I oft wonder to myself, as to whether or not, there happens to be a publisher in this world, who would actually see fit to publish my work.
One can dream.
Archival Heathers: An Experiment On My Behalf
Archaic windows punished by forlorn lighting; knitting amidst the saddle backed hues of further disdain; cradling humanity.
Four men squat round an ingrate table; embittered yet distinguished; as slight calls and caterwauls grace the cavernous boudoirs of eternal containment.
Sundry playing cards; flounced and squandered; toiling selective ploughs; tunnelling fervent vows; perennially juxtaposed towards the beech wood shards; splintered and sewn; sheltering whiskey; laid to rest beside a multitude of vintage Baltic malts.
The men draped in casual attire; caps jauntily proposed; sliding lazily over mahogany faces; staunchly blackened; collectively beckoning a finite prologue; a paramount address.
“Arthur was a good man, needlessly complex yet…”
“Reasonably priced?”
Choral asphyxia; tedious laughter stole upon the stolid smoke plum zephyr; gliding plaintively; blanketing the Patagonian carpet with tenuous breath; evading the limbic climes of the red brick chimney. Incumbent tongues lashing; spouting seasonal misgivings.
“You could say so! He never put a foot wrong, no matter how convoluted the evening became, the night would always pass without exception.”
“Surely it was always the day that followed the night! Or had death itself loomed ominously o’er your heart for so long that doubt took hold?”
“Possibly… although, I have always assumed the contrary to be true.”
A triumvirate of voices weaving a mournful throw; painfully produced; shadowing exquisite demise; delicately laced with provincial tense and senseless sibilance. Stalling tentatively; interrupted by a fourth party; teasing poetic license; linguistically imbued.
“He, who lives by the rifle, dies by the rifle. A clichéd response to such a despicable turn of events; although, one could never argue with such a truthful sentiment…”
“Well then Farrell; would you like to share with us any other pearls of wisdom? As I’ve never doubted that poker was your game; however, I’m unsure of your position on war.”
“War? Whatever do you mean? War is nothing but a glorified respite, a catalytic reprise; war needs no explanation! Show me that vanity knows no bounds and I’ll respect your response; no matter how contrived it may seem to be! Surely you don’t believe that there is any justice in violence, order in genocide and love in death! Surely your reasoning tells you otherwise?”
The three wound apprehension; clockwork masochism; ticking profusely; harbouring eloquent misgivings; privy to quixotic souls; haunting quick fix folders of their own accord; modernist miens. Strict rhythmic pulsation; snare drums crackle under sensuous verbosity; pseudo passive remarks granulate endlessly; cereal spilled over proverbial dreams; lucidity; liquid vespers don amalgamated gowns.
“You always were a pacifist bastard!”
“Well; if that was always the case, how come it was I who served during the rising? Is your memory so fickle that you forget my sacrifice? That you forgo common courtesy! For God’s sake! For God’s sake… have I suffered and lingered; sailing amidst the atheistic farrows of eternal damnation; only to be questioned by those who wear cowardice as a badge of honour. Polished and tokenised, sanctified and lost. Did Arthur fall under a revenant shade for nothing… or will I succumb to the vanity of lust and forever remain a lifeless machine? Believe me lads, life is not for the taking; it’s for the receiving; so supposedly reserved… a masterful monologue.”
Farrell hastened his step; bounding from his chair he poured retinal scorn; solidified sadism rushed off the feet of ecumenical lurchers; pacing arsenic corridors, brandishing squalid irons. Upon reaching the lacquered door he paused in preparation; waving to the three amiably; casting aside his bitter disposition.
The wind blew eastward canvassing bluish pamphlets; clockwise to the west; perpendicular to the south; grazing the chin of the north; past Carr’s Inn; molesting the collective skirts of ambiguity. The street disorganised; devoid of stringent planning; incoherent paving; cobbled usher, molten hoof, raging unapologetically; the grit unbearable; an aggravated aria partitioned without effort.
He stumbled onward; creaking open the door of Carr’s Inn; an ancient establishment, rustic and odorous; charming in a way; forsaken in another. Vines crept down from the rafters above; wafting genially; greeting his weary eyes with arthritic abandon; fiddlers fiddling; pipers piping; drummers drumming; bankers fiddling; contrasting caustically with the downtrodden obituary from which he was birthed.
He approached the kitchen; girdled and diminished; skewering the perimeter:
Ten yellowed rashers; succulent, scalding; thrashing round the pan; spitting sulphuric alibis, inelegantly throughout the air. Carnivorous aromatherapy; the honesty of arrogance; spilling o’er onto the grill; seething, teething at the bit; surrounding the porter and denying his breath.
- Phonemic treason…
The proclamation distilled; dissipated quizzically. The attendants took little heed;
scurrying to and fro, surveying excessive kernels; drenched in liver oil, fermenting amidst cyclic herbs, cascading downward, surmounting a culinary gauntlet.
- Condiment and brine…
The porter found reassurance wanting; suggestively twiddling with sunflowers seeds; making no distinction, an allusion to tepidity; escaping gratuitous recollection. The unanimous fervour teased implicit vowels; fornication from the tip of an irate tongue; crying relentlessly; an irrational chorus, seasoned; dripping with humility, insincerity and excretion.
Farrell sat attentively; siphoning saliva from his pectoral glands; his mouth dry; regrettably parched; eyeing the solicitors whose rent boy tastes disgusted his moral fibre. The boys or possibly girls; gender bore no regal song; owls dispatched on hallowed ground; ergo phallic wistful charm; narcissistic woe; little older than sixteen; played with their hair incessantly; sexuality was a misnomer that proofed no course. He turned to one; gauging some ten weight liquorice.
“Tell me son; have you the permission of your father to do this?”
“My father remains whoever… has the financial awareness to purchase my services.”
“And you have no qualms about this; no regrets or concern?”
“Money as they say speaks volumes of the rich and cares little for the poor…legerdemain.”
Aplitic foetus tore asunder; plunder carefully; saunter tethered; halo; sweetest halo; felinity ensued, femininity pursued the prize; pristine topped pistols chasing carousel arbitrators. Oats and barley or was it barley and oats, ate through darkened pastures; bipolar religiosity. Anaemic polemics rose above lilac textures; shells of glass, housed tender crustaceans, whose scientific classifications eluded all but hope.
Hourglass figurines plagued dissenting cries; Farrell awoke; resplendent in his rags; his cap perched upon the tantamount book shelf; his jacket deplored, fragmented; he questioned his whereabouts; for certain, hereabouts he lay. The walls covered in newspaper clippings acting as insulation; caressed his haggard toes; five of which peculiarly moist; the other five reasonably dry. A man round fifty; bearded; grey, inexorably prude, cowered before him; rummaging through the cupboard that stood mere inches from the bed on which he had slept.
The man produced a letter; passing it forcibly unto the solemn palms of Farrell; crumpled and feckless; Farrell read aloud:
Solitary ambiguity
Acquiesce atonal souls;
Surmount the transcendental arch
Of passive farrowed prose;
For verbal discourse;
Rectified, modernised; deposed;
Has ne’er sanctified our hearts;
Our transcendental souls.
“Poetry? I have no time for poetry! There are questions to be asked! Where am I my friend! And why did you hand me this piece of convoluted nonsense? Honestly; I doubt that my mind is privy to the powers of metered phrase, at least at this instance!”
“Be grateful at least, for all is well; I found you outside; they say you were removed from a local tavern; however, I’m unsure as to where exactly. Nevertheless; I took you in; I’ve ne’er been one to pass on a self effacing act, so I made good of it.”
“Thank you; for that answer alone I am grateful; so who are you exactly?”
Farrell gazed artistically, craving prefixed lepers; expecting a chaste reply; papers peeled; articulate artifices soon played a delightful role; tension released; venison supplied.
“The name’s Delaney; I’m a scribe by trade, alas a quickened one; trivial though passably quick witted. Some say humourless, others a wonder; many contrary.”
“So it was you who wrote that?”
“Nay; it was my cousin; a man whose verse lives on borrowed time; it’s needlessly complex.”
“Your cousin wasn’t by any chance Arthur Delaney; was he?”
“No; it was Stephen; I can’t say that I know an Arthur. Anyhow you’re on the Southside; down from O’Connell Street; reckoning a wager are we?”
“Cheers; but I doubt I’ll be staying here much longer.”
Empathetically gesturing westward.
“Suit yourself; I’ve work to do; though leave the door open, I welcome a draught!”
Trust the maker; creator of life; cranial cavities reposed, usurp indignation; practice spontaneity; the Eucharistic heather; the sanctimonious musings of mathematical expositions. Turn the handle; pick the lock; tool the teeth; salt the pepper. Farrell poised and reticent; removed himself from under the silken sheets; unaware of his fallacious abode; fortunately torn; neither resurrected nor denied.
Bastards.
----------------------------
Pray nether tell; time sallies forth; negating surreptitious foes.
Forty six cigarettes wandered aimlessly throughout the speckled proverbs of gratuitous decline. Claiming foul discourse; dilate, opiate, palatial piracy; nicotine free nations slander copious piety; shattering ashen bannocks despite predictive connotations. Stephen took note; plagiarising ochre odes; porous recognition obliging imperative announcements; tentatively positioned upon the breath of Mary Watson; steely eyed and verbose; mulling over pyrite diaries; eulogising Gallic wit.
