Voyagers

Written for the wedding of Colm and Lindsay,
9th October 2012

You may have heard of St. Brendan, a voyaging hero was he.

With his band of brothers in currachs, he set off on the wild rolling sea.

Through nine years of adventures and dangers, they kept rowing steadfastedly west,

Till they made it at last to America and they called it the Isle of the Blest.

 

Now Colm's adventures were different, when he started to travel afar,

With his band of Michael and Nigel he set off in his trusty white car.

They crossed over the sea on the ferry, with no danger to life or to limb,

By that lucky chance, he landed  in France, and America made it to him.

 

He was working one night in the Oz pub, with customers wanting a jar,

When up Lindsay rocked and their eyes interlocked, and they knew they had each found their star.

From two ends of an ocean they chanced for to meet, as Bogart once likewise expressed:

Of all of the bars in all of the world ...and well, you all know the rest.

 

Cut a long story short and fast forward, we're gathered together today,

Good thoughts come from here and across many miles as you gladly set out on your way.

By Erika's authority united we stand, and we join in with her to appoint ye

As Mr and Mrs, with very good wishes we raise up a glass and say Sláinte!

Frances O'Keeffe

Tea

Will you have a cup of tea? It’s so nice of you to call

To loan your holiday DVD,
That’s something that we’d love to see,
Some other night when we are free
To sit and watch it all.

Would you like a slice of cake? Yes, I made that one myself.

Ah... it took about an hour to bake,
Stop questioning for heaven’s sake,
I know you know that I’m a fake –
And it came off Centra shelf.

You keep droning in my ear of your kids here and abroad,

The one that climbed K2 last year,
That other one, the engineer.
But strange enough, we never hear
Of the one got fired for fraud.

You dropped by at ten to eight and now it’s half past ten.

You were in a hurry, couldn’t wait,
And still you’re prattling in full spate,
You tell me that the chat is great –
And the kettle’s on again.

I suppress a joyful roar, at last you’re standing up,

And now you linger by the door,
You smile and smile and chat some more,
Can’t stop myself saying, are you sure
You won’t have another cup?

There’s one thing that I’ve divined, though its truth we always know,

And that’s the reason and the rhyme
Behind that old song’s paradigm :
Goodbye is such a long, long time,
Three kettlefuls or so.

How fast the time has flown, call again when you are free.

And as you leave, I stop a yawn,
Look down the street, make sure you’re gone,
Then rush to put the kettle on
For another cup of tea.

A Day in the Life of April

Morning wept;

Started early, while we slept.
Rhythmically on the rooftops thrumming,
Like a thousand drummers drumming,
It belted down and kept on coming,
With roads and gutters all rainswept,
Morning wept.

Midday roared;

Like raucous revellers in a horde.
Like wakeful midnight babies roar,
Like wild waves lambaste the shore,
Like an audience yells for more,
The dustbin lids all skyward soared,
Midday roared.

Evening smiled;

Through pale skies, watery-eyed and mild.
Not flamboyantly, like June,
Not brashly, like an August noon,
But soft, like a half-remembered tune,
And shyly, like a timid child,
Evening smiled.

 

They say an old fiddle may play a good tune,

An old boiler may sweeten your plate.
But you see how time’s passed when you look in the glass
And you’re way past your best-before date.
I was bumpy and clumpy, to be frank I was frumpy,
So I asked the nice docs what to do.
They said, you’ll be grand, put yourself in our hands
And we’ll make a new woman of you.

We’ll make a new woman of you,

You’ll hardly believe it by the time we are through.
With bosom uplifted and belly flab shifted,
We’ll make a new woman of you.

They gave me a form that was eight pages long,

I filled it and signed myself in.
They did all the ops on the bottoms and tops,
The brow-lift, the cheeks and the chin.
Trimmed the old bingo wings and did all sorts of things
In all the right places you see,
They plumped up and extracted, added on and subtracted
And they made a new woman of me.

Oh, they made a new woman of me,

I can pass in a dim light for about forty three,
With long hair extensions and reformed dimensions,
They made a new woman of me.

