The Irish Literary Times

Ge r a r d B e i r n e

Meditation #42: The Commotion of My Passing

I wait my turn on clumps of hay/the mounting pile of amputated      limbs/surgeons in blood and pus-stained
coats working by candlelight/whiskey, quinine, slops/manure, offal,  gangerine/the filthy
lucre of life’s theatre/anesthetised and raving like Broadway critics/let’s  not nit-pick/the blurb ways

of someone else’s days/the pin scratches, splinter pricks, pustulas, and  abrasions that bring the curtain...