Relative concordance; the continuation of thematic junctions:
There was little that was left to chance; the papers spread out upon the plywood desk retained an arcane order. Applications to the left, nonessentials to the right; seemingly imbued with a paramount indignation; doubtlessly required throughout the ballpoint corridors of evangelical awareness.
Ink stains; smudged and disillusioned; partitioned the periphery of each and every lucid statement. Echoing that disparate sentiment of literary abandon; noughts and crosses; emboldened and fallacious; folding over luminous shays and antiquated notions with an existential ease; lost upon even the most perceptive of authors.
Punctuation marks departed; usurping conjunctive monopolies with their socialistic tact; stretched and constricted; slithering amidst loquacious prose; seething under the rhythmic theocracy of solicited denial, passively implied.
Moral taxation flirted nonchalantly with hope; whispering revolutionary exaltations into an auditory faculty; tainted yet translucently exposed; faithfully adhering to an atheistic agenda. Boundless asceticism feigning luxuriant desecration; marred by grammatical ideologies; fleetingly reserved and intrinsically denounced; drowning amongst the quill tipped cartilage of unanimous appraisal.
Tarpaulin lungs perished inexorably; suffering the tedious proclamations of avian proprietors; incessantly darting between the archaic citadels of humanistic desire. Evading the perpetually limbic quotations; that for so long had guarded our sacrilegious covenant; sequestered and construed as subjective machination, mourning an obligatory reprise.
The papers lay sullen; encompassed by resolute squalor; nonessentials to the left, applications to the right; praising a hastened demise.
Idle return:
“Stephen in all honesty, I doubt that we’ll ever find a replacement for Heather. She kept herself well, you know. Perfectly mannered; a pretty girl; elegant and modest! A worker as well! Oh how she worked! Stephen are you listening?”
“Of course I am! It’s just that I’ve came across a contradiction in the newsletter! Ne’er have those fools produced a fine work without question or fault; and yet they continue; battling on; proclaiming falsehoods. They really needn’t try! Nay more than I failed their parochial sooths! The glory of repetition! Well, we’ll see about that!”
Stephen was prone to anger; capelin pardoning and satanic verse; lyrical deltoids drawing cubist tableau’s. A picturesque residency instantiating autumnal thoughts; gravely proposed, as summer sprung anew.
“She was fine indeed… where did she go?”
“Derry. Up to her parent’s home; east of the Bann.”
“Is that it; we needed her so…”
“And so did they. Her father turned seventy recently or so she told me; he’ll need the support. Age doesn’t reason with any man; even those as distinguished…”
“As I! I’ve left myself to death before; wrinkled and rotting; lost without hope! Resigning myself to the fact that I’ve aged; greyed and slowed! Children have passed and you have not changed! Yet I, yes I! Fall further into darkness; caressed by callous talons; baiting the breath from my lungs! I remain prepared yet I digress… contradictions in the papers mean nothing to me! Leave me Mary, for I need not the storm!”
Decisive eloquence.
Farrell caught rightly on the horse rent fence; leapt with all his might; surmounting a bale of hay; shoved beside an oxen cart; undoubtedly wheeled from the county. There was no abundance of keep to be had; occupational obstructions reigned over the market court; graced with antler; the stench of fiscal shite; quietly inclined; perpetually refused. Mothers watched sons; fathers their daughters; scallies the lot; whitening the muck.
Allegorical alimonies.
"I wrote..."
“What did you write?”
“I’m not sure…”
“Could you not tell me?”
“I wouldn’t know how…”
“Sure; what do you mean?”
“The means aren’t available to me.”
“Could you recover the means?”
“I couldn’t say…”
“Well then; why did you say that you wrote?”
“Conversation.”
“That’s a rather lean excuse!”
“Is it not?”
“Well; to my mind at least… is it not what?”
“A lean excuse.”
“A slight excuse; it could be. Though I wouldn’t be sure.”
“So you’re as sure as I am?”
“How sure are you?”
“I’m not.”
“What?”
“Sure.”
Diminutive attire; cloth scorn and woe; agnostic guitars placate placid prose; chordal arrangements; sequential demise; asthmatic renditions; eventual reprise.
Finite repetition…
Street lit lamps; flickered off and on; sketching inelegant portraits; clockwise to the periodical pews. Church bells glistened and meandered; beckoning Farrell ever closer. Cathedral; hung, drawn and quartered; families at ease; pensive papists; arrogant Anglicans and foul Presbyterians lined the gutter hall.
“Are they off?”
Naysay soothe the curragh.
“They shall; they shall!”
Chatter; chatter; nag; nag; shut up they cry; proclaim a truce; dug beneath the sandy cove.
Dermatitis dramatics; ghouls forlorn; faces exuberant in detail; wistful; smiling; caving; longing; sunning; words without need; need without words; immaculate conception. She stood; Farrell watched; gracing the parapet with parenthesis and parochial intent; grin overlong; foreboding yet intuitively inviting. He stood; Farrell watched; pour poor swine; marital bliss; marital kiss; marital law; sternly facing the couple; mouth aghast; shouting down the crowd.
“Is there anyone here who finds fault with this union?”
Farrell held his own; run they say; heir to the throne; a testament of guilt; to be so overly apologetic regardless of circumstance is to be appalling; it’s unheard of; even throughout the salient circles of silent elect; neglect yourself.
“Arthur your wife knew too well…”
Reminisce; reconvict the perennial cyst; they kissed; marital bliss; marital kiss; marital law. They stood; Farrell watched; skulking the heads of unleaven bread; heathen and sheathing the sickles instead; Farrell construed pastures anew; skipping the scene; sauntering down a back alley boardroom.
Arse off the elbow.
Tin can canons; stalked the ember pathways with mercurial desire; hurling financial adeptness with an apparent frivolity unbeknownst round socialite sensibilities. Pontefract patterns paced solemnly towards certain recoil; reciting biblical verse; albeit interpreted through legationary ides; unrepentant and shallow; hurried politely; proposing assault.
“You’d do well to buy a flower sir!”
Farrell regressed; retort; considerate.
“And why would that be?”
“The roses are in season! And they won’t be for long! Do you not have a girl to attend to?”
“No… not of late; and if I did, would it be any of your business? Rifles and flowers; lovers and foes. Truthfully my friend I can’t be buying today... or tomorrow for that matter.”
“Fine well.”
A familiar face; turned to the asphalt juncture; quietly pleased; Delaney the scribe; strode confidently.
“I have to say that I’m surprised to see you; of all people!”
“It has only been a few hours; if any.”
“Indeed; though it has been a fairly eventful day thus far!”
“And what is it that has you in such a lather?”
“Progress; the theatre is performing; monetary brilliance and artistic integrity!”
“So the game is fair?”
“Of course! Although I have to say that you look; how can I put it? A little worse for the wear.”
“Where, wear, were; here; there; hair; share; care; silence; grace. I’ve done little other than wander aimlessly since I parted your most gracious company…”
“Well then; come! We have much to discuss; if not much to discern!”
Peevish conifers; pardon all, as dust settles the score; splenetic penance carved upon; the palatal veneered doors. Mahogany epiphanies; sheltered by the light; echo aimless platitudes; amidst the blind whose sight. Betrays nought but much at all; those livid, vapid souls; whose hearts do wander fecklessly; throughout these fervent halls. Blood bled life unto the bane; of man and woman still; reeling from the choleric heart; of which Christ bore the will. To sacrifice the life of one; for the judgement had not sat; upon the hand of nought but man: least we not forget.
Lyrical appeasement; a squealing plethora of witless tonal teals, whose toil defies convention.
Theatrical annulment; crucify the wit; the ingénue; distil the prophet; forgo the death. Farrell found himself amongst the purveyors of lies; the liberalistic children of regret; playing their parts perfectly; without argument or woe. Delaney amused; sidled beside Farrell’s mournful ennui; tearing comfort from phobic orifice; instigating flaccid renewal.
“They have a monologue to perform. A eulogy of sorts… proposed poetically no doubt; though one should be wary. Stephen used to speak of the glory of repetition… yet I have never known why! Though in any case; one should never allude to thoughts long lost amidst time’s insincerity and lust.”
I have become concerned with my general
Lack of fortified empathy,
The empathetic gesturing that leaves little to discern;
Other than the seemingly insatiable monotony
Our servile caricatures see fit to pursue.
Yet it has also provided a glorious if not trivial
Insight into their spacious minds,
The stylistic nuances of idiocy and ignorance,
Brought to light through hours if not days
Spent pondering rhythmic suggestions.
For as long as they toil and plough the fields
Of delinquent impertinence;
How can I expect for
Their intellectual posturing to stall;
If not cease altogether?
This not only provides my soul
With somewhat articulate responses to conceive,
But also leaves my spirited attempts to promote
Artistic responsibility lying forlorn,
Misconstrued amid the shadows of tenuous repute.
For now as long as I draw breathe;
With acrylic assertiveness I vow to make amends.
“Quaint; in a thoroughly distinguished manner…”
“Quaint; is in no way; the reaction that I had expected! Especially from someone of your stock.”
“My stock? I was not aware that you had pegged me so readily.”
“Well; I have always thought of myself as a relatively perceptive soul. Nevertheless your mannerisms are intriguing; a military upbringing bolstered by revolution and unrest?”
“My certainty is lost; however; it would be fair to make such an assessment. Connolly served the same cause; yet the last few years have seen little gain.”
“Republicanism has had its day.”
“A day is not enough; a revolution without the support of the people has never succeeded. Parnell’s approach held wisdom over force; I seek to do the same.”
“Three years of apprehension and appeasement.”
