Home Brand

Memory isn’t linear, it’s something that orbits us. Not in perfect circles, but elliptical. Sometimes a memory can loom large, like a hunter’s moon. Other times, it’s small and translucent, barely visible at all.

Homestead Brings Value Home

Homestead
Home brand

I’ve got a shopping list in my hand,
written on the back of a cornflakes box,
folded hard.

Looking at the shelves in a dark corner of the shop:

T-bags
Sugar
Milk
Eggs
Self-raising flour
A pound of beef mince
Two onions
Lollipops

I have no money,
but a short letter:

We’ll pay you back on Thursday.

I hope no one standing behind me notices.

The serious man in a butcher’s coat
writes it into his serious book,
and it snaps shut.

Striped purple and blue bags,
and we’re away.

Thank you.
Thank fuck.

Salt & Flour

In the kitchen,
my mother kneading bread on the table
like a drum.

The soft thump
when she turns it over,
the rolling pin, an old wine bottle,
the rocking sound,
the uneven table leg.

Thump,
then roll,
rock,
roll,
splash of water,
flick of flour,
the whole thing is music.

A pulse runs through the house,
a calming, rounded power.

Then she rubs her hands together,
in one fluid motion,
all the excess comes off,
revealing her wedding band.

And there lies the loaf,
ready,
conjured from salt and flour.

Breathing heavily.
Drummed into existence.

The Helicopter Tree

There is a place
in the field beside the houses,
wild with rushes blowing.

An unloved field
covered in clover,
not a place of beauty,
just a shortcut to town.

I go down to the tree
that looks over the next estate,
standing under the helicopter tree,
an old frayed rope swinging in the breeze,
a rusted gate, chewed by time.

I’m on the border of something I don’t know.
I’m dying for a shit,
but I hold it.

I hold it, just staring
at the field and the rooftops below.

Just me.

How quiet it is
when no one knows where you are.

Tennis Season

Up in the neighbourhood as the summer settled in,
tennis became a big thing.
Wimbledon, it was on telly morning, noon and night.

We’d get two rackets down in the pound shop,
£1.50 each,
and three balls for a pound.

We’d play until it rained,
outside on the piece of tarmac shaped like a loaf.
A kerb was our net.
When it rained too much, we’d go inside and watch it on telly.

Soon other kids with tennis rackets came along,
bought from the shop or rummaged from their garage.
One even had an aluminium racket.
Everyone had a weapon and came looking for glory.

The battles raged on all day, every day,
a mixture of tennis and soap opera:
fights, falls, tears,
families coming down to watch.

Then, on an idle Wednesday morning,
I hit the last ball into the briars.

And off I go looking...
navigating the gnarly nettles in shorts.

I’d train my vision on the colour and shape of the ball,
hold it in my mind
and scan only for that, scanning, scanning.

And then, boom, I see one. If I can just reach down and...
Can’t.

Have to thrash it with the racket,
then, yes, I got it.
Scraped and stung,
but I got it.

It’s not even the one I hit in.
It’s even better.

One of the expensive ones.
PENN faded around it, dark green and dirty,
fuzzy like a gremlin,
maybe from last year.

Then I’d spot another, and another.

Wow.
Look how many I found.

Jesus, tennis really is a great game.

Spot

Spot was our third dog.
Tramp was too nervous.
Boxer had to be put down.
Spot stayed.

He was a small little guy, sorta terrier.
Off-white coat.
One big black spot on his back.
Keen brown eyes.

He’d know when we were trying to fool him.
He’d predict which shortcut we would take.
He could clear a five-foot fence.
He was our love and our joy.

When he mauled the neighbour’s cat, the father said he had to go.
A friend of the family would take him.

One night, he followed us into town,
right down to the end, to Stephen’s flat.
He came in with us,
and we awkwardly left him there.

He knew he wasn’t coming back.

I could hear him crying out,
echoing through the empty streets the whole way home.

The Chant

I’m 12, standing in a line of lads for the under 15s,
waiting for the man in the cap to shout ‘Go’,
and we’re away,
like a flock of geese.

