Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Knights of the Green Brigade

There she was. Surfing the horizon. Going down - causing the skies on the east coast of Ireland to ponder colour. Cruising I was, a commercial success - implanted hair flying everywhere. Doing 35. An old Bentley. Soft-Top. Down. Sitting six inches from the road.
   I'd picked her up cheap. At an auction. Down at the Sheriff's yard. Some poor fool. Gone under. Took a dive. Felt the fall. Left the car. Absurd!
   It was one of those days that you dream of. When it all goes right. The smouldering voice that came through the stereo system. Marilyn Monroe's - on a sultry evening. Soon after the tequila ran dry.
   'Ireland is free,' she whispers, loud enough for the island to hear. 'Happy Birthday.' In that Galway brogue of hers. From the speakers. In the boot. The big ones.  The sea hissing as it rolls in her background. Perched there high in her home in the hill-tops. Where Wales can seen. On a clear day. If you're deluded!
   Frédéric François Chopin ringing out from opened floor-to-ceiling bay windows as old fogies play lawn bowls and drink gin with gusto. Lamenting at little, aside the can-swilling, football fanatic, closet Rhianna fan - rendered the twenty stone beast she was - and him - by unemployment. But, no more!
   Ireland had rid herself of her ills. Unanimously. To the very citizen. In a vote. A Refer-Enda, A New Politic.  A little off-center, pursuing a right-wing agenda with left-leaning goals.
   Enda had grown a pair - fed up with nightmares about his legacy - the nonce portrayed by irate bloggers who he'd see would soon the Atlantic mist. Up-close and personal. Tied to a rock. Riding waves.
   The people had chosen. To go back. Back. To '72. That New Year's Eve. Where flares swung wild and wide and socks multitask-ed. That last day when Ireland was truly Ireland.
   Now Kenny would lead. Doherty assisting. Higgins over-seeing. Adams defense. Cowen taking coats at NAMA's - Ireland's answer to Disney World.
   Phil Hogan sent to the islands. Howlin & Gilmore too.
   As our 'friendly foes' threaten nuclear options, with Enda the country stood. Doherty whispering in his ear. Higgins listening. Adams egging them on.  Hogan, since pardoned, playing fiddle and singing of the rising of 2016.  
   'Go ahead...' Enda urged them - a firm quiet tone. A menace in his eye.
   'Press it,' he dared.
   Irish brows rose. And with them returning smiles. Like the ones in the Summer of 2012 - when the boys in green took Europe home.
   'You go, Enda boy,' says a hopeless bass player.  Locked in his black bedroom - caged there by himself. Streaming. YouTube. Happy.

'What about the deficit?' a lone wolf did cry. Bearded to a peak. Siding down. White shirt. Dressed in Hemp. Friendly sort.
   With it Hogan rises. To boos. And eggs. An army boot. A sod of turf. Not sure if I imagined the Septic tank or not. 'Big' Phil accepts them all. With a grace. For social sins.
   'With this pen - I declare no deficit,' he mantra's - stroking it away as the important watch on. The masses roar. In their scattered millions. Across land. Across sea. Across the world. Jedward told to hit the cruise liner circuit. Off Dubai. Dublin Housewives and Fair City are HBO hit.
   'How can you do that?' asked the wolf. The masses shush. Still. The ghosts of all that had passed through her land go through not one - but all. East to west. North to south. Young and old.
   'With free enterprise and social motivation - the likes of which have never been seen before,' he roars - a fist aimed northward to an eager masses. 'Skulduggery. Shenanigans. Sharks. 'Tis what we're famous for? Let's use it. For all its worth.'
   And Ireland did. With Hogan's call they rounded - but not on him. Not on each other. Not on your Nelly!
   The wolf got Propaganda.
  
Renowned minds were sought and bought with the best NAMA could provide for them. Oil men. Thinkers. Investors. Scientific and environmental heavy-weights. Social reprobates. Danish filmmakers. Lady Scandinavian CEO's. Social dictators.
   The tiny island formerly known as Iremany took her name back. She thrived. Prospered. She even paid it all back. Unsecured bondholders and all. Even Bertie and Brian's pension. Fuck, it even stopped raining in the summer.
   It did take time - but what's time in an expanding, infinite universe anyway. There were squabblers at first. Arts Minister, Dan Boyle suggested that was what smaller western and northern islands were for. The Greens were back. They'd not falter again.
   There the squabblers were free to fight - with each other - mandatory bare knuckle rules applied. Pitch fork or Scythe on a Sunday. Till they tire and roam the icy Atlantic rock filled lands that sometimes glisten like from another world. For a few days a year.
    When reflection peaked, they were welcomed back. To trade like mongrel dogs in a capitalist market with one sole aim. Too take it over. Then take it down. Like those who had did Ireland before. Back in the bad old days. When the gutter grime of grey Dublin buildings remained there. For all to see.

