reflections

quoth the parrot nevermore

Driving along the open road through the heartland of South Kildare.
Summer becoming Autumn.
My company the lady known as Lil.
"I'm thinking of buying a parrot," sez I.
"Please don't."
"Why not?"
"For a start, your father will stroke."
The noble Heelers ponders this.
"I don't think he will," sez I. "Consider this Lil. If I buy a parrot it will probably push him so far beyond a stroke that he might just do nothing. He'll come home. See the parrot in the hall. For a moment he'll be more angry than it's humanly possible to be. Then he'll break on through to other side. He'll enter a state of pure nirvana. Probably spend the rest of his life blissfully calm, never getting angry about anything again."
Lil grinned.
"I don't think he would," sez she.
But it was too late.
I'd already started singing.
I sang lustily as a man sings who is about to buy a parrot.
I sang:
"You know the day divides the night.
The night divides the day.
You try to run.
You try to hide.
Break on through to the other side.
Break on through to the other side.
Break on through... to the other side."
And from somewhere not to far away, the ghost of Jim Morrison said: "Ah Heelers please stop."

enter the mogul

I jammed on the brakes.
Esmerelda screeched to a halt outside the Riverbank Theatre.
I wound down the window and craned for a better look.
Above the door a large sign proclaimed:
"Paddy Melia presents CHARLEY'S AUNT!"
My mind flew.
Two months ago I'd had lunch with the Melia mogul.
I'd said: "We should produce Charley's Aunt."
He'd said: "Are you mad? No one would come. It's way out of date."
I'd said: "We could contemporise it. Sex it up a bit. In a charming way. While still keeping the Victorian setting. In fact we could call it Victorian Scandals."
He'd said: "Awful title. Count me out. It would never work."
And now here we are.
I have just discovered from the aforementioned signage that the aforementioned mogul has himself decided to produce the aforementioned Charley's Aunt.
"Well I'll be a boo hoo twins uncle," I breathed softly. "At least he meant it when he said he didn't like my title."

birth and dying

armies were marching
through the lowlands in winter
when she ran through the fields
to her only love

bleak were the hedgerows
the fastnesses lonely
the wind took their whispering
and gave it the wilds

the wilds took their whispering
and made it a song
of dreams that are broken
and dreams yet to be

her footsteps returned
to the place of her growing
and she slept like an angel
though armies were marching

in living black and white

4pm. Armchair at the second floor bay window of the Stephen's Green Centre cafe. Watching the rain on the city.
Alarums.
A group of feral girls have posited themselves nearby. They are at an adjoining table to mine and on stools closer to the window.
Spread out but very much a group.
They look moody but are smiling.
At first I thought: "Oh no, teenagers!"
But they make such a perfect picture.
Their style is that black and white gothic stuff.
Useless.
But it cannot conceal their beauty.
I wonder do they know how beautiful they are.
Posing and preening they look like nothing so much as an album cover for some long lost punk girl band of the 1970's.