Some Hibernian Stuff

McCarthy's Grave
McCarthy had the misfortune
Of dying in wintertime.
The graveyard ground was frozen stiff
And covered with frost and rime.

But Father Flynn wanted to bury
McCarthy without delay,
So he called the Senior Commandant
Of the local IRA.

The local brigade was shocked to find
They were out of dynamite.
They sent Belfast a telegram
For a shipment overnight.

The Belfast boys, they worked real quick
And sent Matt Dugan down
With enough of the deadly substance
To blow up Dublin town.

With dynamite Matt Dugan was
One of the superstars,
But this was his first graveyard--
He usually worked with cars.

He piled the stuff upon the clay.
He heaped it higher and higher,
And allowed himself six hundred feet
Of detonating wire.

The Funeral Mass was over and
Father Flynn, he changed his stole.
The sexton nudged The Dugan's rib:
"We need a bloody hole."

Matt Dugan took a final drink
And heaved a mighty sigh.
He pushed the plunger down and Boom!
The earth became the sky.

They heard the noise in London,
It made so loud a sound,
And bits of bones and coffins
Came raining to the ground.

The next day on the BBC
A long report was read
Of how the IRA attacked
Victims already dead.

Now Father Flynn's parishioners
Are making money by the pot:
Mc Carthy's Crater has become
An Irish Tourist Spot.



The Ballad of Sean and Tim
You know all about the IRA.
They're in the papers every day
But what, I wonder, can you say
About the IRN?
You fix on me a big blank stare
That tells me you are unaware
Of the part played in The Great Affair
By nautical Irish men.

While DeValera trained his army ranks,
Down by the Liffey's littered banks
By garbage scows and Gas House tanks
Two heroes worked away:
Tim Leary and old Sean McBean
Painted a dozen rowboats green,
Readying well a force marine
For The Rising Day.

McBean and Leary were two A.B.'s
Who had sailed together on the seas
From Queenstown to the Celebes,
Now finally retired.
What hair they had had turned to white
But like younger men with a yen to fight
For Eire's freedom from Britain's might
They were both inspired.

Their rowboats ready, trim and neat,
Oarlocks oiled for the cox'n's beat,
They smiled at their Hibernian fleet
And went to seek a crew.
From pub to pub they sought recruits,
Offering men Irish sailor suits,
But all they heard were jeering hoots,
Mockery through and through.

Dejected, they sat on some Liffey rocks
And stared at the big black wooden box
They'd got from shipmates at the docks
Filled with TNT.
Sean sighed, "Face it, Tim. Our plan is dead.
Let's give it to the IRA instead."
But Leary replied with a shake of his head,
"I'm taking it to sea."

He shoved a green boat water-ward
And put the wooden box on board
(And carefully a jug of Powers stored
For a later drink).
A pair of oars he gave McBean
And cried aloud with a banshee's keen,
"Let's show that what we say we mean!
Let's find a ship to sink."

So just before the break of day
They floated down to Dublin Bay
Nipping at the whiskey all the way,
Trying to make it last.
Just past the Ringsend Ferry's pier
As the morning fog lifted clear
They saw a gunboat steaming near,
The HMS Belfast.

Tim lit a fuse, made the box a mine,
Then raised a shamrock flag for sign
And called, "Avast, ye blasted British swine!
We plan to sink your craft!"
The gunboat's Captain, Tim could see,
Came out of his cabin, sipping tea,
And told his helmsman, "Hard a-lee."
Tim and Sean both laughed.

For square in the path of the dynamite
The gunboat steered by turning right.
A sudden BOOM!, a flash of light!
Up went the Belfast's men.
Clear of the blast but knocked overside
Were Sean and Tim who also died--
Bodies bobbing in the ebbing tide--
So ended the IRN --

Which is why when Rebel tales are told
Of Rebel heroes brave and bold
Or ignorant history books get sold,
Not a word of Sean or Tim.
Like a brick dropped in a toilet tank
Or pirates walking a wooden plank
The Irish Republican Navy sank,
Since neither man could swim.

The Ballad of Tim McHale
I'll tell you now the curious tale
Of the world's most unusual Gael:
An Irishman named Timmy McHale--
Strange lad, he would not drink.
I don't mean water and tea, of course,
But liquids with a bit more force,
Having distillation as their source--
You know what I mean I think.

His friends took Tim to Donovan's Pub
Where they ordered alcohol by the tub
While Tim just watched them--there's the rub--
And never took a sip.
They'd buy straight malt like neat John Powers
Or fancy drinks like whiskey sours,
But Tim would sit and stare for hours
And nothing crossed his lip.

