. cet homme impardonnable. elle reçoit presque chaque semaine une histoire le concernant; une histoire qui lui fessait douter de leur relation de plus en plus, une histoire qui fessait diminuer son respect pour lui de plus en plus. cet homme qu'elle a cru être différent c'est avérait similaire aux autres cons si'il n'était pas encore pire. "je n'ai jamais su les choisir" se dit-elle. elle regarda Neira qui avais les yeux larmoyants avec pitié. "pauvre petite" pensa-elle. elle ressentait une certaine culpabilité pour cette situations. si elle n'avait pas bourrer son nez dans les affaires des autre, elle ne serait pas la en ce moment, elle n'aurait pas su cette histoire et elle n'aurait pas briser le cœur de cette fille. oui elle aurait préféré ne pas savoir. un proverbe anglais disait que ce que nous ne savons pas ne nous fait pas mal; et elle y croie forment. elle était sur qu'il y'avait encore plein de choses et de drame sur lui qu'elle ne savait pas et elle en était satisfaite, parce qu’elle savait qu'elle ne pourrais jamais s’éloigner de lui quelque soit ce qu'elle découvre sur lui et que savoir de nouvelle histoire pareils sur lui ne lui donnerait rien appart une autre déchirure au cœur sans avoir la force de le quitter. les paroles de neira la sorti de ses pensées "mon cœur est grand, disait cette dernière. plus grande que tu ne puisse imaginer, je ne veux causer des problèmes a personne et j'ai compris que tu l'aime alors je vais vous laisser tranquille." elle attendit une réaction ou une parole de la part d'Esra mais celle ci la regardait avec un détacher sans dire un mot, comme si elle n'avait rien dit. elle supporta son regard pour quelque moment puis sortis brusquement sans rien dire non plus. Esra resta toute seule. elle se posa nonchalamment sur le canapé le plus proche. elle était contente que l'autre soit partie. elle se rappela d'un film qu'elle a vu qui racontait l'histoire d'un garçon qui au qu'on croirait au début être la victime d'une fille sans pitié qui lui a briser le cœur mais qui s'est avérait a la fin être le contraire une histoire compliqué qui a montré a Esra comment les apparence sont trompeuse. au début elle voulait juste parler a cette fille pour lui dire de s’éloigne de lui parce qu'elle l’ennuyer, elle croyait que c'était une gamine qui se collait a lui comme les autres mais après toute une autre histoire a exploser.. mais elle aime encore autant. elle allume une cigarette et prends son portable pour composer son numéro, mais elle n'as pas eu le courage de l'appeler, tant pis. elle se leva et pris la bouteille de whisky mise sur la table  puis monta au toit et s'assis au bord du bâtiment. elle n'avait pas peur, elle ne sentait rien elle pensait juste qu'elle s'est trouver beaucoup trop de fois dans une situation pareils avec une douleur pareils a cause de lui et elle ne savait pas quoi en faire. elle resta ainsi un long temps assise sur le bord du toit le paquet de cigarettes a sa droite, la bouteille et le portable a sa gauche tanto elle buvait, tantot elle fumait en regardant le coucher du soleil et les larmes coulait a flots de ses yeux sans qu'elle ne rends même compte. soudainement elle entendis un voix qu'elle distinguerait entre mille.
"Esra." disait la voix d'un calme insupportable. c'était lui. sa présence la rendait heureuse et attristé en même temps elle se tourna vers lui sans répondre alors il ajouta "qu'est ce que tu fais? viens." elle se leva et allait vers  lui. il souria. elle fondut dans ses bras. "pourquoi me fais tu ça? pourquoi? je ne le mérite pas et tu le sais." il ne répondis pas. la nuit se passa trés douce pour Esra entre ses bras, il lui a tout fait oublier par une simple enlaçade et elle a su ce qu'elle allait faire, elle allait faire la même chose que toujours, elle allait le pardonner et continuer a l'aimer en attendant qu'il fasse de meme. parce que l'amour ne vous laisse pas de choix.

We all piled out of the pub
****** as a load of newts;
'Where to now boys?'
Bellowed naughty Niall O 'Neill
(that's notorious nineteen pints a night Niall)
As he tottered over to his Pa's Rolls Royce.

