Poguemahone, p.14
Poguemahone, page 14
But not with Rolling News
o no
Or David Attenborough’s Planet Earth either.
As a matter of fact, I forget what was actually on.
‘Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you,’ she heard the
indistinct figure in the corner reassuring
her. ‘But, nevertheless, I’m afraid the time has come.’
And, as soon as she heard that, Tanith Kaplinski burst
into tears.
Because somehow, instinctively, she knew
in that moment
that she was never going to see her old friends
again
whether in The Mahavishnu Temple
at college
or the dance studio in Maida Vale.
Please! Tanith pleaded, please I’ll do anything.
Thinking about ‘All the beautiful birds in the
garden’, composed by Offenbach
which she had been assiduously rehearsing all that day.
All the beautiful birds in the garden
those little birdies,
sighed the shape as it gazed right at her
her fearful eyes falling
on the crouched shape of a
very old woman
a lady in a shawl
a crocheted black shawl
sitting in the corner by the small TV.
Saying nothing.
Nothing, that is, apart from:
Are you not well, daughter? But
don’t be afraid – because Auntie
Nano is here.
With divil the bit she hasn’t seen
down through the years. So, hush now,
alanna, and rest yourself aisy.
At least that was what Tanith Kaplinski thought
she had heard
as the telly went fizz! and spurt! and then sss!
Outside, at some considerable distance, a group of little
children could be heard ring-a-rosy-ing and
laughing.
‘It’s sad,’ said Tanith, swallowing deeply, ‘it’s just so so
hard.’
Looking askance at the shawled old lady
steadily rocking back and forth in the armchair
with a hypnotic, easy rhythm
before removing her squat clay pipe,
with eyes squinting.
‘You poor little craythur,’ Tanith heard her
murmur, smiling ever so faintly,
‘try not to be afraid, will you, daughter?’
But poor Tanith – how could she not?
Did you ever see a star like Margot Fonteyn doing
a pee?
With the drops going tick tick tick
all the way down her leg?
Well, Tanith Kaplinski did that night.
With it, in fact, turning out to be
none other than herself, of course.
As she stood there, ossified
staring in disbelief
at the small widening yellow pool
‘Please, will you not hurt me?’
Tanith Kaplinski abjectly appealed.
‘Because I’ve been so looking forward
to my show next week.’
‘I know that, daughter,’ the old woman said,
‘I realise that, craythur.
Tá a fhios agam
But I’m afraid
I’m sorry to say
it’s inevitable, can’t you see
what it is that has to happen
just as it is with Lord Dessie
of Archway Bridge.
& there’s nothing in heaven or earth
that can stop it now.’
Yes, that was what the old woman told her
those were the words that her visitor
that night spoke.
The old lady who had appeared
out of nowhere
– only now, you see, there wasn’t anyone
there
Neither rocking chair nor Auntie Nano, either.
Just the smallest of birds sitting
there perched on top of the dresser
coolly appraising the ‘trimmlin’ Tanith Kaplinski
with all the bitter tragedy of the world
sharply reflected in the living pearl
of
its
unflinching
eye.
Ah yes, the old times surely,
there’s no doubt about it.
You’ll never guess what Una has gone
& done now –
pinned up on the noticeboard
an old comic picture of the Red Baron
flying ace of World War I.
Yes, has thumbtacked him up there
right next to ‘Coco’,
her famous TV host and lover, she says.
Ha ha ha she laughs,
Baron Von Richthofen
thinks he can strafe all my precious memories
him and his guns and doodlebugs
& get rid of everything that matters
just like that
with the truth actually being
like so many people
that he’s full of gas and pop
the very exact same as that
other ommadawn, Trevor Howard
who never, in his life,
went on any
lousy
made-up
commando
missions
at all
she insists
waving her arms
&, before I know it,
is away off over the other side of the foyer
chatting by the new time
to Butley & Co.
Pulling out bits and pieces
from her handbag.
Ladies & gentlemen
I can hear her shouting
doing jazz hands as Connie
The Brazilian Princess,
smiling,
goes gliding by.
