Bloomsday plus one

Bloomsday (plus one) 

 

our Ireland tour turned sour - 

Roz had gone off me -

(don’t ask me why)

a sullen morning stretched ahead

before we caught the ferry

 

I thought I’d show her

for dumping a man of my calibre

by sharing my insights on Irish literature

 

Sean O’Casey, Shaw, and Synge?

lightweights – Beckett? not too bad

Heaney’s okay if you want to delve

deep into the mysteries of cutting peat

 

the list is endless, but in my opinion

the only Irish writer worth his salt is Joyce,

 

Dubliners is readable,

The Portrait? passable,

Ulysses and Finnegan? incomprehensible

although a smattering’s handy at parties

if there’s a girl you're after impressing

 

my bachelor thesis –

a treatise raising the possibility

of an absent apostrophe

in the title of Finnegan

caused ructions, the faculty erupted

fists were raised, punches thrown,

 

my viva ended in blood after

the straight left I took to my nostrils

 

I deserved a First, 

but they awarded me, due to my injury,  

(and subject to appeal),  an agoretat,

 

(a whole other story)

 

the question remains,

do Finnegans wake?

every one of them?

 

there again, who gives a quark?

only academics get past page four

and liars

 

we rode a cab to Sandycove

to stately plump Buck Mulligan’s tower

I told Roz she’d enjoy it,

I knew she wouldn’t

but I was going anyway

 

Roz would have preferred a coffee,

a Starbucks skinny latte say,

or cappuccino, at a pavement café

but Starbucks weren’t around back then

and lattes weren’t invented

 

museum entrance was a punt per person -

no exceptions, no concessions

 

I rang the bell and yelled,

“Kinch Ahoy!!”

 

a door slit slid open

a bleary eyed quare-fellow moaned,

 

“what you want? no Kinches here”

“I want to have a look round,

I’m a mature student, me,

doing Joyce for me Ph.d.”

 

“suit yourself… it’s feckin’ shite… nothin’ to see.”

 

“Buck Mulligan’s staircase there?”

“yeah, rusty, needing a paint job, to be fair”

 

“Mulligan’s shaving brush and bowl?”

“no, but I’ll fetch one if you want”

 

the doorkeeper rolled his eyes at Roz,

itching to be somewhere else

with someone else, anyone but me -

she rolled hers back

 

“you go in, Rick, I’ll wait here”

 

the doorman pocketed my punt,

winked at Roz and said to me,

 

“g’wan up with yourself,

take your time, I’ll tell ye no lies,

after dem gobshites yesterday

the dump is still filled full of floys.”

 

 

 

n.b. this is a light-hearted satire on your average students attitude (well mine at the time) to the genius of Irish writing following a university course of apathetic teaching...