'Do ye think ye should be driving
With that record-breakin' skinful
I just seen you put away?'
Enquired serious Sean slurringly
From his slightly inconvenient
Viewpoint in the beery gutter.

So we all clambered gaily into the car
And roared off into the enchanted night
And then this ****** stupid clodhopper
Who didn't even have his driving licence yet
Came round the next corner in his Ford
And got sent to Kingdom-sodding-Come.

'Oh ****, would ye just look at the mess
The oul' fella's made of me Daddy's car,
And it's his pride and joy so it is!'
Cried Niall O'Neill in incandescent rage,
As he surveyed the largest insurance claim
In the County Wicklow for twenty years.

How fortunate Father Tucker and Garda Sergeant O'Toole
Could both testify from their vantage point
In the front seat of the devastated Roller,
The accident was not Niall's fault at all, at all,
As the other stupid sober ****** was on
The wrong side of the ****** street.

She belonged to him, no other man,
So he said to her each day she left.
To sell the eggs and the dress she made,
To pull them from the line of the poor.

On the way to town each day she passed,
The rings of County Tipperary.
The ancient rings that live the wee folk,
Who dance in moonlight and trick us all.

That day she waited to see her kin,
But she left no gift to please the old.
So home she came with arms still heavy,
and a chest that weighed a cough so foul.  

“My Bridget” as he knelt by her bed,
Holding her hand as it shook with cold.
In the crack of the flame voices he heard
To hang him from his grief with despair.

The news he heard was of his father
Whom died the evening he felt alone.
Mr Cleary swore and slammed his fist.
“Midnight tonight or Bridget is lost!”

The men in village knew the tale,
Of the wee folk who cursed Bridget.
The woman in the Cleary home bed,
Was an echo of the wife he loved.

They held her down and asked her, her name,
She screamed and growled but did not reply,
Three times they asked and still she refused.
So tight the grips they beat her to sleep.

The morning arrived, Bridget awoke,
To her husband who looked upon her.
His eyes full of loss and fear as-well,
“my Bridget?” he asked “are they gone now?”

She smiled and agreed, she was alone,
So the priest came to deliver mass.
Mr Cleary agreed and drank from the cup
But he knew that his wife was not home.

He asked her again, three more times; “Speak,
Your name to me now, are you my wife?”
Each time she replied “It is I, Yes.”
Michael still knew his wife was away.

That evening men from the town arrived  
And took Bridget deep into the bog,
Where they bound her and lay her down flat,
As she screamed for her husband to help.

“It is I, It is me, Your sweet wife,
Believe me my husband I am here,
No faerie has seized my soul from me,
No witch has uttered a devil curse.”

Her mouth was covered and bound so tight
Her screams were made only with her eyes.
In front of the men, Michael asked her.
“Are you my wife? My Bridget Cleary?”

No voice or reply came from the girl.
Her body lay still in the bog land.
So onto a bed of wood she was placed,
And burned in the cold evening moon light.

The story was told through the village,
That Bridget had fled with another,
A man who bought all her eggs each week,
But not everyone believed this tale.

The priest of the village found Michael,
Praying blood, sweat and tears in the church.
He told him the fairies had taken,
The changeling they had placed there before.    

The priest told the men of the Garda
That ****** was rife in this village.
That men had taken a sick women
And burned her to death in the bog land.

Michael was guilty of Manslaughter
No conviction of ****** was passed
For the people believed his story,
The woman who burned was not his wife  

To this day the rings of Tipperary
Still grow foxglove and weeds in the cracks,
The Faerie mounds are feared like darkness
And steered clear of, by those who live near.

Even now it is heard in the school,
By the children who skip on the rope.
“Are you a witch, or are you a fairy,
Or are you the wife of Michael Cleary?”