My first long-distance race,
just outside the town,
along the river.

I don’t know how to pace myself,
so I just try and keep up.

The adrenaline has already made me numb,
and I don’t know if I am running fast or slow.

After a while, one guy starts to peel away from us.
I know him, Sean, a couple of years older.
Lives near our estate.
I’ve often seen him out training.

Sean’s away like a swan,
like he planned it.

I push away from the pack.
I get it now: just follow Sean.
I don’t know how long 5k is,
but I’m going to find out.

We turn off the long road and up the hill into the countryside.

Where the fuck are we going?

I push up the hill and get to the top. I’m out of breath.
I can’t keep going,
but I can’t stop.

Sean is way ahead,
and the pack not far behind.
I’m in a panic,
like a fella drowning.

I hear my feet banging through my body,
amplifying the breath in my chest.
Desperate inhale, depleted exhale.

Now they turn into a phrase,
a mantra I don’t understand,
set by the slap of my feet on the tarmac.

I just accept it.

I become the chant,
I stop thinking,
I stop feeling,
I follow the chant,
across the finish line.

The Mask

Late autumn is humming,
evening fog hangs over the town.

I go into the pub on the square with my father.
He orders me a Cidona.
I want some peanuts, but I’m afraid to ask.
He has a pint of stout.

Silent men sit in corners, slowing down time.
The clink of pool balls rolling across the felt, searching for their place.

He orders another pint.
I ask for the peanuts. You have to time everything right with him.

We play pool and watch the traffic,
then cross the street to the newsagents.

Halloween masks hang above the cigarettes.
I point to the big one.

“I like that mask.”

“Which one?”

“The monster one, with the brown fur.”

“Okay, let’s get it.”

It cost six pounds.
I walk out of the shop proud.
I have the scariest mask in the world.

We head home, up the darkening hill.
I try it on, pulling it down over my head.
I feel different, calm.

Maybe we talked, I don’t remember.
But we could have.

Cones

A hot Sunday in July.

I’m searching for some twine to make a bow and arrow.

There’s a faint knock on the door.
I see no one through the frosted glass.
I ignore it.

Then another knock.

I rush to the door thinking it’s the kids messing.
I open it so fast it makes a vacuum.

I look down. It’s one of the little ones, Helen.

She looks up at me defiantly, clutching an ice cream.

Announces, ‘We got cones.’

She then searches my eyes
and just walks away.

Trolley

A crisp Saturday morning in November.

Someone finds an old pram.
Not just any old pram.
A Silver Cross pram.

The carriage is wrecked,
torn and ripped from the briars,
pulled straight out of the past.

But the wheels look perfect.
White rubber trim.

We set to work.

Some boards.
A hammer.

Now we have an axle,
and another one.

More U-nails.
We have a chassis.

A bolt through the front
and some twine tied to both sides.

Steering.
A seat.

She’s ready for testing.

Top of the hill.

Push meee!

We push and push until it runs away,
gaining speed.
The tarmac, zooming underneath.
The rubber trim makes the wheels silent,
which feels faster.

Dipping down while turning into the corner,
something breaks loose.

The trolley tips over along with the driver,
like clothes in a washing machine,
tumbling over the kerb
and crashing like laughter.

Front axle came off.
Need to make a better one.
Needs more U-nails.

There’s a taste of fire in the air.

We’ve got all day.

Happy No Christmas

I wake up.
It’s not Christmas Day.
Not for us anyway.

The parents have switched religions,
and this one doesn't do Christmas.
They have found God,
just up the road.

There is no tinsel,
no tree, no turkey,
no carols, no cake,
and most of all,
no fucking presents.

I go outside.

The kids are flying around
with remote control cars,
toddlers pushing dolls in prams,
cap guns popping off in the morning air.

A kid in a sheriff hat and holster says,
“What did you get?”

Nothing, but I’ll be getting a Walkman in January.

He looks at me like I shot him.

This isn’t going to go down well at school.

SMack!

I told you not to flinch.

Put your hands down.

Smack.

Don’t fuckin’ move your head.

Put your hands down.

