Poem: Drinking with Boileryard Clarke

Boileryard, you’ve risen above things,
But you’ll never be above
Slipping into the accent of
A tenement Catholic
Who brawls over gruel,

Who wanders over a brick-strewn lot
Where the tobacconist’s burned down.
Where the indigent defeated now
Fuck like choleric bears.

A name like that means
You weren’t fated to greatness
But to rankest survival,
By dint of knuckled guts.

But enough of that.
Shall we alight from safe places,
Have too much absinthe
and insult a colonel?

Who needs a heart
When you’ve got a spleen
With a vena cava?

We’ll promise to bury you
At Druid Ridge, but only if you promise
Not to outlive that snarl.

For your pecker is a grinder’s wheel.
For your balls are a civil war.

But this, Boileryard,
This is a hymn.