Whaa yez ffff (cough) loo-lookin aa?
Tink oi’m fff-tin st
range, like? B—b-bowsy. Yer m-m-mother
dropped her draw- (cough) fff’n drawers
in Henry Street, a ho-(gasp) holy show
she was affter maykin
of hurrshelf.
Dartry grasps the situation
immediately, strides up to the autistic
albino leper, takes him by the shoulder
companiably, and shoots him in the head.
The bar staff lift him out, resignedly,
and give him a heave into the yard,
(now designated the Smokers Corner)
among the other restful corpses.
I understand you’ve been misbehaving
says D, raising a quiet two fingers
and we have to wait for the usual 5-6 minutes
while the muddy brown shite does its thing
and comes out a black and glistening Arthur G.
Such tales are exaggerated. Don’t mind me
but did you really have to go and shoot that eejit?
Overall, yes, I went to school with his brother.
Oh, right. Why would you not think
about politics? You have the makings,
guns that work and a pile of queer money,
the history of our beloved ancient country,
and you’ve only to shoot the poor gobshites
that get in the way, two minutes before
they haul off and shoot you instead.
A cute little precis of the Tan War, says D,
and what were you about in Norn Iron?
Nowt, says I, only business as feckin usual
and since when have you had the ghra mo chroi
for Presbyterians? There’s not much of a laugh
in them, says D, musingly, dour motherfuckers
like they’d had pickles for breakfast, ready
to throw their dying Granny off the bed
to get at that last hidden penny.
Our fellow countrymen. We pause and think.
Thank Christ we don’t live in England, anyway.
Do you know what they call James the Second,
says I, apropos of nothing, James the Wha, says D?
Second, never been a Third. Came over here
and got his arse kicked royally on the Boyne
up by Duleek where they have the new bridge.
Oh, I know that bridge, says D, it’s nice, so it is,
and I’m not such a goner on modern architecture
but that is a fuckin nice bridge. It’s got a nice
airy character to it, says I, floating over the river
where all that historical shite went down.
What historical shite, asks D, a typical modern
Irishman. Well, to cut things short they called him
Seamus the Shit. Who? Never mind. He died in France.
I wouldn’t mind going to France, and I don’t mean
just the Duty-frees in Dunkirk and Boulogne
but the real heart of the country, like, la France Profonde,
where nobody speaks English. Lookit, nobody
speaks English in France, period. They won’t issue
you a passport if you even give a hint of speaking English
and if you pretend to understand that bastard tongue
they’ll cut your garlic ration for the next ten years.
That bad? Believe it. How do they get on in the world?
They don’t. They’ve been fading out for centuries.
Au revoir! Une last goodbye. A finally finally last good byeee!
The fuckers can never get off the stage. A bit like us, so?
No. We are a teensy-weensy bit aware of our own shortcomings.
Do you not like our Gallic cousins, ancestral Celts and the like?
I love them to bits. They have style and panache and joei de vivre
that allows the rest of us to get on with life while they prance about
like idiots. Well, then, what about the Germans? Do NOT get me
started!! Whaa yez ffff (cough) loo-lookin aa? Tink oi’m fff-tin st
range, like? B—b-bowsy. Yer m-m … says a rough but familiar voice
and we are rejoined by a large looming figure from Smokers Paradise.
Jayz, you were a long time having a puff, Jim.