“Greater than twenty of war.”
“Ne’er a truer word has been spoken.”
Castration; procrastination; elevated expression; carousel recitals; reference the referential contentment forged within our hearts. Parliamentary surrealism; pornographic odes; displayed amongst the sulphuric asides of pacifistic composition; the dedication to proliferation.
Pray upon the religious subtext; pray upon the book; pray upon the religious subtext; pray upon the book. Pensive penmanship; fencing inkwell walls; red brick barristers; solicitation; exploratory laboratories of eyelid litigation.
Conjunctive misnomers; Farrell upon the cross; hyphenated blasphemy; to speak is to scream; march towards the dawn; mythological restraints; realistic fiction; fictitious reality; Farrell upon the cross. Sentimentalism; disillusionment; intrinsically entwined; heaving to the breathing; blood; sky; fire; wind and stone; imagist irony.
Genteel quality; paralytic politics; asthmatic machinations; industrialised reprieves; empirical imperialism. Yeats told the war; as war was a child; naïve yet confined; to weather found mild. Thirteen accounts; fourteen astray; twenty five missing; four through the shay:
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A blasphemous gale tore through the sheltered ides, woefully searing the indignant twill that farrowed the masts and oars. The sea unrepentant, stole echo as man, feigning contention with desolate ease, irreverent yet ruthlessly fashioned as the squall once more reclined.
“I doubt she’s going to hold much longer! The wind has little empathy near Galway’s hallowed coast!”
“Well turn her around! We can make port off Doolin!”
“Sir, have you ever sailed round’ Cape Horne in a yacht? A passable attempt at despondent euthanasia for certain! Albeit nothing in this scenario’s relativity! For we needn’t foster such ridiculous conjecture shall we now?”
“We have little time for Gaelic witticism either! Is there anywhere on this Godforsaken shore that needn’t fall victim to your hyperbolic tendencies!”
“If ever I thought that we were bound by reason and ne’er love, this would have been a marital convenience! Annulment forgoin’ Papal procedure yet ne’er escaping your fastidious discourse! James surely a man of your resplendent nature holds logic above our author’s wishes!”
“Christ has never sought Ireland’s approval! As if Patrick himself will return to free us from this fervent storm! For the puritan north holds no credence beyond the pale itself and we are but pawns in Rossa’s vaguely construed rebellion. Tell me this Finnegan has tragedy ever discarded the comedic chains that fasten our every thought? ”
“To question nonexistent foes will do nout’ to satisfy the sea! Let us make haste! The fusillade approaches!”
As sure as Finnegan’s perceptions proved to be, James digressed; preferring to saunter aimlessly from rear to bow, braving the Siren’s discourse as if to prove his unwavering nationalistic agenda.
Finnegan on the other hand, incoherently vowed to see through the night, steering the rustic vessel towards the passive waters, firmly juxtaposed between the dusk and failing dawn; a netherworld of ill repute seemingly summoned by a drunken pastor whose druidic inclinations showed neither sign of redemption nor a predisposition aligned with Roman guilt.
“Finn’ when did you last take note of our position?”
“It was as we passed Sligo bay! Although that was merely two hours ago and alas I don’t recognise this coast. However it would be unthinkable if we strayed from course, these cliffs and Loughs reminisce dearly the fallows of Cork yet we weren’t to return till’…”
“Thursday…and that was at the latest. Our departure was much publicised amongst the mercurial classes with the brotherhood themselves apparently perturbed by our unyielding sympathies.”
“Once more my fairest James, it bears repeating that we needn’t subject ourselves to procrastination and immolated gout. The calm, it whispers, haunting our every word, each syllabic vesper and revenant phrase resonates; harbouring his aptly succinct accusations! Now James I ask this favour of you not only as my master but as a brother in arms, do you recall the demise of Lawrence Corbett?”
“I can’t say that I do…well at least not with the requisite transparency one often equates with nonsensical contradictions. For in all honesty, I resolutely doubt that we are being pursued by some roguish spirit whose incessantly Catechised meanderings remain the burden of our Celtic reservations. Rossa himself wouldn’t have such talk regardless of intention, spiritual or otherwise!”
“Should I take it then that you also doubt Christ’s ascension into heaven? Or do we align the virgin birth with the British parochialism that plagues our society? Parasitic and destitute, devoid of compliance, craving asinine venality by the musket or the blade! Corbett resides within these thoughts! Graven and merciless, the bastard son of a Scotch imbued reverend whose provincial Protestantism and poetic platitudes serve no purpose upon Ireland’s Arcadian shores! Have I much to live for brother? Other than to see our nation scorned and my mind destroyed!”
Upon this revelation James tactfully replied with both majestic wit and discernable narration, quoting the Fenian manifesto silently and without breath, he leant to one side of the inelegant curragh and placed his right hand gently against the surface of the water.
His fingertips penetrated the cutis of the liquid, porous though instilled with a righteous purpose, not only exuding the ability to give life but privy to the habitual prowess of a secular judge, unwilling to indoctrinate humanity with industrialised notions.
Finnegan though somewhat dismayed by James’s reluctance to silhouette his sentient concerns, subconsciously inquired as to why his friend so gracefully and readily accepted his self indulgent monologue. Curiously he had oft thought of James as the less level headed of the pair, conniving and ill suited to the genialities of nationalist apprehension.
However due to the rather inexplicable mortality of his rebellious accomplice he found himself consumed by a decidedly grand reassurance, the disdainful apparition of the cadaverous Corbett soon faded from his mind and with this he spoke.
“James… I apologise but not for my own satisfaction but for the ghastly endeavour that we have set ourselves upon. Ireland is without the requisite arms to outgun the enemy and our souls are regretful and coarse, unable to sanction the death of a thousand men! Though war is something we have to accustom ourselves to! For war is no more hell than the lives of our gracious countrymen, who toil both day and night, unforgivably restrained by the imperialist yoke of servitude! For war is a catalyst! A cathartic excursion from which we will gain our freedom! For without war there is no hope, no use in being an optimist, no need to serve the greater good; for without death there is only a constant spring of fermented restraint, a consistent deluge of consolidated depression! In other words one would always be content, devoid of resistance and resigned to woe, indifferent towards love and lifelessly pertained! Pray tell me sir, what is it that you say?”
“Patrick has indeed returned my friend if only to cast the last stone of eternal judgement unto our nation’s souls! So let us regain our bearings and soothe this bastard’s curse! For life as they say shall no longer be the hell that you speak of but a gloriously Gallicised dream, inclusive and fertile, in-discriminatory and uniquely peculiar. Ireland’s sons may have yet to rise, though the dawn is sure to wake!”
“I stole her heart.”
“Her heart was to one.”
“A frivolous game.”
“Unscrupulous fun!”
“Mischief!”
“Denial!”
“Excitement!”
“Reprise!”
“Such are our hearts.”
“Such is demise.”
The theatre was languidly positioned; east of the Liffey; lazily greeting the tidal misgivings presented by the sea; reflecting the chaotic swirls and taciturn yelps of the spotted grey seals; traversing the bitter conditions; evading the docker’s harp and the odd marauding schooner. Artistic pretension was far from home; surrounded by practicality; treated with suspicion and general indifference; the players performed at will; in spite of crass reviews; replete with linguistic collage.
Effervescent correlation:
“Actual, banal, blah, boring, clean, colourless, common, commonplace, dead, idly, drab, dry, dull, everyday, factual, flat, garden variety, hackneyed, ho hum, humdrum, irksome, lacklustre, lifeless, literal, lowly, lustreless, matter-of-fact, monotonous, mundane, nothing, nowhere, ordinary, pabulum, pedestrian, platitudinous, plebeian, practicable, practical, prosy, routine, square, stale, tame, tedious, trite, uneventful, unexceptional, uninspiring, vanilla, vapid, workaday, yawn.”
Stephen Delaney; fled down the stairs; grasping the rail; streams of sweat navigating the bronze holdings; flood the floor. Stephen unrepentant turns to Rea; clearing the air; cleansing the past.
“Tedious bastards; little do they know; little do they feel; little do they need; monotonous cretins; have they not reason or wit?”
“Subtlety Stephen! Do you not remember subtlety?”
“Of course I do! It’s just that it’s time for vengeance; verbally of course… though none the less scathing for it!”
“You leave me with little room for complaint.”
“Have I never?
“Granting that you forgo the usual tangents and concentrate solely on form; although; you’d never allow yourself to do that now… would you?”
“I can’t say that I would; I appreciate the truth; though even that is less than certain in this contrary world of ours!”
“And that would be the truth then would it?”
“More or less… though you’ve become quite a witty bastard in your old age that’s for sure!”
“You could say that; although you have always had the…”
“Advantageous position of literary fruition; improvised at will. Fashioned from cloth; wore; tore enough; yet I must never lie still.
“If you wish to put it like that. How is the new play going thus far?”
“Mary hates it! She has always hated my work with a passion! Such biblical subtexts rile her up the wrong way! However; I’m willing to lend you a rough draft of the first act.”
Intellectual expanse; exchange Gaelic chance; for love once renewed; lost under virulent grain. Relief; belief; sycophantic musings plagued by unutterable remarks, hypocrisy and shrinking violets; validity and ileum ides.
“Fine then I’ll read; though I can’t return much in words! The easily perplexed have never saw fit to articulate their desires.”
“That would be the truth again; wouldn’t it?”
“Indeed! Either way I’d best be off; send Mary my regards and look after yourself!”
“Take care; and bring me back that script you forgetful wastrel!”