You won't believe this But it's true
Life is sometimes stranger than fiction, at least in my world it is

Near my house across the road there's an American Style Diner
They do all kinds of lovely Hamburgers and fries, Chicken burgers, Pizzas and whatever
They also do a lovely full Irish breakfast Bacon, egg, sausages, black and white puddings, hash browns, fried tomato, beans, mushrooms big *** of hot steaming tea or coffee and all the toast you can eat
(I've been over there a few times)
It'd keep you going all day long, very nicely thank you.
There's also an Oil Depot office attached to the Diner with Oil trucks parked along the side

Now back in the Winter of 2021 with the Covid scare/epidemic at its height
My Oil for heating the house was starting to run low
So I rang Peter the Oilman across the road and asked him to deliver me some oil
The next day the truck comes over and fills up my Oil tank
The driver leaves the bill in my letterbox
I have the next day off work so I say to myself I'll go down the supermarket tomorrow
Get some money out of the ATM machine and pay the bill (as you do)
So the next day I get in my car, now there's a big hedge in front of my house, like for privacy
So I can't see what's going on along the road
Well I drive down to the front gate and suddenly my jaw, it drops I can't believe what I'm seeing
The Police (the Guards as we call them here the Garda in the Irish) they've cordoned off the road
And are directing the traffic
The American Style Diner has been taken over by a film crew... it's a film set
There's big lights and cameras, all kinds of electrical equipment and Vans parked
There's people going around with clipboards
And they've put up this huge giant Elvis cut out statue type thing in lights
Him in a white rhinestone suit with his guitar
And it's towering over the Diner
And I'm there looking at all this thinking "What the ****??? Is this reality or am I dreaming, somebody pinch me quick
This is... this is feckin' Alice in Wonderland
Between getting funny dreams and having funny things happen to me
I can't quite believe my eyes
It's like the circus has come to town
Or it's like... it's like remember when you were a little kid at school in the Winter and there's snow and you hate school
And suddenly the school boiler would break down and they'd have to send everybody home
It was like Great! Hurray! Chaos... Freedom had suddenly broken out
Here was just another ordinary humdrum day and now something extraordinary had happened.

I could see Peter over in his office, it looked like he'd been cordoned off too
So I decide to go down to the shop and get some money, do a little shopping and come back quick
When I come back the Guards have now left the scene
I count out the money to pay the bill
Then I walk across the road right through the film set
There doesn't seem to be any security men there to apprehend me
(maybe they know I'm just a local, no one says anything, I'm like a ghost )
I walk real slow, with my profile jutting out like a bust of Julius Caesar
I'm half hoping someone will shout "Hey you! Stop!!!
And it'll be this Director or Cinematographer with a lot of camera lenses around his neck
And he'd be looking at me through one of these camera lenses
And he'd be saying excitedly "That face! That face!! it's just what I've been looking for
It's exactly what I need
It's... Why...It's the Face of 2021"
Alas! It's not to be, no such luck
I wave in at Peter in his office
His door is open, I go in and say "What's going on ?"
He says "Their making a movie or a TV series I think it is, they needed an American Diner so they took over the Diner and done it up'"
Peter's there standing behind this persplex plastic type (see through) screen
And he has this strange black plastic type mask on his face
He looks like Hannibal Lecter out of Silence of the Lambs
There's a side window in his office and outside on a bench all the actors are sitting there waiting to be called for the next scene
I say to Peter "Is there anyone we know, like Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp, Angelina! Angelina!"
"No", he says,"their all young actors, I don't know any of them"
Looking at Peter I say Y'know they should be making a movie about you, you're a real live hero
Everyday over here, rain hail or shine, during an epidemic, keeping the country going, keeping the houses warm, the businesses running,
(I was reminded of that Greek god chap Atlas who used to hold up the heavens)
Then I say nodding my head as if I've just figured it all out
"Y'know what, their making the wrong feckin' movie
You're the Star here, they should be making a movie about you
I'm gonna have a word with the Director
Peter starts laughing
I have to resist the urge to tell him Y'know you'd make a great villain
I pay him and thank him, tell him he might be a movie star next time I see him
When I'm back outside again I start walking real slow again, it's like the film Sunset Boulevard this time
"I'm ready for my close up now Mr DeMille"
But alas! no one heeds me, it's like I'm the Invisible Man again
I think to myself "I'm getting worried, The Hand of Fame it's getting closer every day
I can feel it
One of these days it's just gonna come out of the heavens and scoop me up
And bring me off with it some place

But who'd want to be famous anyway, reporters nosing around asking you silly questions all day, trying to stir something up
People staring at you all the time and taking photos
Would be a pain in the ****,
Wouldn't mind making some money though
The old pension fund and all that...

