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This program is sponsored by Bounce Back Recycling. It's about getting rid of old furniture and mattresses in an affordable and sustainable way. The show, called West Wind Blows, is hosted by Kathleen Faherty and produced by Brady Cashen. The program starts with a poem by Paul Durkan called Father's Day, which has dark humor. It's about a man asked by his wife to bring an axe on the train to her sister in Cork. The man feels guilty leaving his wife and realizes his marriage is falling apart. The program also includes readings of other poems and a recording of Brian reading his own work. Overall, it's a mix of poetry, song, and storytelling. This program is kindly sponsored by Bounce Back Recycling. Say goodbye to your old furniture and mattress in an affordable, convenient and sustainable way. Call 091-760-877. Hello again and welcome to the West Wind Blows, a weekly program of poetry, song and story. My name is Kathleen Faherty and Brady Cashen is producer and technician for the program. We'll begin the program this week with a poem by Paul Durkan, Father's Day, the 21st of June. This poem is typical of Durkan's dark humour. On the surface it's entertaining. It can seem hilariously funny. His wife asked him to bring a four and a half foot axe down in the train to her sister in Cork because she needed it to chop down her buddleia tree. His fellow passenger in the train is staring at the axe and immediately moves to a different compartment. We can imagine him thinking that he's sharing the compartment with a potential murderer. But beneath the surface humour lies something very serious and it's this. It's Father's Day. It should be a day of family togetherness. But the poet is heading down to Cork and his wife is delighted to be getting rid of him for a few weeks. His daughters have grown up and gone away so beneath the surface humour lies the sadness of loneliness and isolation and the realisation that his marriage is drifting into breakdown. Ian Hogan will read Father's Day, 21st of June. This poem is entitled Father's Day, 21st of June, 1992 and it's by Paul Durkan. Just as I was dashing to catch the Dublin Cork train, dashing up and down the stairs searching my pockets, she told me that her sister in Cork wanted a loan of an axe. It was late June and the buddleia tree in the backyard had grown out of control. The taxi was ticking over outside in the street, all the neighbours noticing it. You mean that you want me to bring her down the axe? Yes, if you wouldn't mind, that is. A simple saw would do the job, surely, to God. She could borrow a simple saw. She said that she'd like the axe. OK. There are the blue cabs ticking over outside and the whole world inspecting it. I'll bring her down the axe. The axe, all four and a half feet of it, was leaning up against the wall beside the city, the fold-up city that doubled as a bed. She handed the axe to me, just as it was, as neat as a new-born babe, all in the bare buff. You'd think she'd have swaddled it up in something if not a blanket and old newspaper, but no, not even a token hanky, tied in a bow around its head. I decided not to argue the toss. I kissed her goodbye. The whole way down to Cork I felt uneasy, guilt feelings. It's a killer, this guilt. I've always had. I always feel bad leaving her, but this time it was the worst. I could see that she was glad to see me go away for a while, glad of the prospect of being two weeks on her own, two weeks of having the bed to herself, two weeks of not having to be pestered by my coarse advances, two weeks of not having to look up from her plate and behold me eating spaghetti with knife and fork. Our daughters are all grown up and gone away. Once, when she was sitting pregnant on the settee, it snapped shut with her inside it. But not a bother on her. I nearly died. As the train slowed down, approaching Port Arlington, I overheard myself say to the passenger sitting beside me, I'm feeling guilty because she does not love me as much as she used to. Can you explain that? The passenger's eyes were on the axe and the seat beside me. Her sister wants a loan of an axe. As the train threaded itself into Port Arlington, I nodded to the passenger, cool and puderal. The passenger stood up, lifted down a case from the rack, walked out of the coach, but did not get off the train. For the remainder of the journey, we sat alone, the axe and I, all the green fields running away from us, all our daughters grown up and gone away. Flats and vats and rooms and heading for the trains, feeling nearly faded as my jeans. Bobby thought the diesel died just before it rained. Took us nearly all the way to New Orleans. I took my hot burn out of my dirty red bandana. I was playing sad while Bobby sang the blues. Well, then when she was laughing time and Bobby clapping hands, we finally sang every song that driver knew. Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. Nothing ain't worth nothing but it's free. Feeling good was easy, Lord, when Bobby sang the blues. Feeling good was good enough for me. Good enough for me and Bobby McGee. From the coal mines of Kentucky to the California sun, Bobby shared the secrets of my soul. Standing right beside me, Lord, do everything I've done. Every night she'd keep me from the cold. Somewhere near Salinas, Lord, Bobby slipped away. Looking for the home I hoped he'd find. I'd trade all of my tomorrows for just one yesterday. Holding Bobby's body close to mine. Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. Nothing ain't worth nothing but it's free. Feeling good was easy, Lord, when Bobby sang the blues. Feeling good was good enough for me. Good enough for me and Bobby McGee. Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. Nothing ain't worth nothing but it's free. Feeling good was easy, Lord, when Bobby sang the blues. Feeling good was good enough for me. Good enough for me and Bobby McGee. Feeling good was good enough for me. Good enough for me and Bobby McGee. Good enough for me and Bobby McGee. Good enough for me and Bobby McGee. Good enough for me and Bobby McGee. Good enough for me and Bobby McGee. Good enough for me and Bobby McGee. Good enough for me and Bobby McGee. Good enough for me and Bobby McGee. He has published the best-selling memoir The Home Place, the short story collection Departures, and the novel Death and Plenty. He won the RTE Radio 1 Francis McManus Award back in 1988 for The Last Mining Village. This is a recording of Brian himself reading The First Garden. The First Garden The garden where my father worked was called The Plot. The Plot provided his employers with fresh fruit and vegetables, and the surplus fed his family. It was not far from the bungalow where we lived, and it was a treat to be allowed to visit The Plot. To keep out pests, a chain-link fence surrounded The Plot. This fence seemed enormously high to me, and whenever I stepped through the gate into the maintained atmosphere of The Plot, I felt the air on one side of the fence as different to the air on the other side. A boundary beyond which the ordinary world stopped and inklings of pure mystery began. The Plot bordered the Arigna River, and my father often brought a fishing rod to work. If he saw a curl on the water, or the ripple of a trout rising at the turn-hole below the bridge, he would put down his garden tools, pick up his rod, and delicately cast a fly, to play a whim, to tease a fish, and to bring home a trout for the evening tea. Beside The Plot stood a yard with old rolling-stock left behind after the narrow-gauge railway line into the valley shut down. As I got older, I converted one of the timber-frame carriages into a playhouse. One summer I began to hear a strange scratching sound. I couldn't place the noise until my father found a source wasps, chewing the timber-sides of the wooden carriage with their strong mandibles to make paper for their nests. It enthralled me to hear my father use words like mandible, pulp, and regurgitate, and it gave him pleasure to improve my grasp of the natural world, pointing to the predatory weevils in the clay and the colouring-book-bright ladybirds on the leaves. As I grew older, he would explain the difference between onion sets and shallots, and the distinction between hardy annuals and perennials. He gave me an additional language of antique garden-weights and measures. The linear inch, foot, and yard, the surveyor's link, pole, perch, chain, and rod, the troy, grain, and pennyweight, the avoir-du-pois, ounce, pound, and hundredweight, the liquid gill, pint, quart, and gallon— a beautiful, granary-rich language that perfectly fitted parcels of turned earth, palmfuls of dry seeds and wheat grains. And he spoke of further garden vocabulary, as moist and yielding on the tongue as bruised fruit, words like tuber, tendril, succulent, legume, and loam, supple and pleasing descriptions that harmonized with my feelings for the natural world. My father promoted my education, telling me it was a passport out of hardship. But I was still at an age where learning relied on the impact of experience on my immediate senses, and one of my earliest visits to the plot stood out from all the rest. On that day, my father had taken me by the hand and drew the gate into the plot, across the chain-link boundary into the territory of wonder. Together we walked between the raised beds and the planted drills, the neat lines of plants so evidently in his care. Bright summer sunlight scattered through the leaves, and only the passing butterflies disturbed the still air. The luscious calm concentrated the undersong of the garden. From the kingfisher, cheeping along the riverbank, to the scraping of the grasshoppers in the undergrowth. My father hunkered down next to me, and we started to pick garden peas, the first flush, enough for an early dinner. Following his example, I reached into the cool greenery and plucked and popped a tender pod open. I scooped the juicy peas out and ate from the palm of my hand. My God, the sweetness, the flavour, the perfect delight of that moment in the garden, where my father had a measure and a name for every plant and creature, where he laboured each day to transform fallow clay into cultivated ground. The tears have all been shed now, we've said our last goodbyes. His soul's been blessed, he's laid to rest, and as of now, I feel alone. He was more than just my father, my teacher, my best friend, and he'll still be heard in the tunes we shared when I play them on my own. And I never will forget him, for he made me what I am, and though he may be gone, memories linger on, and I miss him day of mine. As a boy, he'd take me walking by mountain, field and stream, and he'd show me things not known to kings, but secret between him and me, like the colours on a pheasant that he'd ride with me in the dawn, or how to fish, or make a wish beside a fairy tree. And I never will forget him, for he made me what I am, and though he may be gone, memories