by
( Roddy McCorley was born and reared in Arnon Street, Carrick Hill, Belfast.
He was badly injured in the UVF bombing of Mc Gurk's Bar 4th Dec 1971.
His right leg was amputated. He spent the next 17 years drifting between the
Carrick House and Morning Star hostels before dying in late 1988. )
* * *
“Give us a fag” –
the ragged dexter twitches to life
At the sound of my feet
on the city street ;
The
scarecrow-tattered bag of bones
Hangs from a crutch
and slumps on a leg
At a corner of
Whilst his
pendulous trouser swings, unused ,
In the
But I mind’s-eye
his other days
When, curly-haired
and bright-eyed buck ,
He kicked a ball
mid debris where
Those other bombs
from other wars
Had amputated
terraced streets
To fashion us a
playing-pitch .
I knew him –
laughing, larking, lusting life ,
Still whole, before
his dream was beggared
By the
bigot-bomber’s searing knife …
And now, he
flotsams on life’s tide
From “Carrick”
night to Morning Star ,
And chloroforms
away the day
In dark shebeen or
gutter bar ,
To keep at bay what
might have been .
“Give us a fag” –
the ragged dexter twitches me back ;
I light one up and
find his mouth ,
And wedge the cork
between his lips
Against a flow of
slobbered thanks ,
And feel his
pleasured, painful sips
As lungs drink down
the nicotine …
Nearby, a chapel
spire intones
A bell-tune to the
dying day ,
And stirs my heart
and mind to home ;
I turn my face and
walk away …
But up the road as
I pass
With statued Christ
on statued cross ,
I see the man I
left back there ,
His body nailed to
a metal crutch
And crucified … in