Lisdoonvarna 1942.(Poem)

 
LISDOONVARNA 
1942 
 
   He'd hook cycle-clips, lucky as horse-shoes, 
   like a black love-heart in his breast pocket 
   and having no bicycle, nor even 
   the front to dab his tie with petrol--walk. 
 
   September; and the fields lying in wait 
   for the tire through the stubble and the smoke; 
   the first drub and craic of drums rolling in 
   from far off--the pulse of the place racing. 
 
   He'll not dance, though. He's two left feet, has John; 
   a worse unbalance in his chest--the weight 
   of the ghost of a whale lumped in one lung. 
   Ten years he's been a fish out of water 
 
   since his night waist-deep by ...