Sympathy for the Devil

Our Taoiseach, it seems, is lamenting,
The “most difficult year” of his life.
Condemnation has been unrelenting
And talk of elections is rife.

He’s been under attack from the pensioners,
Public servants have yelled in his face,
And the tax-paying workers? Don’t mention us!
We’ve spent the whole year on his case!

The back benchers don’t welcome the budget,
It’ll lose them more votes than they’ll win.
But the Taoiseach knows well he can’t fudge it,
Or the IMF hawks will wade in.

He’s hitched his old wagon to NAMA,
Though they claim he’s just bailing out banks,
Yet this long-running, slow-moving drama
Hasn’t managed to earn him much thanks.

He’s assailed on all sides by opponents
Who delight in the invective hurled
And claim we possess the components
Required to join the Third World.

But still, you can’t be sympathetic
When your mortgage is short a few bob.
To his plight, we remain apathetic,
At least he has still got a job.

And if he loses his lofty position,
Will he survive on jobseekers’ allowance?
No. His pension will ward off attrition
And keep things au fait for the Cowens.

Yet another Council meeting

I’m here at yet another Council meeting
To listen to the wailing and self-pity,
To hear the lonely councillors all bleating
About the lack of money in the kitty.
Each week, they pray that some new Walter Mitty
Will rise and offer all a fulsome greeting.
For now though, life is practical and gritty
Down here at yet another Council meeting.

Oh still, my heart, from wild and joyful beating,
When viewing these fine shapers of the city.
The arguments, so often self-defeating,
Hold sentiments that are not very pretty.
Meanwhile I’m trying hard to write a ditty
But humour in this chamber is too fleeting.
Sadly I don’t feel the slightest witty,
Attending yet another Council meeting.

According to the maintenance committee,
Two per cent of homes lack central heating.
They state, descending to the nitty-gritty,
They’re worried ‘bout the septic tanks they’re treating.
Is any place in Christendom more shitty,
Considering the crap that they’re excreting?
I’d rather go and fondle Conway Twitty
Than sit through yet another Council meeting.

The resignation of John O’Donoghue

The bullfrog joked and smoked
And croaked his deep felt apologies
For whatever hurt he may have caused
To The Office,
Though it was obvious from his rubbery skin
And in his big lugubrious eyes
That he felt that, actually,
He had nothing to apologise for.
From the banks, the children laughed
And poked him with long sticks,
Cut from Autumn-bared boughs,
Trying to dislodge him from the flat rock
In the middle of the fast-flowing current.
But he remained unmoved,
The merest hint of a tremor
Wobbling his giant double chin.
Bloated, he could not turn
When they assailed him from behind
With luscious blackberries
That recently hung ripe from the bramble.
He blinked imperiously,
Squatting immobile on his slate throne
Until the water rose too high
And he was obliged to leap from sight
With a deft splash,
Leaving ne’er a ripple on the smooth surface.

Pro Europe Anti Treaty

Opposition to the treaty has been waning,
The Yes vote slowly coming to the fore,
Doubtless they will spend the time remaining
Muddying the waters even more.
I for one don’t contemplate secession,
I don’t believe we ought to be abstaining.
The treaty will not save us from recession
But EU membership is worth retaining.

The strategy is clear in their campaigning
To get the Lisbon treaty voted in.
“Yes to Europe!” they cry out, maintaining
That this is why pro-treatyists should win.
But those of us inclined to answer nay,
Feel this is not a slogan worth sustaining.
We’re not against the Union per se
It’s simply ‘gainst the Treaty that we’re straining.

Where is the man?

Where is the man we can rally behind,
The man who has courage to say the wrong thing
And guides us whatever the Furies may bring?

Who is the man who will rise to be King
And show the true path to the poor and the blind,
No matter how rocky or badly-defined?

What is a man who will speak his own mind
And cares not what stones his detractors may fling,
Maintaining a bird never flew on one wing?

Why must a man be afraid of the sting
That shoots when the planets are wrongly aligned,
When truth, like a length od string, starts to unwind?

The shitehawk

The shitehawk, Ireland’s bird of prey,
Is common in our skies today,
Hov’ring over town and road
To disposition its great load
On people who are unaware
It’s up above them in the air.

It comes in many shapes and sizes
Handing out its brown surprises.
Famous ornithologists
Spend many years compiling lists
Of all the many hybrid species
Currently dispensing faeces.

There’s overchargers, red-light jumpers,
Bank head-shakers and gazumpers,
Petty thieves and hooded bowsies,
Scumbags who break into houses,
Men who can’t see what the fuss is
Sitting put on crowded buses.

Authority that’s mean and petty,
Uncle George and Great Aunt Betty,
Journalists who ruin lives,
Cheating husbands, lazy wives,
Men who’ll sack you with a laugh
To take on cheaper, foreign staff.

Folk who fling black sacks in ditches,
Curtain twitchers, nosey bitches,
Parkers in disabled spaces,
Intolerants of other races,
Girls that snipe and boys who bully,
Spin-doctors who make wrong acts woolly.

The common wisdom is that this
Great bird that spreads its shite and piss
O’er everybody, old and young
(Indiscriminately flung)
Is much more common in the sky
Than ever was in years gone by.

That isn’t quite the case however.
This great bird of prey has ever
Fouled our country top to toe,
Browning those green fields below.
It’s just, before, it seemed that we
Were crapped upon less openly.

British soil

First they let in British sports at Croker,
Which made the blood of many people boil.
But this new revelation is a choker –
Our hallowed turf’s usurped by British soil!

Is that what all the sons of Roisín died for?
Is this the product of our fathers’ toil?
Our players cannot take it in their stride, for
We’re unsure of our ground on British soil.

Our fathers fought against the yoke of slavery,
To free ourselves from all things blue and royal.
And what’s the nett result of all that bravery?
To play the Sam Maguire on British soil?

Surely there’s some earth upon this island,
Somewhere ‘twixt the Barrow and the Foyle,
Somewhere in the valleys or on high land
That could be used instead of British soil?

So let us turf out those who would betray us!
All Irishmen must certainly recoil
At this great insult to our finest players,
And sod all those who favour British soil!