PICTURES OF PORTLAOISE

`Surely you don't mean -'
`I do.`
`Mr. Murphy! I can't believe this! Even Emo... Togher... Our beloved local-'

`Knock them all. Think of the starving millions. All the coffins you could make, instead of planting them in rags.'

I was prepared to leave it at that, but she launched into this sermon about poems made by fools like me but only God could make a tree.

`Exactly. Now you're talking. Do you know what trees are? They're arrows. Arrows fired by God to keep us in our place. Everywhere we turn, we're hemmed in by trees. They're a symbol, a metaphor for mankind's lack of free will.'

The bitch gazed right through me, at the rent-a-crowd, the clink of sponsored glasses.

`Prison bars. A stockade to keep us from seeing beyond our own little patch. And another thing. Did you ever feel the urge to get up on a tree? A big strong oak or chestnut?

`Certainly not. Why should I?`

`Because they're phallic symbols.'

`Disgusting!'

`And did you ever collect conkers?'

`Please, Mr. Murphy, be serious.'

`Of course you did. And do you know why?`

`Mr Murphy, I really don't think-'

`It's a manifestation of every woman's desire to emasculate a man.'

`You drunkard. You pervert. You... gatecrasher!'

The things that come into your head. Is it possible to have a single second with nothing happening, an instant when your brain is as barren as a skull? I'll find out. Quiet please. Dim the lights. Experiment No. 1. 5-4-3-2-1…

I am spellbound as Aladdin rubs his lamp. A magnesium flash, an explosion of my breath, and he is gone behind a swirl of smoke. Slowly it dawns on us that something has gone wrong. The Genie bursts from the wings and kneels over Aladdin who twists in agony on the floor. His hands clutch his eyes. `I can't see! I can't see!' Along the Main Street, past the courthouse, the barber's window slick with haircuts from the Fifties, comes the tapping of his stick. Black glasses hide the pantomime of terror in his eyes.

No, it can't be done. Experiment deemed a failure. Maybe it's possible for Joe Soap, but certainly not for a poet. A poet's head, a true poet's head, is different. It is a foundry, an armoury working non-stop day and night. In the white heat of suffering, words are sharpened into spears. A poet's head is the forge of confrontation. Poor Timmy. Thirty years rubbing that lamp behind his eyes. The things that come into your head.

Main Street. A white-haired woman fumbles in her handbag. Scented gloves, tickets for 'Aladdin' in the Worsted Mills, a prayerbook full of memory cards.

Ro-ock, rock a hula baby. What am I at lying here in the cold? Get up, get up. What's that? Shit. The bottle's in bits. Let that be a lesson for you. Lesson No. 1: Never trust the pockets of a sports coat. Mind the glass. Too late... Look, we're blood brothers, him and me. What am I saying? I'm not like that bastard. Look, I am Padre Pio, the patron saint of poets!

Trees. That's why I thought of the reception. I am surrounded by trees. I run for miles, the clothes plastered to my back, and I end up surrounded by the prongs of God.

`Where's your poetry now?`

Listen. Even the wind in the trees. Laughing at the poet.

`Coffins for rags! Coffins for rags!`

`Write about that, write about that.'

`Ye won't be laughing come Christmas!`

Look at what they’ve done to me, down on all fours, panting like a dog. Look. Snow. Even God is spitting at the poet. What’s that up ahead? Blink and see if it goes. Still there. Get up, get up. Jesus, my legs have a mind of their own. A shed. Locked. The bastards have it locked. Do they think they can do this to a poet? Do they think they can silence me with puny slings and arrows? Mind your eyes with that glass. Coming through! Fire in the hole...! I hope the drink hasn’t ruined the matches. Drums of fuel, chainsaws, a pick-axe, God bless the happy woodsman. Ha ha ye philistines, I'll tear ye limb from limb, slash your tyres, make crystals of your searchlights. Screams, the agony of bones, the laughter of the chainsaw. Look out, ye bastards, here I come, the Kenwood Chef of Poetry.

The Old Chapel. The Men’s Confraternity. My father singing out of tune at Benediction.