‘All aboard to begin our rehearsals!’ Una shouts
after her,
but Her Majesty has already
turned the corner.
Una always gets her group together
every Thursday afternoon.
That’s, of course, provided she happens to
remember
& The Baron hasn’t
come around jeering
in his triplane
strafing her reason and
ripping up the dirt of her mind.
In which case she’ll be standing
sucking her thumb, staring at iguanas
or some new astonishing undersea
creation, laughing at the very idea
of plays or stupid Capers,
being much too preoccupied
trying to keep up with
Baron Von Richthofen
the incomparable dandy
in his goggles and flying jacket
cruelly looping in and out of her memory
as he rat-a-ta-tats and splinters
her soul
even further
&, in the process,
often does the same to mine.
Well, obviously, he would
how could he not
what with my sister Una
and myself being so close
as we always have,
to an almost ridiculous degree
at times.
Do you know what,
I’ve never seen so many seabirds in my life
as are to be found in Cliftonville Gardens.
With this gull in particular coming right up
to the front door every day
& poking his beak against the glass
just standing there shifting from
foot to foot
as if on the point of asking:
well, where is it then?
where exactly is my lunch?
So many fowl
all these little twitterers,
where on earth could they all be
coming from?
I mean, they can’t all be natives of Margate.
In recent times I’ve taken to noting
the various different species.
They say that the blackbird and the song thrush
they’re the superior singers of early Springtime.
& maybe ’cos of that
it’s when I hear my sister singing
like she often does
humming abstractedly
trilling these little notes of regret
that I often think
the pair of us
we’re not unlike a pair of
sweet little birdies ourselves.
‘No wonder you’re jealous of
Troy!’ she used to say.
Look – she’s reading one of
Troy’s favourites so she is
even after all this time
she’s still got a soft spot
for Peanuts & all that.
Charlie Brown, you’ve got a failure face.
You know that?
Why, it’s got failure written all over it.
Troy always used to like reading that to Una.
& then doing this funny twirly
dance just like Snoopy.
I can’t tell you how much she loved that
& used to sometimes say that she thought
it was that which had first
made her fall in love with him,
his love for Peanuts and his childish sense of
humour.
‘Do you know something, Charlie Brown?
If only you weren’t so wishy-washy, you could be a
prince who flies to the moon!’
She said that out of the blue
only just the other day
& then when I laughed and said:
ah yes, that old Charlie Brown!
what does she go and do
turns around and, eating the last of her
guggy egg
says: Who?
As I took her hand and clasped it to my cheek
we were always doing that
but not in any kind of unsavoury way
it’s just that she’s my sister
that’s all
& us, we Fogartys
it’s our duty to stick together
me and her against the world
like an dornán slat
the bundle of sticks
that together will remain forever
unbreakable
because once they begin to separate
they can be torn apart & will splinter
like matchwood
& flitter away
broken up
destroyed.
It’s just a pity we didn’t manage
it in the end
setting up a home of our own
under the eaves
constructed our very own
closed-cup mud nest
At Home With The Fogartys
which had always been what I’d
hoped and longed for
&, I know
so did she,
before certain tensions got the better of us
and we watched it burn
our sweet home of dreams
right there
in front of our very eyes.
Teach álainn
Dan agus Una Fogarty
Dan & Una’s
lovely, dreamy mountain home
now, sadly, nothing but a memory
but all the same,
like I promised,
I’ll always be here by her side
to watch over her
& guide her
yes, right until the sixpences are
placed upon my eyes
of that I can assure you
may God forgive me
should I play you false
this night.
Because every simple human being
has their hopes and aspirations – is that
not the case?
Yes, that’s the way
it just is, and always has been.
How marvellous, though, it would have been.
If, in some small way, it had all worked out
& the children she’d longed for
& happened upon
– quite by accident, of course
o, go deimhin, go deimhin! –
that special day
out of nowhere
in Queen’s Park
if they’d only been able to remain
a little longer in our ‘Secret Nest’
maybe even stay there for good
with the pair of us
me and Una
as their parents
yes, their caring & loving
tuismitheoirí
o what kisses & presents
we’d have lavished on our own little birdies
our two wee
babogues,
Bobbie agus Ann.
