Bloomsday

 

Ocean Grove is where you would wash up

Kitchen window view, parrot in a pear tree.

Compose the facts into plain poetry:

Women stuck together, men had piss-ups.

You went for a future more than a crust,

Home fire burning, the stockpot bubblin’,

This second Dublin all outside Dublin

Wherever exile took you, as it must.

You made your own Bloomsday of stories found

In Northside, Rose Bray, Cabra in your prime,

Questions back and forth to get the words fair:

How high are the railings at Mountjoy Square?

When did the gates close at evening time?

This was survival come from a background.