I Dreamed Again Of Dublin With Brendan Behan
Without Prejudice
I dreamed of Dublin, again, last night. The city like a lover caressing at my skin. The Liffey flowing with the Jars of Guiness and the banter. The heavy drinking and the noisy streets. The beggars in rags and the children smiling. And all around me was the cold and the dampness of the Liffey. Locked doors that say poverty and the futility and loneliness of being a foreigner in a strange land.
The door slamming emptiness, the deserted parks of green and cold. The shortest and longest Pubs in the world, no longer for the dreamer to venture into. All about the tourist and tourist dollars, not wanted, but greedily snatched. The overpriced drinks and food. The beauty of County Wicklow, the history, the cemetries and the lake. We could have been in Canada or North America, happy trails of trailling after you and sometimes hand in hand.
The attic with is window on the back yards and the shushing loo, no barrier to the room when we had to sit. No Privacy, just cold up there, cold as britlle as glass that could be shattered and swept up. The desperate urgings of the body mixed with the cold and the warm breath that comes out of your body, tainted with beer and second hand cigarette smoke. Mine. Not yours, not ever yours.
The mumblings in sleep, the restless legs and my desire to be home, just home. Back to Australia and out of this foreign and hard country, where they take no prioners but their own. Not mine, not my home of warmth and sun and happy smiling faces. Not distrust. Not tradition seeped in ignorance and "jars". The oh so clever banter that means shite in the end.
I long for home, like an illness and rouse you early and demand you get me there. Home to safety and family and not linger in this strange cold wet barren crowdedness. Home, it sings within me and urges me on,. Hurry to home. You are hungover like a dejected Wimston Churchill. You cannot make me desire this place like you once did. Its strange and too small and has lavvies that run off the kitchens.
I want my house and my home and you can't give them to me. You're kind and I am grateful for that, you understand my longing for safety and warmth. But you are sad when all you were last night was cruel and exhausting. Abondoning me in the worst part of this grey city with it's rats of both human and animal variety. Told me not to follow, lost as I was and lost as you were to the call of "The Goo". I waited two hours in the freezing bitter cold to get home, legs uncovered and head unbowed.
You loved me then when you found me safe at last tucked up in the slightly damp from cold bed, narrow, no room for two. You wished me stay and I cried and said no. You wished me rise to your burgeoning passion and I said. No. I turned my face and sobbed, and you asked what was wrong. And you had no clue, no idea what it would be like to be abandoned in a cold and lonely city half way around the other side of the world. With no where to turn.
I loved you up until then, but no more after. I'm sorry for the turning away but I have "Others", you see, or you don't see. Never having "Others" to worry about or love or long for but I do. I do. They wait for me back at home with arms outstretched, smiles om their faces, they long for me as I long for them and you never understood that. They were here before you, part of me, are me, little chips of my DNA buried within. They call to me as you do not and I drag you on the bus, hungover and weary, to get me to home.
I am dry eyed when we part, and you are not. I am dry eyed and long to be home, if I could beam myself there in a second I'd be there. Not to have to negotiate another foreign airport or foreign face or foreign food lump. Pink and shapeless and costing far too much. I don't care for the smells or the strangeness, the sadness and emptiness of foreign airport caverns full of dead eyed people making the same tiring journey I am.
You stay behind with Brendan Behan and The Liffey, the Church in Mass and the bars in rowdiness, florid and shouting. Alcoholism drowning you out and coming up out of your mouth like vomit.
I don't see you in my dreams anymore, don't feel you near. But last night after 10 years or so I dream of Dublin again and wake with a start.
Love Janette
I dreamed of Dublin, again, last night. The city like a lover caressing at my skin. The Liffey flowing with the Jars of Guiness and the banter. The heavy drinking and the noisy streets. The beggars in rags and the children smiling. And all around me was the cold and the dampness of the Liffey. Locked doors that say poverty and the futility and loneliness of being a foreigner in a strange land.
The door slamming emptiness, the deserted parks of green and cold. The shortest and longest Pubs in the world, no longer for the dreamer to venture into. All about the tourist and tourist dollars, not wanted, but greedily snatched. The overpriced drinks and food. The beauty of County Wicklow, the history, the cemetries and the lake. We could have been in Canada or North America, happy trails of trailling after you and sometimes hand in hand.
The attic with is window on the back yards and the shushing loo, no barrier to the room when we had to sit. No Privacy, just cold up there, cold as britlle as glass that could be shattered and swept up. The desperate urgings of the body mixed with the cold and the warm breath that comes out of your body, tainted with beer and second hand cigarette smoke. Mine. Not yours, not ever yours.
The mumblings in sleep, the restless legs and my desire to be home, just home. Back to Australia and out of this foreign and hard country, where they take no prioners but their own. Not mine, not my home of warmth and sun and happy smiling faces. Not distrust. Not tradition seeped in ignorance and "jars". The oh so clever banter that means shite in the end.
I long for home, like an illness and rouse you early and demand you get me there. Home to safety and family and not linger in this strange cold wet barren crowdedness. Home, it sings within me and urges me on,. Hurry to home. You are hungover like a dejected Wimston Churchill. You cannot make me desire this place like you once did. Its strange and too small and has lavvies that run off the kitchens.
I want my house and my home and you can't give them to me. You're kind and I am grateful for that, you understand my longing for safety and warmth. But you are sad when all you were last night was cruel and exhausting. Abondoning me in the worst part of this grey city with it's rats of both human and animal variety. Told me not to follow, lost as I was and lost as you were to the call of "The Goo". I waited two hours in the freezing bitter cold to get home, legs uncovered and head unbowed.
You loved me then when you found me safe at last tucked up in the slightly damp from cold bed, narrow, no room for two. You wished me stay and I cried and said no. You wished me rise to your burgeoning passion and I said. No. I turned my face and sobbed, and you asked what was wrong. And you had no clue, no idea what it would be like to be abandoned in a cold and lonely city half way around the other side of the world. With no where to turn.
I loved you up until then, but no more after. I'm sorry for the turning away but I have "Others", you see, or you don't see. Never having "Others" to worry about or love or long for but I do. I do. They wait for me back at home with arms outstretched, smiles om their faces, they long for me as I long for them and you never understood that. They were here before you, part of me, are me, little chips of my DNA buried within. They call to me as you do not and I drag you on the bus, hungover and weary, to get me to home.
I am dry eyed when we part, and you are not. I am dry eyed and long to be home, if I could beam myself there in a second I'd be there. Not to have to negotiate another foreign airport or foreign face or foreign food lump. Pink and shapeless and costing far too much. I don't care for the smells or the strangeness, the sadness and emptiness of foreign airport caverns full of dead eyed people making the same tiring journey I am.
You stay behind with Brendan Behan and The Liffey, the Church in Mass and the bars in rowdiness, florid and shouting. Alcoholism drowning you out and coming up out of your mouth like vomit.
I don't see you in my dreams anymore, don't feel you near. But last night after 10 years or so I dream of Dublin again and wake with a start.
Love Janette