 The Noble lost ground to The Higgins Prize as the years they did slid on by. The dynamite fell silent and with it the prize money. The nukes followed soon after. Sent towards the sun. As if it weren't bright enough.
   They all wanted 'The Higgins.' Coveted it was. Even more than Kim Kardasian. More than oil itself.  Putin, Romney, (Congrats, btw), Palin, Bill O' Reilly - even the new Pope.  Bono - 1. 
   They would do anything to be considered for it. Merkel hosted a Dad's Army fancy-dress night on the net. She poll-danced. With Lucinda and Simon. On RTé.
   They all wanted to be bestowed - A Knight of the Green Brigade. The most successful army in the world. Never had fired a bullet. Since that day. When Enda ordered them out. 

Of course, all that nonsense lies way off in the mind of a young Ming Flanagan or off in one of those multi-verses Hugh Everett found his fame for. 
   For Ireland was not to be so nonsensical. Voters of the day decided to go with Europe - for better, that may yet turn too worse. The people spoke and despite very conspiratorial theories flying around the place - it's in the beefy bosom of the ESM, we place our future in.
   Except the beef is going-off. Stinking of austerity. Ireland has accepted her fall and will now pay the price with her assets, economic sovereignty and wave after wave of austere measures aimed at reducing a fiscal deficit that can only mean one thing. A stiff one. Yearly. For many to come.
    That Hendrix kid in his room. Unhappy now. Defeated.
  
   'You a real dancing queen?' Gustav muttered to my annoyances as he stepped in from the downpour outside to deliver the 'greatest news.' It has barely stopped since Friday. I'd offer an analogy for it, one that could drown in that vast sea of words, but...
    Interview Thursday. Twelve bells.
   'Wear a suit,' he offered in kind. I don't have one.
   'Sure will,' I beamed - falsely. It should have felt like a lotto scoop but it was more an old Christy Moore ballad involving the colour black. For that is the colour - as Europe threatens to go wallop unless austerity demands are met. And even then it don't look too Miami beach on a hazy July day, does it?
   'I have good feeling you get job,' he said - before telling me he was sitting his English Leaving Cert exam this week. Been studying, our Gus. In the evenings.
   'A grade would be of much pride,' he said, a lisp of achievement breaking through into his voice. 'Maybe next year I do Irish.'
   I felt like telling him he's be better served doing German or French - there was probably more opportunity in those language. I didn't. I just wanted rid. I got what I wanted.
   "Break your leg on Thursday,' he said, scooting off to do the night shift.
    Certain things bring up other things. Can be too easy to get lost there sometimes. In those other things that revolve around us in daily life.
   Ireland can't change things now. It's done. Hard to figure at the best of times. People do speak in the strangest of ways sometimes.
Still, I hope he gets his grade. A great one. Good luck to him/them.

As Ireland now begins the transition in order to meet this unachievable deficit reduction bound by these draconian terms, she also takes a firm back seat in World affairs. It was left to 955,091 people from a population of 3.1 million entitled voters to set us on this new course. How many of that number felt they had absolutely no other choice? We'll never know.
   The campaign was dirty - fear led - devoid of the leadership that may see Ireland through. The 'No' side failed by not offering solutions to the deficit - or should I say, by not being willing to saying it.
   For mention of cuts and tax-hikes and service depletion are not vote grabbers in any political language or arena. But yet, they now form the basis with which we limp forth. Or backward - depending on your viewpoint. For they're all coming. We accepted it - so no cop out to ill-governance anymore.
   The number gap between the populous entitled to vote and those that voted for the fiscal treaty, probably says more about the sad state of Irish democracy than any of the leaders that have served us ill throughout the course of our history. Be they here or otherwise.

'Let it go.'
  Like a whisper it was - if it was there at all. Leon - way off out there in the mechanic mashes of all that exists blind to us. Beneath the surface. Fizzing, looping, shooting spectra of almost nothings, whirling about, directionless, playing quantum hide and seek, in realms, forming all, beyond most compressions.
   'Twas like the old beggar was back here for a nano-second. Saying that's there's more at play right now in the world than the troubles of a little green island in economic and social strife.
   What's a whisper, anyway? Between friends. Perhaps the whisper was right. In fact, it is right. There is.

A whole lot more.










No comments:

Post a Comment