Galway 2020 Plus Ultra

Galway’s bid to win Capital of Culture is all twenty twenty
give the horse plenty.
~ Rita Ann Higgins

Galway Hooker sailing into Claddagh Bay seen from Renmore
Galway Hooker sailing into Claddagh Bay seen from Renmore

Galway won the City of Culture for 2020, but some bitter poets begrudge that achievement, faulting it for not sorting the cities problems as they see them to be. The city has problems, some Id agree with as problems, more not. The City of Culture never said they would solve those problems, its cultural, not political, but the hurler on the ditch still has to holler abuse, having little to offter as slutions bar abortion which is not an answer for austerity which is the issue and will be up to and beyond 2020.

Angry words written as all is not well
That water is wet the world they tell
That grass is green and cant be eaten
All know, but are warned again, argument self defeating.
To spite what the trendys say and we would be told
The verse is not the satire of the bards of old
After whom kings would have abdicated when about were written
They spit out the flesh from the hand that they have bitten
Radical, in self praise, themselves they call,
We who pay for it, dont agree at all

From water meters to housing to hating Enda
– And none of us love him! – they have an agenda
Who wave banners and shout slogans at rallies
If they got abortion tomorrow we’d lose them as allies
In this long yet to run struggle of political torsion
Austerities the issue, the answers not abortion
Where working class girls kill their unborn child
Capitalists profit – sure we will all go wild
We will have a session, do drugs have the craic
As the alcohol corporations laugh behind our back
We protest against windmills, their profits begrudge
That do good for the planet, as workers on trudge
Organizing unions that the trendys wont join
“His issue is his, his issues not mine”
More money for Luas drivers, the nurses the guards
Dont forget to leave some for the sculptures and bards:
The taxpayers look on in silent fury at this crying eye
Where all strive to grab a slice of the pie

Where is the strikes and call for better wages for the woman in supermacs?
Or the minimum wage cleaners who clean their shit in shopping centre jacks?
They have if they are lucky got mortgages too to pay
Or else have given up ever having such a luxury one day
For the bank tells them that more then three times a years wage they cannot borrow
But tell the rich farmer come back he will be sorted tomorrow
They have no answers for these people I want them to fight for
They have no interest in the issues I want them to write for
So I will write – I too am a writer – I write for these folk on my page
As they tell us to “go out and get laid” – the opioid of the modern age
They will get you abortion, so they will, so they will
Its only flesh, not human, though it you have to kill
If Enda is clever, he will campaign for the referenda
Repeal the Eight, turn them on his side, suit his agenda
There will still be people evicted for the boosted profits of the banks
Denis O’Brien will own the clinics, for our business will say thanks
As they wonder how they are not elected in years when today they recall
Forgetting half of the working class electorate are dead – they aborted them all
Those who protested at the instillation of O’Briens water meter
Will cut the ribbon on his clinics as if he was St. Peter

The church against abortion will continue to bray
Will call novenas, for the unborn will pray
Who would look down of their mothers not being married
Whose parents would be happy if their daughter miscarried
This mad attitude the worker does perplex:
They are not pro life – they are just anti-sex
If pregnancy by contraception or abortion cannot be prevented
Women will be afraid to make love, hypocrites will sleep contented
The worst reason for abortion, the most understandable of all
That attitude must change, if we as pro life ourselves we call
Whether a woman has children by one man or three
Why should it matter if she is loved by one like me?
The girl who has none, or the girl who has just one
To spite being sexually active prehaps often has gone
To England, to Holland, and no-body knows
This is Ireland – we keep secrets, as our tragedies shows.
The men, the jack the lads, the shaggers, the geezers, the boys
Who boast about the women they had who used them like toys
They all want the abortion, to end their responsibility
For their excesses which they will never end for a girl like she
But the populist poets who seek to sound subverse
See not that, choosing to be blind, in their catch all verse
Their solution is abortion if pregnant a girl is made
By their first solution of do drugs, get drunk and get laid
Not even cuddled, the girl knows sex but no love, its how life is
Drinks to numb the pain, to toughen up, the happiness is his
He brags about his fun, what she done or wouldn’t, blackens her name
Society on her and her kind still puts the shame…
As the clergy and the high polite still on her look down
Hes a hero, she is told to be cold in sex, the catch cry of the clown
Who stands on the sideline, pointing out what is wrong
Has no answers to offer for the listening throng
Festivals and functions will come, will be planned, will happen and go
That the world will turn beyond 2020 is all that we know
The professional protesters like her can relax
Real Poets are still working to live, and will pay her wages with their tax.

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