25 June, 2015
The summer the grass died
the birds went crazy,
dropped their wingtips
dipped in sunlight
into an ocean of loss.
Tom Brown lay for two days,
coming home to die,
coming home to the second floor,
coming home to die
on the second floor.
Hush, i said, softly!
The news.
Every day, this is the fucking news.
Then the phone rings
and George Harding calls.
Now Paul Kane has bit the dust.
The summer the grass died,
the kids threw bicycles over
the council wall,
the banks and the greedy politicians
nailed the poor Greeks
to the bloody wall,
even Paddy Byrne passed on,
like in a dream,
while the world passed by
in cars and planes and TV screens.
And then Paul Kane went and bit
the dust.
What's left, you might ask?
And is it only in a dream?
Always in dreams, and
telephone calls and headlines.
And still the dying goes on
and Paul Kane
went home
to the cemetery,
on the Bray road,
in Shankill.
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