Black & milds burning my fingers.
I know that it's bad, but it feels so good.
Stress weighing on me heavy.
I talk to God, but, no clear answers.
Tell me what I'm fighting for.
Dear God, if you're up there, tell what I'm fighting for.
What am I crying for?
Hoodie over my head, God, what am I hiding for?...

You spend your whole life trying to be perfect,
Just to find out that you ain't ****.
You try to be the guy that carries all the burdens, including your own,
But you realize you're ill-equipped.
You break everything you come across: glasses, vases, and hearts that are now lost,
Because of you.
This poem is not from my point of view,
But if it was I'd understand why he feels so blue…

You see living in this life, you're bound to feel doomed.
Good things can happen to you, but negatives will still loom.
And people wanna be all close and personal with you and your truths,
But nobody's loyal around here, all they want is your truce;
Not to be cordial, but just to get in on the news,
That's why I choose a lane to pave, and never say when I move.
​But even when you try to be humble,
​You start to  get in your feelings when you hear the slightest mumble.
​And then you wanna rumble,
All along we've been living in a jungle, and I don’t mean no New York.
We in a world and generation where your “homies”’will eat and not bring extra forks,
They will let you starve.
Selfish and self righteous,
Very messy with their moves.
That's why I rarely go out, and my friends, I let God hand pick and choose…

Now the perception is mine.
Hoodie still on, world’s cold, but I'm doing fine.
Black N milds still sitting in the cup holder while I drive,
Formulating lies in case my mom found out like “they ain't even mine.”
“Well why they in your car? You want your lungs get black and die?”
“Man, momma them ain't mine. They must belong to one my guys.”
​Can't erase the unerasable, or trace the untraceable.
​10 times out of 10, all your wrongs will come back to you.
That's why I keep my guards up like Garda,
Because karma’s like that crazy ex girlfriend you can't shake off of you.

I've been finessing the systems.
I've been showing all of the symptoms of a hardheaded BOY that just won't listen,
And think he's a man, and that he can stand on his own to.
And will tell you to your face he never wanted you.
​Counterfeit power.
​Egotistical attitude,
​That is sure to fall through.
Let him fall through…

Sur le chemin de l'autre côté
Quand c'est perdu
Soigneusement gardé dans le coussin
Il cherche ça.
Sur le chemin de la maison, devant le bateau
Sous le fond du four, sous le banc de la pièce, sur les côtés de la maison.
L'adolescence et la jeunesse ont traversé
Maintenant la vieillesse est venue.
Néanmoins, il garda la main dans l'espoir
Un jour, il retrouvera son précieux bijou perdu.

Tadgh Sé was Seacht when he discovered
Dara and Beirt behind a Trí.

Naoi, he said when they told him to get
Ocht.

Dó Dó Driscoll was summoned, he took
none of their nonsense.

Deich Ban Garda arrived with Aon, his first
day in Mallow, he asked, “ Who’s getting Náid “?

Cúig we join in, we don’t Ceathair about Amhain
off, besides, high time someone Ochtar.

Ps.

This is a colloquial poem in Irish and English
mixed, I don't expect many readers to understand.

Quand Michel-Ange eut peint la chapelle Sixtine,

Et que de l'échafaud, sublime et radieux,

Il fut redescendu dans la cité latine,


Il ne pouvait baisser ni les bras ni les yeux ;

Ses pieds ne savaient pas comment marcher sur terre ;

Il avait oublié le monde dans les cieux.


Trois grands mois il garda cette attitude austère ;

On l'eût pris pour un ange en extase devant

Le saint triangle d'or, au moment du mystère.


Frère, voilà pourquoi les poètes, souvent,

Buttent à chaque pas sur les chemins du monde ;

Les yeux fichés au ciel, ils s'en vont en rêvant.


