Mam & Dad [R]

[dedalus]

Well, me Mam was a Dublin girl

and she was like all them girls

at the time, gilly-gooley, y'know,

and with no fuckin sense whatsoever

and she'd no idea what a fine thing she was

(this would be back in the 1940s)

until the lad's'd be lookin long at her,

and twas then me father came along

with his little moustache and fine ways

and made a great show of respect

to herself and to the suspicious parents,

and I'll show you now what it was

that brought these young people,

bright, lively and dying for it, together,

the shape of the way things were.

There's me Mam, do you see, before

she became me Mam, of course, but ...

 

she had this lovely little bum on her

and I think it would be fair to say it had

a few curves on it that a man might gaze

upon with a certain degree of painful longing,

tooth-sucking, chair-squirming, stifling groans,

and with no jobs to be had, no banknotes, nor

no coins in his pocket, so very little to be done

it was a case of Lookin' Do Be Free, but Jesus

Mary and Joseph, it's a hard thing to have to

be poor and trodden down by beauty, never

mind the bleedin' rich. Apart from the bum

of course, she had shapely long legs

to go along with the collection

and there was two of them

that could be found below

often clad in stockings

and looking awful

sleek and lovely

as far down as

the knee ...

 

Daddy (not then)

on the other hand

had buttons on his trousers

 

and they'd be growing a little bit tight and uncomfortable, from time to time

when he'd be "calling upon" the McCarthy girl who was so innocent and proper

with her glowering tall ex-policeman father and her three strong athletic brothers

not to mention her super-Catholic mother who thought the pope was ringed

in roses, sending young Lily

away with rosary beads which

was not what he had in mind

with this awful globular itch

stretching the buttons

 

of the before-mentioned

trousers.

 

Sweet words were secretly confided,

opposition was slowly overcome;

nature with society coincided,

Dad ended up with Mammy's bum.

 

Without this tale of young love past,

so patient, calm, yet also daring,

you could sit back lazily on this List

and subtract one son of Eireann!

[tonyv]

Thanks for sharing this lighthearted ditty of how it all began, Brendan.

 

Without this tale of young love past,

so patient, calm, yet also daring,

you could sit back lazily on this List

and subtract one son of Eireann!

Though I probably could do without the image in my head, I reckon it was similar beginnings for most of us. I, personally, am not into kids, but I'm glad my parents were, lol.

 

Tony

 

PS -- This is a fine and entertaining poem, but I gotta mark it for "reference" with an unobtrusive [R] ... for "racy" content and the "eff" word.

[dedalus]

No worries, Tony!

Brendan [R]