On the river Liffey

I walk the same streets,
The same steps,
Familiar faces and similar sounds,
The same buildings and surroundings,
The same noises and recognisable faces.
Deja vu,
As the days go by,
Nothing seems to change in this town,
But that's not necessarily true,
If only they knew what others have been through.
To get to today.

I know that smell and I've seen that smile before.
Reflections caught in the glass,
Perpendicular to the way the river flows towards the sea.
That's where I'm heading without breakfast,
To break this mould and cycle,
Just to see you again.
Something that's real and something new.
Something beautiful and something true.
I can't tell you how much I wish that something or someone was you.

I've been here before,
But not without you by my side,
I'd walk away in foreign directions and you'd come long for the ride.
Forbidden and forgotten we miss the sites usually spotted,
By those a little less in love than us.

For some reason, today,
It was so important see the sea.
I walk for miles with swollen toes and bruised and battered metersal bones,
Just to see as far as my eyes could.

Just to see a new combination of waves before they break again.
Never in the same place again.
Ever again.
I think about the notion obessively,
The ocean holds me close indefinitely,
But it's still not the same.

The same place and the same time,
The same me but slightly different mind,
Eroded in time.

I walked a long way to see the sea today,
I walked along way to see the sea.

Even though I remain true,
And the sea remains blue,

It's could never be the same without you x

Bright windy November
with the slap of cold sun sending frowns
and the absent rain not beating down
choleric substitutes of alcohol withdrawal
and spatial omissions of home fires stoking
empty remembrances of faded potential and
misplaced amorous regret
Haunted by the lingering smell of the souls of
last night's GUINNESS intake staying swell in
the nostrils which is in reality the gulf breeze blowing
gullshit down the river Liffey giver of life.

...And here I am Dublin pillaged and funded
en route to the hour-rate slog
shiny white commerce bleaching out of
windowsills distracting from rooftop
Chiaroscuro  serenading a sky
which old ****** forgotten Sons and Daughters
will die under.

Boots tapping mock-goosestep to the ground
past a girl who speaks on her IPHONE to someone
who presumably not only wants to be seen speaking
to someone on their IPHONE but who also cares enough
to listen as the girl announces to all-and-sundry
human dodging on Bachelors Walk this fateful morn
that "I realised what my problem is Now! People
think i'm saying N when I'm really saying M!"

.....quite an existential crisis you got there, EH DOC?

("This girl's SITUATION belongs in a scenario in the TV show GIRLS which young
Woman Europe-wide have embraced as their spiritual saviour in an era of Consumer
impulse control. By placing the mundane generalities and perceived social failings
interpreted by young American female comediennes as instead representing a means of
self-forgiveness and attempted new-wave soft-core feminist self-celebration young American
actresses are inspiring a new generation of young woman to speak openly in a more in-depth level about everything that usually happens to themselves or some girl they know"-From "The Post-New Male Gaze: Interpreting Critiques of Stereotypically Feminized Pop Culture in Westley Barnes's "Notes on a Rant: The "Took Me Up To Dublin Where It's Famous" Notebook
:2013)

This is the new white noise.

White Irish Male Critiques perceived socially-announced problems of White Irish Female over White Technology on a white morning in a grey city.

A grey city which subliminally stinks of shame and left-over guilt and of spending too much money on tecno-toys and new-improved nullifying debauchery and even rent during a significantly rough stretch of fiscal years. After a lot of years of white nonsense, really.

But this is where I took myself, and this is what happens once you take yourself here and this is where its famous for it.
Dublin,
Once Monto-based FUNDERLAND for the rich and royal turned over-waxie infested tenement slum district and second city of an industrialised economy waiting for the rest of the world to pay its way.
Dublin,
capital of green and squeaky saviours of the third-world who made some money and forgot about everyone else they used to know back home. Mr Poverty, Mr Humbleness, Mr Sense of Catholic Shame.
Until the rents got too high and they had to move home again.
Dublin,
no matters what it achieves, always putting itself down.

But I can adapt.
I've lived in Rathmines and Portobello before living in either was a
really hip decision to make.
I can find somewhere else before its gets gentrified
(after I find some job that's not worth complaining about
or I eventually leap into becoming to middle-class
to complain about it.)
enough that its a headache living there, too many men wearing the same winter
jackets. Too many packed restaurants and your local actually preparing the tables
in the run-up to the Rugby game on Saturday.
The less of all that, the better for me.

