Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Erin Go Bragh! Which means, "Ireland Forever!" or, alternatively, "Ireland Until The Day Of Judgment!" Which judgment, presumably, will be positive and in Ireland's favor.

I have actually been to Ireland. I went there because I had read James Joyce's Ulysses in college, and wanted to read it in Dublin. I made it through the first chapter. I forgot one thing: Joyce left.

There weren't many jobs on the Emerald Isle, but there was inspiration aplenty.


An Irish mountain is a Colorado speed bump
blessed and cursed with a leprechaun's arthritic charm


There is a strong demand there for poetry
the land
has a sea-salt lick thirst
for ragefully gorgeous words


Dublin is an antique city
with one foot left in the Middle Ages
a broken kneecap from the Reformation
19th century coal blackening its face
its youth skidding headfirst into the 21st century
and a soul clarified into a green diamond
by a thousand and twenty-one years
of poetry alcohol and warfare


Happy St. Patrick's Day