' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' Rum & Red Bull(Being A Day After Her Birthday Poem) Poem by Dónall Dempsey

Out of our skull
on Rum & Red Bull

we play football
with a grinning

plastic skull
(retrieved from a skip)

using the Momento Mori
for a drunken kickabout.

You dribble
& drool it.

You shoot
I save it

tipping it over
an imaginary crossbar.


Spectacular!

I bathe
in an imaginary roar.

I clutch
the skull

to my chest
begin to spout:

'Toby
(or not)
Toby

... that is the jug! '

'Oi...! ' you shout
'Me Lord Hamlet

...over here
on de head! '

I dropp kick
the skull

(grinning still)

in your general
direction.

I can see
two of you

& don't know who
to pass it too.

You rise
beautifully to

the occasion

losing a stiletto
in the process

your body arched
like a sublime salmon

jumping
upstream

you head the skull home
past my groping outstretched fingertips

'GOALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLGOALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL! '
you scream

your blouse
over your head

in exultant
celebration.

A 'Now then...now then' police man
confiscates our skull.

Tells us
to bugger off.

'Awwww Ref! '
we argue but

he ain't
having any of it.

Hanging on
to each other

you ululating.

We stagger
down the street

look back
to see

P.C. Plod

miskick the skull
through someone's sleeping

window
crashtinkletinkle.

We wonder if
he'll have to

arrest
himself.

We scarper
in case he tries

to blame it
on innocent us.