Rea; approached the docker’s hall; expansive and threatening; decked with bells; holly for those of a seasonal slant; inelegantly squashed against the walls; distilled and fermented. Buck wine; eyes dine upon a ravenous feast. Papyrus ploys ply their trade.
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The Passing Of The Falls By Stephen Delaney
Delaney Ad Nauseam
Alfonso
Seamus
The Horde
Saul
Renaissance
Revelation
Delaney Expectant
Act One
Delaney Ad Nauseam; lying tardily; whispering liberalist conjecture throughout the squalid ambience; relatively peaceful.
Teaspoon; sugar…
Alfonso sits upon the coffee jar; bemused; reticent: he falters; removing his watch from his coat. The watch; ancient; antiquated; tells the time.
Alfonso: (Introspectively squatting; facing the floor)
Tedious bastards; little do they know; little do they feel; little do they need; monotonous cretins; have they not reason or wit?
Seamus enters; dressed in a sequin tunic; boots of no description; eyes fixed upon the fervent horde gathering on the horizon; slowly approaching the coffee jar; he proclaims towards Alfonso.
Seamus: (Wearily asphyxiated)
They’re coming! With torch in hand and rifle on song! The shots have parted; the barricade deposed; our souls are due penance!
Alfonso readies himself; the jar is toppled; Seamus paces anxiously; back and forth; east to west; left to right.
Alfonso: (Apathetically reluctant)
How far are they from our current position? Shall we make haste or shall we languish amidst our collective despair?
Seamus: (…)
Is that a question that need be asked?
Seamus reclines; his dramatic entrance misjudged; reverting to a docile state.
Alfonso: (Smarmily)
One would hope so? Is it not foolish to take flight without provision? The roads though confessant, meander so daringly!
Seamus: (Puzzled yet receptive)
Exercise remains an irritant by your logic…
Alfonso: (…)
Indeed; however, we have a musket to the rear; we may stand and fight!
Alfonso rummages through a pile of debris; producing a Hardeeville amenity; rustic yet servable. Seamus interjects.
Seamus: (Thoroughly unimpressed)
Do you propose that we use coffee as powder?
Alfonso: (Regrettably passive)
The powder is…well I’m sure we could fashion some from…
Seamus: (Decidedly indifferent though wary of the viscous horde)
What exactly?
Alfonso: (Gesturing towards the jar)
Seamus: (Nonplussed)
Surely we haven’t the time to do that! They’ll be upon us any minute!
(Seamus pauses; gazing towards the horizon)
The horde approaches!
Alfonso: (Urgently)
Quick! Hide behind the jar! They’ve arrived!
Alfonso and Seamus scurry behind the jar; taking note of the horde’s position; unaware of their translucent detainment; they continue to chatter; pondering over their despicable predicament.
Alfonso: (…)
Can they see us? Should they see us, we should run!
Seamus: (…)
I thought that you were adverse to physical exertion?
Alfonso: (…)
I am! Nevertheless; a man’s existence is bound by circumstance alone! I run therefore I am!
Seamus: (…)
So cowardice is one of life’s slight pleasures? Pseudo philosophy isn’t a speciality of yours by any chance; is it?
Alfonso: (…)
Not particularly; although somehow I doubt that your own reasoning is as sound as you would like to think!
(Peering upwards)
They’re still here!
Seamus: (…)
You expect them to leave?
Alfonso: (Nervously)
Well I am sure that common courtesy extends to their kind as well…
Seamus: (Quizzically)
Indeed; you were saying? In regards to my rationality?
Alfonso: (Enthusiastically)
Well in all honestly; I would not only question your logical integrity but our feckless nature in general. For is it right that we converse in such a manner while the Devil’s battalion is breathing down our necks?
Seamus: (…)
I suppose that I agree. Doubt is a fine a precursor to delusion as faith ever was!
(Alfonso and Seamus peer upwards simultaneously)
Alfonso: (Joyfully)
They’ve left!
Seamus: (…)
They’ll return, and soon! I’m quite sure of it!
Alfonso: (…)
Well they should do! Voracity plays well to an eager audience.
Seamus: (…)
The tentative calm before the decadent storm!
Alfonso: (Mournfully)
But of course...
Delaney Ad Nauseam; ironically smirking; moves away from his desk; the typewriter sullen; ink stained curtains grace the nearby windows; a draft occurs; haunting his every thought. He returns to the page.
Delaney Ad Nauseam: (Concentrating profusely)
================================================== ===========
Rae; utterly ambitious; leaves aside Stephen’s script and jots down an accompaniment; quavers waver amiably; staff the stave; tease the knave; settle a score. The remainder lay discarded; a nuanced nonsense; too contrived for the Liffey; too chaste for the solemn; a play to be played; a play to be lost; anonymity.
Collation…
Children played; mere toddlers; scratching and moaning; yawning and fawning over carcass and mule. Rae walked on; surveying his worth with a pornographers eye; ambition bought the price; his ticket was assured. Sixpence and old schilling; a design for life; a design for strife; Rae strolled on; pacing the impoverished avenues; racing the clock; greyhounds; mastiffs and deviant thought; betwixt reality.
The night hung o’er a licentious mast;
Graven, forgotten; swallowed by moss;
Creatures salacious; wanton; immoral,
Solicited scurrilous, concupiscent fables,
Aesop bore modernity; the harlot; the whore;
Libidinous countenance, low-down; demure;
Sensory misgivings; lascivious reprise,
Synonyms, antonyms; Gaelic necrosis,
Rae stole the show; Stephen forgave;
Christ like monotony; Jesuit knaves,
Coffins of amber; coffins of greed,
Pray for simplicity; the balms of Gilead;
Tunics silent; cationic intervals;
Repetitious themes; carved from the bone;
Cast to the bow; graciously spewed;
Amidst passive harbours;
Licentious, lewd.
Perambulation; greeted the reluctant Farrell; divulging continuity; tending his wounds.
“Arthur… do we have another chance; a moment of clarity?”
“Arthur… do we need another shout; our failing mortality?”
Farrell escorted nostalgic penance:
The pastor notwithstanding approached the shallow shay; upon which he placed a bannock loaf, tireless, plaintive; edible yet woven.
“Time has not brought harm to neither wit nor broken soul!”
Stalling; he cast a verbal course;
“Aaron; the yearling hassock has arrived!”
Apprehensively; he navigated the twiddle path; waking the dutiful chrysanthemums amidst the morning dew; idly cosseting the wistful aboideau; a layman’s passage.
“Silken or cotton?”
Reprimanded by social etiquette.
“Cotton; dear boy…the silken fibres have ne’er graced these blessed halls.”
He replied; unsure of Aaron’s intention; the northerner makeshift, Presbyterian thereby passive.
“That’ll do rightly reverend; the chalet tithes the border’s froth; an annoyance no doubt, alas suiting!”
Crossing eyes they reconciled; the candles lit solemnly, mournful bluish hues, paled unto a canvass; cavorting round austere shadow; delusional; unaware of the risen sun.
“The dawn was slow in coming!”
Aaron spoke; disinterested by the pastor’s preaching, arranging furniture with apparent disdain; the mawkish tonal ambiguity; thought passé throughout Galway’s archaic towns; surmounted all odds, gnawing at his apathetic appraisal.
“Farrell is in need of a loan, a small amount; the closure left him sullen; rightfully so! The woman is with child an’ all!”
The reverend surprised by the forward nature exhibited; digressed, financial penance was a papist pleasure; reformists and mummers alike despised said notions.
“Was the hassock not enough of a favour? To appropriate such nonsense, recalls a blasphemer’s toil! Farrell reckons business with God?”
“His reckoning is sound! Wilful spirits ne’er usurp hovel or abode! Coin is worth little; though covenant the lot!”
A door etched open; revealing Farrell himself; woman in tow; feigning altercation; their hands ruggedly clasped; juxtaposed with each other’s rear; the ripe smell of fornication lingered; met with a wry smile and lecherous tongue; Aaron fell cordial.
“Ah Farrell you bastard; she with child has purpose yet!”
The woman displeased; Roisin her name; replied;
“O’ Hara; a leach fares well, while prayer is due!”
Farrell, appreciative of her reasoned tact; found passion renewed; disjoining the door in a vigorous manner. The pastor, demure, openly made light of loathsome occurrence, scurrying off to the parlour cloaked by talus ides.
“Aaron where’s that eejit off te’?”
“He’s passin’ your due!”
Man and woman scorned; Farrell denied complicit rationale. He strode confidently throu’ the house, calling upon the cowering reverend.
“Come out you tedious clachan tabor Welch! Nay man held God on high for ransom!”
To no avail his search dismount; the hassock embroidered lay tentative, soiled and shard, discarded through spite. Aaron slew the hillock sash, signalling ‘wards Roisin.
“He’s gone; though were, is ne’er certain.”
“The Felons praise discourse freely; he’d shun the usual hides!”
“Freemen choose poorly; I’ll ask him tomorrow; fracas ergo saunters solitary; he’ll return! Fetch Farrell and let us regret our misfortune!”
A collective sigh forbade relief; time had been hastened; dusk echoed silently, resonation as regal tangent; the reverend reproached; pride intact though bitterly possessed; no thought did sound.
Contention despondent; despair retread; absinthe makes the heart grow fonder. Farrell’s life was not his own. Murdo; mceeber, ravel the audlock; met the sogterish hume. Confusion regressed; aberration on high; revolutionary contrast; uncertainty certain; austerity amiss; prosthetic prosperity.
