English Revision(For Scarlett) Poem by Dónall Dempsey

I sit
on top of the hill

in an old English
graveyard

in the middle of Ireland

which has been here
since 1860 something or other

reading Elizabeth Gaskel’s
MARY BARTON

a teenager
on top of
a broken tombstone.

The dead don’t bother me.
I don’t bother them

on this the sunniest
of days

reading of a time
the men

buried here

were more alive
than I

now.

*******

ZAK'S PRAYER

Little Zak
(just a little scrap of a chap)

with a deep Barry White voice

enquires(as he enquires
about everything) :

“Why is your hair white? ”

He listens patiently to the explanation
how after a head injury

“I went white overnight! ”

Being a good
Christian child

he tells me
he will pray for me
for the “black to be back! ”

I’m very tempted
to dye it for the next day

just to prove his prayer
right.

when his fervent prayer
doesn’t turn the situation around

...he frets.

I tell him
God & me
are both happy
with it…like this.

“Really? ”
He asks.

“Really! ”
I affirm.

“Have it your own way then
but man...

It makes you look
old & grim.

I grin
tell him that I am

but that I can live with it.

*******

FROM THE MOUTHS OF BABES

I have convinced
myself

I am not all that
fat

& believe it
with all my 15 stone

until a child
in class

pats my tummy.

“Ah, Sir’s gonna have a
baby! ”

Guess I’ve been
told!

*******