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Wednesday 22 May 2024

Céileachair your House is on Fire (Draft)

  


Céileachair your House is on Fire, 

your clothes are burning 

Longphorts, raids 

hear Granny talk about 

Clonfin Ambush, Longford 

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

& still water the dead apple tree

checkpoints, patrols, house raids

& 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' 

 sad bowing sunk of breath 

a bough of drink in disguise 

the Planter & Gael 

Pink Angels delight in an aquamarine

dessert bowl after skirts & kidney 

where nought is wasted 

no mulberry wrinkles inside me

Granny from the bridge over 

Darkes Lane masonry falls 

the Grand Fern Pine it’s empties glint

Céileachair banned 

under Orbital ceiling

the faded grey gnomes 

painted white the brambles

as well hammers,

beautiful wires, people

the milkstar rose in is

low iring

Céileachair of natural need 

in gelignite or disgust & the opposite

is reflected the whole history 

‘Madame, you are not allowed 

in this Safeway, the next Safeway 

is in on Honeypot Lane,’ &

laugh & stumble away, 

pissed at Baptism Confirmation,

Eucharist asymmetric warfare

The Hay Wain in a broken gilded frame, 

that bitumen black tumulus

under Sun King is rotting culture 

that restoration oils can’t cede

‘Lady, you're barred from Tesco.’ 

yet spider hatchery as spiderlings do, 

dispersing as far as the bookcase 

Dirty Mick PADDY O’ Bastard 

Why is your hair always grey?

& why do you wear bleach 

stained purple dresses?                     

the Audi a4 Quattro Clutch Replacement 

is your new address 

closed gardens candytuft tiles

in Yellow Lake Deep 

blown across fireplace 

a catchment area 

in a cul-de-sac 

of search & destroys

on damp dogtoothed carpet tiles 

replaced Bairstoweves 

like ladybugs Mary Our Lady 

For Sale, her seven joys & her seven sorrows

filled empty gin bottles

& your children are gone

muttering? What is a mother? ing 

to move in silver hay, in Woolworths 

innocence is true & you knew 

Céileachair, your House is on Fire, 

your clothes are burning 

your bones are somewhere else  

near Elstree Studios, 

Clockwork Orange Durango 95’ 

lane outside Brickett Wood running 

from Munden House 

to School Lane, was the 

Police Landrover / ‘Trough Beating’ scene

would remind you 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 

let down to drown & sink by the word 

in the Name of the Father, 

Gardaí nunnery rebuke

all the way down the banisters 

gastric contents intraluminal 

My Lady Paddy O’ Bastard.