linger on, and I miss him day of mine. I thought he'd live forever, he seemed so big and strong, but the minutes fly, and the years roll by, for a father and a son, and suddenly, when it happened, there was so much left unsaid, no second chance to tell him thanks for everything he'd done. And I never will forget him, for he made me what I am, and though he may be gone, memories linger on. God, I miss him, the old man. God, I miss him, the old man. And that was Phil Coulter with The Old Man Percy French graduated from Trinity College Dublin as an engineer and worked for seven years in Cavan as the inspector of drains. During that time he wrote numerous songs and painted, which he considered his true talent. In 1891 French's wife died and he was jobless. He toured the country on his bicycle with a box of paints, painting and performing. He developed a one-man show where he sang the songs he composed. Then in 1891 he began a partnership with Houston Collison. Thereafter Collison wrote much of the music for the operas they produced, including The Irish Girl. At the age of 50 French moved to London and performed on stage until his death in 1920. This Percy French poem is called Before Farley's and it's read by John Craven. In a small hotel in London I was sitting down to dine when the waiter brought the register and asked me if I'd signed. And as I signed I saw a name that set my heart astir, a certain Francis Farley had signed the register. I knew a lot of Farleys and out of all the crew I kept on sort of wondering which Farley were you. And when I finished dinner I sat back in my chair going round my native land to find which Farley you were. Were you the keen-eyed carryman I met below Kinmare who told me that when Ireland fought the odds were never fair? If Cromwell had met Sarsfield or Owen Rowe O'Neill it's not to Mr Gladstone we'd be looking for a repeal. Would have Ireland for the Irish, not a Saxon to be seen and only Geeric spoken in that house in College Green. Told me landlords were the devil, their agents ten times worse and every sort of government for Ireland was a curse. Oh, if you're that Francis Farley, your dreams have not come true. Still slancha, slancha, Frenchie, for I like a man like you. Or were you the Francis Farley that often used to say he'd like to blow them peepishes from various walls away? The boy who used to bother me that Orange Lodge to join and thought that history started with the Battle of the Boyne. I was not all witchy Francis, the Pope is not my friend but I still hope poor man he'll die without that end. And when you're quit from care yourself and get the kingdom back it's no use teaching ye the harp, you'll play the orange drum. Ach man you were a fighter, of that I had no doubt for I seen you once in Belfast when the Antrim Road was out and many a time that evening I thought that ye were dead the way them peepish paving stones was hopping off your head. Oh, if you're that Francis Farley that came from North Tyrone here's looking to ye Francis, but leave the Pope alone. Or were you the Francis Farley that in my college days for strolling on the Kingstown Pier had such a curious craze? Do you mind them lovely sisters, the blonde and the brunette? I know I've not forgotten, and I don't think you forget. That picnic at the Dargal and the other at the Scalp how my heart was palpitating, hers wasn't, not a palp. Some one said to me that I'd never forget hers wasn't, not a palp. Some one said you married money, and maybe you were wise but the gold you loved was in her hair and the diamonds in her eyes. So I'd like to think you married her and that you're with her yet for some militia officer that married the brunette. But the blonde one always loved you, and I knew you loved her too so me blessing on you Francis, and the blue sky over you. Or were you the Francis Farley I met so long ago in the bog below Belmulleth in the county of Mayo? The long-legged, freckled Francis with the deep-set, wistful eyes that seemed to take their colour from the river-changing skies that put his flute together as I sketched the distant scene and played me Plankstay Kelly and the wakes of Inniskene that told me in the autumn he'd be sailing to the west to try and make his fortune and send money to the rest. And would I draw a picture of the place where he was born and he'd hang it up and look at it and not feel so forlorn. And when I had it finished, you got up from where you sat and you said you're the devil, and I can't say more than that. Oh, if you're that Francis Farley, your fortune may be small but I'm thinking, thinking Francis Farley. And I never can forget you, though it's years and years ago in the bog below Belmulleth in the county of Mayo. There's a moon over Ireland, comes in from the sea across the mountains and valleys where the river meets the sea. There's a moon over Ireland, comes in from the sea across the mountains and valleys where the river runs free. On the day of my childhood, oh, I've always known there's a moon over Ireland that shines on my home. Oh, go down the bumble road, come for a few chilarney and run away from the valley. And you won't be come time when you kiss the blarney. There's no fairer place you can be. I love you always, memory can tell me darling of mother and Mayo and Clare. They say it's a long, long way to see far away but that doesn't matter to me. There's a moon over Ireland, comes in from the sea across the mountains and valleys where the river runs free. From the