Les anges secouant leur chevelure blonde,

Penchent leur front sur eux et leur tendent les bras,

Et les veulent baiser avec leur bouche ronde.


Eux marchent au hasard et font mille faux pas ;

Ils cognent les passants, se jettent sous les roues,

Ou tombent dans des puits qu'ils n'aperçoivent pas.


Que leur font les passants, les pierres et les boues ?

Ils cherchent dans le jour le rêve de leurs nuits,

Et le jeu du désir leur empourpre les joues.


Ils ne comprennent rien aux terrestres ennuis,

Et, quand ils ont fini leur chapelle Sixtine,

Ils sortent rayonnants de leurs obscurs réduits.


Un auguste reflet de leur œuvre divine

S'attache à leur personne et leur dore le front,

Et le ciel qu'ils ont vu dans leurs yeux se devine.


Les nuits suivront les jours et se succéderont,

Avant que leur regard et leur front ne s'abaissent,

Et leurs pieds, de longtemps, ne se raffermiront.


Tous nos palais sous eux s'éteignent et s'affaissent ;

Leur âme à la coupole où leur œuvre reluit,

Revole, et ce ne sont que leurs corps qu'ils nous laissent.


Notre jour leur paraît plus sombre que la nuit ;

Leur œil cherche toujours le ciel bleu de la fresque,

Et le tableau quitté les tourmente et les suit.


Comme Buonarroti, le peintre gigantesque,

Ils ne peuvent plus voir que les choses d'en haut,

Et que le ciel de marbre où leur front touche presque.


Sublime aveuglement ! Magnifique défaut !

Tu mere bol ni sune
Me teri chup nai samji
Te wekhde wekhde
Sab garda wich gum gea

The Plague Wall system in
Provence was devised by
the local aristocrats in an
attempt to halt the virus
spreading from Marseille
where it began, northwards.
Despite not knowing exactly
what was causing it, these
stone constructions, many of
which are still visible, did
actually halt the epidemic.
That occurred circa 1600s.

                 <>
Poliomyelitis or Polio as it
is commonly known, was a
1950's epidemic in Ireland.
Back then, before a vaccine
was discovered, it devastated
the country and again, as the
plague, nobody knew what
was causing it. In hindsight it
is know known that the spread
was due to flushing of toilets
directly on to railway tracks,
hence permitting it to travel
from town to town.

                   <>

Today as I was engrossed in
Ulysses, an out of the box
thought occurred to me when
I heard the metal flap on our
door recoil with a loud clink.
What if, (was my deduction)
our postman was a carrier of
Covid - 19, Corona Post ?
With his ungloved hands and
runny nose on these frosty
mornings, he or she, could be
one of the main contributors
to this current pandemic.

Ps.

For example, I had to go to our
local Garda Station to have a
paper from the French Pension
office signed and stamped, to
prove that I was a living entity
for eligibility. Social distancing
at the barracks, was in evidence
and respected: But, when I handed
in my form via the glass window,
the Garda took my Biro to complete
his task as a state representative
during this lockdown isolation
period of vigilance and hygiene.

writing is torture for some people...
i can cite two pristine examples of this being the case:
Walt Whitman and Jack Spicer;
fair enough...

                          i find it torturous that i best
sing Mongolian throat-singing...
anything else? i have my odd moments -
but most of the time if i'm singing in front of
someone: i self-sabotage my voice
and it sounds: beyond tone-deaf...
it feels like an elephant stuck its trunk into
my ear and sneezed...

          oh i hear the bells... bells bells... fuzzy
feelings and what not...
all those poems i threw to the wind and into
darkness into any deity willing to listen
to my "de profundis":
de profundis ad nihil:
   from the depths toward nothing...

i don't think i'll ever want to finish reading
Charles Dickens' the Pickwick Papers...
i don't think i will...
    i want to leave something unfinished...
i think i'll leave the Pickwick Papers unfinished...
after all: it was his first novel:
a novel serialised in a newspaper / magazine...
he only managed to jump of the publishing
ladder by marrying the daughter of the owner
of the publisher: non-verbatim...

