Stan Collymore
Doesn’t see Ulrika
Anymore.
Instead
He speaks as gaeilge
And we love it,
Love it, love it
Just like when Queen
Liza midst our ladies
Uttered a cupla focal
Of stilted words. We nearly
Choked on our Carrigeen souffle.
Be advised famous Seamus said cross-
Table. Well what’ye think
Now Bellaghy boy, did you
Toast her?
Whose boys toasted
Your friends, women and countymen.
No flagon of yours raised?
And, so, Stan Collymore speaks Irish.
So do I. And it means fuck all
My cupla focal. Just like his.
Eureka.
Couldn’t bate her
With a big stick.

I bought Angela a pair of boots
For Christmas you understand
They surprised her, the boots
Very fashionable she said to me
I didn’t think they’d suit me she said.
Well I did. So,
One of the first things I noticed when
We met.
In the Hogshed bar were her
Long legs, all the way they go
Up, to her
Curly hair’d smile and that
Grin. Pint handed both less
Spotted now and more’s the pity. Then,
Fag smoked just like her
Mother.
Patsy, but no more.
So the boots. Predictable
I suppose I should have picked
Knee length boots, but I spied
My niece, in reality Angela’s niece Wearing…
Ankle boots. She looked great. She
Gets it from somewhere and
I know where.
Sometimes it takes a pair of boots to
Say you have great legs which in
Turn means. Well you know what it
Means as opposed to any other
Oul shite. Different ways of saying
The same thing. She looks great
Starting from the bottom up.
And as for the legs. Bootilicious.
And now she lies, sleeping
Across my lap. Boots
Kicked off, but they lie there Appreciated.
And it sometimes takes something
Like that to say what needs to
Be said as opposed to what’s
Lazily said. Easily said, but
Wrong.

I didn’t set out to write poetry in fact I don’t think I’m any good at it but to be honest it takes less time than the marathon harrowing efforts I enjoy subjecting myself to writing and others to reading.

Reading The Unnamable and ten pages in I am glorying in its black humour and depressive recuperative effects. I know why I didn’t get this ten years ago. I do now well.
I can see myself nursing-homed-alone surrounded foggily by people I neither know nor care about.
They will refer to me as an Unnamable oul fucker disclaimed by sons and daughters alike. Maybe they will visit betimes and I’ll pretend not to know them lest they accuse me of barbarianisms, caustic comments and worse.
Or perhaps I genuinely won’t know them, shadows flitting about asking questions. Has he eaten? What about his piles are they bothering him? And the other problems galore. How long have you got. Well longer than you think. I could live well into my hundreds if the scientists keep at it. Imagine. Old and alone till an octogenarian son or daughter comes to visit. Father and child fighting over the same reality. Except they will win.
And I will say remember the time you were in the Christmas play but it will pass unheard and unanswered. Maybe I could put on a P2 nativity play in there for aged oul decrepits like yours truly. A children’s drama enacted by elderly children. Be ok til someone fluffs their lines or wanders off. But, why change the habit of a lifetime. Hopefully by then it will be foggy and grey and of course they will put it down to age. That will suit me just fine.

I’m relaxed about Christmas.
Really I am.
Inundated with visitors,
and tired children.
The aged parent who
Can’t resist barbed and
Juvenile comments. It was always
Thus, I got it from somewhere
I remarked caustically.The dull
Headache of too much wine
And the noise started before you
Properly wake up in the morning.
Step on a present this year’s
Gift, tomorrow’s bin men will
Collect what Santa left with
About as much understanding.
They care not what they do. Nor
Do I. And the children
Do whatever they care.
I’m relaxed. Insouciant. In celebratory
Mode. In deed anyway.