Cranky. A poem by Seán Megahey

As lockdown loosens, I’m getting more uptight.
I’m talking back to people on the radio.
Not merely responding to what they say,
as if in conversation with them,
in itself understandable and acceptable,
if a wee bit daft.
I am going outside my normal nice harmless self.

I could listen to George Hamilton’s
“Hamilton Scores” on Lyric FM forever.
He wears lightly his music taste and knowledge.
I told him to stick to football.

“Níor chuala mé riamh an meid rameish sin”
a duirt mé do’n DJ ar Radio na Life
agus an blás cool mid-Atlantic air.

And what I said to Arlene Foster on Radio Ulster
was entirely unwarranted
and I’m ashamed to repeat.

My language is laced with
fucking and blinding
merde, schiese agus cac.
Easy because nobody can hear me, I hope.

If the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil
can cause a hurricane in Mexico,
I tremble at the chaos my rantings
might cause in the land of Lockdown.

………

I haven’t written a thing since 2015. Thanks to Dublin Writers Forum and Zoom trying again.