verisimilitude

Sitting in the window seat of the Grafton Street book store while the warm light of evening fills up the universe.
Enter young lady stage right.
She looks around, poses a little, then strolls to a bookshelf directly adjoining the window.
Presently she sits at my feet in order to better examine the books nearby.
With a brief sidelong glance she removes her anorak.
Perhaps it is the effect of evening light on lissom girl at close range, but I could have sworn she imbued the gesture of removing her coat with a strange mystic significance.
Some girls can you know.
Why it was as if she was performing a highly erotic temple dance in praise of Eros.
(One of mine - Mel Brooks note.)
Now she glanced up and fixed me with a pair of passingly mesmeric eyes.
"What time does this shop close?" she whispered huskily.
I muttered a guess and pretended to continue reading my Noam Chomsky.
At my feet la gioconda unleashed her hair while simultaneously performing a little unselfconscious arm stretching exercise.
I could take no more.
I had to know.
"Would you like to go for coffee?" I blurted brilliantly.
"You're too old for me," she replied without hesitation.
And from somewhere not to far away the ghost of soul singer George Chandler began to sing the theme tune to a 1970s Joan Collins soft porn film.
George sang:
"There are good girls.
And there's bad.
The bad are all I've ever had.
That's why they call her the bitch.
She's a wicked wicked witch.
That's why they call her the bitch."
Exit Heelers stage left wearing his famous sheepish grin.
You know folks, if I will insist on being attracted to women who look vaguely like they're in league with the forces of darkness, I suppose I need not be too surprised if they don't turn out to be Polly of Primrose Hill.
Now Polly of Primrose Hill.
There's a cracking bird.
Arf, arf.
Boo hoo.

inspiritus

Images on television tonight of the river Ganges flowing through northern India.
It reminded me of dreams I've had.
You know, where I talk about the light being "a lovely American light."
The dream with the Dad and Jess was one. Then there's another dream where I'm in a Greek city with temples everywhere.
I got the same sensation tonight while I was awake watching the river on television.
I understood at last.
The surge of joy at these scenes is my mind vaguely recognising something it is intended to know one day but has never yet seen.
Heaven.
I think this must have been what cracking brainbox CS Lewis was on about in Surprised By Joy.
And I thought he was nuts.

lissom light of morning

party piece

we are all dying more or less
in body in spirit
slaves to a process
not bitter or malign
but limitless
each moment each decade
unrolls in the shadow of the scythe
we laugh cry caress
doomed enough for ones so blithe
blithe enough for ones so doomed
revellers on a runaway train
exultant into the night

chancers on the wind

Elton John was tootling infernally on the television.
"I wonder which candle on the wind he's immortalising tonight," sez I darkly.
"What are you on about?" demanded the Mammy.
I jabbed an accusatory finger at the television.
"Your man," sez I. "He wrote a song about Marilyn Monroe. And then when Princess Diana died he didn't write a new song. Oh no. He just scrubbed out Marilyn's name and inserted Diana's. Real class."
The Mammy snorted in a manner not entirely indicative of respect for my analysis of Mr John's creative integrity.
"Sure you do that all the time," quoth she.
"When do I do it?" I shot back.
"In your poems," sez she. "You know the ones where you put in different girls' names. You even call them Insert Name Of Girl poems."
I was silent for a moment.
I was struggling to formulate an argument along the lines that Insert Name Of Girl poems are a respected literary genre.
"Touché Lil," I said finally.
There was nothing else to say.

aiiee caramba

Morning at the Chateau de Healy.
Ireland's greatest living poet is flumped over a coffee.
Across the kitchen table from him sits the Mammy munching a slice of brown bread.
The phone rings.
The Mammy answers it.
A continental voice voice, probably Spanish, rich with false bonhomie can be heard booming down the line: "Congratulations. You've just won 600,000 dollars."
The Mammy deals with this in short order.
"F--k off," she shouts, slamming down the phone.
Ireland's greatest living poet emerges from his incipient morning depression.
I feel quite cheered.
I'm telling you folks, as long as there are septuagenarians repelling telephone scammers through the liberal use of profanity, well, life's gotta be worth living...