Saturday, February 4, 2012


“Welcome to the Family Farm!” © Mike Absalom January 23rd
2012

-Welcome to the family farm!
said Schwantz,
licking the rim of his shot
glass with the relish of a randy bull licking salt from a heifer.
-The bleating of sheep and
the cawing of crows
and the cold wet meadow that
nobody mows!
Schwantz’s pig eyes glowed
dull in the firelight,
two turf-fed red beads like a
bad Polaroid of the Devil.

-Welcome to the family farm! He
cackled organically,
drawing on all his organs at
once for verisimilitude.
-It is a certified farm and
we grow stones.
You’ll be happy here if you
intend to build walls
or stone women to death.
-Although that depends, he
went on, refilling his glass
from a grubby bottle
misleadingly labelled “Liberty Rum”,
-that depends on which of the
toxic post Babylonian religions
you happen to subscribe to.
I myself subscribe to none.
Nothing good ever came out of
the Middle East
except falafel and Turkish delight.
And, perhaps, he added after
a pause,
the ferry to Italy.

-But welcome to the family
farm!
It’s a funny farm, so join me
in a glass of poitín.
I myself prefer brännvin, but where on earth in Mayo
would you ever get the drop
on a bottle of the Swedish Elixir!
-I admit, he sighed without
conviction,
-I don’t have a provenance
for this shady bottle in my hand,
-so it is a toss up whether
you end up in Tír na nÓg kissing a fairy’s bum
or whether you go screaming
blind and have an epileptic fit.
But that is no different for
us
than for any true believer in
any religion whatsoever!
As we say in the Church of
the Summer of Love:
Whatever your credo, you
don’t have to do
what we do! We are as
tolerant as rocks. So here’s to the Family Farm!
The mooing and moaning of
subsidised cattle
And terrible skellingtons in
cupboards that rattle!
Schwantz’s pig eyes glowed
dull in the firelight,
two turf-red points like a faulty
traffic light
or a bad Polaroid of the
Devil.

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