Leap off a Day

Leap off a day full of struggle and toil.
Pleasure-power fuels freedom's few precious
hours. Head for the cellar where solace is
found; shoulder a way through the jostling crowd.

The thicket is wild and dense by the bar,
winter-branch arms shedding autumn-leaf notes.
Barmaids flick taught-aloof tails while they flit,
ripping off balls with their sharp little tits.

Machine-gunning speakers spray punters with
rap; call for ''strong-ale!'' Leave the lager for
louts. Survey, edge away from the wankers
and drunks; she's got mad-eyes;  he's  pushing  tabs.

Ocean of faces polluted by booze;
snatches of voices, wind-torn from the storm.
Crackhead is screaming about his bad trip;
rodents are filling his skull full of shit.

Rhythm-girls bob up and down to the beat;
silky Desire still the queen of the dance,
Aldis-lamp pants flashing codes through the gloom.
Refill my pot and slug whisky for luck.

Shouting and cursing and breaking of glass;
fun at the bar... stampeding... girls crying;
chairs swinging; fists flying; then exocet-
bottles-and-boots in an all-out attack.

Faces exploding in fountains of blood;
shatter-glass windows ice-blue-psychedel;
game-beating police rousing quarry to
flight – any brace cooks-the-books for the night.

Scatter and panic; a jam at the door
as we tear and then pull and then kick and
butt heads; now dash for the street and the sweet
inky-black safety of swallowing night.

Find the fair-maid Desire, cute little sprite
whose ignoble-knight offers vindaloo-
sauce – plan for scalding her arse and covert-
ovens-of-love – as we leap off a day.

Charlie Gregory
Cardiff
2000

AW

Puck Fair
Co. Kerry
(Where, in August, a wild mountain goat is crowned king)

The goat's tale

"There's magic in the Coolroe-stream, or pucks
weave herb into the browse to make me dream...

In Killorglin town I bowed before a
virgin-queen, who gave a crown to make me
king with vision over everything. Our
match remained unconsummate. For I was
hailed on-high, engaged – though caged – in things of
state. There, phantoms, clad in cap and boot, waved
crooked sticks and mumbled strange in ancient
tongue, then bought and sold the living soul of
sullen ox and horse and colt. And at my
feet, the men danced women down the street, like
spectres borne on haunting notes of lonely
songs that sang of sorrows in the years: how
wanton maids, with torment-eyes, as wild and
green as Lough Lean's isles, and ringlets wrought in
purest gold, like wavelets caught in sunset's
mould, were, by their beauty, thus condemned to
birthing pain and living drudge. While boys, like
bumble bees, beguiled by nectar spilled by
girls, were led along a lane of toil and
grudge...

                       …Now I wake-up in the glen, running
free of 'Orglin-men, to gambol up the
giddy scree into the cloud where Mother
Earth becomes the sky; and sense a life set
out for me, of butting he and tupping
she. Then see the visions of my dream; hear
the laughing of the stream; and wonder - why?"

Charlie Gregory
1998

Glimpse

I wander in the wild-wood
where Leap, my dog, would play;
rest upon some grassy bank
where I with Jenny lay.
Time you thief who stole my life,
the years go like a day.
Leap lies beneath the laurel,
my Jenny went away.

Charlie Gregory
Cardiff