Don’t you fuckin’ raise your eyes to the sky at me.

I’ll give you something to raise your fuckin’ eyes to the sky for.

Smack.

Smack.

Black.

Chips n’ Beans

Once the bell goes,
I’m outta here.

I don’t care about anything.
He’s going to Cork today,
for the weekend.

I couldn’t be happier.

I’m going to walk in the front door
and hug my mother.

I’m going to throw my bag under my bed,
I’m going to watch The Turtles and Captain Planet,
and eat eggs and chips and beans.

So fuck you.

Lines

I must not be obstinate
I must not be oinstinate
I must not be obstinate
I must not be obstinate
I must not be obstinate
I must not be obstinate
I must not be obstinate
I must not be obstinate
I just not be obstinate
I must not be obstinate
I must not be obstinate
I must not be obstinate I
I sjut not be obstinate
I must not be obstinate
I must not be obstinate
I must not be obstinate
I must not be obstinate
I must not ne obstinate
I must not be obstinate
I must not be obstinate
I must not be obstinate
I must not be obstinate
I must not be obstinate
I must not be obstinate
I must be not obstinate
I must not be obstinate
I must not be ovstinate
I must not be

The Friday Night Girls

I’m up in the big neighbourhood.
The kids seem more grown up.
There’s a buzz,
like backstage in a play.

The disco is on tonight.
The older girls are going out.

I’m leaning on the gate.
A blur of hairspray.
Best friends in neon.
Torn jeans.
Doc Marten boots.

As they run into each other’s houses
for one thing or another.

There’s a thorn in my hand
that I can’t locate,
but it helps me appear casual.

My knees are skinny,
and I can’t go anywhere.

Watching them play dress-up with their dreams.

I want to tell Amanda that she’s beautiful
and kiss her in front of everyone before she leaves.

But I’m still a child
and they are trying to be adults.

Father and Son

Sometimes he’d be in good form.
He’d have a drink in him, be feeling sentimental, and play old tapes.

It was a strange sort of love he showed,
like the music was doing the loving for him.

One evening, he came home and put on Cat Stevens’ Father and Son.

He played it for me and pointed at the lyrics with tears in his eyes,
like stars twinkling above a dark sky:

“You’re still young,
that’s your fault.”

The power of lyrics annihilated me.

I could see my father in a new but fractured way.

Beyond the fear and anger, I saw something else.

Love and music...

A boy calling from a locked room, trying to be heard.

929 SZB

We’ve got a car now.

A blue Ford Escort.
Same type as Grandad’s,
except like the morning sky.

We go for a spin.

A heap of us in the back,
Mam and Dad in the front.

This is it.
This is what a family feels like.

We have a car.
You should notice us.

We do nice things now.
Picnic at the beach.
Picnic at the lake.
Egg and onion sandwiches.
Going to the park.

We’re a real family now.

Deck chair and flask.
2 litres of Cola.
Tupperware and plastic forks.

We’re that family now.

Rent Man

In the afternoon,
his old wine Renault shows up.

His figure appears at the frosted door.
Black hair.
White shirt.

The letterbox snaps twice through the house.

Don’t move.
Don’t make a sound.
We’re not here.

The letterbox barks again,
searching every room.

The walls hold their breath.

There’s an absurd pause,
just hanging there.

My reflex to go and answer is severed.

I stay still
behind the kitchen door.

His head tilts down. His pixelated shoulders slump,
then he dissolves
out of frame.

Great Expectations

Just after the World Cup,
someone walks into the classroom
and announces that I won an award
for a poetry competition we did a while back.

There will be a presentation
at the newly built local library in town.
You’ll be meeting Mr Eamonn Dunphy.
He’ll be giving out the awards.
3pm on Wednesday.

Me?
I won?
Eamonn Dunphy?
I’ll be there.

This is big.
Really big.
I’m meeting Eamonn Dunphy.
He read something I wrote.
I’m getting an award.

It could be a motorbike,
a skateboard,
a signed football.

I push through the library door, hit by the smell of books.

There’s Eamonn talking to a circle of people,
with his boyish hair and unruly brow,
just like the telly.

