`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, a kick in the balls,
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 Crested Ten. Tally-ho hark away me boys
away. continue
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