               but of all the books i've read:
i couldn't do what my grandmother did
i.e.: reread them...
     i wish i could reread James Joyce's Finnegans
Wake... Ulysses...
   i wish i could reread William Burroughs'
naked lunch...
                  
   while music and movies are circular...
books are linear...
         at least for me...
                      oh no ******* chance of me rereading
Heidegger's black notebooks or Zeit und Sein:
it took two years out of my life
bound to reading-meditating...
     Kant's critique of pure reason too...
a year? reading-meditating...
                           i was ingesting the content...
i read it for personal gains...
                      i was never going to read that
material in order to regurgitate it back...
to show or "pretend" that i might know what
i'm talking about, if asked...

       what i learned i'm taking to the grave...
but it's literally torture for some people to write...
i find a similarity to... wait for it: wait for it...
constipation... almost like a headache...
then irritable bowel movements...
have to go: i'm seeing flashes of waterfalls!
and spew!
          
    i sometimes catch myself tongue tied...
sitting in silence with itchy fingertips / idle hands
does that to you... two tongues and a split
mind might also do that to you...
the major difficulty of being an entrenched
bilingual? nouns...
    they're mismatched...
sometimes a hammer is a młotek (diminutive -
which is never attached to English words)
               i.e. rather młot...

what's a bang?! it's not even an onomatopoeia:
HUK! or: hook...
            which isn't etymologically borrowed
from Huracan... although...
                aesthetically, though? hook vs. HUK...
obviously the latter makes sense...
        if i were to give two words to a German
and say both with an angry emphasis:
he might agree that HUK is as phonetically
liberating as KURVA... *****... *****... oh ****...
conjunction...

    maybe i should be "embarrassed" about my past...
everyone else seems so proud of their heritage...
i just had to look up...
hmm...  the topic of the North Sea Empire
of Cnut...
             what did i find? hmm...
               nice looking map... allies in yellow...
Poland... perhaps Swedish Vikings founded Kiev...
nerve endings at being teased...

how much history have we hoarded?
how much is to be left un-forgivably forgotten?

oh there's still good music around...
but it's not in the English speaking world...
anything from Scandinavia... Germany...
you just have to look for it...

**** me... i'm drinking and drinking and i want
to get drunk... but it's not helping...
if Americans can constitute their present
identity on the "holy bible" of the decleration
of independence and the constitution
and the holy bible...
the English can cite their origins with the Magna Carta...
so me doing this? i.e. sieving through
history is not me playing into the modern
fable of comic books?! this is not me being...
somewhat childish, is it?

not that modernity doesn't have its perks...
but i feel an unease coming...
a strange unease...
           only recently i heard about an event
in Italy... the... ahem... Lago di Garda "incident"...

"Africa in Peschiera": weird... huh?
peschiera? fresh water... fish farming area...
well then... no problems me getting laid or not
getting laid...
     it's just in the back of my mind...
cucks... helpful that "us" Slavs don't have
a colonial-past to censure...
maybe this Ukrainian "crisis" is a blessing in disguise:

as the saying goes:

brat brata pocharata...
(brother will brother hurt)...
   i think it's a smart tactic...
              no one from Africa or the Middle East
will want to venture into a warzone...
no?
              Poland was judged for not applying
Germanic sympathy for the destruction
of Libya and the onslaught of migrants that
came with silly geo-politics...
   the rapes of Cologne...
       but now Poland is to be judged for
entertaining over a million war-refugees from
Ukraine?!

brat brata pocharata...

            it's a Slavic thing... i just need some
"public intellectuals" to change their etymological
studies concerning the SACREDNESS OF WORDS...

