Gabriel Fitzmaurice: Three Poems

“Save the Last Dance for Me”

Ballybunion. Summer nights.

We danced ourselves away

To simple, sentimental songs

Soh, soh, fah, mi, ray.

 

We danced, we loved, we parted,

What more can I say?

We met with other lovers,

Just kids, we had our day.

 

We met with other lovers

By that fantastic shore,

We loved and left, we left and loved

In search of more and more.

 

Then came a love too big for us,

Youngsters dancing slow,

We were too young to handle it—

It broke us. Christ! the blow;

It drove us to the underworld,

We had nowhere else to go.

 

And always when I hear those songs,

It brings me to that time,

Ballybunion, summer nights—

It took me years to climb

 

Out of a love that haunted me

All those years ago,

That first big love that left us

Neither friend nor foe.

 

Farewell, my love, the time has come,

The time for letting go,

Farewell, my love, I end our song

Soh, fah, mi, ray, doh.

Gabriel Fitzmaurice

 

Clown

I’m a clown, children kick me,

They see it as part of the fun,

They don’t see a clown as a person,

They kick me and quickly they run

Back to the safety of ringside

Where a clown-person’s hurt may not go,

The man is through with the circus.

The clown gets on with the show.

Gabriel Fitzmaurice

 

 

The Deserted Village

Rural Ireland’s dead and gone,

The outlook here is stark,

The place deserted as Moyvane,

A village that once sparked

Electric in its industry,

Its pubs are closing down

Which lately rang with jollity,

Its shops too, and the sound

Of farmers at the creamery

Every morning will be soon

Nothing but a memory;

Houses in a ruin,

Their families in exile,

Spoil the Tidy Town,

Paint and varnish flaking while

Their lawns are overgrown.

No guards in rural Ireland,

No priest in every church,

No youth now to work the land,

Useless to search

For comely lads and lassies

Dancing at crossroads,

We’re in a state of chassis

And children and the old

Are all that’s left in Moyvane,

The place has lost its spark,

Rural Ireland’s dead and gone

Abandoned to the dark.

Gabriel Fitzmaurice