Ann & Bobbie
&
Bobbie & Ann
The two lovely childre we found that day
our own little personal charges
who we thought might give our lives
meaning
after The Temple it had fallen
into ruins
with nothing remaining
for to give our lives meaning
we were sure they would save us
as we, in our turn,
might be able to do the same
for them
taking them away from their heroin-addict
mother
to our secret attic
our warm nest of sanctuary
so sweet
but, sadly however,
it didn’t work out
mostly because of my sister’s instability
& the complete & utter unpredictability
of her moods.
Some people at the time did, in fact,
mention the gruagach
Na páistí goidte, such commentators
suggested – the stolen children.
Because that’s what such entities
were reputed, in the old times,
to do.
But everyone agreed that that was ridiculous.
&, as a matter of fact,
they were right.
Because Una didn’t, in fact, steal them
that glittering Sunday afternoon in
Queen’s Park
a week after The Temple had finally folded
no, simply borrowed them for a while.
Something which the two páistí themselves
were more than glad of, let me tell you
– living, as they did, in an absolute
midden in a sinkhole estate at the
back end of Killiburn
surrounded by hyperfuckingdermics and
empty pizza cartons.
With Bobbie even saying
thank you for being so kind to us
Una
& telling us all about
The Swans Of Lough Derravaragh
where once there had lived
such beautiful swans
who had once been frightened
little children like us
finding themselves then
secure in our secret attic
enchanted & protected
given no end of sweeties and
all kinds of treats
showed
so much affection and
kindness
that Bobbie said he could
barely speak
we love you, Auntie Una!
cried Ann
as salt silver rivers came coursing
down my sister’s hollowed-out cheeks.
I ndeireadh na dála
at the end of the day
we only had them a mere
three pitiful hours
some eternal dream home, for sure!
Almost as brief & pathetic
as Troy McClory’s
alternative societies &
Hy-Brasil of a society cleansed
& entirely reformed!
No, mar adeirim,
as I say,
little Bobbie & Ann weren’t kidnapped
but just for the briefest of periods
provided with a glimpse
of a heaven that might have been.
& I will say this
temporary though it was
yes, short-lived though
our improvised home in Knocknanane
(Home Of The Birds,
Nest Of The Fogartys)
however fleeting
it might have been
there at the top of the totally
vacated premises
in Brondesbury Gardens
in its kindness & tenderness &
magnificent sheer ordinariness
it was infinitely superior
to anything achieved by
Troy McClory and his
starry-eyed
inner-travelling
psychic-cosmonaut
cronies
him &
King Crimson &
In
The
Wake
Of
Fucking
O, alanna
whenever I think of that
so-called fucking Wizard
sitting there
in his fringed buckskin jacket
tugging on that little scrawny
scraggy beard
squinting his eyes as he pushes back
his long lank blondie hair
inhaling a long deep draught
of some more dope
before preparing to deliver yet
another blah blah lecture
about Ralph Bakshi
or Robert Crumb & the
Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers
or his most recent obsession
Fritz The Cat
the sexy moggie
in the stripey sweater
who liked to hang around
pool rooms
whenever
he wasn’t ‘balling chicks’
& which, by Troy’s own admission,
the prodigal art student, gifted
musician & amateur scientist
not to mention God’s gift to
women
thought was ‘absolutely
fucking
hilarious’.
Yes, almost as amusing
as the one and only Toots
McGladdery,
claiming to be a distant relative
of Una’s
arriving to stay in the flat one night
& departing as mysteriously as he’d
appeared
leaving no trace
just a milky smear
on the Polaroid
taken by Blind Owl
o but what a character
it has to be said
with everyone loving him
what with the way he made
McClory jealous
being a fabulous talker
& well-fit to charm the
pants off everyone
what with his tales of having been
places
that even they, as yet, could only
but dream of
living in the heart of the Amazonian
