Old fuck with red Kenny nose,
irradiated with alcohol veins,
thin grey hair margarine wet,
lantern-jawed and ugly.
We only ever saw him happy,
if he had won, smiling drunk,
waltzing down the concrete streets of Finglas,
twirling an empty partner off her feet.
He quarried his joy like a miner,
chasing a lost equine seam that once found,
would be mislaid, once again, soon enough.
Still, I was proud,
he had fought in France,
the knowledge fueling my childhood dreams,
already fat with comic book propaganda.
Also proud, he'd display the holes in his leg,
where the nazzies had came and left,
and the egg on the top of his greasy skull,
hit with the butt of a Luga, he said,
feel it, he said.
Soft, smooth, round,
hypnotically revolting.
Tracing history with my finger.
It's just a lump on his head
said his one-eyed wife.
He probably shot himself,
said the Cyclops in the corner.
We'd nag him to tell his adventures,
of an Irishman dancing in front of the red, white, and black
But he never would,
No matter how much we begged him.
Until the day, one day, that he did.
A strange thing for a child to see an old man weep,
telling tales of friends destroyed in front of him,
Of desperate, terrified flight.
Weapons made of big cats,
that chased him forever in his dreams,
Drowning the horror in Guinness,
gee-gees and bad temper.
After that,
We never asked him again.