USA

TKerrigan@hq.dir.ca.gov

On First Looking into
Ellmann's James Joyce

Sunrise

Drays, lorries, traps, and hackneys:
clattering of wheels at my windy stool.

Seamusstephanosdedalusjoyce:
a familiar of every alley and lane,
every chapel, shop, pub,
every stick and stone of this grey
as Dublin limestone town.

Waiting for the sun to rise or set,
for someone to be born, someone to die.

His Progenitor

-Awaken you long streak of misery,
it's only hoors make their kip in bed.
Holy Pall, the Murrains have landed,
her whole bocketty clan descending on us.
Jaysus, when I think of the family I martyred into.
My mater never forgave me my betraythal.

We'd be living the life of Larry still
if the politico boyos hadn't turned on me.
No sooner calved than licked, haith.
A pack of huns dragging down
a noble stager. To be pinchioned off,
a last relique of the old dacency!

Easter Rebellion

-Missing Mass today, of all
the days of the Christian kalends!

-Mother of Good, you'll end like him,
if you don't look out, all blather and bluster,
street anima, home diva.
Haven't I seen him myself at his holy alls,
curing for nothing but a dross of the craythur?
You're the spate of your father if the troth were known,
takin' your stand in the whorl and forebearin'
layin' up treasures in the next, my arse!
Is that what you want to muck of your life?

An Heir of the Fire

-To think we'd end as low as this:
o tempora, o Murrays!
It the troth what they say: half the world
doesn't know how the other half lives.
That first day when I heard her warbling
in the three patrons in Wrathgar.
Ah, you didn't ken your mater then.
Complexion both the lolly and the rose.
The poets say an image in the wasser.

-Ah, the friends so linked together
once, and all but moi departed.
Die and be dimmed, die and be dimmed.

A cure for grief: put it under your heels.

Croak Park

Inevitable mortality of the funereal, etc.
Hushed procession of horse drawn
sable coaches wending its way
down dark, mourning streets;
moseys and gurriers praying respects
to a woeman they never knew in life.
Requiescat inferni sutineat,
sed gaudia aeterna possideat.

Sunset

-Poopie, put the kettle back on,
Jim is heirbent on goin'
on the shaughraun and no mistake,
ship's eyes for the continent.
He'll be disowning us all now, you see,
seed, breed, and generation.

-At least you were given the foinest education.
Put me to the pin of my collar, by Jaysus.
The udders can cross my arse and close
my eyes with pennies when the time comes.
Your oulfella will requare nothing more of you.

Just remember who brogued you into this world.
We're of one blood, you and me,
one blood and one bone.

© All Copyright 2001, TS Kerrigan .
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.