Scríobhneoireacht
hungry Ireland
Ireland awoke to find Herself split
straight across the country’s middle.
Seeing as it was a Sunday that was in it,
She, as a landmass stirred a mite later than
She would have other days
and She wasn’t displeased to see the Atlantic
ocean mingle with the Irish sea
where Her midriff used to be
and with the accelerated national greed
that’d gained speed in times of lately
which has been seeping into Her revered
soil from all walks of those who walk Her
She rubbed Her palms together
anticipating the inevitable windfall
that’ll come from all
the new harbours and piers
already scheduled to be built
along the new waterway
that splits Her
and celebrated
with a Sunday spritzer
Settle Down There (from 2007, honest)
We must hasten and acquire land mass
before there’s not a kerb left to sit on.
Sewn up by the lords of land -
Can I just sit in one of your fields sir?
Floored with
lavish rugs enclosed
by walls of
powerful plugs.
Strike me down if I dare trespass
for I stand upon your very life.
Now anchored to earth with the bank up your arse
and also down your throat sir?
Snails are slugs
on property
ladder drugs.
Bodhrán playing Farmer and the Currach creator
Up in Molloy’s supping black
in the back, same seat as that evening.
Place’s empty, but the air’s busy with auditory relics
….thought the farming Bodhrán player
as he waited for his pal the Currach maker.
What a place for talking of what needs doing,
old gig posters walled with frame and nail
battered wooden toucan fastened to a plinth
welded vertical on an old fridge
Currach man arrives in the down-motion of eyelids,
sits, bringing craft and two settling pints
his coat’s wrinkled like a swimmers sack
and most of the swallow tattoo on his neck
is hidden in folds, but if anything,
he’s on the good side of 72, virile,
and his currach’s halt for no wave
Forming their idea into a plan, a great one
by their accounts, with the farmer
taking the minutes in the ledger
he got from the President of Ireland
for unprecedented farming loyalty
they drained their pints and ambled
out as the clean shaven tourists
arrived in a rainbow of coats
a slut of an S
A large ‘S’ balances on the chair,
two chairs to my right
men facing us on the opposite side
of the table couldn’t avert their gaze
from the ‘S’s curves, which never
let up from its tip to its closing serif
vibes can be sensed from the males’
partners dotted around the table that
the large ‘S’ won’t be invited to any
more dinner parties,
“I much rathered the company of the
large ‘W’ we had over for Phyllis’s
dinner party last month. Now that was
a letter you could relate to, without the
men’s eyes scrutinising it so…”
drizzle marketplace
A bog oak heron watches
maternally over a bog oak boat.
hanging hats of rainbow wool
make those who’ll peruse the
velvet pierced jewellery duck.
excitable slam poet stands ‘hind
his table laden with Super 8’s –
a lank chap in a child size T.
adjoined, down the cobbles along
the rivulets sits a crêperie which
has only taken the place by storm.
at the extremity; wrought iron craftsman’s
gaze simmers between wild brows
and pubic cheekbones, not a candlestick
nor one candelabra bartered.
twine noosed dog noses a cabbage
unimpressively and casts forlorn
sights back up through the drizzle.
say he – In the context of life,
a concept of game ought be rife
say none – you're clambering up on and headfirsting
back down off one's high horse again I see
A day’s good deed
having a good morning which continued
into early noon, the sun behind him.
He didn’t mind it up high behind as he walked,
his shadow barely stretched or off-kilter on the road in front.
He even felt confident in every step
and his arms got fully involved in the flow
as he winked at the cow on the other side of the wall
“That farmer’s a disgrace, he should hose down
that old cow’s backside,” he said,
then got thinking that he may buy one or two large bottles
of cheap yellow-pack water and an economical mop
for the way back. One bottle to dislodge crustations,
a mop to scrub from safety–other bottle’s for a rinse.
Having done his lodgement duties in the village,
he squinted and was struggling a bit on the way back
up the road with the equipment for this day’s good deed
when he saw not the cow,
but only its tail
attached to the section of hide
which had needed the water and mop
lying beyond that stone wall
and the farmer himself
with a raised sword, over by a shed
“I know what you were going to do, but you’ll not!
