And While I Last.

I can’t last unless I begin

A hapless product of original sin

What is original, what is sin?

Venial, mortal, rib or skin.

Still, where I am, and what I am

Part womb, part air, part crib, part pram

With likes and sulks, storms and calm

Like Uncle Sam or Viet Nam.

And I think I’m sure of what I’m not

Acts remembered, scenes forgot.

In Po, Limpopo, chamber pot

I can’t recall where I lost the plot.

But still, I like O’Gara’s slice

And Heaslip power, Leinster’s price,

Sexton’s average once in twice

Hay foot-straw foot, virtue-vice.

Liquid honey, glassy jar

Melted crystals from afar

Mixed with saccharine and tar

Blended world-wide, bee’s bazaar.

John McGahern, garda’s spleen

Some thoughts written, most unseen

Hints of grey spliced into green

Found your witch at Halloween.

Yeats and Shaw and Beckett, Wilde

“Come away o human child”

To the waters and the wild

Like Narcissus, at you, you smiled.

And I know now what makes me smile

Seven furlongs in a mile

And the angelus seamstress for a while

Needle locked in lip; some style.

And grass to the colour-blind so green

New blades, sharp spades, guillotine

For the herm, the worm, still unseen

Possible clones, at least seventeen.

And the things I want and the things I can’t

And what He might pull and what He could grant

Or why Willie Flower’s first cousin is Plant

And on Sunday they drone a Gregorian chant.

Red-brown fillet hanging three weeks

Red onions, red carrots, red cabbage, green leeks.

National, Secondary, Techs and techniques

Blended together like Kilimanjaro peaks.

Mel and Frances and Assumpta too

Postulants and sisters and mothers in blue

Everything they uttered unquestionably true

The truth from them, no lie to you.

And I dream of babies past and babies to come

And their mothers and their issues and no one and some

Why the deaf mightn’t worry for their sisters’ dumb

You can play the dead march on fife or drum.

And the loyal dog and the heartless cat

The impeccable credentials of Norwegian rat

And the udders in synch leaking tit for tat

Modigliani’s models, face under hat.

Wells and bells and hovels and halls

Streams and dreams, hucksters stalls

Hops and gigs and masquerade balls

Castles and moats and cardboard walls.

Tell me what’s important, tell yourself what’s not

Forgiven, forsaken, forfeit and forgot.

A snipers scope or a passing shot

The nosy crone or the Lady of Shalott.

What the local said, what the stranger saw

The hay, the whey, the wheat, the straw

The pig, the jig, the ready and the raw

Wither within her, without withdraw.

And while I last I’ll be irreverent still

In word and silence, paint and quill

And confuse the coins in life’s lonely till

Like blackbird, brown wife and yellow bill.

But how do they know; how can I?

What respect is worth; what respect can buy.

Hacienda for a pig or a virus in the eye

Sight restricted by humble sty.

Conviction, confusion, conspiracy and trust

On a McNamee’s pan not worth the crust,

Polished with egg white from dough to dust

A shine, a sheen, a longing or a lust.

Yellowed with yolk from gullible hen

A virgin now, non productive then.

Still picking and pecking and picking again

Jaw full, craw full, ink in pen.

And she telling me just where I’m wrong

And where she believes I might belong

Why she left, cleft palate stuttering song

Lip gap, claptrap, siren-gong.

This way, that way, any way at all

I’ll do it my way, balloon or ball

Cocks in the haggard, mirror in the hall

Rise three times if you have to fall.

And I rise when I rise at seven or nine

And I believe in me and hesitant shine

And when I pass over poverty will pine

At losing a pal, best pal of mine.

So I’ll do it my way for better or worse

I say a blessing, they say a curse

Morning sickness doesn’t need a nurse

Sovereigns in the travel bag, pennies in the purse.

And while I last I will speak with one voice

One head, my own, one heart to rejoice

One truth one fact no Rolls no Royce,

And toss to the liars the tyranny of choice.

And I’ll talk to the trees their limbs and leaves

The message translated by their sister breeze

And when we die nobody grieves

Our mother; fathers earth our body receives.

And I will bury me, in the here and there

Brains for the Inny, head with the hare

And limbs and lungs in Ballymulvey fair

Newcastle forest with the badger in her lair.

And while I last I’ll still command

My legs to stop, to stay, to stand

Not melt away like shifting sand

No second glance at minute hand.

And I expect to be oft detested

Tough until tried and best when bested

And I’ll face them down when I’m arrested

And no injustice will walk untested.

And the ones who claim to own it all

Will perish at the gable wall

The thoroughbred will leave the stall

And live on whins and dry grass gall.

I’ll make no will for faction fight

No candle for the priests delight

No spark for issue, be it day or night

No wrong of mine for them to right.

Before I go I’ll check the lips

Of my soul’s pulse with fingertips,

Feel the tremors, bounces and skips

And rejoice in watching my life’s eclipse.

And I know truly, how long I’ll last

I’ll make the present into past

And pander to no type, typecast,

That’s while I last!