****** ****** ******...
and what? Slav is just short of an E?!
for SLAVE?!
  ****** ****** ******, ******...
GIGGLE...
******* English "intellectuals"...
it's tactical! of course it is... war among ourselves
so that it repels any foreigners to come
and settle and abuse our fair systems!
    i wish the war will spill into Poland...
i abhor the liberal minded ****** feminists of
"my land"...
   cosmopolitan *******... no! nein! niet!
i live in a democracy...
                just a few need to hear my voice...
i'm not here for a popular listening sessions...
this is the heart speaking... the mind has been
absent for some time...
  
              i know why i'm not getting drunk
while still drinking... my heart is throbbing
like a drum-beat...

      cucks!
            the import of walking ******...
                 it's a good "thing" that the Slavs
are warring between each other...
the Germanic tribes never understood us...
sensibilities of the English...
their pride of conscience and consequence(s)...
the airs, their prides... their consequences...
their ****** warring... with the Germans...
their love for the Italians...
their abhorring of the French...
their sub-human attitude toward the Spaniard...
their glorification of the rebel Americans...
their pet Canadians and Australians...

their plot of anti-racism...
just sacrifice their Sabine women...

brat brata pocharata!
a brother will hurt a brother...

                the message is clear... the Russian
had to send it... don't come near us...
it's almost like
Copernicus never existed... esp. in the west...
Copernicus has always been undermined
by Galileo...
fair enough...
   but couple the Copernican inversion...
a geocentric model became a heliocentric model...
until... Darwin...
   hey! it's open season!
with Darwin: the survival of the species...
last time i heard there were both white swans
as there were black swans...
grey squirrels and red squirrels...
either black swan or white swan...
whether grey squirrel or red squirrel...
Darwinism is discriminatory...
i know my genes are fated to a cul de sac...
but my ideas perhaps might...
impregnated a mind of "someone"...

point being... Darwinism has...
uprooted the transcendental aspect of
Copernicus of shifting the focus from
a geocentric model to a heliocentric focus...
back to a geocentric focus...

on this earth, with this earth: with these seas...
these rivers... full circle:
ouroboros: ∞ (lemniscate) - Buddha-8...
reclining... as 8 was a better refined B-eta...
when VII implied 7... a sort of gamma
peering into a lake: Γ... looking
into a mirror looking into a lake of the Latin L...

i have no sympathy for Ukraine...
like Ukrainians had no sympathy for Poland
when **** Germany invaded...

Darwinism is a tool...
we're back to a geocentric model of the world...
don't you know? didn't you know?!
Darwinism exposed the frivolity of
seeking a world "better" / "beyond" this one
beside the promises of religion
with one's death...
    
Darwinism is the antithesis of
   the Copernican imagination...
              then again: even William Burroughs
once cited: oh sure... sure...
the ancient Egyptians knew all about it...
they knew about taxidermy long before...
they "tried" to make their mummies look
pretty...
               sorry... did they talk to Norman Bates?!

taxidermy did not precede mummification...
sorry...  it didn't...
me?! i feel infuriated...
i feel... consecrated on balancing:
i feel... i don't need to think!
i feel persuaded as having been invaded...
i need to retaliate...
   as a member of the ****** ****** SLAVE
Slav tribes... i feel violated...
now the feeling is over:
i'll start thinking...

   best we bore a fight amogst each other than
allow this dilution of race in Western Cultures...
this "invitation" of post-colonial pasts...
these multiple narratives of a polyglot
of narratives that serve as erasures
of the origins of tongues within the confines
of copper-necks and their "Lingua Franca"
of the horrid English that's neo-Neo-Babylonian...

better your kindred war against
your kindred than invite a people you treat
with double standards to invite
synthetic expectations...
        
i didn't need a war in either Afghanistan or
Iraq... or Libya... Syria...
but i need a war in Ukraine...
why? to move people is to pretend
a Xerxes madness of lashing out anger
at the waves of the Aegean...
               sea be still as a lake!

that's what Darwinism gifted me with:
a return to the geocentric model of the world...
i too have my interests...
like tarantulas have an interest
in scuttling & their inability
to fathom... procuring spider-webs...

i can forgo thinking about the stars...
i must look down:
re-affirm my presence...
             i'll hang your racist accusations...
no.. i will not crucify them....
i'll just impale them...
                 hyperbolic **** "frolicking"...

what?!
             if i were to wield the sort of power
that might give you the scare...
i'd give you more: than a mere scare:
i'd give you the reality.

