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That is tremendous
Heard it yesterday on BBC 6. He was interviewed by Cerys Matthews on her Sunday morning show. Well worth a listen back.
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That’s after cheering me up loads.
Little miss buffet sat in her muffet eating her churds and whey
Along came a spider
Sat down beside her and said
“Yo bitch, what’s in the bowl?”
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f you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
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“If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss”
Paddy Power must have given Rudyard a healthy sum for that bit… 
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Has this ever been bettered? I nearly choked up just now reading it
Death of an Irishwoman
Ignorant, in the sense
she ate monotonous food
and thought the world was flat,
and pagan, in the sense
she knew the things that moved
at night were neither dogs nor cats
but púcas and darkfaced men,
she nevertheless had fierce pride.
But sentenced in the end
to eat thin diminishing porridge
in a stone-cold kitchen
she clenched her brittle hands
around a world
she could not understand.
I loved her from the day she died.
She was a summer dance at the crossroads.
She was a card game where a nose was broken.
She was a song that nobody sings.
She was a house ransacked by soldiers.
She was a language seldom spoken.
She was a child’s purse, full of useless things.
© 1975, The Estate of Michael Hartnett
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Shite in a bucket
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A son of ours buried his mother-in-law last week, she was 76 and had Alzheimer’s for years.
My daughter-in-law is a fragile sort (unreal innit) and loved her mother deeply.
I stole a bit of verse, made suitable adjustments and arrived with…
Heaven is within reach
Hear the curlews call,
The last mile is upon us
I’ll carry you if you fall.
I know the load is heavy now
I know your hearts are sore,
It’s beautiful just over here
Where you feel the pain no more.
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is it a poetry book you are planning on writing?
The lockdown has you gone tender
No. I’m planning a book built around the characters that I’ve engaged with over a lifetime.
I won’t be leaving the parish for content, there’s been an absolute rake of material lying about.
The framework involves Jesus and the 12 Apostles = 13 and throw in the photographer = 14.
Naturally I’ll be Jesus, it’s the interaction with the rest that’s troubling me.
Don’t worry, I have the Apostles picked already, those living are on alert…
Like McGahern’s novel, the content will be recognisable.
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A couple of lines from Oliver Goldsmith’s classic - The deserted village:
In arguing too, the parson owned his skill,
For even tho’ vanquished, he could argue still;
While words of learned length and thundering sound,
Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around;
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew.
Would it put you in mind of anyone posting here?
Colonial shill alert
Were you ever in the Three Jolly Pigeons?
Umpteen times. I know the owner, Seamus, quite well. A noble pit-stop.
On an associated issue, we you ever in another gem in that general area, Murray’s of Malleragh?. It’s or was more or less an ordinary farmhouse run by a brace of oul’ wans.
A savage set-up back in the day, riotous behaviour the order of the night…
It could be in the things that remind you of TFK thread alright