sic transit gloria honeys

Heelers browsing in a bookshop on Grafton street in the Celtic capital of Dublin.
He pauses.
He has felt a stirring in the force. Something he hasn't felt since...
He frowns trying to remember.
His eyes wander towards the window.
And lo!
Perched on the window seat, all undulating legs and short skirt, is a blonde honey of the genus Aiiieeeaiiiieeeaiiii-icus.
Heelers goggles.
That is to say, he looks mildly appreciative of the vision before him.
She looks up.
Their eyes meet.
Aiiiieeeaiiiaiiiii again.
Because she knows me.
Ah yes bold readers.
Life has few crueller twists for the young lecher about town than when he is caught in mid ogle by someone of fond acquaintance.
For verily we know each other well.
Why, if it isn't ould showjumpery.
The second most beautiful girl in the world.
(Remind me to tell you about the other sometime. And no, my fond lady obsessions of the internet, you're not eligible for this chart unless I've actually met you.)
And damn.
She's still beautiful.
I mean luminous.
I have followed her fortunes from afar since last we met. She's come close a few times to getting on the Irish showjumping team.
Journalists like interviewing her for the same reasons I liked interviewing her.
She is the summation of all my infantile fantasies.
She's Church of Ireland too.
I mean a member of the church set up by Henry the Eighth way back when.
I'm telling you folks those girls are wild.
Imagine the fun we'd have before I converted her to Catholicism.
But I digress.
Occasionally I see her in some sports event on television and pray fervently that the horse will fall on her.
Ah.
What greater curse than to love, that which you cannot have etc etc.
And here she is today.
If I'd had some warning I would have at least tried to carry it off with a show of benign indifference.
But there was no chance of that now.
A sheepish smile and a quick retreat.
She shines now only in my memory.

the mammy strikes

The noble Heelers arrives home after a long day's ogling.
I mean work.
He parks his car.
Long shadows stretch across the garden.
He enters by the front door of the old chateau.
The house is still.
Nobody else home.
I pause to kneel before the little statue of the blessed virgin Mary which stands on a table in the hall.
The statue features a representation of the virgin as she is purported to have appeared in the Portuguese town of Fatima.
I open my spirit to the truth represented by the image.
My handsome preraphaelite features take on an other worldly serenity.
My pale blue eyes seem deep as oceans.
I gaze upon the statue of the mother of God.
Abruptly my attention is drawn from prayerful repose.
There is a note stuck to the statue's right arm.
It reads: "Don't forget to bring out the bin."

cars and the mammy

Strolling through the Whitewater Centre with the Lildebeest.
"What's that?" quoth she, giving me a nudge worth about 6.7 on the richter scale.
Ahead of us a pair of gleaming automobiles had been parked in the hallway as part of a sales promotion for a garage.
We walked over to the cars.
"You're nearly due a new car," murmured the aged parent thoughtfully.
Ah yes.
Since I ferry the Mammy around so much she has lately begun making encouraging noises about me trading in the old jalopy for something more upmarket.
Today could be the day.
We inspect the first car.
It's a Volkswagen beetle.
Cute but I'm not buying it.
We inspect the second car.
It's a Porsche.
Great Scott.
Great God of Heelerses.
Oooh Lordy, my troubles with cars.
I want this.
We look at the price.
€60,000.
Sure you couldn't.
You couldn't spend that on a car.
Assuming that like me you have sixty grand in your back pocket to begin with.
Arf, arf.
A little sixty grand humour there.
Truly folks I haven't got a bean.
Lil and me contemplate the Porsche for some moments more in respectful silence.
Eventually with wry smiles we tear ourselves away and head upstairs for coffees.
That's quite enough dreaming for one day.

quoth the onion nevermore

Coffee in Dundrum Shopping Centre with ould brown eyes the Spanish professor.
All is sunshine and light.
After some moments of incomprehensible badinage with me, the Spanish Onion gets up from our table and saunters over to the food counter.
"How long ago did you make that sausage roll?" she asks the girl behind the counter.
The girl, whose name tag reads Jacinta, fixes Spanishy with a moderately baleful look and replies in pure Dublinese.
"You wha?"
By the way, a moderately baleful look is easy for the girl behind the counter as her natural expression seems to verge on the baleful to begin with.
She is the sort of person I would personally never dream to trouble with questions about food quality.
A hardy Dub.
Spanishy repeats her question.
I sit back in my chair.
For I do love a piece of good theatre.
The Dub leans over the counter.
"Wha d'ya wanna know tha for?"
Professora smiles gently.
"I like them fresh. Come on. Tell me. Did you make it long ago?"
The Dub takes a step back.
"Mary," she calls to a friend in a voice loud enough to wake the dead. "Do ye hear wha this one is askin me?"
Mary arrives post haste from stage left.
She too is, in the best sense of an old fashioned phrase, a Dub.
She gazes at Spanishy who smiles serenely back.
"I know you," proclaims Mary suddenly before addressing the other girl again. "I know her. She's always comin in here and askin is the food fresh."
The two Dubs laugh and chime almost in unison: "Oh it's fresh alrighhh."
Presently the incomparable Spanish Onion returns to our table munching a sausage roll.
"Those girls were fun," she murmurs absent mindedly.

midnight ocean

in the clammy stillness
of a calm monsoon
you came to me
pointed to the window
and a spanish galleon moon
sail with me
sayeth thou
the tide is turning soon

i woke to find i slept
i wept