'Something inside so Strong.'

 

Mothers drink amid the hazed laughter

of coffee houses and tearooms as before.

Yet never once forget lost sons,

thousands and thousands tucked into beds

well-ironed with maternal hope.

 

These youths fell in city districts of Civil War.

And thousands and thousands of mothers

were left to thumb their defeated toys,  

endless son room’s enshrined to stagnate

Still they laughed, Because you either survived it,

 

or you didn't. Fathers who fought in Ireland’s

green years have come in from the bitter wind,

and chase childhood dreams,  buried

under a decade of dust and rubble

so they find some surrogate fascination.

 

be that sexy red sports cars or football.

Republican and Loyalist armies

stood in silent guard on blue pavements

as George Best passed on in his coffin.

I thought of his common, footballer words,

 

‘I’m not Protestant, just Irish.’

A sentiment so rarefied and refined,

it beckoned some new fraternity in the North,

that was elusive for three decades

or eight hundred years. We'd other famous sons

 

Bik McFarlane,  tortured internee of Long Kesh

a man who could never be broken,

and even in his prison cell his strong voice

harmonized, with other H-block men,  into a world

famous song, Something inside so strong

Reviews

[Donald Meikle]

Ah Sel. I read them all,as my old eyes teared in frustration. You tell it like it is, and was, and bein' as scot Irish as I am, will ever be. My words fall on thick deaf ears. "The devil invented religion, to turn paradise into Hell, an' as of m'last observation, He seems to 'av' done it quite well.