Archival Heathers.
One can dream.
Archival Heathers: An Experiment On My Behalf
Archaic windows punished by forlorn lighting; knitting amidst the saddle backed hues of further disdain; cradling humanity.
Four men squat round an ingrate table; embittered yet distinguished; as slight calls and caterwauls grace the cavernous boudoirs of eternal containment.
Sundry playing cards; flounced and squandered; toiling selective ploughs; tunnelling fervent vows; perennially juxtaposed towards the beech wood shards; splintered and sewn; sheltering whiskey; laid to rest beside a multitude of vintage Baltic malts.
The men draped in casual attire; caps jauntily proposed; sliding lazily over mahogany faces; staunchly blackened; collectively beckoning a finite prologue; a paramount address.
“Arthur was a good man, needlessly complex yet…”
“Reasonably priced?”
Choral asphyxia; tedious laughter stole upon the stolid smoke plum zephyr; gliding plaintively; blanketing the Patagonian carpet with tenuous breath; evading the limbic climes of the red brick chimney. Incumbent tongues lashing; spouting seasonal misgivings.
“You could say so! He never put a foot wrong, no matter how convoluted the evening became, the night would always pass without exception.”
“Surely it was always the day that followed the night! Or had death itself loomed ominously o’er your heart for so long that doubt took hold?”
“Possibly… although, I have always assumed the contrary to be true.”
A triumvirate of voices weaving a mournful throw; painfully produced; shadowing exquisite demise; delicately laced with provincial tense and senseless sibilance. Stalling tentatively; interrupted by a fourth party; teasing poetic license; linguistically imbued.
“He, who lives by the rifle, dies by the rifle. A clichéd response to such a despicable turn of events; although, one could never argue with such a truthful sentiment…”
“Well then Farrell; would you like to share with us any other pearls of wisdom? As I’ve never doubted that poker was your game; however, I’m unsure of your position on war.”
“War? Whatever do you mean? War is nothing but a glorified respite, a catalytic reprise; war needs no explanation! Show me that vanity knows no bounds and I’ll respect your response; no matter how contrived it may seem to be! Surely you don’t believe that there is any justice in violence, order in genocide and love in death! Surely your reasoning tells you otherwise?”
The three wound apprehension; clockwork masochism; ticking profusely; harbouring eloquent misgivings; privy to quixotic souls; haunting quick fix folders of their own accord; modernist miens. Strict rhythmic pulsation; snare drums crackle under sensuous verbosity; pseudo passive remarks granulate endlessly; cereal spilled over proverbial dreams; lucidity; liquid vespers don amalgamated gowns.
“You always were a pacifist bastard!”
“Well; if that was always the case, how come it was I who served during the rising? Is your memory so fickle that you forget my sacrifice? That you forgo common courtesy! For God’s sake! For God’s sake… have I suffered and lingered; sailing amidst the atheistic farrows of eternal damnation; only to be questioned by those who wear cowardice as a badge of honour. Polished and tokenised, sanctified and lost. Did Arthur fall under a revenant shade for nothing… or will I succumb to the vanity of lust and forever remain a lifeless machine? Believe me lads, life is not for the taking; it’s for the receiving; so supposedly reserved… a masterful monologue.”
Farrell hastened his step; bounding from his chair he poured retinal scorn; solidified sadism rushed off the feet of ecumenical lurchers; pacing arsenic corridors, brandishing squalid irons. Upon reaching the lacquered door he paused in preparation; waving to the three amiably; casting aside his bitter disposition.
The wind blew eastward canvassing bluish pamphlets; clockwise to the west; perpendicular to the south; grazing the chin of the north; past Carr’s Inn; molesting the collective skirts of ambiguity. The street disorganised; devoid of stringent planning; incoherent paving; cobbled usher, molten hoof, raging unapologetically; the grit unbearable; an aggravated aria partitioned without effort.
He stumbled onward; creaking open the door of Carr’s Inn; an ancient establishment, rustic and odorous; charming in a way; forsaken in another. Vines crept down from the rafters above; wafting genially; greeting his weary eyes with arthritic abandon; fiddlers fiddling; pipers piping; drummers drumming; bankers fiddling; contrasting caustically with the downtrodden obituary from which he was birthed.
He approached the kitchen; girdled and diminished; skewering the perimeter:
Ten yellowed rashers; succulent, scalding; thrashing round the pan; spitting sulphuric alibis, inelegantly throughout the air. Carnivorous aromatherapy; the honesty of arrogance; spilling o’er onto the grill; seething, teething at the bit; surrounding the porter and denying his breath.
- Phonemic treason…
The proclamation distilled; dissipated quizzically. The attendants took little heed;
scurrying to and fro, surveying excessive kernels; drenched in liver oil, fermenting amidst cyclic herbs, cascading downward, surmounting a culinary gauntlet.
- Condiment and brine…
The porter found reassurance wanting; suggestively twiddling with sunflowers seeds; making no distinction, an allusion to tepidity; escaping gratuitous recollection. The unanimous fervour teased implicit vowels; fornication from the tip of an irate tongue; crying relentlessly; an irrational chorus, seasoned; dripping with humility, insincerity and excretion.
Farrell sat attentively; siphoning saliva from his pectoral glands; his mouth dry; regrettably parched; eyeing the solicitors whose rent boy tastes disgusted his moral fibre. The boys or possibly girls; gender bore no regal song; owls dispatched on hallowed ground; ergo phallic wistful charm; narcissistic woe; little older than sixteen; played with their hair incessantly; sexuality was a misnomer that proofed no course. He turned to one; gauging some ten weight liquorice.
“Tell me son; have you the permission of your father to do this?”
“My father remains whoever… has the financial awareness to purchase my services.”
“And you have no qualms about this; no regrets or concern?”
“Money as they say speaks volumes of the rich and cares little for the poor…legerdemain.”
Aplitic foetus tore asunder; plunder carefully; saunter tethered; halo; sweetest halo; felinity ensued, femininity pursued the prize; pristine topped pistols chasing carousel arbitrators. Oats and barley or was it barley and oats, ate through darkened pastures; bipolar religiosity. Anaemic polemics rose above lilac textures; shells of glass, housed tender crustaceans, whose scientific classifications eluded all but hope.
Hourglass figurines plagued dissenting cries; Farrell awoke; resplendent in his rags; his cap perched upon the tantamount book shelf; his jacket deplored, fragmented; he questioned his whereabouts; for certain, hereabouts he lay. The walls covered in newspaper clippings acting as insulation; caressed his haggard toes; five of which peculiarly moist; the other five reasonably dry. A man round fifty; bearded; grey, inexorably prude, cowered before him; rummaging through the cupboard that stood mere inches from the bed on which he had slept.
The man produced a letter; passing it forcibly unto the solemn palms of Farrell; crumpled and feckless; Farrell read aloud:
Solitary ambiguity
Acquiesce atonal souls;
Surmount the transcendental arch
Of passive farrowed prose;
For verbal discourse;
Rectified, modernised; deposed;
Has ne’er sanctified our hearts;
Our transcendental souls.
“Poetry? I have no time for poetry! There are questions to be asked! Where am I my friend! And why did you hand me this piece of convoluted nonsense? Honestly; I doubt that my mind is privy to the powers of metered phrase, at least at this instance!”
“Be grateful at least, for all is well; I found you outside; they say you were removed from a local tavern; however, I’m unsure as to where exactly. Nevertheless; I took you in; I’ve ne’er been one to pass on a self effacing act, so I made good of it.”
“Thank you; for that answer alone I am grateful; so who are you exactly?”
Farrell gazed artistically, craving prefixed lepers; expecting a chaste reply; papers peeled; articulate artifices soon played a delightful role; tension released; venison supplied.
“The name’s Delaney; I’m a scribe by trade, alas a quickened one; trivial though passably quick witted. Some say humourless, others a wonder; many contrary.”
“So it was you who wrote that?”
“Nay; it was my cousin; a man whose verse lives on borrowed time; it’s needlessly complex.”
“Your cousin wasn’t by any chance Arthur Delaney; was he?”
“No; it was Stephen; I can’t say that I know an Arthur. Anyhow you’re on the Southside; down from O’Connell Street; reckoning a wager are we?”
“Cheers; but I doubt I’ll be staying here much longer.”
Empathetically gesturing westward.
“Suit yourself; I’ve work to do; though leave the door open, I welcome a draught!”
Trust the maker; creator of life; cranial cavities reposed, usurp indignation; practice spontaneity; the Eucharistic heather; the sanctimonious musings of mathematical expositions. Turn the handle; pick the lock; tool the teeth; salt the pepper. Farrell poised and reticent; removed himself from under the silken sheets; unaware of his fallacious abode; fortunately torn; neither resurrected nor denied.
Bastards.
----------------------------
Pray nether tell; time sallies forth; negating surreptitious foes.
Forty six cigarettes wandered aimlessly throughout the speckled proverbs of gratuitous decline. Claiming foul discourse; dilate, opiate, palatial piracy; nicotine free nations slander copious piety; shattering ashen bannocks despite predictive connotations. Stephen took note; plagiarising ochre odes; porous recognition obliging imperative announcements; tentatively positioned upon the breath of Mary Watson; steely eyed and verbose; mulling over pyrite diaries; eulogising Gallic wit.
Relative concordance; the continuation of thematic junctions:
There was little that was left to chance; the papers spread out upon the plywood desk retained an arcane order. Applications to the left, nonessentials to the right; seemingly imbued with a paramount indignation; doubtlessly required throughout the ballpoint corridors of evangelical awareness.