I sidle in.
I’m nervous.
I thought I would be more confident than this.

Someone calls my name.
I walk into the centre.
I think I have to say something.

Eamonn thrusts out his hand to be shook.
I gladly oblige.

With his other hand, he presses me a slim plastic box.

Watercolour paints?

Are you fucking joking me?

“Well done, Brian.”

Oh, thank you very much.

Someone from the committee
paws me on the shoulder
and makes a ‘wow’ face at my prize.

Jesus Christ.

I’m going home.

The Never Man

You see him on a Wednesday or a Thursday,
passing a doorway or a shop window.
He stops and talks with no one.
Always moving.
Always silent.

You see him on a Wednesday or Thursday.
His stride long and powerful.
His shoes and clothes neither black nor brown,
just like his hair and his eyes.
He never makes a sound.
He lives outside the town.

His face is always the same expression. It never changes.
Always looking ahead.
Like something is calling him.

Two bags of shopping locked in his fists,
as he marches on.

One time, I was walking home.
It was winter, the wind yelping at the fences.
Where the town lights die, a long stretch of darkness lay ahead of me.

A quarter mile ahead, a flash of car light revealed a tall figure with broad shoulders.

My body shook.

It was the Never Man.

I dare not cross the road for fear of alerting him and frightening myself even more.

So we walked the long, straight, dark road toward one another.
Step by step.

Another car flashed by.
Moving closer, an inescapable corridor.

Another car flash, closer still.
Now he’s only yards away.

I could hear my heart banging in my throat.

He’s right in front of me.

Then woosh, he passes like a train.

The cool wind swirling around him.
Same expression and not a sound.

Then I ran like hell, the adrenaline taking over.
All sense out the window.

I couldn’t tell if he was running after me or not.

When I got to the gate of the house, I dared myself to look back.

There, I watched him where the town lights begin.
Marching, stitching in and out of the pools of light and dark.

That was the last time I ever saw
the Never Man.

Milk

There was talk that the house was haunted.
Things moving around that shouldn’t.
Maybe it’s a prank.
Maybe because the estate is built on a mass famine grave.

I’m in bed and I hear a very loud bang,
like a gunshot.

And then pure silence.

I freeze for a second.
My heart is beating in my face.

Then I force myself to get up.
I creep down the stairs and scan the kitchen
through the bannister.

Everything looks normal.

Except for a bottle of milk on the counter,
lying on its side,
snaking down the washing machine,
spilling onto the red lino.

I split into two people.

One of me goes down and checks.
The other creeps back up the stairs,
retreating back to bed.

Big John

Go again.
He didn’t hear the last one. Go on.

We walk over to the glowing glass door,
sounds of telly
and smells of sausages.

Three times, okay?

Bang, bang, bang.
And run.

Behind us is the yell of a grown man.
Feels serious this time.

We disperse through the neighbourhood.
I peel off behind his house, up the back lane.
He’s gone over to the other side after the others.

I start to panic, looking for a place.

Gates are locked, and I don’t want to get trapped in someone’s garden.
Time is running out.

By the streetlight there’s a garden with no fence.
I slip into the shadow cast by the wall.

I hunch down.

“I’m fucked.”

I look to my right.

And there he is.
Standing just beside me,
right under the streetlight,
with only the shadow dividing us.

Surely to fuck he can hear my heart wailing.

Towering like a bull,
nostrils bursting with vapour,
the broken glass sparkling under his feet.

It dawns on me.

He can’t see me.

I am invisible.

He turns and walks away,
back into his house, defeated.

We clamber out of the shadows,
heading home,
trying to breathe normal.

Lino

The hole in my shoe has been getting bigger.
It’s because I’m always skidding around the place.

I’m used to the routine of fixing it up.

Tried cardboard,
too soft, gets wet, and stones poke through.

Tried two pairs of socks,
makes no difference. Holes in wet socks.

Then it hits me: lino.

There’s a roll of it under the stairs,
from when they did the kitchen.

I go in and dig through the fishing rods and motorbike parts.

Got it.

