IN A PALACE BAR AFTERNOON

‘When I first came to Dublin in 1939, I thought the Palace the most wonderful temple of art.’ (Patrick Kavanagh)

Dead conversations

and dud cheques

litter the gaps

between the gawping portraits

in this literary back room.

Here in the afternoon of Irish culture,

I hear the creak of Kavanagh’s knees

going down the steep bog stairs

pissing words away,

holding another conversation

in his clumsy hands.

So what’s a poetry boy to do?

Sozzle through another day,

dance betwen the lines of pints of plain,

wallow in the crevices of Beckett’s genius,

creep around the Palace floor,

scraping for scraps of dead oral histories?

For today, 

I’ll put away my pen

worn out with trying 

to trap the City of Limerick

in groping poems.

I’ll sit back

and crack with Duffy,

Lonsdale and the lads,

let Bertie Smyllie’s barking patter 

wash over my weariness.

Leave it to the shawlies 

in the huddled snug

to set things right,

I’m flying without a passport today,

buzzing along with Jimmy Joyce on board

this Ryanair Ulysses jet,

At Swim Two Birds.

And what’s the point

of lies in ink

when real poetry

should make a woman come

with the touch

of bird song on the lips of this hour?

Give your tongues a break,

Behan and Houlihan

and the rest, 

we’re dust

on a skin of Guinness.

And yet 

and yet,

the twinkle of light

through the old smoke of patter

does make the breath

in the lungs 

of a Dublin dancing day

as worthwhile

as the sweeping kiss

of that gull’s wings 

stroking the mouth of the Liffey.  

KEITH ARMSTRONG