Ink stains; smudged and disillusioned; partitioned the periphery of each and every lucid statement. Echoing that disparate sentiment of literary abandon; noughts and crosses; emboldened and fallacious; folding over luminous shays and antiquated notions with an existential ease; lost upon even the most perceptive of authors.
Punctuation marks departed; usurping conjunctive monopolies with their socialistic tact; stretched and constricted; slithering amidst loquacious prose; seething under the rhythmic theocracy of solicited denial, passively implied.
Moral taxation flirted nonchalantly with hope; whispering revolutionary exaltations into an auditory faculty; tainted yet translucently exposed; faithfully adhering to an atheistic agenda. Boundless asceticism feigning luxuriant desecration; marred by grammatical ideologies; fleetingly reserved and intrinsically denounced; drowning amongst the quill tipped cartilage of unanimous appraisal.
Tarpaulin lungs perished inexorably; suffering the tedious proclamations of avian proprietors; incessantly darting between the archaic citadels of humanistic desire. Evading the perpetually limbic quotations; that for so long had guarded our sacrilegious covenant; sequestered and construed as subjective machination, mourning an obligatory reprise.
The papers lay sullen; encompassed by resolute squalor; nonessentials to the left, applications to the right; praising a hastened demise.
Idle return:
“Stephen in all honesty, I doubt that we’ll ever find a replacement for Heather. She kept herself well, you know. Perfectly mannered; a pretty girl; elegant and modest! A worker as well! Oh how she worked! Stephen are you listening?”
“Of course I am! It’s just that I’ve came across a contradiction in the newsletter! Ne’er have those fools produced a fine work without question or fault; and yet they continue; battling on; proclaiming falsehoods. They really needn’t try! Nay more than I failed their parochial sooths! The glory of repetition! Well, we’ll see about that!”
Stephen was prone to anger; capelin pardoning and satanic verse; lyrical deltoids drawing cubist tableau’s. A picturesque residency instantiating autumnal thoughts; gravely proposed, as summer sprung anew.
“She was fine indeed… where did she go?”
“Derry. Up to her parent’s home; east of the Bann.”
“Is that it; we needed her so…”
“And so did they. Her father turned seventy recently or so she told me; he’ll need the support. Age doesn’t reason with any man; even those as distinguished…”
“As I! I’ve left myself to death before; wrinkled and rotting; lost without hope! Resigning myself to the fact that I’ve aged; greyed and slowed! Children have passed and you have not changed! Yet I, yes I! Fall further into darkness; caressed by callous talons; baiting the breath from my lungs! I remain prepared yet I digress… contradictions in the papers mean nothing to me! Leave me Mary, for I need not the storm!”
Decisive eloquence.
Farrell caught rightly on the horse rent fence; leapt with all his might; surmounting a bale of hay; shoved beside an oxen cart; undoubtedly wheeled from the county. There was no abundance of keep to be had; occupational obstructions reigned over the market court; graced with antler; the stench of fiscal shite; quietly inclined; perpetually refused. Mothers watched sons; fathers their daughters; scallies the lot; whitening the muck.
Allegorical alimonies.
"I wrote..."
“What did you write?”
“I’m not sure…”
“Could you not tell me?”
“I wouldn’t know how…”
“Sure; what do you mean?”
“The means aren’t available to me.”
“Could you recover the means?”
“I couldn’t say…”
“Well then; why did you say that you wrote?”
“Conversation.”
“That’s a rather lean excuse!”
“Is it not?”
“Well; to my mind at least… is it not what?”
“A lean excuse.”
“A slight excuse; it could be. Though I wouldn’t be sure.”
“So you’re as sure as I am?”
“How sure are you?”
“I’m not.”
“What?”
“Sure.”
Diminutive attire; cloth scorn and woe; agnostic guitars placate placid prose; chordal arrangements; sequential demise; asthmatic renditions; eventual reprise.
Finite repetition…
Street lit lamps; flickered off and on; sketching inelegant portraits; clockwise to the periodical pews. Church bells glistened and meandered; beckoning Farrell ever closer. Cathedral; hung, drawn and quartered; families at ease; pensive papists; arrogant Anglicans and foul Presbyterians lined the gutter hall.
“Are they off?”
Naysay soothe the curragh.
“They shall; they shall!”
Chatter; chatter; nag; nag; shut up they cry; proclaim a truce; dug beneath the sandy cove.
Dermatitis dramatics; ghouls forlorn; faces exuberant in detail; wistful; smiling; caving; longing; sunning; words without need; need without words; immaculate conception. She stood; Farrell watched; gracing the parapet with parenthesis and parochial intent; grin overlong; foreboding yet intuitively inviting. He stood; Farrell watched; pour poor swine; marital bliss; marital kiss; marital law; sternly facing the couple; mouth aghast; shouting down the crowd.
“Is there anyone here who finds fault with this union?”
Farrell held his own; run they say; heir to the throne; a testament of guilt; to be so overly apologetic regardless of circumstance is to be appalling; it’s unheard of; even throughout the salient circles of silent elect; neglect yourself.
“Arthur your wife knew too well…”
Reminisce; reconvict the perennial cyst; they kissed; marital bliss; marital kiss; marital law. They stood; Farrell watched; skulking the heads of unleaven bread; heathen and sheathing the sickles instead; Farrell construed pastures anew; skipping the scene; sauntering down a back alley boardroom.
Arse off the elbow.
Tin can canons; stalked the ember pathways with mercurial desire; hurling financial adeptness with an apparent frivolity unbeknownst round socialite sensibilities. Pontefract patterns paced solemnly towards certain recoil; reciting biblical verse; albeit interpreted through legationary ides; unrepentant and shallow; hurried politely; proposing assault.
“You’d do well to buy a flower sir!”
Farrell regressed; retort; considerate.
“And why would that be?”
“The roses are in season! And they won’t be for long! Do you not have a girl to attend to?”
“No… not of late; and if I did, would it be any of your business? Rifles and flowers; lovers and foes. Truthfully my friend I can’t be buying today... or tomorrow for that matter.”
“Fine well.”
A familiar face; turned to the asphalt juncture; quietly pleased; Delaney the scribe; strode confidently.
“I have to say that I’m surprised to see you; of all people!”
“It has only been a few hours; if any.”
“Indeed; though it has been a fairly eventful day thus far!”
“And what is it that has you in such a lather?”
“Progress; the theatre is performing; monetary brilliance and artistic integrity!”
“So the game is fair?”
“Of course! Although I have to say that you look; how can I put it? A little worse for the wear.”
“Where, wear, were; here; there; hair; share; care; silence; grace. I’ve done little other than wander aimlessly since I parted your most gracious company…”
“Well then; come! We have much to discuss; if not much to discern!”
Peevish conifers; pardon all, as dust settles the score; splenetic penance carved upon; the palatal veneered doors. Mahogany epiphanies; sheltered by the light; echo aimless platitudes; amidst the blind whose sight. Betrays nought but much at all; those livid, vapid souls; whose hearts do wander fecklessly; throughout these fervent halls. Blood bled life unto the bane; of man and woman still; reeling from the choleric heart; of which Christ bore the will. To sacrifice the life of one; for the judgement had not sat; upon the hand of nought but man: least we not forget.
Lyrical appeasement; a squealing plethora of witless tonal teals, whose toil defies convention.
Theatrical annulment; crucify the wit; the ingénue; distil the prophet; forgo the death. Farrell found himself amongst the purveyors of lies; the liberalistic children of regret; playing their parts perfectly; without argument or woe. Delaney amused; sidled beside Farrell’s mournful ennui; tearing comfort from phobic orifice; instigating flaccid renewal.
“They have a monologue to perform. A eulogy of sorts… proposed poetically no doubt; though one should be wary. Stephen used to speak of the glory of repetition… yet I have never known why! Though in any case; one should never allude to thoughts long lost amidst time’s insincerity and lust.”
I have become concerned with my general
Lack of fortified empathy,
The empathetic gesturing that leaves little to discern;
Other than the seemingly insatiable monotony
Our servile caricatures see fit to pursue.
Yet it has also provided a glorious if not trivial
Insight into their spacious minds,
The stylistic nuances of idiocy and ignorance,
Brought to light through hours if not days
Spent pondering rhythmic suggestions.
For as long as they toil and plough the fields
Of delinquent impertinence;
How can I expect for
Their intellectual posturing to stall;
If not cease altogether?
This not only provides my soul
With somewhat articulate responses to conceive,
But also leaves my spirited attempts to promote
Artistic responsibility lying forlorn,
Misconstrued amid the shadows of tenuous repute.
For now as long as I draw breathe;
With acrylic assertiveness I vow to make amends.
“Quaint; in a thoroughly distinguished manner…”
“Quaint; is in no way; the reaction that I had expected! Especially from someone of your stock.”
“My stock? I was not aware that you had pegged me so readily.”
“Well; I have always thought of myself as a relatively perceptive soul. Nevertheless your mannerisms are intriguing; a military upbringing bolstered by revolution and unrest?”
“My certainty is lost; however; it would be fair to make such an assessment. Connolly served the same cause; yet the last few years have seen little gain.”
“Republicanism has had its day.”
“A day is not enough; a revolution without the support of the people has never succeeded. Parnell’s approach held wisdom over force; I seek to do the same.”
“Three years of apprehension and appeasement.”
“Greater than twenty of war.”
