It’s a kind of in-between day! A glimpse of
sanity between what was and will be. Today I went for porter and didn’t insult
the barman. As the Walsh’s’ of yesteryear pronounced as their recorded historic
family maxim; “When I eat, I eat, when I drink, I drink”. That’s just the way
it is! A scurrilous and copious quantum of porter. It is fascinating what you
find fascinating in that in-between stage. The most innocuous details assume
significance of gargantuan proportions. The paint on Ronnie Nally’s wall
reminded me of mature vomit, gone past its viscous stage. Never noticed that
before! Outside Paddy Diffley’s house, which is the true corner house, there
sat in the sickly rain an older man playing a melodeon. He looked like death
warmed up and the tune he produced wouldn’t have featured in the ‘All Ireland
Fleadh Cheoil’. But then again he was Eastern European and where he found the
box was anyone’s guess.
He was in the get-up of a traditional Irish
busker but radiated nothing except despair and less than stolid resignation.
While the image was still freshish I looked up an old verse I had penned many
years previously and decided that the words and sentiments were appropriate. By
a curious coincidence the previous occasion was also on a Tuesday. Entitled
quite simply ‘The Busker’, it went thus;
‘On
Tuesday on Main Street
I passed
two relic wrecks,
Fused in wheezy breath.
Melodeon stretched and strangled
Giving off its pain,
Its puppet-masters fingers
Sheening in the rain.
He filled the man-made lungs with air,
Exhausting fumes his own,
He tried and failed, and tried again
To give the air a tone.
No heed he passed to passer-by
Who swept the shuttered face,
And copper-sodden pavement cap;
Pathetic saving grace.
The old man and his failure
Kept each other warm
To a dirge of long-lost melody,
Pandora’s box in arm’.
I could only speculate what might have been in
the old man’s mind, but he was obviously a long way from home and that’s not
necessarily a bad thing.
He didn’t give the impression that he was
anxious about money either as he didn’t exude either imploration or gratitude
to the sparse audience. Where is he now? He probably cares as much as I do.
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