**Some selections of Ciaran Carson and Seamus Heaney over the next few days. Hope everyone enjoys and is well.
Queen's Gambit
Cont'd from previous entry
But the Unknown Factor, somewhat like the Unknown Soldier, has yet to take
The witness box. As someone spills a cup of tea on a discarded
Irish News
A minor item bleeds thru from another page, blurring the main story.
It's difficult to pick up without the whole thing coming apart in your hands,
But basically it involves this bunch of cowboys, who, unbeknownst to us all,
Have jumped on board a Ford Sierra, bound for You-Know-Where.
They're Ordinary Criminals: you know them by the dollar signs that shiver
In their eyes, a notion that they're going to hit the jackpot of the GPO.
Unbeknownst to themselves, they'll be picked up in the amplified light
Of a Telescope Starlight II Night Observation Device (NOD) - Noddy for short,
But not before the stoolie-pigeon spool is reeled back; amplified,
Its querulous troughs and peaks map out a different curve of probability.
----
My newly-lowered ears in the barber's mirror were starting to take on a furtive look.
A prison cut- my face seemed Born Again - but then, I'd asked for
short.
And I've this problem, talking to a man whose mouth is a reflection.
I tend to think the words will come out backwards so I'm saying nothing.
And then, says he, - he's staring straight into my eyes, the scissors poised -
It seems they think they're just about to nail your man O'Reilly
When a bunch of hoods pulls up in a Ford Sierra and jumps out with the sawn-off
Shotguns, plastic masks they must have got in Elliot's - Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck
And Pluto - too much watching TV, if you ask me - so of course they Brits let go
With everything. He snips at my right ear.
But now hear this:
This Post Office van bombs out from Tomb Street loading bay, its side door open
And they've got this effing Gatling gun or something going full blast -
Dot dot dot dot - and the Brits are all shot up - could you move your head a bit -
Right - so the Mad Dog, he jumps in the back and him and the boys are of like a shot.
So what do you think? It looks to me, it was a set-up job, though who exactly
Was set up, God only knows. You can see it for yourself - they've been checking out
That Ford Sierra for the past two hours, just as soon as it was light.
Seems they think the Disney characters were in on it. If you ask me,
With these confidential telephones, you never know who's doing who, or why.
Better to keep your mouth shut, that's what I say. Haircut OK, sir?
He held a mirror to my neck. I nodded. He shook out the cloth and curls
And snippets writhed like commas on the chessboard tiles. Now that I could see
Myself without the hair and beard, I looked like someone else. He brushed
My shoulders, and I left him to a row of empty mirrors, sweeping up
The fallen swathes. Turning into Tomb Street, I began to feel a new man.
Perfume breathed from somewhere, opening avenues of love, or something deja-vu.