Wait till I get out of this jacket. Jesus, that’s sweat... is that blood? There it is... good old Crested Ten. Three cheers for John Jameson. Up Cork. C'mon the rebels. Look, the pariah poet, gnawing every drop of goodness from the pocket. You aint nothin' but a hound dog. A foundry. Did I say that? I'm ashamed of myself. Cheese-and-wine poetry. It's a miracle I haven't lost the bag. Where’s the matches? The memory card. Her First Communion picture. Mind the blood! Look at those eyes. They could be mine. Her poor eyes could be mine. Five years writing to the Minister. Five years crying before Councillors and TDs. But I sorted them out. If you're looking down on me now, Mammy, you'll see, I sorted them out. By Jesus, I got revenge. The house never the same. Day and night as sad a place as Lourdes. The half ring. The Samaritans' number. Love me tender, love me true.

The Electric Cinema. Elvis close enough to kiss. Jack-the-Lamp prowls the aisle, a walking-stick of light beside him.

The things that come into your head. What's next? Spin the wheel. Fingers on the buzzer. Come on down! Are you ready, words? Start walkin'!

A report has just come in that a man has been found dead in the maximum security wing of Portlaoise prison.

Poor Daddy. The things that come into your head. How did I end up in a wood? Was I drawn by some atavistic memory? Did one of my ancestors flee here after 1798, yeoman blood still glistening on his pike? Who fears to speak of '98? I'll tell you one thing. That bastard will never speak again. Did Mammy's people set lime for birds, scrabble in the dirt during the blackest days of '47? Where were you in 1916? Up in a tree in Togher Wood.

The Napoli. Gangsters in baggy suits, the Confirmation boys feed tanners to the juke-box. Love me tender.

Rock a hula baby. Only for me the whole town'd be gone. That's the pocket done for. The sleeve should keep me going until they find me; dogs, lights, megaphones screaming through the dark. Let them come. I am ready. Let them drag me by the hair, rip my flesh to pieces. True poets are born to die.... While I'm waiting, I might as well be thinking. List, in alphabetical order, ten things that must be suffered by the poet.

Absence. From a Daddy who died for Ireland.

B is for... Banality. A good one. Banality.

Compulsory Purchase Orders.

Destruction. Of the landmarks of youth, the lifeblood of art.

Evenings. Staring at the four walls.

Friends. Lack of.

G... I'll think of something later.

Home. H is for Home

I... Invisible? No. In... Inability. That's it. Inability to procure a regular supply of

Crested Ten.

JCB.

`If you ask me he was always a bit of a bollocks. Poncing around with that nancyboy bag, spouting about poems and the trans... the whatthefuckdidhecallit?`

`The transsomething power of words.`

`The power of words me arse. When did poems ever buy a pint?`

`Or pick the winner of the 3.30 at Lincoln. Meself and the lads'd be waiting for the results and we'd watch him through the window. Sticking up poems, handing out them bits of paper. One word on every page. You could hear him roaring on the Curragh. Come together, people of the Midlands, unriddle the spinks of life! Throw away the baubles of banality! I ask you, what sort of carry-on is that? Bawling about fucking bananas. In broad daylight?`

`And what about the banger?`

`The Kingmobile? Sure he drove that into a ditch years ago. Going home one night in the horrors.`

`He was as bad in school. Remember how he used to go on about Elvis? The Bard of Memphis. The greatest living poet. Stop the lights!` Remember the night of the concert? `I'd like to recite a poem about repression in the modern world` and he starts into `You can knock me down, step on my face.` Give us a break.`

`I was stuck beside him for two years and it was the luck of God he didn't get me thrown out. Your man from the library, the baldy bollocks with the wig-`

`Tintawn.`

`That's him. Tintawn. He came into the class like a bulldog, and what did the eejit do but admit everything straight away.`

`You were worse to have anything to do with him. Sure weren't they all half-mad. Look at the oul' lad... the spirit of 1916. Some fucking spirit alright, planting bombs in a pram. And wasn't the mother locked up for years?`

