Blood brothers
Nowhere between lost and found
Where souls meet change
Where redemption pounds
Shadows drift to light
And smiles dismiss
the twisted tales
A heart beat drums
The pounding rhythm
Of brothers born
Not of blood
But a common path
Frank mcgivney 07.06.16
Life to me is all about family. The family of you birth. The family of your home. The family of your work. The family of your mates.
Blood brothers
Nowhere between lost and found
Where souls meet change
Where redemption pounds
Shadows drift to light
And smiles dismiss
the twisted tales
A heart beat drums
The pounding rhythm
Of brothers born
Not of blood
But a common path
Frank mcgivney 07.06.16
Life to me is all about family. The family of you birth. The family of your home. The family of your work. The family of your mates.
Paddy Goes to the Dragons
Well now there you are the five of you and you all looking grand so you are. My self and the wife are here to extract a fist of money of you lot. We would like about €100000 for a small lump of our Business. Say hello to the people Sheila.
Hello
She doesn’t have a lot to say for her-self in the company of strangers, not that you lot are really strange. But you should hear her at home she never stops yapping. Anyway so we haven’t really got a name for the business yet so we are fine going with whatever you lot come up with. At the moment we call it the pen. Sheila said to ask when we would get the money and could half of it be in cash, she is a devil for the cash. So if you have any questions fire away
Hello Paddy, you haven’t told us what it is you are selling
The pen
The pen
It’s like an echo in her, yeah the pen.
Perhaps you can enlighten us as to what its function is?
What doesn’t it do is the question
What doesn’t it do then?
Well it doesn’t keep asking questions for one.
Paddy tell the people what its does
Right Sheila, enlighten us, my arse. Anyway it’s for the young lads and lassies in the exams. It helps them out. Sure those exams are shocking difficult, the young lad took to growing plants out the back garden, beside her self’s rhododendrons, the year of the leaving cert. Stone raving lunatic mad so he was, up there in the bedroom carrying on with himself and smoke coming out of the bedroom window, the cat was going around all queer after it stepped in to say hello to the wee pup.
So how does it helps them?
Well you see what it does now is simple enough so it is. It have a bit of an auld computer there in the body of it and it scans the questions from the exam paper, then the young lad has it set up to look up the answers on the google and there’s a wee display there and the young lads and lassies are sorted
Is that not cheating paddy
Oh god no I wouldn’t be one to condone that cheating carry on.
I think it may be
Ah no I wouldn’t believe in cheating, all it is, in a way, is a cut of stress relief. I think the doctors should be prescribing this to the students. It stops them having to study.
Sounds like cheating
Now cut out the messing boy, it’s not cheating at all, its just a bit of assistance. All that book learning couldn’t be good for you, no wonder all the young people are in need of doctoring.
And how much does it cost to make?
Oh we don’t make them
Well how do you expect to sell them then?
Ah no a wee company over in china makes them, the young lad found them on the computer
Is there a patent on it?
Ah no it wouldn’t have anything as fancy as that now, it just comes with nothing on it and we put them in a big cardboard box and sell them in the market. Matty Ryan, the brother in law on the wife’s side built us a lovely stall, painted it green white and yellow on account of the Easter rising and all that auld malarkey
And what are your sales projections?
Well now let’s see there. Right in the first year we expect to sell a heap of them, then in year two god willing, we will sell an even bigger pile of them. Be year three sure jaysus we will be selling bucket loads of them.
Can you be a bit more accurate?
Well in year three now boss, we will be going into the Americas. Over to New York and Dallas.
I want to see the Ewing house
We talked about this Sheila
Well I’m going to see it
Right well whatever. Anyway, dragons the American’s love the technology so they do, no doubt about it so we will sell a fecking load of them over there, sure they would buy anything, we will put a big harp and a shamrock on it and away we go.
Okay well because I have no pen experience I am declaring myself out
You don’t look like the examing type anyway
I think it illegal so I’m out
Feck sake
I couldn’t possibly understand a word you are saying so I am out
Good luck to you
I have no money to invest and am just here for the publicity so I am declaring myself out
I knew be the look of you
Let me think here now, I am willing to make you an offer
Good man yourself, fire away big fella
Yes €20000 for 30% of the business
You what
You heard me, do you want to think about it
Think about it are you having a laugh? You see we only have 5% left. I have 20% on account of me being the boss, the wife has 20% because she is the wife. The son has invested €20000 from selling the leaves from his plants and owns 20%. Joe Lynch the local postman said he will arrange for free delivery so he has 15%, the mother in law supplies the cardboard boxes and make ham sandwiches for the market days and grand flasks of tea, You haven’t drank the likes of it anywhere so she has 20% and she is a bit on the cantankerous side so you don’t want to be disturbing her share.
I couldn’t offer any better
Ah go on
No
Go on, go on, go on out of that
No
Ah well thanks anyway, now come here give us back them pens we gave out to you lot earlier, you not keeping them you shower of shaggers.