“Ne’er a truer word has been spoken.”
Castration; procrastination; elevated expression; carousel recitals; reference the referential contentment forged within our hearts. Parliamentary surrealism; pornographic odes; displayed amongst the sulphuric asides of pacifistic composition; the dedication to proliferation.
Pray upon the religious subtext; pray upon the book; pray upon the religious subtext; pray upon the book. Pensive penmanship; fencing inkwell walls; red brick barristers; solicitation; exploratory laboratories of eyelid litigation.
Conjunctive misnomers; Farrell upon the cross; hyphenated blasphemy; to speak is to scream; march towards the dawn; mythological restraints; realistic fiction; fictitious reality; Farrell upon the cross. Sentimentalism; disillusionment; intrinsically entwined; heaving to the breathing; blood; sky; fire; wind and stone; imagist irony.
Genteel quality; paralytic politics; asthmatic machinations; industrialised reprieves; empirical imperialism. Yeats told the war; as war was a child; naïve yet confined; to weather found mild. Thirteen accounts; fourteen astray; twenty five missing; four through the shay:
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A blasphemous gale tore through the sheltered ides, woefully searing the indignant twill that farrowed the masts and oars. The sea unrepentant, stole echo as man, feigning contention with desolate ease, irreverent yet ruthlessly fashioned as the squall once more reclined.
“I doubt she’s going to hold much longer! The wind has little empathy near Galway’s hallowed coast!”
“Well turn her around! We can make port off Doolin!”
“Sir, have you ever sailed round’ Cape Horne in a yacht? A passable attempt at despondent euthanasia for certain! Albeit nothing in this scenario’s relativity! For we needn’t foster such ridiculous conjecture shall we now?”
“We have little time for Gaelic witticism either! Is there anywhere on this Godforsaken shore that needn’t fall victim to your hyperbolic tendencies!”
“If ever I thought that we were bound by reason and ne’er love, this would have been a marital convenience! Annulment forgoin’ Papal procedure yet ne’er escaping your fastidious discourse! James surely a man of your resplendent nature holds logic above our author’s wishes!”
“Christ has never sought Ireland’s approval! As if Patrick himself will return to free us from this fervent storm! For the puritan north holds no credence beyond the pale itself and we are but pawns in Rossa’s vaguely construed rebellion. Tell me this Finnegan has tragedy ever discarded the comedic chains that fasten our every thought? ”
“To question nonexistent foes will do nout’ to satisfy the sea! Let us make haste! The fusillade approaches!”
As sure as Finnegan’s perceptions proved to be, James digressed; preferring to saunter aimlessly from rear to bow, braving the Siren’s discourse as if to prove his unwavering nationalistic agenda.
Finnegan on the other hand, incoherently vowed to see through the night, steering the rustic vessel towards the passive waters, firmly juxtaposed between the dusk and failing dawn; a netherworld of ill repute seemingly summoned by a drunken pastor whose druidic inclinations showed neither sign of redemption nor a predisposition aligned with Roman guilt.
“Finn’ when did you last take note of our position?”
“It was as we passed Sligo bay! Although that was merely two hours ago and alas I don’t recognise this coast. However it would be unthinkable if we strayed from course, these cliffs and Loughs reminisce dearly the fallows of Cork yet we weren’t to return till’…”
“Thursday…and that was at the latest. Our departure was much publicised amongst the mercurial classes with the brotherhood themselves apparently perturbed by our unyielding sympathies.”
“Once more my fairest James, it bears repeating that we needn’t subject ourselves to procrastination and immolated gout. The calm, it whispers, haunting our every word, each syllabic vesper and revenant phrase resonates; harbouring his aptly succinct accusations! Now James I ask this favour of you not only as my master but as a brother in arms, do you recall the demise of Lawrence Corbett?”
“I can’t say that I do…well at least not with the requisite transparency one often equates with nonsensical contradictions. For in all honesty, I resolutely doubt that we are being pursued by some roguish spirit whose incessantly Catechised meanderings remain the burden of our Celtic reservations. Rossa himself wouldn’t have such talk regardless of intention, spiritual or otherwise!”
“Should I take it then that you also doubt Christ’s ascension into heaven? Or do we align the virgin birth with the British parochialism that plagues our society? Parasitic and destitute, devoid of compliance, craving asinine venality by the musket or the blade! Corbett resides within these thoughts! Graven and merciless, the bastard son of a Scotch imbued reverend whose provincial Protestantism and poetic platitudes serve no purpose upon Ireland’s Arcadian shores! Have I much to live for brother? Other than to see our nation scorned and my mind destroyed!”
Upon this revelation James tactfully replied with both majestic wit and discernable narration, quoting the Fenian manifesto silently and without breath, he leant to one side of the inelegant curragh and placed his right hand gently against the surface of the water.
His fingertips penetrated the cutis of the liquid, porous though instilled with a righteous purpose, not only exuding the ability to give life but privy to the habitual prowess of a secular judge, unwilling to indoctrinate humanity with industrialised notions.
Finnegan though somewhat dismayed by James’s reluctance to silhouette his sentient concerns, subconsciously inquired as to why his friend so gracefully and readily accepted his self indulgent monologue. Curiously he had oft thought of James as the less level headed of the pair, conniving and ill suited to the genialities of nationalist apprehension.
However due to the rather inexplicable mortality of his rebellious accomplice he found himself consumed by a decidedly grand reassurance, the disdainful apparition of the cadaverous Corbett soon faded from his mind and with this he spoke.
“James… I apologise but not for my own satisfaction but for the ghastly endeavour that we have set ourselves upon. Ireland is without the requisite arms to outgun the enemy and our souls are regretful and coarse, unable to sanction the death of a thousand men! Though war is something we have to accustom ourselves to! For war is no more hell than the lives of our gracious countrymen, who toil both day and night, unforgivably restrained by the imperialist yoke of servitude! For war is a catalyst! A cathartic excursion from which we will gain our freedom! For without war there is no hope, no use in being an optimist, no need to serve the greater good; for without death there is only a constant spring of fermented restraint, a consistent deluge of consolidated depression! In other words one would always be content, devoid of resistance and resigned to woe, indifferent towards love and lifelessly pertained! Pray tell me sir, what is it that you say?”
“Patrick has indeed returned my friend if only to cast the last stone of eternal judgement unto our nation’s souls! So let us regain our bearings and soothe this bastard’s curse! For life as they say shall no longer be the hell that you speak of but a gloriously Gallicised dream, inclusive and fertile, in-discriminatory and uniquely peculiar. Ireland’s sons may have yet to rise, though the dawn is sure to wake!”
“I stole her heart.”
“Her heart was to one.”
“A frivolous game.”
“Unscrupulous fun!”
“Mischief!”
“Denial!”
“Excitement!”
“Reprise!”
“Such are our hearts.”
“Such is demise.”
The theatre was languidly positioned; east of the Liffey; lazily greeting the tidal misgivings presented by the sea; reflecting the chaotic swirls and taciturn yelps of the spotted grey seals; traversing the bitter conditions; evading the docker’s harp and the odd marauding schooner. Artistic pretension was far from home; surrounded by practicality; treated with suspicion and general indifference; the players performed at will; in spite of crass reviews; replete with linguistic collage.
Effervescent correlation:
“Actual, banal, blah, boring, clean, colourless, common, commonplace, dead, idly, drab, dry, dull, everyday, factual, flat, garden variety, hackneyed, ho hum, humdrum, irksome, lacklustre, lifeless, literal, lowly, lustreless, matter-of-fact, monotonous, mundane, nothing, nowhere, ordinary, pabulum, pedestrian, platitudinous, plebeian, practicable, practical, prosy, routine, square, stale, tame, tedious, trite, uneventful, unexceptional, uninspiring, vanilla, vapid, workaday, yawn.”
Stephen Delaney; fled down the stairs; grasping the rail; streams of sweat navigating the bronze holdings; flood the floor. Stephen unrepentant turns to Rea; clearing the air; cleansing the past.
“Tedious bastards; little do they know; little do they feel; little do they need; monotonous cretins; have they not reason or wit?”
“Subtlety Stephen! Do you not remember subtlety?”
“Of course I do! It’s just that it’s time for vengeance; verbally of course… though none the less scathing for it!”
“You leave me with little room for complaint.”
“Have I never?
“Granting that you forgo the usual tangents and concentrate solely on form; although; you’d never allow yourself to do that now… would you?”
“I can’t say that I would; I appreciate the truth; though even that is less than certain in this contrary world of ours!”
“And that would be the truth then would it?”
“More or less… though you’ve become quite a witty bastard in your old age that’s for sure!”
“You could say that; although you have always had the…”
“Advantageous position of literary fruition; improvised at will. Fashioned from cloth; wore; tore enough; yet I must never lie still.
“If you wish to put it like that. How is the new play going thus far?”
“Mary hates it! She has always hated my work with a passion! Such biblical subtexts rile her up the wrong way! However; I’m willing to lend you a rough draft of the first act.”
Intellectual expanse; exchange Gaelic chance; for love once renewed; lost under virulent grain. Relief; belief; sycophantic musings plagued by unutterable remarks, hypocrisy and shrinking violets; validity and ileum ides.
“Fine then I’ll read; though I can’t return much in words! The easily perplexed have never saw fit to articulate their desires.”
“That would be the truth again; wouldn’t it?”
“Indeed! Either way I’d best be off; send Mary my regards and look after yourself!”
“Take care; and bring me back that script you forgetful wastrel!”
