Usual Stuff

What did I do today? I swear my life has been so busy the last six weeks I sometimes feel I'm going to fall off the edge of the earth (there is an edge - even on a ball there's an edge).

So. Today I went into the paying me a salary job and saved my emplouyer 28k by trusting a new company to provide us with a service an old company has been ripping us off for for over two years. I hope my trust will not be misplaced - I don't think it will. Basically I have saved my employer - you if you're a taxpayer- my annual salary- so I'm on a roll this week.

Then I came home to non-paying job - the real one - life, kids, home, husband, did the shopping, the swimmimg and music runs dropped the beloved other to the airport for his weekend away in London ( then I came home to Jemser) joke, joke -'twas Jemser I dropped to the airport. Cooked dins, cleaned up , put together the Billy bookcase - Jeez it's feckin' big and blue - imagine lads, I have a beautiful big blue billy bookcase, that's worthy of a poem. Framed all the sibling's Christmas poems, collapsed on the sofa for the six o'clock snooze at seven and am now scribbling - might open a bottle of red in a while and watch the remastered Strumpet City - just to remind me of where we all came from.
Ah life - isn't it great to be able to live it.

Christmas Poems

I have said it before and I'll say it again - I'm not poet. I'd love to be. Poets definitely do it better. Put all the best words in the best order and make them sing. Make you wonder at the world in a different way. Bring a tear of joy or empathy to your eye.

Why then am I attempting to write in a way not natural to me - poems for my siblings this Christmas? Because I want to, it doesn't really matter if they're good, bad -I wouldn't like them to be indifferent though. Anyway all seven of these poems (one for Dad too) are going to be of particular childhood memories, the child I grew up with that is etched on my heart.
I hope they like them.
If they let me - after Christmas I will post them all together here. Then you can all share in the happier moments of the lives of those of us at 45.

Now

Here's a poem for today, particularly resonant for those of you on the Dart line. It didn't ever win anything, but I like it. I like it very much

The 8.15 to Tara

His eyes daily dance
through the map
to the girl
with the high pony-tail
that swishes and flicks
to the
tch-chung, tch-chung tch-chung
And it tickles the nape of her neck
in that place
where he longs
just to once
sketch a kiss
‘Now then Miss’
he might murmur
when their eyes would engage
and they’d dance to the
tch-chung, tch-chung tch-chung
A slow Waltz
Or perhaps
a burning Tango
All around the second carriage
of the eight fifteen to Tara

Evelyn Walsh, August 09