`He paid me. Half-a-dollar a go. My job was to plant the incendiaries. That's what he called them, fucking incendiaries. The idea was that some oul' wan would open a love story or a cookery book and it would explode in her face. Still beats me how a poem could fucking explode, but there you are, that's the way he was.`

`Who gives a fiddler's about poetry anyway? Especially the women. No wonder he could never shift. Same again there, Paddy.`

`Another night we were down in the County when in he waltzes with the handbag on his arm.`

`I wonder is he a bit bent?`

`I wouldn't put it past him. Look at what happened with the young Kinsella one. Anyway, there was great gallery when Bimbo swiped the bag and we fucked it around the floor. Bits of paper flying in all directions. It was like a fucking wedding. And what did the bollocks do but start to cry. I swear to God, in front of all the lads, lepping up and down in the air, crawling around on his hands and knees bawling like a woman, and we all going where's your mammy gone, chirpy chirpy cheep cheep.`

The eloquence of the Gael. Come back to Erin, mavourneen, mavourneen. The first duty of the true poet is to publish nothing. Once polluted by ink the magic disappears. The second is: Be ruthless with your gift. I unleash words into the darkness, a virus to contaminate your sleep. I invent ways to give the bourgeoisie insomnia. That is my posterity, not some timid little pamphlet oohed and aahed at by the Arts Council and spinsters up in Dublin. My poetry is a spit in the face, the phone screeching in the dead of night.

The things that come into your head. Listen, what's that? Is it them? The pick. Gentlemen, you may choose your weapons. Take your pick. Sssshhh, listen. No. Just a rabbit or a fox. He must've got a whiff of the Crested Ten. Tally-ho hark away me boys away.

Of course I heard all about him too, but there's two sides to every story. I used to see him in the library or sitting on his own in The Country Kitchen, and he was the most harmless looking creature in the world. To tell the truth, he was very good-looking. Even the girls - and they believed every badminded whisper in the street - had to admit that much. The morning he bumped into me at Fortune's corner he couldn't apologise enough. At the time I didn't notice the smell of drink but I remembered it later on. When I met him again he invited me for coffee, and the minute he sat in front of me I fancied him like mad. I know it sounds stupid, but that's the way it was. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when he told me that the handbag was his mother's.

I wonder have they found him yet? I was only doing my duty. That's all. Doing my duty like Elvis in 1958. Private 53310761. The bastard deserved it. Didn't he destroy my mother? The Main Street, the Napoli, the chapel. Even the Kingmobile. I’m sorry, Mr Murphy, but under the Road Traffic Act… Road traffic. I gave him traffic. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. That's what the bible says. Lex talionis. An eye for an eye.

In the beginning I used to humour him, but he knew I'd rather talk about anything but poetry. And do you know why we got on so well? Because I could see that it was all an act, all looking for attention. I knew that, behind the big words, all the talk about the past, how there's an ancestry to every breath we take, all the preserve our planet for posterity, he was no different from the rest of us...

He could be so romantic too. Like the time he spent a fortune on the gold ring and then sawed it in half. I said are you mad? but he said that sailors used to do it years ago. He gave me one half and made me swear that no matter what happened, no matter where we ended up, we'd always be together. Another night, at the pictures, he pulled me into him and whispered I love you so much I want to inject your blood into my veins.

I felt so sorry for him living out there on his own and the place falling down around him. I thought that if I was with him every night he might go easy on the drink. I found out after that he was in every pub in the town before he called for me at all. Then I tried cooking. He'd say the meal was brilliant but he was sorry, he had to meet someone at nine o'clock. This went on for the best part of a year. Honestly, I'd love to stay, but I have to meet someone at nine o'clock. Sometimes I wouldn't see him for weeks, then he'd turn up on the doorstep smiling like a Jehovah. I'd throw my arms around him and bring him into the bed. We never said a word, just lay there holding hands and him crying no-one understands me, no-one understands me.