Rea; approached the docker’s hall; expansive and threatening; decked with bells; holly for those of a seasonal slant; inelegantly squashed against the walls; distilled and fermented. Buck wine; eyes dine upon a ravenous feast. Papyrus ploys ply their trade.
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The Passing Of The Falls By Stephen Delaney
Delaney Ad Nauseam
Alfonso
Seamus
The Horde
Saul
Renaissance
Revelation
Delaney Expectant
Act One
Delaney Ad Nauseam; lying tardily; whispering liberalist conjecture throughout the squalid ambience; relatively peaceful.
Teaspoon; sugar…
Alfonso sits upon the coffee jar; bemused; reticent: he falters; removing his watch from his coat. The watch; ancient; antiquated; tells the time.
Alfonso: (Introspectively squatting; facing the floor)
Tedious bastards; little do they know; little do they feel; little do they need; monotonous cretins; have they not reason or wit?
Seamus enters; dressed in a sequin tunic; boots of no description; eyes fixed upon the fervent horde gathering on the horizon; slowly approaching the coffee jar; he proclaims towards Alfonso.
Seamus: (Wearily asphyxiated)
They’re coming! With torch in hand and rifle on song! The shots have parted; the barricade deposed; our souls are due penance!
Alfonso readies himself; the jar is toppled; Seamus paces anxiously; back and forth; east to west; left to right.
Alfonso: (Apathetically reluctant)
How far are they from our current position? Shall we make haste or shall we languish amidst our collective despair?
Seamus: (…)
Is that a question that need be asked?
Seamus reclines; his dramatic entrance misjudged; reverting to a docile state.
Alfonso: (Smarmily)
One would hope so? Is it not foolish to take flight without provision? The roads though confessant, meander so daringly!
Seamus: (Puzzled yet receptive)
Exercise remains an irritant by your logic…
Alfonso: (…)
Indeed; however, we have a musket to the rear; we may stand and fight!
Alfonso rummages through a pile of debris; producing a Hardeeville amenity; rustic yet servable. Seamus interjects.
Seamus: (Thoroughly unimpressed)
Do you propose that we use coffee as powder?
Alfonso: (Regrettably passive)
The powder is…well I’m sure we could fashion some from…
Seamus: (Decidedly indifferent though wary of the viscous horde)
What exactly?
Alfonso: (Gesturing towards the jar)
Seamus: (Nonplussed)
Surely we haven’t the time to do that! They’ll be upon us any minute!
(Seamus pauses; gazing towards the horizon)
The horde approaches!
Alfonso: (Urgently)
Quick! Hide behind the jar! They’ve arrived!
Alfonso and Seamus scurry behind the jar; taking note of the horde’s position; unaware of their translucent detainment; they continue to chatter; pondering over their despicable predicament.
Alfonso: (…)
Can they see us? Should they see us, we should run!
Seamus: (…)
I thought that you were adverse to physical exertion?
Alfonso: (…)
I am! Nevertheless; a man’s existence is bound by circumstance alone! I run therefore I am!
Seamus: (…)
So cowardice is one of life’s slight pleasures? Pseudo philosophy isn’t a speciality of yours by any chance; is it?
Alfonso: (…)
Not particularly; although somehow I doubt that your own reasoning is as sound as you would like to think!
(Peering upwards)
They’re still here!
Seamus: (…)
You expect them to leave?
Alfonso: (Nervously)
Well I am sure that common courtesy extends to their kind as well…
Seamus: (Quizzically)
Indeed; you were saying? In regards to my rationality?
Alfonso: (Enthusiastically)
Well in all honestly; I would not only question your logical integrity but our feckless nature in general. For is it right that we converse in such a manner while the Devil’s battalion is breathing down our necks?
Seamus: (…)
I suppose that I agree. Doubt is a fine a precursor to delusion as faith ever was!
(Alfonso and Seamus peer upwards simultaneously)
Alfonso: (Joyfully)
They’ve left!
Seamus: (…)
They’ll return, and soon! I’m quite sure of it!
Alfonso: (…)
Well they should do! Voracity plays well to an eager audience.
Seamus: (…)
The tentative calm before the decadent storm!
Alfonso: (Mournfully)
But of course...
Delaney Ad Nauseam; ironically smirking; moves away from his desk; the typewriter sullen; ink stained curtains grace the nearby windows; a draft occurs; haunting his every thought. He returns to the page.
Delaney Ad Nauseam: (Concentrating profusely)
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Rae; utterly ambitious; leaves aside Stephen’s script and jots down an accompaniment; quavers waver amiably; staff the stave; tease the knave; settle a score. The remainder lay discarded; a nuanced nonsense; too contrived for the Liffey; too chaste for the solemn; a play to be played; a play to be lost; anonymity.
Collation…
Children played; mere toddlers; scratching and moaning; yawning and fawning over carcass and mule. Rae walked on; surveying his worth with a pornographers eye; ambition bought the price; his ticket was assured. Sixpence and old schilling; a design for life; a design for strife; Rae strolled on; pacing the impoverished avenues; racing the clock; greyhounds; mastiffs and deviant thought; betwixt reality.
The night hung o’er a licentious mast;
Graven, forgotten; swallowed by moss;
Creatures salacious; wanton; immoral,
Solicited scurrilous, concupiscent fables,
Aesop bore modernity; the harlot; the whore;
Libidinous countenance, low-down; demure;
Sensory misgivings; lascivious reprise,
Synonyms, antonyms; Gaelic necrosis,
Rae stole the show; Stephen forgave;
Christ like monotony; Jesuit knaves,
Coffins of amber; coffins of greed,
Pray for simplicity; the balms of Gilead;
Tunics silent; cationic intervals;
Repetitious themes; carved from the bone;
Cast to the bow; graciously spewed;
Amidst passive harbours;
Licentious, lewd.
Perambulation; greeted the reluctant Farrell; divulging continuity; tending his wounds.
“Arthur… do we have another chance; a moment of clarity?”
“Arthur… do we need another shout; our failing mortality?”
Farrell escorted nostalgic penance:
The pastor notwithstanding approached the shallow shay; upon which he placed a bannock loaf, tireless, plaintive; edible yet woven.
“Time has not brought harm to neither wit nor broken soul!”
Stalling; he cast a verbal course;
“Aaron; the yearling hassock has arrived!”
Apprehensively; he navigated the twiddle path; waking the dutiful chrysanthemums amidst the morning dew; idly cosseting the wistful aboideau; a layman’s passage.
“Silken or cotton?”
Reprimanded by social etiquette.
“Cotton; dear boy…the silken fibres have ne’er graced these blessed halls.”
He replied; unsure of Aaron’s intention; the northerner makeshift, Presbyterian thereby passive.
“That’ll do rightly reverend; the chalet tithes the border’s froth; an annoyance no doubt, alas suiting!”
Crossing eyes they reconciled; the candles lit solemnly, mournful bluish hues, paled unto a canvass; cavorting round austere shadow; delusional; unaware of the risen sun.
“The dawn was slow in coming!”
Aaron spoke; disinterested by the pastor’s preaching, arranging furniture with apparent disdain; the mawkish tonal ambiguity; thought passé throughout Galway’s archaic towns; surmounted all odds, gnawing at his apathetic appraisal.
“Farrell is in need of a loan, a small amount; the closure left him sullen; rightfully so! The woman is with child an’ all!”
The reverend surprised by the forward nature exhibited; digressed, financial penance was a papist pleasure; reformists and mummers alike despised said notions.
“Was the hassock not enough of a favour? To appropriate such nonsense, recalls a blasphemer’s toil! Farrell reckons business with God?”
“His reckoning is sound! Wilful spirits ne’er usurp hovel or abode! Coin is worth little; though covenant the lot!”
A door etched open; revealing Farrell himself; woman in tow; feigning altercation; their hands ruggedly clasped; juxtaposed with each other’s rear; the ripe smell of fornication lingered; met with a wry smile and lecherous tongue; Aaron fell cordial.
“Ah Farrell you bastard; she with child has purpose yet!”
The woman displeased; Roisin her name; replied;
“O’ Hara; a leach fares well, while prayer is due!”
Farrell, appreciative of her reasoned tact; found passion renewed; disjoining the door in a vigorous manner. The pastor, demure, openly made light of loathsome occurrence, scurrying off to the parlour cloaked by talus ides.
“Aaron where’s that eejit off te’?”
“He’s passin’ your due!”
Man and woman scorned; Farrell denied complicit rationale. He strode confidently throu’ the house, calling upon the cowering reverend.
“Come out you tedious clachan tabor Welch! Nay man held God on high for ransom!”
To no avail his search dismount; the hassock embroidered lay tentative, soiled and shard, discarded through spite. Aaron slew the hillock sash, signalling ‘wards Roisin.
“He’s gone; though were, is ne’er certain.”
“The Felons praise discourse freely; he’d shun the usual hides!”
“Freemen choose poorly; I’ll ask him tomorrow; fracas ergo saunters solitary; he’ll return! Fetch Farrell and let us regret our misfortune!”
A collective sigh forbade relief; time had been hastened; dusk echoed silently, resonation as regal tangent; the reverend reproached; pride intact though bitterly possessed; no thought did sound.
Contention despondent; despair retread; absinthe makes the heart grow fonder. Farrell’s life was not his own. Murdo; mceeber, ravel the audlock; met the sogterish hume. Confusion regressed; aberration on high; revolutionary contrast; uncertainty certain; austerity amiss; prosthetic prosperity.
Archival Heathers.
