Nora prays for peace surely, and: Wesht

Nora prays for peace surely

in the shadow of Synge

"It'll be more he'll be wantin' surelyAnd him after proppin' up the counterDown in Paudín's half the night.Holdin' court and rámeishing out of himAye . . . , and they hanging on his every wordAs if it was worth listenin' to at all at all.Rámeish and rubbish he'd be givin' outAnd buying all round him, '. . . May the givin' hand never falter . . .'and '. . . a bird never flew on one wing . . .'They'd be thinkin', pretendin' he was a great fella''You're surely right, Dan, never a truer word spoke'The shout would go up making him feel importantAnd they laughin'.Whiskey and Porter how are ye, and not bit,bite nor sup in the house.It's a power of sorrow does be on meWith the way he is now.And yet . . . when we were young there wasn'tA man in the Glen to match him for herdin'Sheep and shearin' . . . he was bright,And I was glad.Oh no . . . none could touch him for a fleece.

Fleece . . . it's him bein' fleeced below inPaudín's now. A changed man this thirty yearSince the business with the scythe.Mind . . . it doesn't stop him liftin' pints,bad arm or no, but his pride is gone.

Whisht . . . I hear his foot on the step,Please God and His Holy Mother,He'll be drunk to fall off straight, and leaveme in peace in me bed of sorrows."

To all scholars of John Millington Synge, 1871-1909, apologies.

Note: This poem is written in the style and language used by Synge in his plays The Playboy of the Western World, The Well of the Saints, In the Shadow of the Glen, etc., partly as an exercise and partly because I love the language of the plays surely.

Wesht

A man told Dark Tales from the Wesht.That's how he said it. The Wesht.And all he spoke to in the townsaid it that way, too. The Wesht.He said that when someone wasdying the dogs do bark at night.Or a strange bird would be seenwithin a week of a death in a house.He said "they do say that's true."That's how he knew it to be true.And even though he's on computeror mobile phone to America,The Dark is just outside the door.And the Dark will have its say,whether in the Wesht or in the Easht,or general all over Ireland,The Dark must still be listened to,That's what they do say.