my love is like a red red metaphor

my love for you is more pretentious than wb yeats' love for maud gonne
my love is more tendentious than oscar wilde's love for bayonne
my love is more swantentious than a swan's love for another swan

my love is more exhilarating than the theme tune to hawaii five oh
my love is more militarising than the chinese communists were when they reoccupied macau
my love is more fenurgalacious than a conventional vocabulary will allow

my love is richer far than all the riches of bill gates
my love is more culturally of today than the newest music from the united states
my love is more deeply infused with meaning than the hieroglyphics of the pyramids which by the way it predates

my love is more mysterious than galaxy g578013
my love spins faster and more powerful than the eternal wheel of destiny
my love is yours for a song okay then 50p

mammy healy investigates

The anguished cry of a creature in pain fills the long corridors at the chateau.
It is the cry of a Heelers in despair.
He strides like Heathcliffe into the kitchen.
"What's wrong with you?" quoth the Mammy lifting her eyes from the Irish Fembo Commie Times crossword.
Ireland's greatest living poet halts in mid stride.
"It's my new jumper."
"What about it?"
"It's gone."
"What do you mean gone?"
"I mean someone's taken it."
"Ah you're joking."
The mighty Heelers fixes her with his famous Paddington bear stare.
"It's the first jumper I've bought in five years. Would I joke about a serious thing like that?"
I groaned epically.
"And at last I was going to be able to say to Hodders that one of my jumpers wasn't a Doctor Barn or a Businessman Tom hand me down. Seventy quids worth. A Viv Clarke special. Gone."
The Mammy did not seem to appreciate the gravity of the situation.
"It must be somewhere," she murmured with less concern than you might expect.
Heathlers flumped into a chair.
"I know where it is," I muttered darkly.
The Mammy beckoned me to explain.
"I'll bet Mags Masefield took it. I bet she did. Maybe she intended to clean it. Who knows? But right now there's nothing surer but that little Bart Masefield is wearing seventy lids worth of jumper to the mouldiest discos in South Kildare."
A thought struck me. There's an old Irish traditional song about losing your jumper at the disco. It seemed appropriate here so I began to sing it.
"Dancing at the disco bumper to bumper.
Wait a minute.
Where's me jumper?
Where's me jumper?
Where's me jumper?"
I stopped singing.
"And then the little swine will say: Who cares, it's not my jumper anyway. And he'll keep dancing. While the barman uses my seventy spondools worth of cloth to wipe up beer slops..."
The Mammy lowered her crossword. Somehow during the singing her attention had briefly wandered.
"I know what you did with that jumper," she announced.
"What?"
"You were sitting in some cafe writing the greatest poem of a generation. You got a bit distracted what with all the bunny rabbits hopping around in your mind and stealing the line out of the World War Two poem. You stood up, put on your coat, and left the jumper behind you."
There was a short silence in the kitchen at the old chateau.
"Thank you Missus Marple," I proclaimed bitterly.
"You're welcome," said the Missus.
"You know what I think?"
"No," said the Missus.
"I think the cleaning lady dunnit."

blessings

"You've given me everything God. Everything except the kids."
It was dawn at the chateau. I was greeting the creator of the universe as I normally do when I wake.
That is to say with a little emotional blackmail.
Later that day a passle of nephews arrived for niece Erin's first birthday.
With cries of "Uncle James, Uncle James," they proceeded to run me ragged around the garden.
This went on for hours.
At one point when I felt on the verge of cardiac arrest I seemed to become aware of holy God watching and laughing at the good of it.
I might have heard him say: "There you go. More kids than you know what to do with."
Much later, alone again at last, I found some of my cherished CDs scattered around the sitting room, out of their cases and covered in muddy fingerprints.
Gingerly I picked them up.
One by one.
The irreplaceable Pino Daniele collection Bia sent me.
The Berlin Philharmonic's version of the Bolero.
The Pavane. Sweet mercy. The Pavane.
I placed them back on the shelves.
From somewhere not too far away, the centre of the universe maybe, I heard:
"Be careful what you wish for..."

to a wild rabbit

words are mine
no words take from his eyes
the breeze blown beauty of the woodlands
nor the silver scented sight of evening glories

manhood mine
a prince of the fields is he
even in the terror of flight
a strange high ecstasy spirits to delight

age is mine
he will not grow old
nor fear the passing of his world
the lure of yellow gold
the bitterness of friends becoming foes

infernal tootling

"Thanks for bringing out the bin," said the Mammy.
I looked up from my thermo nuclear physics. (Southpark - Ed note.)
"I've grown quite fond of the bin," sez I with only the merest hint of irony. "I'm starting to talk to it. Sometimes I even sing to it."
This brief spiel gave me the perfect excuse to burst into song.
"I talk to the bin," warbled I, "but it doesn't listen to me."
The Mammy's face was a study.
Seamlessly changing tempo and parodies I continued in the same vein.
"Don't tell the trees green bin.
Because the trees don't need to know.
Oh whispering bin, the trees don't need to know."
Thank heavens bold readers, thank heavens I say, that after all these years, I've finally learned how to sing...

chateau life

Evening at the chateau.
The mighty Heelers is browsing in the kitchen over a coffee.
His handsome preraphaelite features are relaxed and meditative.
Enter the Dad stage left.
The Dad looks like death warmed up.
"Are you alright Dad?" quoths Ireland's greatest living poet, for he is nothing if not a good son.
Wordlessly the venerable patriarch goes to a drawer and rummages for something medicinal.
Soon he is downing a glass of water mixed with aspirin.
And lo.
A change is wrought.
The Dad perks up.
Almost immediately he looks about 20 years younger. A spirit of action seizes him. He begins pottering at the cooker. Pots, pans, pork chops. All is motion.
In fact I haven't seen him so lively since old Granny Healy in Texas fell down her own oil well.
(Thank you to Judy Annual circa 1970 for that joke - Ed note.)
I am indeed most pleased at this rallying of the Republic, because I sense that all things being equal, a pork chop may shortly be coming Heelwards.
Enter my sister in law Jackie stage right.
"What are you at Mr H?" sez she to the Dad.
The Dad barely pauses from his activities.
"I was feeling a bit sick," he explains. "But I took some aspirin and now I'm right as rain."
Jackie picks up the packet of aspirin and peers at it.
"Look," she proclaims brightly. "It says on the label: Best Before March 2000. They're seven years out of date."
The Dad halts in mid chop sizzle.
He appears mildly nonplussed.
He has turned a brighter shade of green.
He now looks about twenty years older than he did when he came in first.
There is a moment's awkward silence.
"Never mind Dad old pal," chimes in me from the cheap seats. "They say what doesn't kill you will only make you stronger. Is there e're an ould pork chop for me?"