A MAN WOKE IN A HOSPITAL BED WITHOUT ANY MEMORY
BUT HE FOUND THIS WRIT.

1967

Pat looked from the third floor window of the block of council flats.

They stood with a modernised version 

of a round tower protruding from the front 
with a stairwell and rubbish shute 
that led to each landing.  

The doors and window frames painted 

the same blood red adding to the melancholic 

look blending with red brick.  

She watched in the distance 

as the rusted bridge parted 

and ascended into a grey sky

seperating like the jaws of a giant 

swallowing a cargo ship flowing 

along the dark Thames.

While watching the typical dismal London view

as if in a trance she wrapped a ornamental figurine unaware

that she was twisting the newspaper so tightly it was tearing.

'Am i doing the right thing', she asked herself

'I will miss my family', she said in a almost silent whisper.

A look of sadness came across her face

on those usually smiling Irish eyes with

the painful hurt within.

'Its best for the children', she told her-
self shaking her head as if awakening 
from a hypnotic trance. She wrapped 

the figurine in another sheet of news-
paper and placed it in the half-
filled t-chest.  

The pictures were removed from the walls like 

unstained stamps of approval to vacate 

the premises.  While waiting for the tea-

pot on the glowing flame to brew,her hands 

delved into the sink of dishes.  Without drying 

she returned to the almost bare room relaxing 

on the sofa she placed her hot cuppa 

on the mantle above the cold fire.

She shot forward as if struck by sudden pain 
her backside clung to the edge of the seat 
trying not to think of the grief of her
brother just 27 when he fell to his death her sisters 
and her widowed mother.

She would leave them all behind my children are the ones that matter now, John is right, we cant rare them in this country, at least in Ireland they will keep their innocence a little longer.

     The memory of her childhood in Dublin came flooding back.


Dressed in a drab tunic with pigtails in her hair and a glowing smile on her face.  Little Jimmy skipped and jumped beside her along side the dodder river that ran through Rathmines south of the city.

They rested on one of the benches just feet from the rivers edge, a wild majestic white swan went by and wild little Jimmy jumped in and grabbed it by its feet he was so quick both her and the great bird were startled.

In a frantic state the great bird tried to free himself from the boy’s grip, honking, hissing madly flapping its outstretched wings.  With great effort the bird took off from the water with little Jimmy hanging from it.  Pat stood on the verge yelling ‘Jimmy let go, please let go’. Jimmy was a wild care free little boy without fear in his bones, he shouted Patty look at me I’m flying let the bird go and splashed into the water smiling beyond its city grime.

His voice echoed through her mind as he fell through childhood, teenage years with a constant smile and that thick mop of naturally curly hair rolled into a teddy boy quiff, just twenty-seven he lay on the ground at the foot of the ladder propped up against the office building.  A leather shammy lay beside him , he wore a brand new pair of leather soled winkle picker shoes, dressed for the part

in a pin stripped sharp suit he planned to hit the city and bop the night away with his friends.

The memory of her father came blurred in a free-state army uniform who also died aged twenty-seven.  I miss you two she spoke aloud her total concentration absorbed in the memories of the past.  Sobbing wiping the tears from her eyes she remembered those days after their deaths they clung to her mind.  Written on her poor Mothers face mixed with the hardship 

of trying to make ends meet on a

pittance army pension and a measly 

wage cleaning the houses of the rich. 

She remembered what her mother said soaking 

her fluid filled tired feet in a basin 

of water and mustard powder

‘if I stay my sons will end up 

in trouble with the polis’.

Worn down on the path of reality, filled with the grief of losing a husband and son, hauling their memory through her aching heart.  The days of hardship drove them to these shores andthe days of Ireland growing into a nation of independence rendering life extremely difficult for the poor.

The news of England carried across the Irish sea, where you could earn three times that of Ireland‘Why do we always remember the hard times she thought, I’m going back from where she came and looked down into her empty cup reading tea leaves like her mother looking for hope.

 BASTARD TOWN

Pat sat softly sobbing

holding her head in her hands.  Peter her youngest left his bedroom where he played dreamily, feeling 

his mothers sadness he ran his fingers through her hair and held her saying I love you mum,  holding eachother in true embrace.  Peters statement broke the silence and brought her back to earth, with a smile 'can i have a piece of bread and jam, he said' .   

Peters father entered the flat 

and changed the rooms atmosphere.  

Peter knew his father hated him 

he felt it, he said Peter was to sensitive 

and needed to much attention but 

he was just true and his father 

who lived a lie couldnt handle the truth.