You’ll not touch the hide of one of my cows I tell you,
not while it’s attached to it!!”
‘That farmer’s a disgrace,’ thought Henry.
‘No bull will want to mount that now.’
Actions
wrote defacer on the wall
carved barkless into the trunk
scraped keyed along the paintwork
drew squiggle through condensation
saw gorillas in the mist
felt wrath when writing on the Sabbath
sliced painless in some skin
stenciled fragile on a crate
furrowed transient through porridge
concocted lassos from her pigtails
Unsubtle
Give me five!
Your hand’s
falling apart
eczema is all love
Methods
prior to vegetarianism,
she liked her jelly babies
with regret.
Never comfy beheading
with teeth, making it instant
she'd bite from the feet,
working up
so seeming to wade
gradual into the
sea instead
Y
the
wrong end of the divining stick
from the viewpoint of a gurgling
underground stream is any end
that gives away its whereabouts
to the humans,
who stroll across moors, plains,
bogs and woodland to anticipate
the twitch or the dipping of
willow toward water in its
state of concealment
it's a nice hobby, one
which makes one feel
frightfully druidic
long walks,
stretching limbs,
willow Y in hands
cotton Y in trousers
real shoulders carry more than weight
Not waxing shoulders
is the last stand
for a male who refuses
to conform to apparent
unsightliness
Otherthing
Picture yourself as if you’re dead,
hovering around a pub’s ceiling.
Watch yourself pay for,
then receive a pint.
Can you only catch quick glimpses
of your own face?
There’s a reason for that.
One man tent
Amid mundane partitions of office central,
where any bitty screed of a distraction
is pounced on with talon interest.
On an afternoon like all others,
when his pupils dilate
and he closes all his windows
into the online
rises, then heads for the toilet.
It's widely known that he's
going for a number three
The best venue in Ireland to get your hole
Many’s the people come through the doors
of Bangwhiff nightclub in Portarlington,
carrying baggage,
and are heavily scarred on the inside.
Only the complete disgraces leave alone.
While those seemingly less desperate pair–off
and find themselves some soundproofed nook
where they slovenly savage one another
in needs–must name.
Unless one’s a shocking state of affairs,
hole is to be gotten in Bangwhiff
and if, by the law of knickers
the odd relationship blooms
as can happen; both parties
are barred for life
Olympian spark
“you’ve got the focus and that determined spark
in the center of your pupils that marks you out
as a true Olympian, I am now very impressed”
Bullshit. I’ve been touching cloth for 10 minutes Coach!
What the fuck were you doing in there?
Hoist the beach
With one well aimed scoop of a great shovel,
all a beach’s sand left the coast.
(as an occurrence this was unprecedented)
The ocean paused, and
even for such a wise body,
having seen the worst storms
and sunsets that turn men to stone
followed its tide instinct
and gushed into the fantastic trough.
While high up above, the great shovel
with sand at times trickling over its edges
didn’t know what to do with the beach,
so it willed itself to disappear back to nowhere,
leaving the beach to plummet with such a splash
Relations between the East and West
—» Fuck You Russia
«— Ғцсқ Чөц Амәґịқа
countries—countries please!
You’re like a pair of stubborn tit-tat twats.
Head off someplace cosy, away from glare
and just get it all out of your antsy systems.
This here Earth won’t think of ye any less,
besides; ye may even go up in its estimation
Real eyes
I am but
an amateur
wordsmith,
learning to
pass
as a
poet.
Similar
to the lad
who thinks
he’s a fireman,
for putting
out the
fires
he
started.
downpour Inismór
By all accounts,
the deluge turned
the island’s one thousand miles
of ancient dry stone wall
into the planet’s
foremost arena
for waterfalls
knowing your arse from elbow
Sure you couldn’t arse someone in the eye
or sit on your elbow do try
Elbows don’t moon
and won’t provide a source for skin grafts
the 1st place a burn victim turns to
is the rump,
preferably their own
more to be added without reason...
© 2019 John Dowling
