Mordechai in Slogger, 1974

Mordechai in Slogger, 1974

 

rooting books in a box outside

‘Barney’s Remainders’ in  Bermondsey,

I picked up Rambling Boyo,

a snip at 20 p

 

I stuffed the swag in my jacket pocket

'Barney won’t miss it’

 

freezing in front of the gas fire

I read the book, cover to cover,

wishing I lived in Mordechai Sweeney’s

cliché world of gentle whimsy,

 

where the whole town 

drank the guards’ putcheen,

and 'perfect-pitch' tenors

rolling home after ceilidhs

set cattle lowing and hens off laying

 

I traced him to Slogger,

a village in Mayo,

no one had seen him for months

but wished me luck

and offered directions

 

‘he’s partial to a drop of Paddy’

 

I bought two bottles

 

the cottage door was ajar,

I knocked - no answer

but followed my nose

to a barely-lit kitchen

 

Sweeney, grey hair, pony-tail,

black patch covering one eye -

spread on a chaise-longue

wrapped in a tiger skin

smelling faintly of urine

 

on a record player

Kathleen Ferrier

sang Mahler lieder

 

Rambling Boyo in one hand,

Paddy in the other,

I nudged the writer,

 

‘how you doing?’

 

Sweeney grunted, and pointed,

 

‘cup in the sink’

 

I poured a large one for me -

larger for him - and asked,

 

‘where do you get your inspiration?’

 

he gazed into nowhere,

sighed, and soliloquised,

 

‘I loved my inspiration…

she left me high and dry...

when I wake up with a hard-on...

it’s wasted…a feckin' mockery...

I escape to Ireland...but

nosey bastards find me...’

 

I licked my pencil,

 

‘so your inspiration’s a broken heart?’

 

he lifted the eye-patch

dabbed a trace of tear,

 

‘no heart for breaking here...’

 

I thought I was getting somewhere

so poured another

 

he drank in silence,

drained the glass, then snarled,

 

‘feck off now - I need sleep,

leave the Paddy - don’t come back later’

 

I turned at the bastard’s cottage door,

 

‘and I hope it bleedin’ chokes yer’.