It thrills me to think that Falstaff, too,
May have slept one off here. English beer
Is not for sissies, London drinking habits of the
very rich
And derelict. But I’m happy to think
that Falstaff
Might be my pillow on this balding, balmy,
sunlit, rotten day.
I say “rotten”; of course, personally, I couldn’t
be more ecstatic,
Though it’s true that the city (all cities) have
a way of
Burying themselves. Successive layers,
demon-sifted, stratified:
There’s a world of
Concepts to go absolutely bonkers with.
I could shape this
Into a sonnet, if I tried. Really, I could.
Isn’t that
The implication of free verse?
That we work smarter,
When the fact is we just work less?
Let Falstaff be my pillow,
Then, ninth ring of soily hell beneath me.
There is a way,
In English literary
History,
for James Joyce to have been Gogarty’s friend.
As I
Lay down on St. James Green.