day of my childhood, oh, I've always known there's a moon over Ireland that shines on my home. I miss the sun and the hills of Bruscombe the grief is forever in my memory. And I want to tell all my friends and my family in Fligo that I'm coming home. There's a moon over Ireland, comes in from the sea across the mountains and valleys where the river runs free. From the day of my childhood, oh, I've always known there's a moon over Ireland that shines on my home. There's a moon over Ireland that shines on my home. And that was Patrick Feeney with There's a Moon Over Ireland. William Somerset Maugham was an English playwright, novelist and short story writer. He was among the most popular writers of his era. He was born in Paris in 1874 and died in 1965. Both Maugham's parents died before he was 10 years old and the orphan boy was raised by a paternal uncle who was emotionally cold. He qualified as a doctor. His first novel, Lisa of Lambeth, 1897, sold out so rapidly that Maugham gave up medicine to write full time. During the First World War, he served with the Red Cross and in the Ambulance Corps, before being recruited in 1916 into the British Secret Intelligence Service. He worked for the service in Switzerland and Russia before the October Revolution of 1917. During and after the war, he travelled in India, Southeast Asia and the Pacific. He drew from these experiences in his later short stories and novels. Now, this Somerset Maugham story, Mr. Noel, is read by Pete Ball. I was prepared to dislike Max Collada, even before I knew him. The war had just finished and the passenger traffic in the ocean-going liners was heavy. Accommodation was very hard to get and you had to put up with whatever agents chose to offer you. You could not hope for a cabin to yourself and I was thankful to be given one in which there were only two berths. But when I was told the name of my companion, my heart sank. It suggested closed portholes and the night air rigidly excluded. It was bad enough to share a cabin for fourteen days with anyone. I was going from San Francisco to Yokohama. But I should have looked upon it with less dismay if my fellow passenger's name had been Smith or Brown. When I went on board, I found Mr. Collada's luggage already below. I did not like the look of it. There were too many labels on the suitcases and the wardrobe trunk was too big. He had unpacked his toilet things and I observed that he was a patron of the excellent Monsieur Cotty. I saw on the washing stand his scent, his hair wash, and his brilliantine. Mr. Collada's brushes, ebony with his monogram in gold, would have been all the better for a scrub. I did not at all like Mr. Collada. I made my way into the smoking-room. I called for a pack of cards and I began to play patience. I had scarcely started before a man came up to me and asked me if he was right in thinking my name was so-and-so. I am Mr. Collada, he added, with a smile that showed a row of flashing teeth, and sat down. Oh yes, we're sharing a cabin, I think. A bit of luck, I call it. You never know who you're going to be put in with. I was jolly glad when I heard that you were English. I'm all for us English sticking together when we're abroad, if you understand what I mean. I blinked. Are you English? I asked, perhaps tactlessly. Rather, you don't think I look like an American, do you? British to the backbone, that's what I am. To prove it, Mr. Collada took out of his pocket a passport and airily waved it under my nose. King George has many strange subjects. Mr. Collada was short and of a sturdy build, clean-shaven and dark-skinned, with a fleshy hooked nose and very large, lustrous and liquid eyes. His long black hair was sleek and curly. He spoke with a fluency in which there was nothing English, and his gestures were exuberant. I felt pretty sure that a closer inspection of that British passport would have betrayed the fact that Mr. Collada was born under a bluer sky than is generally seen in England. What will you have? he asked me. I looked at him doubtfully. Prohibition was in force, and to all appearances the ship was bone dry. When I'm not thirsty, I do not know which I dislike more, ginger ale or lemon squash. But Mr. Collada flashed an oriental smile at me. Whisky and soda or dry martini? You have only to say the word. From each of his hip pockets he fished a flask and laid it on the table before me. I chose the martini, and, calling the steward, he ordered a tumbler of ice and a couple of glasses. A very good cocktail, I said. Well, there are plenty more where that came from. And if you've got friends on board, you tell them you've got a pal who's got all the liquor in the world. Mr. Collada was chatty. He talked of New York and of San Francisco. He discussed plays, pictures and politics. He was patriotic. The Union Jack is an impressive piece of drapery, but when it's flourished by a gentleman from Alexandria or Beirut, I cannot but feel it loses somewhat in dignity. Mr. Collada was familiar. I do not wish to put on airs, but I cannot help feeling that it is seemly in a total stranger to put Mr. before my name when he addresses me. Mr. Collada, doubtless to set me at my ease, used no such formality. I did not like Mr. Collada. I had put aside the cards when he sat down, but now, thinking that for this first occasion our conversation had lasted long enough, I went on with my game. The three on the four, said Mr. Collada. There is nothing more exasperating when you are playing Patience than to