It's Been 10 Years Since I Sat Paper II.
The mornings traffic is at a standstill and the smell of puberty is wafting in the air – it’s early September and deranged flashbacks of my time in secondary school come flooding back. Profuse perspiration takes hold in the very areas of vulnerability that the thick black cotton school jumper of 2012 stimulated. I quiver at the thought of the dermatologically below par teenager with facial hair resembling a poorly kept garden and who’s bang average rig left him as confused around the opposite sex as a cow on AstroTurf.
Like the apple to Newton’s head this reflection on my younger self reminded me that I sat English Paper II ten years ago this summer past. It’s taken me that decade to poorly apply some of the deeply engrained rote learned syllabus into something that merely accentuates my regression as a functioning adult and highlights that I am - still the same cow - still chewing the same AstroTurf - still waiting to taste grass.
Swigging
(Seamus Heaney’s – ‘Digging’)
Between my fingers and my thumb,
The pint glass rests; snug as a gun.
With godly conviction, he poured out his best.
Tap lines engulfed by dark velvet waves. Expectation awaits.
A trundle of cream down the pint falls,
Steeped in tradition like the timeworn mahogany it sits on.
Unbridled passion keeping the pint aloft.
The sharp tones of barley with the soft viscosity of cream.
A cuddly pint she was.
Between my fingers and my thumb,
The pint glass rests;
I call another.
W.B Pints
(W.B Yeats’ - ‘Lake Ilse of Inisfree’)
I will arise and go now and go to a place of glee,
And a pint glass rests there, of malt and barley made.
Nine dark pints I will have there, relapse for the likes of me, to be anonymous under the barman's glaze.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes settling slow.
Two minutes to arrive and does so with a creamy glow.
I will arise and go now for the wife is calling me, the children haven’t been collected and have been waiting since ten past three.
Divinity
(Patrick Kavanagh’s – ‘Sanctity’)
To go out for three but stay for more
Emotions parked in the garage
Routine deception my beloved endures
The delicate dance of marriage.
Uncle Edward’s Brandy
(Adrienne Rich’s - ‘Aunt Jennifer's Tigers’)
Uncle Edward’s brandy dances across my tongue,
The burning embrace of a friend far flung.
Oak aged violence replacing despair,
Twice distilled designed to impair.
Uncle Edward’s hand shaking with each and every pour.
A bachelor of the land of which he adored.
The weight of loneliness seen heavy on his heart.
No one for company just a slice of apple tart.
Uncle’s now dead, his hands lie still
Spotted with anguish he drank the full will
The brandy sits still on the top drawer
If I don’t find a wife soon I’ll be next to pour.
I Think We Should Call It A Night
(Derek Mahon’s - ‘Everything will be alright’)
How should I not be glad to contemplate
the serenity of the morning calm as the sun ascends
through the plume of cigarette smoke.
No man to the slumber, no man to the cot,
but there is no need to go into that.
A state suspended from reality
anchored in empathy of comrades can in can.
It is a blessing rolling over in the company
of those who are cracked for they let in the light.
The barber is expecting me, its 11am on a Saturday.
I think we should call it a night.
I suppose in some ways the old adage about secondary school is true - it’s an awful lot like toilet roll, you don’t miss it till it’s gone.
Yours in exceptional mediocrity.
Warm Cans,
B3 Honours English Student - Leaving Cert 2012.
gorgeous