P.F. O’Donohue: ‘Bloomsday’

Bloomsday

Walking Adelaide’s mile on a peg-leg,
I siphon a silky black Guinness keg,
waiting on news at the Brecknock,
waiting for the views of ghostly Beckett.

Joyce, a toast to prodigiousness—
to you, to Nora, to Molly, to YES.
Here’s to Dublin’s drinks-on-me,
here’s to women, sex and mystery.
Here’s to wild words well spun,
to the Liffey and all those riverrun.
Here’s to ondts, quarks and wakes,
to finnegans and earthquakes,
to beauties by the snot-green sea,
to Erin—once was, is, will be.
Here’s to wine and a willing Colleen,
to Eccles Street and Stephens Green.
Here’s to thunderwords and breath,
to the immensities of life and death.
Here’s to the sail of Odyssean quests,
here’s to thighs and perfumed breasts.
Here’s to Zurich’s lions that roar out
over your grave in an exile’s redoubt.

P.F. O’Donohue