1. An Irish Boulevardier Begins to Pencil in his Living Will

My generation wore red platform shoes,
and they are still dancing clickety clack
like a pair of wind-up dentures
all along the length of Matt Molloy’s bar.

I am not a godless man.
The Peacock Eyes of God want to see everything for themselves
and I’ll be damned if I didn’t oblige Him
with a pair of sly peepers.

I was raised a Goody Two-shoes,
bursting with celibacy like an overfilled bladder,
but I know God found the feedback dull,
wall to wall prayers and the eyes tight shut.
I know, because very soon He sent me
Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll.

Now I’m a One-eyed Jack
and although I’m going deaf
I am still able to hear the quacking of the doctors in the hospital pen
wondering why I’m not dead yet.

So for today
I think I’ll glug a bottle of brännvin
and drop my pants and dance
bare as a scarecrow,
still flickering like an old candle but not out,
in front of your welcome fire of birch logs.
And as a newt pixilated,
I’ll burrow under the feathers and tell you about 1965
and how I have preserved it to this day in a small glass bottle.