What could I do? She came at me like a disease. This is as dry as bone. The bones of John Barleycorn. The trouble with poets is that they see poetry as a private, solitary art. Send the wife off to the pictures, tell the kids to shut up and there it is, waiting for you like a bowl of cornflakes on the table. Aphorism No. 1: The poet must burn the garret in his head. My poetry flourished in the daylight, grew stronger in the glare of confrontation. It took on the Council, fought to the death the bastard that locked up my mother and destroyed the memories of my youth. What is a poet without the memories of his youth? Like Hitler in his bunker, he pawed the map, planted flags, and sent his henchmen to destroy the town I loved. And nothing blocked their way but poetry. While politicians, historians and Greens wrung their hands in meetings, I was on the streets, hoarse from crying in the wilderness. Only words stood between my past and the slavering curs of progress. But they were futile: pebbles hopping off Goliath's chest.

But I've taught him not to tangle with a poet. And she won't be so high and mighty when they find him. `What about Emo? Coolattin, our majestic native oak?` I gave him Emo. I gave him oak. She'll be sorry he never put a preservation order on himself.

Query No. 1: If poetry stems from the deepest emotions, why are there no poems in praise of exterminating Jews, or letting black babies starve to death? What is more emotional than murder? Why do only good people write poetry. Two essential rules for would-be poets: 1. Wipe Africa from the map of your emotions. 2. Ditto cancer, children, the rape of the planet. Are you a poet or do you want to be Miss World?

When I arrived, there was maybe half-a-dozen of them gathered round the JCB. At first I thought there must have been an accident, but then I saw the old woman, squashed into the bucket, threatening to do away with herself if they didn't give her back the field. I tried to talk to her but she wouldn't budge. After a while, the foreman ordered two lads to lift her out. In a flash she whipped out a breadknife and drew it across her arm: `Are ye happy now? What do ye think of that? Get back, get back, ye pack of bullyboys. Are ye not content with taking the bit of land? Is it blood ye want as well? I'll give ye blood. All the blood ye want!`

When the County Manager appeared, she went hysterical altogether: 'D'ye see this? D'ye see this? It won't be the first time a Murphy died a martyr!`

I went and called the station, but the sergeant said do nothing, let the Council sort it out themselves. So I stayed in the car. To tell the truth, I was half on her side anyway. She never had it easy what with the husband topping himself in the prison and the young lad wandering around in a world of his own.

The Manager looked at his watch and stepped forward again: `Now, Mrs Murphy, I have the whole thing sorted out. Show me that knife like a good woman and the Council will discuss the matter at the earliest opportunity.`

She threw back her head, laughed like a hyena, and plunged the knife into her leg: `D`ye take me for a real stook altogether? I want the bit of land back and I want it back this minute!`

The next thing I knew the engine was revving up. Jesus, I said to myself, they're hardly going to heel her out? But they didn't. They just left her in the bucket and the JCB headed for the road. It was pure bad luck that there was a match in the field the same evening. I can see it still. I was never so ashamed. Me out in front with the lights flashing; herself roaring `God save Ireland! Four green fields. Feck the fecking Council!` And stretching back along the road, carloads of lads, leaning out of windows, waving flags, wondering what the hell was going on. Thanks be to God we got rid of them at the roundabout, but we still had to go down the Main Street. Did you ever wish you were a dwarf? Now and then I looked in the mirror and there she was, sawing her arm, bawling at the crowds. By the time we got to Saint Fintan's I was sweating like a pig and I wasn't a bit sorry when they carted her inside.

What's keeping them? Has the shock nailed them to the floor? No. They're scurrying through the offices, screaming for Form 36A. Requisition: An ambulance, a priest, four buckets of hot water, four mops, four Brillo pads extra large. Maybe they got stuck in the snow? The wind through that window is like a knife. The poor coat's in shreds. What am I going to do? I can't lie here all night. I know. I know what I'll do. I'll trudge through ice and snow, head down against the wind, along the lane, the main road, past the barracks and the football field, the swirling Square, drunks pegging snowballs at Our Lady, the courthouse, Fortune's corner, the river, until I come to Willy Mac's. Shake the snow out of my hair, march up to the bar, howaye lads? bad night out, I put that bastard in his place, what? put money on the counter and hold the Crested Ten like a baby to my chest. Listen... What's that...? They must've found him. Quick. Quick. Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has left the building. Elvis has left the building.