THANK YOU FOR YOUR CUSTOM

I walk down a corridor

And into a room through a door,

Empty room but another door

That leads me to another corridor.

I walk down that corridor

And into a room through a door,

Empty room but another door

That leads me to another corridor.

I walk down that corridor

And into a room through a door,

Empty room but another door

That leads me to another corridor.

I walk down that corridor

And into a room through a door,

Empty room but another door

That leads me to another corridor.

At the end of the day my feet are sore,

Another door, another corridor,

I walk through that door with aching feet

And out of the building into the street.

REALISING

https://audioboo.fm/boos/2280662-realising

Choking, as if invisible hands are squeezing,

My own life slowed to Sam Peckinpah pace

As I look at the corpse, the once smiling face

Devoted to a God who took some pleasing.

A lump in my throat, emotions at a bottleneck,

Stuck in the realisation that we arrive and leave.

That’s life, a beginning and an end, no reprieve,

No lasting forever, no clue, no use-by date to check.

In our time here on this fragile Earth,

From our first to our last breath,

We can only travel from birth to death,

No chance of a repair journey from death to birth.

BONANZA

You’d get the episode story intro,

Involving three Cartwright sons and their Pa,

Before the music twang to start the show -

Dun-da-da, dun-da-da, dun-da-da, dun-da-da, da-daaaa -

Then a map of Nevada catching fire,

Revealing four riders heading to me,

Out of their vast Ponderosa empire,

Far away adventure on my TV.

Adam, Joe, Ben and Eric (known as Hoss),

Workin’, lovin’, fightin’ and rightin’ wrongs,

Helping waifs and strays they’d stumble across,

A western as simple as country songs.

          Me, uncredited member of the cast,

          Kid Cushnan, way out West in West Belfast

LEARNING POETRY

We learned poetry off by heart, ready

For reading in front of the English class,

Embarrassed and awkward, nerves unsteady,

Scared witless, shaking, hardly bold as brass.

We didn’t learn it because we liked it,

We learned it for fear of the leather strap,

Mr Agnew was poised for a swift hit,

Forgotten stanzas meant a hefty slap.

But schoolboy robots though we may have been,

Absorbing poems wasn’t too absurd,

The pay-off decades later can be seen,

Surprised that I remember every word.

         Now, poems are a joy I understand

         Without the fear of strap lines on my hand.

CATECHISM AND COWBOYS

Not a natural student of Shakespeare,

Comedies, tragedies and histories,

I stifled yawns, gave them all a wide berth,

Not much to interest, excite or please.

I lumbered through classic literature,

Found most of it a monumental pain,

But I found much happier reading trails

In Jack Schaefer’s western story, “Shane”.

Catechism and cowboys, my education base,

A gods and toy guns head-in-the-clouds kid

Blessed with false bravado and cheeky face,

Quiet, shy, but in my head, intrepid.

            In all my good, bad and ugly choices,

            My guides are buckskin-clad, drawling voices.