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Céileachair your House is on Fire,
your clothes are burning
Longphorts, raids
hear Granny talk about Clonfin Ambush, Longford 1921
the arrival of the first Civic Guards,
her father 19 men, 2 lorries,
reinforcements 150 men
14 lorries later British Forces burned
inside glass houses
taciturn tomatoes,
& still water the dead apple tree
checkpoints, patrols, house raids
Coca-Cola cans stacked in reverse
& Granny, behind the glassdoor
the weight of the body
mainly on her fingers
feet back to stand on tip-toes
one of the 'five techniques'
dire aqualungs
compacted into agonies box
working not speaking
sad bowing sunk of breath
a bough of drink in disguise
Planter & Gael
‘word green response red’
Pink Angels delight
in an aquamarine dessert bowl,
after skirts & kidney
where nought is wasted Ogham
no mulberry wrinkles inside me
so much for wasteland walked
under dug out from the bridge
over Darkes Lane the masonry falls again
the Grand Fern Pine & it’s empties glint
aquamarine Céileachair banned under
Orbital its ceiling concrete
faded grey gnomes
painted white the brambles as well
hammers, beautiful wires,
people & shoes sent pall
to our deranged blood kept
& sang out scanties sunk sows
the milkstar flower rose
dugout home is in lug low iring
that bitumen black tumulus
under the Sun King is rotting culture
that even restoration oils can’t cede
Céileachair of natural need
is gelignite or disgust
& the opposite is reflected
the whole history tabled Tonibler
‘Madame, you are not allowed
in this Safeway, the next Safeway
is in on Honeypot Lane,’ &
laugh & stumble away,
pissed at Baptism Confirmation,
the Eucharist asymmetric warfare
The Hay Wain in a broken gilded frame,
snipped under England's nose surveyed,
‘Lady, you're barred from Tesco.’
yet spider hatchery as spiderlings do,
dispersing as far as the bookcase
Dirty Mick PADDY O’ Green Bastard
Why is your hair always grey?
& why do you wear bleach
stained purple dresses? Guffaw
Audi a4 Quattro Clutch Replacement
is your new address closed gardens
candytuft tiles in Yellow Lake Deep
blown across Maroon fireplace
a catchment area in a cul-de-sac
of search & destroys
on damp dogtoothed carpet tiles
replaced with Bairstoweves
like ladybugs Mary Our Lady
For Sale her seven joys
& her seven sorrows
filled empty gin bottles
& your children are gone
What is a mother? ing mutters
ing back to move
in silver hay, in Woolworths
cold as branks invading your mouth
Bargain bins creeping
the warming pan
elf-eared & unforgotten
or floats opaque when pushed remembering
against the wall, a tiny hole hissing henbane
saying over & over again
innocence is true
Céileachair your House is on Fire,
your clothes are burning
your bones are somewhere else
near a carpark near Elstree Studios,
Clockwork Orange Durango 95’
coming down the lane outside
Brickett Wood running from Munden House
to School Lane, was the
Police Landrover / ‘Trough Beating’ scene
would remind that
‘you canst thou draw out leviathan
with an hook? Or tongue with a cord
thou lettest down?’
suffering of that particular intensity
& cruelty into the orange light
of a settling sun let down to drown & sink
by the word
in the Name of the Father,
Gardaí told you to go to a nunnery rebuked
all the way down the banisters
gastric contents intraluminal
& how to stop lines bitter cud?
My Lady Mick Paddy O’ Bastard.
