Listen my love
As you take my hand
As we walk gently to the town’s fair
I can no longer love you
in the way that you wish
under Wolfs Tone’s marbled stare.
You see my Ma thinks that we have
no future together
and I’m inclined to agree
for I seek a different life sailing the sea
beyond our small life
here in Bantry.
So she said her fond farewells
his face drowned in tears,
and the taste of bitter salt
The Pantomime Dame wipes off his make-up
in an exaggerated style
and smiles broadly, but with a hint of exhaustion
disguised by heady amusement
in his sparkling brown eyes, at the saxophonist
who has played him in on stage and in time for forty nights,
excluding the supposed festive delight filled days,
on the run.
The saxophonist for his part only has eyes for the principal boy
who has been the hero
for many a confused child, who asks their mother,
but never their father,
A few words remain not mentioned about you and I.
In a life far from unblemished and certainly not focused
We let it slip beyond the boundaries, wither and die.
As with a famine caused by confusion and crafty locusts
That tore at the flesh of our tarnished pride
To leave nothing but shells of who we were
Screaming injustice and asking supporters to take a side
Between the myopic misery and a memory sour and blur.
This bitterness breaks us both
And sees the life left over now in living decay and dust