I used to day dream about all of the above, honestly, but I
somehow managed to regain my innocence by living through it.

As for the girl who discovered self-realisation on her (through her?) IPHONE?
She'll be alright. If that's how she starts wading through the floodwaters of relating
herself to the world, misunderstood syllables, name-fails and all, this time in twenty
years, she'll be laughing. Don't worry yourselves, she'll adapt with the times.
Sure, Dublin's famous for it.

People think that Dublin, Ireland's fair capital city
Is a place of merriment, overflowing with craic and whiskey,
Whose narrow streets are filled with poets and singers and also
Pretty girls with wheelbarrows selling cockles and mussels;
A city redolent with history, whose gutters run with half-digested Guinness
After closing time, and the drinkers have been hurled into the gutter
By jovial bouncers who can recite "Ulysses" from start to finish
From memory, and where the Liffey, sweet Anna Liffey, flows peacefully,
With only an occasional splash when a pedestrian topples gaily in.
                  
But there is a darker side to famous Baile Atha Cliath, oh yes,
And the following anecdote is a sad but true indictment of the evil,
The omnipresent evil, which lurks in the black soul of the city.
I was trolling along the banks of the old Royal Canal one summer's evening
With my drinking companion, my Afro cousin, Black Paddy McSpigot,
Pausing only to glance briefly at the copulating couples on the towpath
(We were slightly amused by the small crowd watching one couple
who were engaged in the athletic congress of the ****-backed whale
underneath the bridge by Rose Street, a favourite spot for young lovers),
When a terrible shriek rent the air and a horde of renegade drunken nuns
Poured out of a late night underground folk-music drinking den
(the hugely amplified noise of the massed uilléan pipes was deafening
and had probably driven the poor dears into a religious frenzy).

Seeing Black Paddy, and mistaking his gay rendition of "Skibereen"
For an excerpt from the Satanic Mass, they yelled out polyphonically
"Tis the divil himself, so it is, an' all, an' all, let's get the focker",
And without further ado they leaped on him and ripped him to shreds,
Hurling lumps of his poor, poor body into the crocodile infested canal,
Where they were immediately masticated by the terrifying reptiles
(the mighty creatures had been stolen from the Zoological Gardens
by a group of drunken Animal Rights campaigners out on a ******,
and were the toast of the town in every gay bar in the vibrant city).
I cowered in terror at the horrific spectacle, thanking my lucky stars
I was wearing my archibishop's fancy dress uniform that evening
(it was the only way to jump the queue to get into Davy Byrne's Bar).
Dear God, I'll not visit the dear Emerald Isle again in a hurry, to be sure.

"That there
That's not me
I go
Where I please

I walk through walls
I float down the Liffey
I'm not here
This isn't happening
I'm not here
I'm not here

In a little while
I'll be gone
The moment's already passed
Yeah it's gone
And I'm not here
This isn't happening
I'm not here
I'm not here

Strobe lights and blown speakers
Fireworks and hurricanes
I'm not here
This isn't happening
I'm not here
I'm not here."

- Radiohead, How to Disappear Completely, Kid A (2000).

I remember it well
As if it were yesterday
We geared up and set sail
And embarked upon unfamiliar waves

It was I captaining the vessel
With One-eyed Sven my quarter master
He could cut throats and roll pretzels
His weapon of choice was his bow caster

This wasn't a mission of plundering
That alone left the crew in a state of wondering
No, we weren't looking for buried treasure
But for sheep skin seat covers and Scandinavian leather

My first mate Mr. Obanion said to me
"Captain are we off course?"
Then my boatswain , Wiley asked sheepishly
"Aren't we going for *** and ******?"

I looked them in the eye at the same time
"Gentlemen, this ship is headed to Dublin"
"We're going to see a good friend of mine"
"Now get back to your swabbing and scrubbing"

This was an order of business not some sort of cruise
I'm sailing with a ship of one track minded fools
We didn't set out on a vacation of leisure
Were on the hunt for sheep skin seat covers and Scandinavian leather

I did not mean to keep them in the dark
But they would think less of me
I needed these things
For the women I married

You see we'd been on the rocks
And I know she wanted these items
So I went over the sea with a fine tooth comb
Until I had finally found them

My men had sailed endlessly for months
They were worn down and ragged
Waterlogged and exhausted
While I always came up empty handed

