The Poet Who Lived On Grafton Street

The poet who lived on Grafton street
Sold his poems on the street all day
In volumes with titles, the poems all scanned,
And he sold two or three each day.
With one volume sold he could publish one more
And buy some bread on the side

With liquor mouth
Quit smoking at 39
Sold beer for a while
Came from America
Fled to Ireland
Thinking of Heaney
Or Yeats aspirations,
Sitting high atop cliffs
In Howth’s respite
Looking down at waves
From the monster, the titan sea
And thinking water
Reflects the sky’s truth
And the sky reflects the water
While the mail came
All rejection,
The cost of stamps so high,
And the baby cried
And the wife died of cancer
And those children
Who beg every day,
And the poets recycled
Dreamed of hybrid cars
Instead of sheep
In the pastures of dreams
Jumping the fence
For to sleep, for to sleep, for to sleep
And the television too loud
And the lights always on
And the News so bad
And the voices so hard
And the sun always gone
Left his baby
In the house alone
Came from America
Fled to Ireland
Came to stop smoking
Fled to the liquor
Killed a child’s life
For a dream lived out
In poverty, alone
Successfully quit smoking
With liquor

Found a vanity press that would publish his books
Made some copies to earn money on the street
From his poems and sold two or three each day
He came to be known as the poet,
The one who lived on Grafton street,
And who stayed there, selling poems, till death.