Bye Bye Johnny

All finger-printed brass and sin-dark wood,

the Victoria Hotel is busy for early Tuesday.

There’s a wake, nobody woke here.

So many women in flattering black,

you can’t spot the widow.

 

Johnny O’Driscoll,

-Johnny Fizz, you work it out -

the man for scaffolding:

cash deals welcome,

he’d take a Beamer or Benz

 

no questions tolerated.

 

‘He always sang that one,

what was it now?’

‘Well it wasn’t feckin’ called

"Londonderry Air"

now, was it, Brendan?’

 

Chips tells a story

about a man who

reads the deaths column

in the personals

looking for wakes…

 

‘jest to have a crack

at the the ladies in black’

 

he doesn’t let on it’s him.

 

Jack, ah, Jackie Nolan

he’ll be fightin’ himsel’

by twenty to eight

he’ll still stay so feckin’ late

 

the cows will have come home

and gone back out again.

 

Roisin’s back from the Balearics

worried about Brexit

'teks it personal like'

that everyone drinking to Johnny

voted 'out, out, get the feck out'.

 

By the time they’ve all

missed another feckin’ Uber,

Roisin goes home

with smiling Chips,

a different johnny in her bag.

 

[Minor edit 19 Oct 2023]

[Audio here(link is external)]