But I had to save my marriage
Salvage my relationship
I knew it would work
If I gave my love these gifts

We reached the golden, calling shore
Of the beautiful Dublin
From the River Liffey and headed north
My friend Seamus let me come in

I came out shaking his hand
I was satisfied with my purchase
Until I was questioned by my men
What it was we came for in our searches

I had to show them, I was under scrutiny
I pulled out two stagecoach seat covers and a pair of pants
They were enraged and called mutiny
They blindfolded me and bound my hands

Now I'm marooned on some unmapped island
And I see my ship riding that horizon
This will sadden my wife, oh how it will upset her
She will never receive her sheep skin seat covers or her Scandinavian leather

Night-time looking
over the Liffey,
slate grey artery,

flurry of merry music
like a band of castanets
still in our ears.

The cèilidh at Shannon’s,
man with a bodhrán
and a pint of tar

at his elbow,
girls in skirts
a blizzard of colours.

Róisín’s at UCD
but tonight, here,
the silky lilt

of English
pouring from her
emerald throat,

her hand in mine
as a crew of mangled gobshites
stumble home.

We swim in our jollity,
BYOC (bring your own craic)
in the city

where three times
in the 90’s we were kings
of the castle.

You say your father remembers ’62,
when I look in your eyes
you say coinnigh mé anois.

What’s that mean? I ask.
Hold me now.
And I do.

Your lips taste of Guinness,
my head foggy
with you.

A wild cow defecates in the waters of the fledgling Liffey,
as it eeks oozes and seeps from the sheep **** of a Wicklow Vale,
running to the loo through the coronation plantation.

The descendant of the brown bull of Cuailnge moves on to the next waterway of Ireland.  What fun.

should she have
thrown her wish at the stars
or down a well?

her hair in cigar smoke ringlets
her eyes were the guinness
the journey, her passion
the boy, her poison
the liffey winked with antidotes

black glass with white lights
why do rivers mock the sky?

her hair in her vision
her voice in a bird cage
a swan on a sailboat
not a soul on the ferry

on another coast
amid the day before
and the one that followed
seafoam clashed with clouds
came full circle
as her favorite dead end

she raised
then rolled
her eyes

blue waves with gray wisps
why do skies mock the river?

she didn't go over
nor to the end
she just went against the grain
of the rainbow
only she could spot

and then
she stuffed her hands into her pockets
and
she threw her wish
away

A great many people cross the Liffey and dance on the shore,
At Ringsend the Pigeon House falls to earth, the dust settles,
Cuchulain leaps from Bull to Bull and retreats into the mountains.  
I linger for some time watching the waters pass beneath ha’penny bridge.
I’ll find me a garret, and in that garret,
Curse in undertones Windows Vista,
******* to the **** stanzas of Homer,
Drink cold coffee with the blood of a nation,
Finally, say with surety,
Here is a poem which has taken everything, and given nothing,
Here is everything that meant something to somebody at some time.

Four hundred of us pour out
from the lights turned on,
girls in bare feet in the rain and the wind
to see Christmas lights on Grafton street.

Trinity’s beautiful, but not where the heart is,
the grass is muddy on college green
a cold breeze is whipping off the Liffey,
and everyone’s singing, low lie the fields.

The guards are milling, we’re trudging,
some holding hands or kissing –
bring me back to Stillorgan for ten euro?
*******! No come on sir, I’m freezing.

It’s grey, it’s wet and it’s cloudy.
I want Burdock’s or some dodgy chippy,
I want to hear the song of a boy from Ballymun
and live forever young in Dublin’s fair city.

The sun isn't even cooking me
it's just not raining,
the brown Liffey is dipping and lapping
the bus windows are all open.

"What think ye of Christ"
asks the poster by the driver.
"Not much," but if he's real
I'll thank him for the blue of the sky.

Is this what happiness feels like?
Because it's pretty ******* good.
The silver lines on my arms
tease me about years ago.

I remember
tightening a belt around my neck
and wondering how it felt to die.
But I was silly back then.

Look at the blue of the sky.
Look at the wispy clouds.
Look at my friends saying
"Go outside and look at the moon."

Life is strung up by a rope.
I miss the boy who I love
but not too much.
One day I'll find a prince for myself

in Rome or America
in a land far away on the sea.
I'll sail away in a couple of days
life's going good for me.