I lay it on the floor and take off my shoe.
I draw the outline of my foot with a marker.
I cut it out.
Pop it in my shoe.

Now for some superglue.
Found it, but the tube is fucked.

I have Pritt Stick in my pencil case.
Glue it to the inside. Done.

Wow.

This feels nice.

I’m great.

Jane

Down at the playground on a Monday.
Kids screaming down slides
and screeching on wonky swings.

She appears through the far gate
with her tennis racket and her friends.

Her long liquorice hair,
shining like treacle in the sun.

My heart grinds to a halt
and then lurches to life.

Every moment is now charged
with the possibility.

I can’t concentrate on the game.
I forgot I’m even playing.
Every part of me is drawn to her.

They sit outside on the bench,
talking, sometimes looking in.

I have to do the best pretending I’ve ever done.

I don’t know what’s working and what’s not.

Through the wire fence she shouts,
“Do you want to play doubles?”

My soul gets into a rocket and fucks off.

“Sure,” I say.

She comes around to my side of the court
with baffling confidence.

Gives me a look,
and I hand her the ball to serve.

Wednesdays

Of all the days of the week,
this one is the toughest.

Bread and butter sandwiches for school,
but for dinner some magic will happen.
Somehow.

The homework seems harder.
Surveillance seems higher.
He might be out of fags.

Stay out of the way.
Draw the least attention.

It’s the last push
before payday.

The wheels of the week
on the crest of the hill.

There is a misery mumbling away
like a dog circling its cage.

The simple things, worn thin.
Even the telly is shit.

Get through today unnoticed.

Tomorrow there’ll be corned beef and cartoons.

Tomorrow, we’ll be freewheelin’.

Welcome Home Week

The festival has arrived again.
Maid of The Isles.

The local paper issues a schedule of what’s on for the week.
Face painting in the town hall.
Three-legged races down in the park.
Road bowling out the Marsh Road.

Then there’s The Dome.
A marquee set up on the wastelands of town.

There is going to be music.
Thin Lizzy Tribute.
‘The Boys are Back In Town’
booming up the hill into our estate.

My parents have gone out tonight.
It’s a rare thing.

I’m sitting out on the step at midnight.
The music still going.
I wonder at the lights twinkling far below.
Everyone is there.

The telly in the kitchen, black and white.
About a fella who is trapped in an old town or something.

I wake up to the test signal.
The door handle squeaks.
I rush to the hall.

My mother passes in her cream coat,
carrying the scent of nighttime.

Her hands are gloriously cool to touch.
She looks happy, refreshed.
She gives me a Moro bar.

I sit on the sofa, chewing,
staring at the RTÉ test signal.

Tobacco

It’s Tuesday night.
The telly has gone quiet.
There’s a hush in the house.
You can almost hear him thinking.

After a week off the smokes,
ranting like a dog,
he finally caves in.

I’m summoned to the sitting room,
handed a fiver.

Go down to the shop.

Old Holborn, liquorice papers, box of matches.
Take 10p each for yourselves.

Fuck yeah.

Me and my brothers
step out into the cool night,
zoom down the hill in flight formation,
imagining we’re motorbikes or aeroplanes.

The town is still,
just the traffic light blinking like a dope.

The only shop open is Stingy Mag’s.
She never looks at you, just the money.
10p bag of sweets.

Skipping back through town like we own the place,
armed with a fresh pack of tobacco,
whooping past shop windows,
waving a peace treaty.

Eggshells

Boiled eggs for breakfast,
shells scattered on the table
like casualties.

Salt and pepper
hiding in the grain of the wood.

Junior Cert exam soon,
English Paper 1.

Something is different.

My father’s rants seem sharper lately.
Not the big rant, then calm,
just one attack after the next,
the reasons fading
until they disappear altogether.

His voice sounds weird,
there’s a yelp to it
in the teapot’s reflection.

He lurches around the kitchen.

Something is going to break.
Something’s in the air
like burning toast.

I know Kavanagh's poem will come up today:

“Oh, can I stroke the monsters back?”

Or some shite. I don’t care.

I better get going.
I’ll be back for lunch.