Saturday, February 4, 2012


“An Irish Boulevardier Begins to Pencil in his
Living Will” (Part 1.)
© Mike Absalom January 9th 2012

My generation wore red platform shoes,
and they are still dancing clickety clack
like a pair of wind-up dentures
all along the length of Matt Molloy’s bar.

I am not a godless man.
The Peacock Eyes of God want
to see everything for themselves
and I’ll be damned if I
didn’t oblige Him
with a pair of sly peepers.

I was raised a Goody
Two-shoes,
bursting with celibacy like
an overfilled bladder,
but I know God found the
feedback dull,
wall to wall prayers and the
eyes tight shut.
I know, because very soon He
sent me
Sex and Drugs and Rock and
Roll.

Now I’m a One-eyed Jack
and although I’m going deaf
I am still able to hear the
quacking of the doctors in the hospital pen
wondering why I’m not dead
yet.

So for today
I think I’ll glug a bottle of
brännvin
and drop my pants and dance
bare as a scarecrow,
still flickering like an old candle but not out,
in front of your welcome fire of birch logs.
And as a newt pixilated,
I’ll burrow under the feathers and tell you
about 1965
and how I have preserved it to this day in a
small glass bottle.

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