Poetry in Motion Satire   Lord Falls • Fortnight What a lovely season autumn is. I think I feel a poem coming on: Season of mists and ... The word fruitfulness keeps springing to mind, but that can't be right; all the fruit is dead now. Season of mists and dead fruit. No. I can just hear Martin sniggering: "Who is a dead fruit. I thought we stopped stiffing fruits years ago". I wandered lonely as a crowd. No, that doesn't sound right either. That's the trouble with inspiration - it never gives you all the words and then you have to make the rest up. Martin was here last night and he has me badly out of sorts. "Hey big lad", he says. I said, "Don't call me that. You sound like Jim McDowell." "But that's the point, big lad", says Martin. " McDowell is the voice of the people, the dome and steeple. I never understood the old hook and anchor - wanker - until he out-in-the-rained it to me." Martin, I tried to explain, nobody knew that rhyming slang was native to Belfast until McDowell started speaking it. He's the only one who does speak it. "No, I think we're losing the popular touch", said Martin. "They are calling me a bean sprout." "Well that's nothing to what they are calling me." Season of mists and yellow .... It's coming now. "Gerry", says Martin, all ponderously. "What was it all for? Was Paisley not the enemy?" "Not at all, Martin. That was a smokescreen. We were fighting the SDLP all along. We just couldn't say it out loud." "And who was Paisley fighting?" He is so slow. "Paisley was fighting the Ulster Unionists." "But why?" "He was determined that no one was going to sell Ulster down the river but himself." "Ah!" Martin got it. Then he went all thoughtful again. "And our job was to make sure no one but ourselves could renege on the Republic?" "That's right." "And why is it all right for us to sell out, if it wasn't all right for anyone else?" Sometimes you have to speak very slowly and clearly to Martin: "Because I say so. Got it?" "Yes, Gerry. I kitchen sink so." .                                         Index: Current Articles + Latest News and Views + Book Reviews + Letters + Archives

There is no such thing as a dirty word. Nor is there a word so powerful, that it's going to send the listener to the lake of fire upon hearing it. - Frank Zappa Index: Current Articles 3 December 2006 Other Articles From This Issue: Forensic Framework Unravels Martin Galvin RUC Killing of Irish-American To Become Issue in New Congress Fr. Sean Mc Manus F's All Around Dr John Coulter Loose Ends John Kennedy The People of No Principle Geraldine Adams Policing, a Bridge Too Far for Republicans? Willie Gallagher Conway Mill Debate Anthony McIntyre Not Too Late for a United Front Mick Hall Afraid of the Voice of the People James Bradley Ideals Live On Dolours Price Liberalism Ray McAreavey Poetry in Motion Lord Falls Michael Pebble Anthony McIntyre Action Required to Stop Bullies Dr John Coulter O'Shea is Right on Aid Policy David Adams Ministerial Own Goal Anthony McIntyre ‘Beyond the Veil: Perspectives on Muslim Women in a Western Secular Context’ Maryam Namazie • 19 November 2006 • The Bogeyman Anthony McIntyre Believe It Or Not John Kennedy Contra Con Artists Anthony McIntyre The Wrong Kind of Republican? Ivan Morley Equality Agenda: British Rhetoric and Reality Martin Galvin A Deal Done By Quislings Mick Hall Realignments Dr John Coulter Deadline? Pull the other one! David Adams Political Policing Martin Ingram It's Not The Taking Part Anthony McIntyre Who Can Get Dr No to Say Yes? Dr John Coulter Equality or Equity Michéal MháDonnáin Federalism Michael Gillespie Revolutionary Unionism Dr John Coulter Who Needs Enemies John Kennedy The King's Threshold Robin Kirk

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