When the dressings came off ‘twas a sight to behold,

Some parts smaller and some parts were bigger.
No more lines or crows’ feet and to make it complete,
They gave me an hourglass figure.
I was chiselled and honed and remarkably toned,
But my pride was soon shattered in three
For my grandchild of two said, “Where’s Nan? Who’re you?”
When they made a new woman of me.

Oh they made a new woman of me,

I’m expecting a call about a pic on page three,
With nips and with snips and with collagen lips,
They made a new woman of me.

Now I have to work hard for to keep my new shape,

Sure I’m living on cress and cucumbers,
Exercising away for hours every day,
But my birth cert still shows the same numbers.
Oh the creases and lines, they are long acquired signs,
They map out our lives, clear and true,
I suggest you think twice when they offer advice
To make a new woman of you.

Oh, they made a new woman of me,

So don’t you believe everything that you see,
Though they smooth out the skin, the old boiler’s within,
And time will still win, finally.          

   

Evolution

Not meant to be taken as a serious argument.

Consider

the Theory of Evolution.

I know we had to come from somewhere,

But is that the solution?

If you tell me my great-great-grandfather back

 millions of years was an amoeba,

I’m not sure I believe ya.

But yeah, I can see we might have crawled

up from the primordial ooze,

since people still love snakeskin bags

and alligator shoes.

In the nineteenth century

society got in a flap because

Mr Darwin spent some time

poking around Galapagos.

He studied and wrote a book,

The Origins of Species,

about why birds fly, fish swim

and dogs go round on leashes,

while human beings progressed

into womankind and man,

and things have never been the same

since the fossils hit the fan.

Some hailed him as a hero, some said he’d got it wrong,

some stuck with the ideas that had served them all along.

I’m not taking any side, either

Evolutionist or Creationist;

but there are questions that occur

to any observationist:

like, if there’s anything at all in the Theory of Evolution,

what I don’t understand

is, why, after all the millennia

mothers have never developed even

one extra hand.

Riddle

Six men went golfing and then to a pub,

For a drink and a laugh and a plate of pub grub.

They grinned as they eyed up the neighbourhood talent,

They tried to look worldly and tried to look gallant.

Matthew and Mark met Izzie and Clare,

Who happened that day to be lunching there.

They had a nice afternoon, with nods, smiles and winks,

That’s as far as they got – and they bought all the drinks.

Simon and Spencer met Margie and Kath,

Out for the day and out for a laugh.

These four left the pub and walked down to the beach,

Where they found some large rocks within easy reach –

Went discreetly behind them, in high expectation,

And there the relationships reached consummation.

And afterwards, pledging to call within days,

They swapped fake mobile numbers

And all went their ways.

Two ladies conversed with Thomas and Stan,

Listening intently each one to her man.

Gleaming hair, lovely clothes and, as I made mention,

They gave the two boyos their utmost attention.

The lads gave their numbers, right ones, not wrong –

Two weddings resulted before very long.

With neat homes and consistent routine of each day

And joint accounts to manage their pay.

In the way of the world, the wives listened less,

Added some fat and the hair glistened less.

Children arrived – great joys, it’s true,

But loud and demanding and costly too.

With mortgages, bills and a budgeting plan,

It’s responsible living for Simon and Stan.

Their treats nowadays are the specials at Lidl,

Now here’s the question, the eponymous riddle:

Does anyone know, or can anyone say

Which two men got lucky that day?  

Frances O’Keeffe

Mindfulness

A jogger jogged into a tree,

stood stunned along the roadside edge.

He shook himself and carried on

and jogged into a clump of sedge

which stood on spongy, marshy ground,

and soaked his socks and tracksuit ends,

(luckily his shoes were sound).

A shopper eyed some juicy steaks,

but found the price was just too high.

Drooling, she turned and left them there.

She never heard the butcher’s cry:

“It’s buy one, get one free today.”

Not knowing that she had enough spends,

steaklessly, she walked away.

Cyclists, walkers, kids on heelys,

those on buses, trains or trams,

gardeners on summer evenings,

people pushing brooms or prams;

wear tiny earphones, neatly curled,

(you’d hardly even notice) but

are they a wall against the world?

Music is wonderful and we love it,

I think that most agree with that.

But what about living in the now,

being where we are, with what we’re at?

To quote a wiser bard than me,

(on living with heart and head and gut)

We choose to be or not to be.