Strangers

A poem from my party days; when we would drink til midnight, attend the Gaiety Jazz club til 3 am and crawl to Kaffe Moka's for tuna melts. As I worked Saturdays Friday nights out had a strange and disturbing effect on Saturday workdays.....


Strangers

hurriedly dressed and tousled
stale eyes, stale inside
caught in the clammy sweat
and churning stomach
of a hangover
in a state of vague paranoia
everyone I meet
is a familiar stranger.
My mother's voice
a recurring distraction
to the all-important task
of staying vertical,
praying for deliverance.
The day outside
a glowering stifling blur
too loud, too fast.
I wander through the place
lost in self inflicted misery
with pitying glances from passers-by


Geraldine Moorkens Byrne

1.

Green Party On

In a week that saw the Greens enter power for the first time in their history;


Green Party On

I walked Tara as a child
on ramparts ancient paused,
while parents stared at vistas far beyond
our youthful minds.

They were from a generation
far different from our own;
not for them the instant or the undeserved,
unearned reward.

Now matrons move their children
to the sticks, to mix with others
in surburban bliss, sans roads and schools
and infrastructure.

The chattering classes sit on
their ass and talk about recycling;
while sympathizing with those who would
bulldoze Tara.

The Green voter pledged to Save
Tara, til they smelt power and
in that moment turned to establishment
and economics.

Converted to Mamon
and to Progress, our most devoutly
prasied god in modern Ireland, sans Heritage
or pride.

Party On Green Men. Pary
while they destroy six thousand
years of dreams and literature and history
and sanctity.

Move to Meath, with your SUVs
and flood the rural scene with stress,
you'll be unmolested by men of conscience, not
in Ireland.

Geraldine Moorkens Byrne

1.