SUCH A SUNNY DAY

the objects
in his pocket

have lost
their identity

their significance
to anyone but him

a hairy comb
photo of an unknown

woman
who can she be

a torn-in-two
train ticket

chewing gum
much masticated

yet put back
in his blazer's breast pocket

small change
a penny and a sixpence and

a button
from the cuff

no clue as to who
he had been

before the water claimed him
as its own

the disgust and fascination
of those

passersby who continue
to pass by

it such
a sunny day

for death to
intrude this way

the miscellany of objects
ownerless now

the waters of the Liffey
calm and unmoved

At the crack of dawn the city is slowly waking up,
walking through these big streets, the cold breeze has become my friend
A beautiful scenery is in front of me, like a living painting, I’m amazed by this city
I have to stop in order to capture those precious moments
My heart is filled with joy, and in my ear a cheerful song is playing

I don’t want it to stop, I want to live here forever!
Following the same path every morning,
This precious path where I’m surrounded by all kind of people
I can hear this beautiful language spoken through the streets
The liffey river is waving at me, I’m almost there,
Finally, I have reached it, Trinity College
Towards the front gate, I have to press pause
Students are rushing  around me, but I stand still
Time stops for a brief moment
Taking a deep breath, it is now my turn to run through the buildings

At last, I belong somewhere…
I hope to see you again, beautiful Dublin, you gave me so much
It is a goodbye for now

The river at night looks beautiful
Thick almost one
With the light on it it looks like paint
Like ***** Wonka's chocolate factory
If I fell in it looks like it'd be soft
But I won't
Not because I have any regard for my own life
But because it would be a pity to disturb it

You're coming back.
For eight days.
In September.
I don't know where I'll be then.
Obviously with you.
But I don't know if I'll be at school.
Or have a job.
Or just trying to find ways to fill the days.
All I know is you're coming back.
And you're staying in a ****** apartment.
And I'm going to be with you.
And I kind of want to take you to Dublin zoo..
Just for some fun.
But I guess we'll see where it goes.
Youre gonna busk on grafton street.
Then we can have the day.
In stephens green park.
Along the river Liffey.
Wherever.

One thing I'm sure about is that they all disapprove.
I know you two days they say.
That's not long enough.
He could be a serial killer.
A kidnapper.
Love.
They say.
You're a child.
You know nothing of love.
Crazy girl.

But I know for a fact that I love you.
And I know for a fact that fate has something planned for us.
I can feel it.

You and me, and Molly Malone
In Dublin city, so far from home
Looking over the Liffey
That's when it hit me
My love for you, had only grown

In Galway Bay, we couldn't stay
The loyalty, love, and friendship day
Rainbows at the Cliffs of Moher
The Blarney Stone we can't ignore
Waterford Crystal and...Cabernet

You and me, and Molly Malone
Is the memory, that I've carved in stone
Dancing in Dublin
You've got my heart bublin'
My love for you, had only grown

Guinness, whiskey, cider
I got sick on chowder
Hanging out with Wilde
Don't forget that child
Ten thousand years and...no they're not

You and me, and Molly Malone
Here comes the time, for us to go home
Even though we're leavin'
We will leave here knowin'
My love for you, had only grown
(My love for you, had only grown)

Life along the Liffey
Riverruns and keeps on running

In this misty musical city
I keep playing, praying, punning

Post-modernity arrives
I reJoyce and am not shunning

Though much is taken, much abides
Including silence, exile, and cunning

Soft as poached yolk,
nightlights dot the Liffey -
you are a snow dream
in a black gallery.

Deoch Bhleth - the fourth drink of the morning, taken while the morning oats are being ground

The heart is drowned in dream
as the body motions towards coffee,
whisky, water, pills.

November slouches in slowly,
all sharp shoulders
& muscular knees.

The black circle turns and screams,
the beacon spits morning news,
an island of misery emerges from the salt-froth.

The wet streets are slicked to a shine;
I've gained weight. The day moon
is pregnant with blue.

Blood is thin and slippery in the vein.
The razor leaves fine lines all across my face.
My arm is singing. Psalms drop from the sleek

yellow womb of the ****** sun.
Alcohol climbs within me: I fall back on the bed,
thinking of her again. Where is she?

Is she staring out at the magpies
that gather on the wet lunch-branch?
Is she by the Liffey, watching the slate glint?

I am trapped in this plaster tomb,
my head a bridge between past and present;
somewhere a chain is being broken.

