Putting the bastard 2016 to bed

Every year’s a bastard, and every breath drawn in celebration serves but to fool players into premature revelry.  Some kin to light, some kin to dusk. ‘Tis only in dreams afterwards that I swallow the fuss and regurgitate, thrush-like, through humid hair and a throat rasped with stuttering conviction. Throw up those names. Release each from hope. Let their legacy abide.

From January to May, brutality made hay. Released from Ministry, I flourished under the weight of Melissa’s warm voice, hour by hour, and stayed solid long enough for tablets to prove their fragile relevance. No longer dying to wake up dead. No longer dying to wake up dead, I saved Periscopes, wrote down the food Depression served. Exercise is the curse of the despairing classes.

Enough of this shyte – before I know it, I’ll be composing narrative thrash. In the beginning was the sentence – the phrase of life. What doth it profit a Paul if he gain the whole world and lose his pencil.

Reborn among cherries in Michigan, festivities in Logan Square, and a river cruise through the City of the Big Shoulders.

Bastard verse: Lost Love, Prayer, Dear Reader, Lines Written on the Birthday of Walt Whitman, I am a Wood Frog, From the depths of Hell in Summertime.

Wild Geese redeemed the lot. Where would I have been without Mary Oliver, or  Mary Oliver, or Mary Oliver. Whitman may have been ballast – but Mary was my sail. Dreams, Holes in my Heart, Lost.

At last Il Paretaio – Tuscany – horses – the World Champion Ice Cream (champagne & grapefruit) – Sienna rather than Piza.  And then there was Charlie the pony – or was it Ashley the Princess?

It was a year of schools.  From Eglantine to Scoil na nÓg – from Hitchmough’s to Hyde’s – from one teacher to another. Bastard learning. Gin & Tonic. Taking the Mick.

And all the time we were basking in that Summer of Content , a Buffoon gave birth to bile, Brexit came to life – 20 years a dripping . Drip, Drip, Drip – the light went out on Little England  and Little England coughed its way, multiplying cells, an Empire on its last legs. “Leave, Us Alone” – “Give us back our toys“.  You can all rendezvous up your je ne sais quoi. Gute Nacht you coal & steel mongers. Our David, Your Brussels. Fuck Goliath. We have no need for manners – now that we have a Wall for President.

Oh yes, it was exciting to return from the Dead to abandon Dante in the cesspool of Buffoon Trump Tower, feet on putrid ground.

Let’s ignore Aleppo and tweet the Chinese out of existence.  Let’s sit in Blackrock Castle Observatory Café promising to meet again for Xmas lunch.  After my dearest wish has spawned an Age of Extraneous Inebriation, after Leonard Cohen has sung “Resurrection” to the tune of “Retribution“, cleansing the pallet so it’s ready to Stop All The Clocks and arrest Midnight before it strikes the gong for the Ascension into the Great Heavenly American Beast the Cute Hewers love to imitate.

In case you think Nebraska Alaska Montana Louisiana and Lisdoonvarna rule the Universe, I predict there will be Breath in 2017, there will always be an Aleppo – even if there will also be a Coalition with an Enda intent on hugging a Pope.

A bastard mongrel beauty – a #goodcountry waiting to be found.