The drunken shepherd
boy sat at a tableful
of tangy lagers and bitters
piled before him
by teary tourists
sentimentalating
about an ancestral
homeland in dreams
that never-before ever was
in this ancient public house
that was here since before
even Kelts and Vikings
had taken to drink
and the lad here
younger than everybody's
great grandchildren
tootles these haunting
lullabyes never-before heard
nor even felt near the spleen
and they slosh about
dissolving memorialisations
of a lost grazing green
and the beers pile up around
the sodden lad faster than
even he can sink them
and he plays on and on
within the vapour
of his own dreams.
Author notes
I wrote this in the bar of the B & I ferry boat that plied between Liverpool and Dublin back in the \
Written May 12th, 2004
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