On another long *** haul flight,
just thinking about my life.
Or one of them at least,
don't wanna confuse this write.
I get to my late night hotel
and throw my bags on the bed.
So that i can curl up on the floor
and try to sleep once more.

Waking at 3, take to my phone
to stream free **** till i ***.
Throw those same bags on the floor
and somehow sleep on till morn.
Rising in the bed next to the door
unruly, unkempt and disheveled.
Oh New Orleans, how i expected
a promise of so much more.

And back in dear Dublin
at St. Michans' protestant church.
Some **** just gone stole the head
of an ancient Knights Templar.
Mummified by the limestone
or from some methane gas there.
800 years he's been laid to rest,
greeting tourists and locals alike.
2019, taken on a last crusade
by some thieving dublinian scobe.
Sent floating down the manky Liffey
a river that stinks like a vikings robe.
Dublins' archbishop Michael Jackson
tells the papers that he's shocked.
Thats' right, Michael ******* Jackson
how weird and steaming is that.

This story i heard from a
blind boy with a bag on his head.
And he said he wanted to cry
for he so often visited that crypt.
Well i guess i've never been
and had never really planned.
But christ it still makes me sad
another switch I guess just tripped.

But hey, whats it got to do with you
and whats it all got to do with me.
Well me, i'm back on this hotel floor
trying to keep my own head.
And as for you, well you go right on
cry me a river to float me on dreams.
For me, for you and for above all,
that Templar Knight of New Orleans.

CROSSING THE RIVER

I, a mere scrap
of a young fella

watching father and mother
argue the toss

about something or other
making me wonder whether

the really love
one another.

He always "Boss" to her.
She to him forever "Mother."

And him always giving in
with an "Alright...yer always right!"


Still see myself
messing about on the river

with the Hammer Hannon
Wiki Warner and the Rue Murray

great pals all
when

the Ma and Da
appear out of nowhere.

I seeing them
them not seeing me.

He, shotgun under an oxter
his arm about her waist.

Four rabbits nonchalantly
thrown over a shoulder.

No longer mother and father
but Jim and Kathleen.

They just themselves
their love and laughter.

Sticks two Woodbines
between his lips

the scratch of a match
as he lights up

places one between her lips
both puffing happily.

Sunlight madly in love
with water.

The Liffey here
lies gently at their feet

tamed with time.

Trousers rolled up to his knees
a breeze flirts with her dress.

Quick as a flash
she jumps on his back

her legs sticking out
between his elbows

all as easy
as you please.

He ferrying himself and herself
along with a load of rabbits

across the hurrying waters of
the moment.

A heron watches
this strange human behaviour.

Shifts from one leg
to the other.

Saying nothing.

My question answered
in a flash of kingfisher blue.

My mind all
water and light.

Water...and..light.

Annaliffey

Stalling for time
Along St James
Anna Liffey looks back,
Noting down names

At Old Dublin's walls
The wind sighs in regret
Calling to her softly
Lest Anna forget

Her tears take in salt
With each challenged wave
As she melts in the sea
Domain of the brave

She finds final peace
Seeking her rest
In the arms of Britannia

SUCH A SUNNY DAY

the objects
in his pocket

have lost
their identity

their significance
to anyone but him

a hairy comb
photo of an unknown

woman
who can she be

a torn-in-two
train ticket

chewing gum
much masticated

yet put back
in his blazer's breast pocket

small change
a penny and a sixpence and

a button
from the cuff

no clue as to who
he had been

before the water claimed him
as its own

the disgust and fascination
of those

passersby who continue
to pass by

it such
a sunny day

for death to
intrude this way

the miscellany of objects
ownerless now

the waters of the Liffey
calm and unmoved

*

I was just coming up to O'Connell Bridge and the bus got snarled in traffic. It was a beautiful beautiful sunny day and as I gazed idly out of the window a body, sodden and shapeless but still all too human was being winched out of the river. So we were forced to witness this before the bus finally made it to the bridge. It was startling and cut like an emotional knife through the fabric of the perfect day.

My girlfriend at the time told of a friend of hers who had sometime last year thrown herself into the Liffey so that added an extra dimension to the horror. Everyone who had met her on that last day said she seemed so happy and were amazed that she had done so because "...it was such a sunny day." She only had a comb and a button and small change in her pocket...all she owned. A human life shrunk to so little.

