-Well I’ll tell you this, and I’ll tell you the other, and I’ll go one further.

-Ye’ll fuck up, ye blackguard bastard! Get in my taxi! Get. In. My. Taxi!

-Well here c’mere till I tell ye this. Did ye ever hear the one about the blue-eyed monkey? Got into a snooker match with Dennis Taylor’s da?

-Get you on in there and keep your wee mouth shut, ye worm.

*engine starts*

-Do ye like the boxin’?

-Baxin’? Ye like your baxin’?

-I like Jeff Fenech.

-Jeff fuckin’ French. There’s no good French boxers, the French can’t box.

-He was an Aussie…

-He was shite. Barry McGuigan would’ve flattened him.

-*aside* Flat-footed.

*Car pulls up abruptly*

-You tryin’ to get smart with me, son?

-*meek* No. I only wanted a chat about the boxing.

-Well contrary to your blinkered world view, not every working-class, West Belfast cab driver is an authority on the finer points of pugilism. Right?

-Yes. Yes, sir.

-Look, kid, this is your stop. Fifty press-ups every morning for the next month. If you’re still curious go down and spar a couple of rounds, see how ye cope.
*turns around to stare straight at the dwindler*
What is it you’re studying again? Numbers? Aye, go on you down.

*speeds off, waiving the fare*

———————————————————-

‘You need discipline!’ He scolded me across the table, eyes bulging, his mouth ripped across in some accusatory statement of bared teeth and daring. I’d only just met him. She was a little more accommodating in her manner. Maybe he served to shock. I had seen him perform before. He was really good. They asked me what I was reading, I answered Joyce, as mostly I was, and both warned me it was dangerous. I asked had either much success publishing, turned out the soldier had been. I was very young and impressionable and lost then, but I guess they must have guessed me as one amongst their number. And guessed too, without too much trouble, that I was more than a little lost.

When I finally got a grip on the discipline thing, I began to see some results, I think I got some sort of a style going. But like it goes in these things, you think you’ve understood something, only to be led to a mouth of much wider waters.

I’d really like to pull that soldier move on somebody some day…

—————————————————-

Play That Guitar Boy

Your house stank
Of good books
And cut-up magazines

The television played
Vinyls were succoured
Radio love brandished

You danced uncalled for
And sped many from your graces
Faint prospects brought to fruition
Through silver-throated
Telephone manipulations

Alternatively you bolstered me
Then broke me down
As some are wont to do

But ultimately
The queenly demeanour
You wore in my youth
Was stole from you
By the given laws of social conduct
And those who abided by them

I hope you are well
We shared a few good adventures
Keep well with the priest
And dash that ghost away from your door
Lest he gets to growing any guts