They plied him with vodka, rum, and gin
Like the Serpent tempting Eve to sin.
Not a drop at all did Tim take in
Through his sober face.
Tim bothered them. to say the least.
Year by year their concern increased
Till they brought the problem to a priest
Who agreed to take the case.

You can bet your last Yankee dollar
Above that cleric's Roman collar
Worked the mind of a first-rate scholar
Determined to find out why--
Why Tim was acting oh-so-odd
In the sight of Irish men and God,
Behaving like a salted cod,
Staying stiffly bone-cold dry.

This clever man, Monsignor Wright,
In response to poor Tim's plight,
Striving to find some guiding light,
Burned long the midnight oil.
He read Augustine and Plato, too.
He searched the Summa through and through
Until by chance his fingers flew
To The Works of Conan Doyle.

Next day in true Sherlockian style
He checked the local hospital's file
And came out wearing a big broad smile:
The mystery had come clear--
For a youthful Mormon mission band
Had come to Erin's gentle land
And a boy was born who was unplanned
In Tim McHale's birth year.

You know your G & S by heart:
Sure enough, on some nurse's part
A mix-up happened at the start--
The infants were confused,
Which is why in faroff Utah's state
Some Mormon parents cursed their fate
Having a son in the constant state
Of staying semi-boozed.

And did the lads change their places?
They did, by God's most holy graces.
Each picked up genetic traces,
Reclaiming his birthright.
Tim dwells in Utah near Salt Lake
And still not a single drop he'll take
While the Mormon boy (whose name is Jake)
Shuts Donovan's down each night.

from The Lives of the Poets

At the Derry NH General Store
Ayah, let's see naow.
Yuh got yuh basic
Apple Pickin' Laddah,
Yuh Handy-Dandy
Wall Mendah,
Yuh Ajax Patented
Birch Bendah,
One gallon of "Snowy Evenin'"
With a wood stoppah,
All propahly mahked up
Only a little ovah cost.
What else can I sell yuh
Today, Mistah Frost?

Imaginis Factor
Though California born
Robert Frost was no fool.
He kept the engine of his old
4-Wheel Drive New England Persona
Tuned, turning-over, and ticking.

Despite all those winters
That he spent near Miami
In the tropical Florida sun,
He never published a single poem
Called "After Papaya Picking."


E.A. Robinson Entertains
a Boy from Bread Loaf
He didn't see me following him,
But I was right behind him when
He came to where those two roads met.

I watched him while he stood and dithered
And carefully noted what was the way
Off on which he finally set.

He didn't take the right road, kid.
He just went and said he did.

And all that stuff about the mite
That he let live upon his page,
That so-called considerable speck?
Don't believe it, boy. Don't be dumb.
He mashed it with his big fat farmer's thumb.

And those woods, lovely, deep, and dark?
Listen, son, he didn't park.
He blew right past.
Little horse? He was in his Ford
And driving fast.

And believe me, kid,
This I know past all knowing:
The night in question--
You can look it up--it wasn't snowing.


On the Way to Ben Bulben
After he paused and cast a cold eye,
The horeseman, admonished, passed by--
And where the steed stood,
As Yeats knew that they would,
Firm and golden the road-apples lie.

Dr. Gogarty Remembers
John Butler Yeats had two daughters
Nicknamed Lily and Lolly.
Early one morn I met them together
While riding a Dublin trolley.

Tipping my hat to them both I said,
"Good morning, Miss Lolly, Miss Lily.
How are those painters, John and Jack,
And your brother, the poet Willie?"

"Thanks be to God, all well," said Lolly,
Nodding the tiniest of nods,
But Lily slyed with a Sligo smile,
"Or in William's case, the gods."

At my stop I alighted and thought
As I walked down Sackville Street:
"Strange family--the men bitterly mad
And the women sweetly sweet."

By Wire from Innisfree
Allergic reaction bee sting stop
Forty-five days unending rain stop
Wattle roof collapsed beans rotted stop
Crickets linnet song driving insane stop
Returning London streets soonest stop
Arrive Paddington eight pm train stop
Love Willie stop

Night School
Ah, off they went to Boston U,
Following Poetry's path--
Yes, off they went to Boston U,
Starbuck and Sexton and Plath.

And who taught them there at Boston U,
Great Poetry all their goal?
Ah, there in that bright seminar room
The teacher was Robert Lowell.

Week after week they attended class.
They drank Lowell's wisdom in,
And then repaired to The Parker House
For Martinis made with gin.

Oh, think how much Poetic Talent
Gathered once in that small zone--
Almost as much as nightly appeared
When Emily wrote alone.