Ever present she was
and the proof was in the singing.
In her recordings of Jimmy,
but John, reincarnated. *
But while Jimmy loved Maureen:
"The best thing that ever happened to me".
Maureen feared, "the bottle."
And going nowhere,
though Jimmy was always travelling.
He came to us from nowhere.
And I went there to stay,
sleeping with the bare walls and floorboards;
and to the sound of Maureen
sobbing alone in the darkness.
"Don't worry", she said in the light,
"it's only because of the baby."
The new one, which she took
along with the other one, to her mother.
*
It wasn't long before the neighbour
noticing that I was on my own
sent her daughter in to keep me company.
What an occasion of sin, that might have been
but that I didn't mind being alone, until
Startled!
by the kerfuffle.
It was Jimmy!
He had gone to work in the darkness,
and in the darkness
and in the confused state of his brain,
could not quite make it home.
*
I could smell the cooking when I got in.
It was unbelievable. Maureen was back
and in the kitchen, and in a temper.
She had found my dinner and binned it.
"IT ISN'T FIT FOR A DOG TO EAT!"
*
I don't know if he, Jimmy
was caught in that whirlwind,
and didn't ask when I saw him last.
A dapper wee man
breezing through the center of Belfast.
Everything in his garden was lovely;
and he was still travelling.
*
"I'm starting a new Job
on Monday."
__________
© Cormac McCloskey
* The Irish tenor, John McCormack. The reference in the first line is to Jimmy's mother.
While working for PYE Radio in the Machine Shop in Larne, Jimmy appeared. And it seemed that he had come with his wife and son, from Belfast, to a better life in Larne. Hearing that I was looking for new digs, he offered accommodation which I was pleased to accept. But it soon became apparent that Jimmy was wrestling with "the demon drink." And in the six months that I was there, 1959-60, it was all too apparent, that his family life was disintegrating around him.
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