***
Me,
Shrouded in green, white, and orange
I wake up
tossing up electric blankets
in my single-bed nook
Morning shook,
consumed by a fiery torrent
as I consume rock-hard porridge
That ever familiar sight of orange
crescendoing like new sunrise
to sever our commonwealth ties
Becoming the light to eradicate industrial darkness
just north of our heads
At least that’s what our leaders said
We fight for the people
sprouting from hairs of the motherland,
the old country
the place the old fellows reminisce about
at the back street,
hole in the wall,
sub-par pubs
We binge on
endless Guinness by the pint
The black lager gives us might
The Irish are strong
That’s why there’s no Guinness Light
That dove-wing white
the calcimined center stripe
Signifying the peace after war
Yet covering up our war on peace
Youths’ minds struggling between right and wrong
Until we remember the oath we must keep
Upon pain of death our boots strike down
Molotov fire scorches the ground
And for every redcoat we make redder
We get another pint
It tastes like brainwashed victory
bitter,
like the overdone roots of my royalty
flushed
That green
lush
Soft beauty brushed on rolling hills
chilled, never above 70
70 nails,
carefully placed in our fake army bombs
We say a prayer of psalms
And wire up the lord’s work in the calm
We take pride in the storm that follows,
Drunk off our victory after a few swallows
Our minds exploded along with that bomb
And the headlines brought realization back
We are weighed down by the guilt of our pact
four killed in terror attack,
Shrapnel-riddled dreams,
severed in broken heart-strings
as harp strings play funeral dirges
dirt covered corpses,
buried under super-natural forces
We the rebel stereotype,
Question our right,
To live after causing our people so much strife
In our misguided fight
We pray for deliverance from our tortured life
In The Name of the Father,
bless green grass fields,
bless lush, rolling hills
bless those who perish in Emerald Isles
Funeral shrouded, in green, white, and orange.
Originally published in This Land, Vol. 6, Issue 5, March 1, 2015.