Paddy and Sheila drift out into the twilight with their pen and their dreams intact.
© Frank McGivney 02.06.16 (lunch time half hour of madness)
Her First Confession
Blessed with water, wrapped in blankets of white
Their tiny hands held our hearts tight
Filling our souls with joy
The pink of a girl or the blue of a boy
Wax dripping from the candle
That takes its place upon the mantle
Of homes that they light
With smiles that shine in their eyes bright
As school friends, they gather once more
Lined up with family in the pews pure
God’s gifts blossoming to flowers
In the town of Loyd and Round Towers
Bless me father for I have sins so mild
The pranks and tantrums of being a child
Holy Father cleanse our innocence
Pray hear our words of penance with your benevolence
I’m Sorry God, Connected
Songs sung as parents reflected
On the wonder of their flock of Belles
As fair as any page from the Book of Kells
The kind words of the Priest
Permission in lent for a treat
Cleansed and pure wee doves
Ready now for the white dress and gloves
© Frank McGivney 10 March 2014
Paddy’s Wandering Steps
He is in New York
Walking by the side
With a girl with purple hair
They would skit
Accept, not care
He talks in china
to the black hair geisha
In silk
Making her laugh
Touching
With hope
She rules in Quebec
Leading a board
Her twang from the lee
Her power from within
The Celtic queen
In Berlin his head
Grows grey from red
His voice the same
The bridges he drew
With pen and love
For the art they knew
They know us well
Its in the voice
They see the green
Among the red wisps
That flow from Celtic
Dreams of freedoms lure
© Francie McGivney 17.03.16
Fluttering away in the late evening shade
A memory gone a moment lost
A dreamer stalls the tears descent
And smiles and embraces the fading
Soul whose hand held their”s once
And forever and always in this and
What follows along golden paths
Of fear and cheer. Sorrow and joy
Take me to the strand, to autumn
Nights upon shoulders relishing
Sea breeze wisps of childhoods
Memories drifting a lifetime’s hope
Of father’s smiles and mothers embrace
Francis writing the words and thinking the thoughts and feeling the night shadows fall
The coal man calls (for once a true story)
there you are
hows it going
grand…
I’ve given up the wood
have you now
yeah
must have been a pain in the arse going around to a heap of houses
tell me about it, head melting boss
so what you at
I have something in the back of the van
have you now
I do
i’m not buying anymore pots
that’s was the Christmas special
lovely
pat bring up the chainsaw
ah here steady on I was only messing
no its a lovely chainsaw
pat hold on there now
pat get out the chainsaw
honest to god pat leave the chainsaw where it is
you can have it cheap
look at me
you what
what would I do with a chain saw
cut stuff
I’ve nothing worth cutting
270 euro its a grand chainsaw pat turn it on there for the man
listen I wouldn’t know one end of a chainsaw from another
are you sure its great value
honest
what about the path there
you couldn’t use a chainsaw on concrete
no cleaning
you’re alright
I’d do a lovely job
but its spotless
no its not
you cant see it when the car is parked up
i’ll throw in the chainsaw
stop it
and a set of knives
cut it out will you
how about socks and boots
I still have the boots from last year
I have lovely socks
pat grab a pack of socks
I still have the packet from two years ago
you mustn’t clean the feet to often
its was a 20 pack
are you sure
the wife thought I was setting up a sock shop when I brought them home the time
these are great ones
the last ones left the feet black with bits of stuff
ah those ones
yeah those ones
come on pat we’re going
see you later
go on see you around
lillies not roses
She laughs
He smiles
Dances
And romances
Kisses and toast
Cards and trust
Loving blocks
Building devotion
Pancakes of a Tuesday
I’ll have my fill tonight
With lent waiting there
To maul me of a Wednesday
40 days in a desert
I think I’ll take a drink
Whiskey tasted pure
Of the Thursday
By the end I was unsure
If it was the pancakes
Or the religion
But by Friday I was
Luring myself from the bed
Wishing the child of Prague
Would cease to stare
At john f kennedys picture
Beneath Pope pious’s
Lenten grin
I’m giving it up for wisdom
The sugar and the wine
The Guinness and the cider
No more I’ll go a smoking
No more I’ll walk the evil path
At least not until Saturday
When my mind recalls
The truth I forgot to remember
I don’t believe in any of it at all
Saintly rambles
Line up St Francis on the 25th of July
Walk up that path among the birds
And the flies,
Line up the whore from the end of the
Street, shake up her ass and all the rest
in between
Line up St Christopher with the medal of
Hope, travel down that boulevard and
Dream all alone
Wake up the ginger dog with the shaky
Mind, walk that mama’s leg from the store
For a measure of wine
Wake up my lover with the one crooked eye
Strip off her mind with the hope she took
For a ride
(c) Francie McGivney 04.02.16
