Snapshot of a Mayo bar
FinsburyParkCarrots
Posts: 12,223
Joe John Fat, broadhanded, yellow fingered
sits under the stream of windowlight slicing the smoke
and flying particles of dust in Keane's bar this afternoon.
He's on the black plastic couch with its rips and burns
and yellow sponge hanging over in fists,
and he's hunched forward
in a crumpled grey suit
and opennecked blue shirt,
staring at brown lino and butts
and muttering into his stout glass, tipping to him.
He looks up and eyes the bar,
Mary Conway behind it, singing the Coolin,
rinsing glasses, moving abstractedly,
dumpy to him, but still fine: he hawks and spits silently
into a dry palm.
sits under the stream of windowlight slicing the smoke
and flying particles of dust in Keane's bar this afternoon.
He's on the black plastic couch with its rips and burns
and yellow sponge hanging over in fists,
and he's hunched forward
in a crumpled grey suit
and opennecked blue shirt,
staring at brown lino and butts
and muttering into his stout glass, tipping to him.
He looks up and eyes the bar,
Mary Conway behind it, singing the Coolin,
rinsing glasses, moving abstractedly,
dumpy to him, but still fine: he hawks and spits silently
into a dry palm.
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and that's our Petey
Petey's singing Green Green Grass of Home
it smashes and splashes on the tiles, splashing into the gutters between each square
it's worth it to hear the sound hit the window
making you look out to Achill
blue and green and a bit more blue
I can almost smell the liquor and I do believe I know the characters, they are quite universal
I might add to this thread occasionally. And if anyone else would like to contribute with barroom snapshots in words, from around the world, please do!
and Bukowski...
and Hughie and Seamus have been up early
for the post office in the pub; they walked from up the hill road
starting off at seven, at one point stopping at the crest
and picking blackberries from the hedge,
the spikey taste overlaying last night's coating of brandy
and making their stomachs shiver.
With their packets of Euros they're in the bar now,
both with a Special: Guinness and Smithwick's top
matched by a double Paddy's in a wide glass
Elbows on the formica bar
Heads down
Looking at English papers brought in from Castlebar
Studying the form: Lingfield Park.
The long day begins.
Keane's is gettin' space age now, they joke,
with the Sky telly with the million channels;
Get At The Races for us, Padraig, good laddeen.
Get the lie of the prices for this afternoon.
- I fancy a bet on Cantankerous Eric; led by five lengths last Friday
says Hughie, sagely, not looking up, Seamus not hearing him,
hearing himself suck on his lit up Major, first of the pack,
feeling his ulcer retch to the smell of a match's sulphur,
a reflux,
a turn that waters the eyes and puts a sweat on ye,
to be lined with a slug of stout.
Seamus orders another round, without speaking,
Padraig pours from behind the bar,
a little puffy around the eyes,
looking out through the window to the drizzle over Slievemore.
This is how farmer's dole day always begins.
Right on that stool where ye are,
Only last night. He was puttin'
Pints down an' had his cigar.
He was wavin' his hands jus' like ye are,
He was singin' us song after song.
He was teachin' the priest to make prayer
as they sat at the bar all night long.
When somebody mentioned the banshee
They'd heard on the road about ten
He was laughin' at everyone's fancy
An' jibed they were children, not men.
He left about one and still talkin'
Kissin' young Maggie and Bride
He said he was able for walkin'
And turned down the chance of a ride.
They found him at dawn outside Grace's,
Lyin' face down. Now you'll think:
So much for yer givin' us faces
an' airs like yer shit doesn't stink.
Peggy sits in the middle of voices, smiles, reminiscences, people buying another quick round for the road. The windowlight is concave on her glasses; there's a brightness about her as she turns her bluerinsed head out towards the open pub door, whispering "I should tell 'em mind not go to near Ginty's new car ... He's a divil an' he'd a-be talkin' all over the place about them kids, ye know".
She catches out of the corner of her eye Tom Malone, red faced, waddling up to the counter for service. She looks at him with his bald head and knock knees, and the trousers too short and showing his odd socks. He was the same sixty five years back, but with the head of ginger hair then and the brand new bike he'd wheel to the farm to ask Da about the use of the bull for his mammy's heavy Strawberry - that was the excuse, of course - he'd stick his head in the door of the living room and bow and blush and say Hello Peggy How Are Ye. And they would dance at Corrigan's Hall last Friday in the month and he would be clean and smell nice and not like the other lads who'd be smugglin' liquor in and blackguardin' 'til everyone went home under the eye of the priest. But old Mikey McFarlane in Crinnish died and his son Gerry had a farm of land, and so the match was made for her. She smiles; the wrinkles are laughter lines.
Tom brushes past her gently returning with his drinks, "Hello Peggy, how's yesself?" Sure, I'm grand.
hangs his head and only looks up when locking his lips to a glass,
or chains his cigarette,
sometimes when Bob's lungs wheeze, he chants with a breathing that does not allow him to inhale, only to wheeze,
but Bob has a pocket full of coins and he's counting them out to get another round.. and begs a smoke from someone else,
another story set in the drab, dark place where veterans go to silently cry..
As she slams the door in his drunken face
And now he stands outside
And all the neighbours start to gossip and drool
He cries oh, girl you must be mad,
What happened to the sweet love you and me had?
