Mavrone (some revisions plus a song)

[dedalus]

By the Strawberry Beds

you'd pick and eat your fill, I knew

she'd be my strawberry girl,

she so red-cheeked and so juicy,

me a wasp around the jam jar.

 

It ended badly when she was shot

in Somalia , ever red-cheeked,

ever young. I told her, I said: Don't

even think about it! She wouldn't listen,

and so off she went and died on me.

 

Ochone!

 

I wanted to go out and kill those people

who'd brought her caring lovely life

to such a bitter end: I was a bitter man,

heart-scalded, no stranger then to violence,

I'd've gone out, harmed the wrong bloody people.

 

Twenty years.

 

I sit in my empty flat, disconsolate,

nursing a second cheap bottle, opening

tobaccco-stained curtains in a stand-off

with the Georgian tenements of Dublin,

the harsh early sounds of the morning.

 

I will get off my arse and go now,

I will go to Terenure: I will

pass the Seven Acres, Áras an Uachtaráin,

the Park of the Waters Pure*. I will

piss on the gates of the US ambassador.

 

Twenty years.

 

Thanks a lot. Mananaan MacLir, like O'Leary

beams me backward into blackness:

I lollygag alone (stay well away from me)

all along that snake of a riversea,

the lascivious snotgreen Liffey.

 

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* Fionn Uisce, mistranslated as Phoenix Park

title: mo bhrón is Irish for my grief and sorrow. Mavrone is the anglicised phonetical version.

That's how we ended up with a park named after a mythical bird ....

 

Plus a song to go with it all: The Strawberry Beds (an old Dublin tune):

 

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Original (for those who follow these things):

 

Strawberry fields in September,

pick and eat your fill: I knew

she was my strawberry girl,

so red-cheeked, oh so juicy,

and I a wasp around a jam jar.

 

It ended badly, she was shot

in Somalia , ever red-cheeked,

ever young. I told her, I said don't

even think about it! She wouldn't listen,

so off she went and died on me.

 

Ochone!

 

I want to go out and harm those people

who brought her caring lovely life

to such a bitter end: I am a bitter man,

heart-scalded, no stranger to violence.

Inevitably, I would harm the wrong people.

 

Twenty years.

 

I sit in my empty flat, disconsolate,

nursing a second cheap bottle, opening

tobaccco-stained curtains in a stand-off

with the Georgian tenements of Dublin,

the harsh early sounds of the morning.

 

I will get off my arse and go now,

I will take the bus to Terenure:

pass the Seven Acres, Áras an Uachtaráin,

pass the Park of the Waters Pure*,

piss on the gates of the US ambassador.

 

Twenty years.

 

Thanks a lot. Mananaan MacLir, like O'Leary

beams me backward into blackness,

as I lollygag (stay well away from me)

along, alone, with that snake of a riversea,

the lascivious snotgreen Liffey.