April in Dublin signifies not only a time and place, yet a feeling. A feeling of the brisk morning air, woven into the intricacy of light, sparse rainfall; enough to coat the blooming leaves on Ailesbury Road in droplets of dew. Tiny puddles form in between the cracks of the ancient cobblestone road, drowning the lush moss – basil in colour – that once grew in its place. As dawn makes her presence, the radiant sunlight peeks through the branches of the Sycamore trees, originally sheltering the lane from the indecisiveness of Irish weather. The earthy scent of petrichor emanates from St. Stephen’s Green, while the putrid scent of damp cigarette stubs race to reach the nostrils first. Petals of blush cherry blossoms gracefully fall to the asphalt path, with some caressing tender skin with its velvet touch. In the afternoon, St. Patrick’s Cathedral echoes in Church Latin, whilst the cars pass – with their bellowing engines – on The Coombe, pacifying the hum of pedestrian chatter that cohabitate simultaneously. As cloudy skies fade to a blue dusk, the lights jig the River Liffey; its yellow reflection moving with the waves. Crowds drunkenly skip along the quay, singing old Celtic hymns off key, while also digesting the sweet, caramelized, mild bitterness of Guinness – the finest of Irish stout beer. At the end of the day, the night retires to her slumber, anticipating newer ordinary, yet sensational experiences that May will bring along.

Bring me a poem.  You can find them anywhere –
In the Aer Lingus, sitting next to you
And sometimes scattered among the summer leaves
Misplaced in gutters or floating in the air

Strolling along Bachelors’ Walk, or maybe
Adrift upon the Liffey-water, where once
The gunboats roared like dinosaurs, their years
Passing like smoke, like burning, falling walls

Poems everywhere –

Beside the fire, drinking a cup of tea
Or talking with a friend – poems everywhere!

A GREAT HURT

your death hath done me a great hurt
the sharp blade of absence hath
pierceth my heart

Death speaks in italics
and an odd old fashioned diction
that's catching

all this hath & hath not
you present only
by your absence

day after day I have to live
your death...
...hath done me a great hurt

*

THE ORDER OF THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD.

I was remembering fragments out of this as by the waters of the Liffey I sat down and wept.

"MAN, that is born of a woman, hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.

In the midst of life we are in death. . .

Thou knowest, LORD, the secrets of our hearts. . .

FORASMUCH as it hath pleased Almighty God. . .

I HEARD a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Write. . ."

tell me what you know
you mad Irish wall!
evoke the Liffey!
art runs through the streets,
the river lilts its writers unsteady,
with every pint more voluble.
quick to bleed!
quick to show wit in that blood!
you are sheep and shepherd in one!

SUCH A SUNNY DAY

the objects
in his pocket

have lost
their identity

their significance
to anyone but him

a hairy comb
photo of an unknown

woman
who can she be

a torn-in-two
train ticket

chewing gum
much masticated

yet put back
in his blazer's breast pocket

small change
a penny and a sixpence and

a button
from the cuff

no clue as to who
he had been

before the water claimed him
as its own

the disgust and fascination
of those

passersby who continue
to pass by

it such
a sunny day

for death to
intrude this way

the miscellany of objects
ownerless now

the waters of the Liffey
calm and unmoved

Life along the Liffey
Riverruns and keeps on running

In this misty musical city
I keep playing praying punning

Post-modernity arrives
I reJoyce and am not shunning

Though much is taken, much abides
Including silence, exile, and cunning.

- Ulysses Everett McGill

Life along the Liffey
Riverruns and keeps on running

In this misty, musical city
I keep playing, praying, punning

Post-modernity arrives
I reJoyce and am not shunning

Though much is taken, much abides
Including silence, exile, and cunning

The Belle of Belfast
And Finnegan’s Wake

Trinity Library
My breath does take

Beckett Bridge
I walk and quake

River Liffey
Lady of the Lake?

Life along the Liffey
Riverruns and keeps on running

In this misty musical city
I keep playing, praying, punning

Post-modernity arrives
I reJoyce and am not shunning

Though much is taken, much abides
Including silence, exile, and cunning

Life along the Liffey
Riverruns and keeps on running

In this misty musical city
I keep playing, praying, punning

Postmodernity arrives
I reJoyce and am not shunning

Though much is taken, much abides
Including silence, exile, and cunning

Submerged Corkman
found in River Liffey,
Dublin authorities are
unable to explain why.