I can hardly imagine
that the tour groups will come through,
but if they do
these few things remember:
My grave is a flat little stone
under the shadow of my grandfather
who did nothing
in life, and in death was equally blameless.
The French female guides
wear sunglasses, even in our dim
threatening weather;
the Germans, very serious, carry books.
Adam was a man
and all men are mortal:
I too was a man
but the dope was cheap and the women
were easy: so much for logic.
Here I am dead,
been dead for the last six years
(get used to anything),
still missing the girls and the craic.
I wrote one super good song;
now all these strangers come like pilgrims
to gawp at the soil
five yards from where I'm planted.
(I have to go home to the wife, sir ...
-Ah, stick around, can't you, haven't I paid you well?)
Disappointment is general,
here's me with a teeny-weeny stone
stuck in the gravel,
below Gran'far with his concrete Angel.
"But HE'S not famous at all!"
say the elderly indignant Americans,
red-faced, irritated,
not having reckoned on the cattle stile.
(I'll be away home to my tea, so
- Ah, sure, what's your rush, boyo?)
Come here to me, says
Timmy O'Flynn, 'tis a question of blood,
(he's a local man with a criminal record)
and if you understand that,
(he stops, has a think) yerra Jayzus, man,
I never even knew the bastard.