Against the door he leans and starts a scene,
And his tears fall and burn the garden green
As she slams the door in his drunken face
And now he stands outside
And all the neighbours start to gossip and drool
He cries oh, girl you must be mad,
What happened to the sweet love you and me had?
Against the door he leans and starts a scene,
And his tears fall and burn the garden green
from the night's seawilderness,
telling of legs spancelled hind to fore,
of stinging cuts and lumps on rainsodden shanks,
of a back bruiseheavy, weightbroken,
of shivers shaking the moan of pain
in the moonless dark.
The cry rolls into old Michael Grealis, outside Keane's:
His brute hands - broken at the knuckles
by after hours falls and brawls on the bog road verge -
cover a whiskeybloated face,
stinging frog eyes,
and a hairless head of cuts and bramble scars.
Grealis stands in Keane's doorway,
Chest rising, a nightwind making the blood pump fast
in the lungs, making a tightness in his arm:
He hears each echoed cry
and cries back,
You lucky,
lucky fool,
What I wouldn't give
to be free
like you.
gayle is so sweet, she wants everyman to feel happy..
and so they both compete for feelings that are pure and clear and physical
living nearby gives cindy an advantage and the sugar dads come stumbling drunk for the promise of a moment of promises never kept and steeped oh so deep in the promise of a life of compromises and situations of love left in the darkness that is the truth of cindy's existence as she once again gives up her humanity for what..
As she slams the door in his drunken face
And now he stands outside
And all the neighbours start to gossip and drool
He cries oh, girl you must be mad,
What happened to the sweet love you and me had?
Against the door he leans and starts a scene,
And his tears fall and burn the garden green
Now she’s been spotted MORE than once, not walking, but stumbling YES STUMBLING out of Keane’s bar! Conspiring with that hussy little bar fly Mary Conway! Whose promiscuous ways the most liberal of our community have noted! Pouring drinks for the likes of those less fortunate singing likes they have no cares in the world! She has been consorting with unsavory characters like Hughie and Seamus, who spend most evenings drinking and watching that sky telly while betting their share of a good days wages on the ponies! We must note that these characters are not proper company for a Reverend’s wife and it is in our community’s best interest that I inform you of this sordid behavior due a woman of her position! I tell you of this knowing full well you will keep it in your utmost confidences and not to tell another!
The old gal told her bar-friend to go say, "hello" to her daughter. He introduced himself and took my hand in faux chivalry. He bent over it, and proceeded to lick me from knuckle to wrist.
Now the story goes, that that fucker left the bar with quite the shiner.
Personally, I don't believe it.
Good try, though... huh?
At the urinal a door hits my back hard. A splash hits my left elbow. It's blood, you know. The eldest of the three retches up showers of red and I tie myself up and head to the bar to ask the landlady for a quiet word of which in her gin drenched state she can't handle. Ooooooooooo, she says, waddling, fluttering arms. She calls her son loudly, a haw hawing would-be jockey with backward teeth: She hands him a bucket. A debate ensues.
So much for a quiet word. The two friends of the ill man crowd me, and don't check their associate.
When the door is finally opened to the bathroom, cleaning goes on, but they come closer, practicing their bullying tactics that worked on those who have nothing to do but lap up the way lies can be taught, and wars can be fought, on small minded small mens' muscle in packs. I am called a liar. I never saw blood. And am I making something of it? Am I? These two come up to my shoulder, and I roar: Am I making something of it? Am I? Am I?
Yes. I am. I'm making something of Bush and Cheney and Blair and Straw and Aznar and Kissinger and Murdoch and little lying swine who gather around the innocent bystander and beat them into saying they didn't see the bloody damage of their recklessness. And then I'm going up the road where you can't get in. And I feel self-righteous. And I can take a bath. And I can make something of you for people to see you, little men.
Smiles from the public bar to the saloon! And far, far beyond!
As she slams the door in his drunken face
And now he stands outside
And all the neighbours start to gossip and drool
He cries oh, girl you must be mad,
What happened to the sweet love you and me had?
Against the door he leans and starts a scene,
And his tears fall and burn the garden green
it started in dublin
but soon he was fumblin through hell
I helped him....held him.....
and I know the drinker's drink
I knew my father once....
when he was a monaghan boy...
at Brigid's or Hugh's.....or Jack's....
but all I got back was a stupid poem....
he roamed thru hell with me at his side
I was his pride and his joy
no, not a boy
a gril.....and the pills they made him swallow
as I sank in Madrid....
it's just what he did....
Bridey's.....cat got your tongue
I knew him when he was young...
my father got rolled out...of bars....
he's the man from mars
the man on the moon....
the little prince
he drinks now
somewhere......
God, I loved him....
and I had to listen to Hugh Og....and Niall....
and all of them go on about Joyce and Brit Pop....
when I couldn't give a fuk
in my leather pants.....
(are you famous?)
we'd go to sandymount to the recycling place
so the scars would leave no trace
on my mother
the poor unfortunate fukker.....
I'll dance on her grave
and take grave exception
to any defection from
my father....
Larry - The Man.....
God I love him still....
rosy cheeks that my child has now....
fukkin cow
my mother.....
I'd rather slather at the gates of Hell
than wish her well...
wishing well dreams for you, son.....
children of my heart....
it's a good start....
ya fat old fart