ALI'S BAR

That sand-blasted Sunday morning at Ali’s glummy bar,
In from the desert to find the place deserted.

Just you and me, Piggles!

Home from our holy days

And not a blessed Teague

In sight.

Mass evacuation, Ali!, What?

He did not smile.

No saints came marching in.

Not even a Desert Father to call

Daddy-o.

I was mooding into my Guinness,

Searching for the secret ingredient,

Missing the bimbi

And fantasising about black Fatima’s thighs.

You were pretty glummy too,

Pathetic even.

But what a pickup when church let out

And the dominoes team,

Saint Columba and the holy Teagues, stout fellows,

All saints, bless them,

Fell in like little bits of heaven

From out the sky

One day.

A thumping of dominoes

Followed a gulping of  diurnal Guinnesses

And an elutriation of sand-blown, parrot’s-cage,

Scrawny throats,

And when old Colly told the one about the one-legged nun

And the Taoiseach.

How we all laughed despite the agony.

Tears streamed over our pious cheeks,

Trickled along the ridges of our holy noses,

Dripped down our blessed beards

And splashed into our good-for-gulping Guinnesses

And onto our sand-strewn dominoes.

For one moment

I fondly thought, dear Piggles,

You too were able to shut your little piggy

Eyes to the bloody-awful, wretched, woebegone, comfortless,

Forlorn, godforsaken, miserable

Nature of this weary world.

But no,  you were just shutting your piggy eyes.