Hard Times
Courtesy of Thurles Author & Poet Tom Ryan ©
One time in a dispensary queue,
On a wet and dismal day, long, long ago,
The ould wan flicked her sodden shawl,
Defying her cares and convention.
For sickness and hardship will down you right enough
Without the resistance.
“The Hard”, she winked,“with his cutting and cajolery
And his blasphemous and godblasted piety,
Is not in the queue today,
For his bottle of porter
To ease the consumption.”
The queue now murmured, nodded, coughed and wheezed
For they loved like their own “The Hard”,
Who could lift a heart at a funeral,
With the laughs and wild, wild ways of him,
To make you young again.
But when the doctor on another sodden day
Queried “The Hard” on his absence,
(For doctors, too, a diversion love.)
The Hard declared, “Oh,doctor, now,
Sure how could I come at all
And I not well for the ages.”
END
Tom Ryan, “Iona”, Rahealty, Thurles, Co. Tipperary
A nice one Tom