Everything is sorted said John on entering the room

With his eldest brother. Pat scurried into the scullery

And busied with jam, cheese constructing sandwiches.

John removed his coat and threw it over the chair

Whats wrong with your mother he asked, peter just

Raised his sholders and eyebrows in answer to his father.

His father stamped noisily across the bare floor

And entered the kitchen, everything is sorted.

The removals will be here first thing on Tuesday

And you and the kids are booked on a flight.

Youll get there a day before Michael and I who
will go with the removals.

‘Don’t worry everything will be ok’.

He reached her shoulder and squeezed

Brushing his hand along her back.

‘I know you are worried about your family

I will make sure you get back to see them

I promise’, yeah I know your empty promises’.

‘If Birmingham or Coventry or Kent, only miles

From my family and your car only worked when you

you needed to go somewhere’, she said

In a harsh Dublin tone.  She knew it would

Be a long time before she seen her family again.

‘It will be different in Ireland, youll see’, said John
And slyed out of the kitchen.

COMING OR GOING?

John sat on the armchair smoking a senior service cigarette, the smoke wafted contentment into the air, a scene came fuzzy at first then focused in the almost bare room where a stranger would not be sure if they were coming or going.  He would be back among his own people or the nearest thing he found to his own people.  As he relaxed into the chair he searched his mind for a picture of the past, he was a bastard boy from the bastard town or so he called it, he saw himself a young lad leaving the bastard town standing on a platform waiting for a train to take him to England where no one knew of him and he didn’t hear the word bastard on everyones lips, he was young then and immature it will be different he thought with a wife and family.  He mellowed with the aid of the cigarette, a memory of his bastard past came to mind, his creased worn look contorted into a frown and his dark lonely past that he couldn’t escape reeled like the teeth of a blunt saw through his mind.

For reasons that are unclear but un-
derstandable considering the time 
and place in a land filled with 
religious doctrine.
John was an illegitimate child left 
to be brought up by aunt Sarah 
that’s all that was known 
and all we would ever know
they were deep secretive people.  

He recalled the cruel cries from boys at school
‘Johnny has left his ma and da and doesn’t know where 
to find them, leave the bastard alone and he will go home 
wagging his tail behind him’. A bunch of scruffy hard looking boys marched around him.  He sat by a stagnant pond on waste ground.
 The boys threw rocks into the stagnant pond and splashed him in the oil like substance that reeked, bicycle wheels and old frames emerged from the water like the devils unwanted playthings.  An old mangled clothes mangle stood upright on the bank like a statue or memorial, the rear end of an old cart emerged from the center rusting and rotting.

The boys formed a line and marched right up to his face like a regimental troop chanting like a choir of cruelty and hate, by the left, by the left, johnny has no Ma or Da, by the right by the right, they fucked off on Saturday night’.  They laughed a sick evil laugh and ran of echoing the word bastard across waste ground, John shook from his thoughts of the past and began wrapping ornaments into a half filled t-chest that stood in the centre of the room.  A penny for your thoughts said Pat and all the children laughed at
John coming back to reality
he laughed also but deep 
down he felt rotten.

BEYOND BANSHEE

What a rush of relief was felt

As the aircraft taxied the run-

Way and we were in a taxi

Falling through the lush green

Fields of Antrim like a day-

Dream of my mother’s Ireland.

Then we fell into my father’s

Bastard town, through Ligoneil

And the Crumlin road, we turned

Left into another century.  Through

Rows of red brick, cobble stones

Children swinging around gas

Lamp-posts now converted.

Scruffy boys played football in

The street, a Dickensian view.

Holy cross school playground

Loomed empty remote within

A spiked gate and a red brick

Wall topped off with three rows

of rusted barbed wire beyond 

the outside loo, the steel bath

hanging.

 THE PAD

I was a blow in

In 67' just before

‘the pad’, as my dad

called it was besieged

by violence.

He never knew his parents 
Sarah who was a mill worker 
at the local flax mill where she lost

three fingers and all her pride.  Sarah was a drab woman who scrubbed her doorstep every dayas if awaiting a man of miracle to enter her two up to down home, when she wasn't home she was at the holy cross church praying to the miracle man that never came.

The people of Ardoyne became my friends and family, I live in County Armagh now butI still call Ardoyne home, It was like living in one big home, I could go anywhere in the district and I felt so safe and secure, everyone knew me as their son, to this day I have never met a tighter community of people.  When I first went there it was like 

stepping back into another time.


I HAVE NO MEMORY OF ALL THIS BUT HERE IS PHOTO/POETRY
TO SAY THAT I WAS THERE!