Pukapuka Poem #32 'The craic, the kai, and the whiskey' - Michael O'Leary

The Craic, the Kai, and the Whiskey

(71^st memorial of the Easter Uprising) for Karen Urale

What’s happening and where!

It’s the place and it’s the drinking

Went to the Eden Terrace factory

Kissed my love by the wall, but it’s only a song

                                    and then (will we go ta midnight mass or no?)

In the pub talkin’ and drinkin’

Drivin’ through the night

- the moon rises, clouds are drifting

And everywhere the city grows and moves

(Thinkin’ about the girl I just met)

So it’s off with the top of the Tullamore Dew

And down it goes

Firing up the organs like a mainline steam engine

Is it yourself? Who knows -

As all the constraints of reason

And morality get lost in

The craic, the kai, and the whiskey

It’s a wild unremembered drive

Through the Balmoral night

- I awake in the morning

To a vision of O’Donnell driving

Straight towards a Concrete Wall