A BIT IRISH (by Medbh Gillard and James Healy)

"Hey kid, I don't suppose you're starting to get tired..."

facile insolence towards the famous

i was reading WH Auden writing about the death of WB Yeats
not bad said i with a weary smile
for i was in the mood to disparage the dead greats
it hurts them not but it helps to pass the time

not bad said i with a short laugh
and it seemed a strange and fitting epitaph
for two considered king of the road
when knickerbockers were considered a la mode

perhaps i should temper this vain exultancy
with some dull reference to their immortality
but i don't think that applies
the great poet strives and self promotes and dies
his flesh his verse his bones consign to ground
i'm not a great poet but i'm still around

im westen nicht neues

All quiet on the western front.
Not a shot fired in anger in the past six months.
No buffoonic phone calls.
No innuendo laden emails.
Nothing.
You could be forgiven for thinking I've won.
Yes things are quiet.
I've been tempted sometimes for sheer divilment to renew hostilities.
But I am sure of one thing.
Boredom is not a good reason to go to war.

The cops, the mob, the broads...

Rang the chief of police this morning to cancel our appointment.
Dublined.
City of rain.
I walked in it like a ghost through my own dreams.
I spoke to God.
I said: "I don't want to defeat the swines at work. I don't want to humiliate them." It was a most strange prayer for me.
Another journalist has quit the Leinster Lootheramawn. She's gone to Japan to work part time as a teacher. The chap who left a few months ago went to Jerusalem to do a night class.
I kid you not.
That's some indictment. The lad choosing to go to Jerusalem rather than stay in the office at the Lootheramawn.
Says it all.
Ah life you bauble.
Met Lu Yi for coffee.
She was worth the trip.

at play in the fields of the lord