I stole my father's coin collection, florins, and two bob bits he never

gave me pocket money. I loved to hate him, and vice versa, called me 

a filthy rat. My sister nicknamed me regal head like a punk without a fag. 

He left me for eight hours a day without a pick. I shared dog food 

with Mutttley my friend killed on Blaney road.

That was life in a cottage full of gunrunning across the border. 

One day he asked me to prime bomb, I looked him up and down

days later, Narrow water exploded. Haystacks were my British soldiers 

to me I was on a war game mission, on the run like him, the jack of a car

Was my toy gun. I don’t know where these memories are coming from.

I keep trying to run from these images but they are etched in my mind.

These words are like a full metal jacket reloading the jack of a car, spent-

Shell syllables litter-ra-ture my waste ground. The girl in picture is dead, 

now suicide Stephanie my sister. The lady in red, I heard on a black n white

TV that picked up police messages. I heard on an A.P.B. an all-points bulletin

that she was carrying the Armalite that killed the British soldier, maybe she

couldn't live with herself, we will never know. My mind is steeped in this

imagery and I can't get away, I have to reload, bullet-ridden syllables, writ

and splutter out of me.