Buskers line the lanes of Dublin
Mirroring the beer taps in the city pubs,
One by one the tourists bustle in
Like grains of rice flowing into cups,

There is a ****** out on these streets
And the marching Garda are in pursuit,
Muffling the young kestrel’s tweets
And the boys who wear butcher suits,

Bodies line the lanes of Dublin,
Cutthroat lanes brushed with blood
Where the brownnoses come rushing in -  
The watershed has burst from the flood,

For, death is sown into these streets
And life has turned quaint in defeat.

Taking your money doesn't give me anxiety
I'll keep scrounging from this inept society
The more I can get that just keeps fuelling me
And the drugs I get, oh, the varieties!

My kids don't even know I exist
Mostly a one-night stand out on the ****
Just mates of my dealer and ones of my sis
It starts with a sniff and then onto a kiss

Yet we breed them
We need them
To harbour our woes

We feed them
We house them
Just to keep us on our toes

We curse them
We nurse them
Not every good deed shows

And then we cloth them
Rarely dethrone them
As politicians, they hate to be exposed

That scrounger
On his sun lounger
Slurping Pina colada
In the sun where no one can harm you
Away from Kerry and the sniveling Garda
And Donal who wrongly barred you

The fingers I show you are now two
As I laugh at the times you said I'd never pull it through
Watching the locals just dancing in their tutu's
San Migual please Pedro and, of course, one for you!

Paddy Scrounger

JJB

It wasn't until I came to
County Mayo near Galway
in Ireland that my dyslexia
was diagnosed by a Garda in
Castlebar, when I asked him
for directions to the Wet Vests
small animal treatment centre
in the coastal town of Wetsport.

There are a lot of Poles
in Ireland, best thing
that ever happened to
the country, but more,
we have a New Sikh-er
in the Garda force hat
and all, it's a changed
place we are no longer
concentrating on song
contests, we have black
players, so we might be
able to win the soccer
world cup, pollinators
are welcome, we have
had an Indian running
the country and a fine
job he made of it, so, as
you can see we're Pistil.

Irish lip reader confused
botox woman's SOS with
oral expression of Blah
Blah Blah which has been
blamed on his difficulty of
trying to deduce her calls
for help from The River
Lee in Cork City Ireland.

A spokesperson for the ILRA
(Irish Lip Readers Association)
defended his colleague and
attributed the tragedy to Covid
19, as the lady was wearing a
black face mask which not only
made her cries for assistance
inaudible, she could also have
been a Muslim and hence her
expressions of alarm, in Arabic.

By the time it would have taken
to request a bilingual translater
from Arabic to English or Irish,
she would in that duration have
drowned anyway.

A witness from St Patricks Bridge
said he saw the lady earlier get on
a bus in Kanturk and changed in
Magh Allah for Cork city. At that
time she was wearing a Hijab
(which unlike France, are not
illegal in Ireland, where diversity
and liberty is cherished)

A Spokesperson for The Garda
told The Irish Examiner, that a
lot of people swim up the river
to avoid the crowds and wear face
masks for the pollution.

No charges are being proposed
for the Lip Reader's error of
Judgement, but the Judge has
requested that he take night classes
in Arabic.

Case Dismissed.

Batteries are being stolen
from intermittent hazard
warning lights erected
by Irish Police force at
dangerous intersections.

A spokesperson for
Electric Ireland said
the culprits can be easily
found by checking the list
of those cut off from power.

Alternatively, if anyone
notices what appears to be
disco atmospheres in houses
please contact your local
Garda Station.

A Government Health Dept
statement said people who
dye the roots of their hair black
and seen to be blinking excessively
are deemed to be prime suspects.

Banned Garda cross dressed

                       to enter a Limerick

at Haiku contest

Irish Garda said
no foul play after
body of woman is
found at hen house
in County Cork ROI.

At an undisclosed address
on a farm in rural Ireland,
local Garda (Police) made
a gruesome discovery in
what initially baffled them.

An agricultural worker, a
bi polar schizophrenic, was
found dead from gun shot
wounds. Both barrels were
discharged simultaneously.

Detectives from Dublin said
that they are not looking for
any suspects, they believe it
to be a personal feud, a case
of a brutal ****** suicide !