be told where to put the card you have just turned up before you have had a chance to look at it for yourself. It's coming out, it's coming out, he cried. The ten, on the knave. With rage and hatred in my heart, I finished. Then he seized the pack. Do you like card tricks? No, I hate card tricks, I answered. Well, I'll just show you this one. He showed me three. Then I said I would go down to the dining room and get my seat at the table. Oh, that's all right, he said. I've already taken a seat for you. I thought that as we were in the same stateroom, we might just as well sit at the same table. I did not like Mr. Collada. I not only shared a cabin with him and ate three meals a day at the same table, but I could not walk around the deck without his joining me. It was impossible to snub him. It never occurred to him that he was not wanted. He was certain that you were as glad to see him as he was to see you. In your own house, you might have kicked him downstairs and slammed the door in his face without the suspicion dawning on him that he was not a welcome visitor. He was a good mixer and in three days knew everyone on board. He ran everything. He managed the sweeps, conducted the auctions, collected money for prizes at the sports, got up coit and golf matches, organised the concerts and arranged the fancy dress ball. He was everywhere and always. He was certainly the best-hated man in the ship. We called him Mr. Know-it-all, even to his face. He took it as a compliment. But it was at mealtimes that he was most intolerable. For the better part of an hour, then, he had us at his mercy. He was hearty, jovial, loquacious and argumentative. He knew everything better than anybody else. And it was an affront to his overweening vanity that you should disagree with him. He would not drop a subject, however unimportant, till he had brought you round to his way of thinking. The possibility that he could be mistaken never occurred to him. He was the chap who knew. We sat at the doctor's table. Mr. Glader would certainly have had it all his own way, for the doctor was lazy and I was frigidly indifferent, except for a man called Ramsey, who sat there also. He was as dogmatic as Mr. Glader and resented bitterly the Levantine's cocksure-ness. The discussions they had were acrimonious and interminable. Ramsey was in the American Consular Service and was stationed at Coby. He was a great heavy fellow from the Middle West, with loose fat under a tight skin, and he bulged out of his ready-made clothes. He was on his way back to resume his post, having been on a flying visit to New York to fetch his wife, who had been spending a year at home. Mrs. Ramsey was a very pretty little thing, with pleasant manners and a sense of humour. The Consular Service is ill-paid and she was dressed always very simply, but she knew how to wear her clothes. She achieved an effect of quiet distinction. I should not have paid any particular attention to her, but that she possessed a quality that may be common enough in women, but nowadays is not obvious in their demeanour. You could not look at her without being struck by her modesty. It shone in her like a flower on her coat. One evening, at dinner, the conversation by chance drifted to the subject of pearls. There had been in the papers a good deal of talk about the culture pearls which the cunning Japanese were making, and the doctor remarked that they must inevitably diminish the value of real ones. They were very good already. They would soon be perfect. Mr. Collader, as was his habit, rushed the new topic. He told us all that was to be known about pearls. I do not believe Ramsey knew anything about them at all, but he could not resist the opportunity to have a fling at the Levantine, and in five minutes we were in the middle of a heated argument. I had seen Mr. Collader vehement and voluble before, but never so voluble and vehement as now. At last, something that Ramsey said stung him, for he thumped the table and shouted, Well, I ought to know what I am talking about. I am going to Japan just to look into this Japanese pearl business. I am in the trade, and there is not a man in it who won't tell you that what I say about pearls goes, and what I don't know about pearls isn't worth knowing. Here was news for us, for Mr. Collader, with all his loquacity, had never told anyone what his business was. We only knew vaguely that he was going to Japan on some commercial errand. He looked around the table triumphantly. They'll never be able to get a culture pearl that an expert like me can't tell with half an eye. He pointed to the chain that Mrs. Ramsey wore. You take my word for it, Mrs. Ramsey, that chain you're wearing will never be worth a cent less than it is now. Mrs. Ramsey, in her modest way, flushed a little, and slipped the chain inside her dress. Ramsey leaned forward. He gave us all a look, and a smile flickered in his eyes. That's a pretty chain of Mrs. Ramsey's, isn't it? I noticed it at once, answered Mr. Collader. Gee, I said to myself, those pearls are all right. I didn't buy it myself, of course. I'd be interested to know how much you think it cost. Oh, in the trade, somewhere around fifteen thousand dollars. But if it was bought on Fifth Avenue, I shouldn't be surprised to hear that anything up to thirty thousand's paid for it. Ramsey smiled grimly. You'll be surprised to hear that Mrs. Ramsey bought that string in a department store the day before we left New York for eighteen dollars. Mr. Collader flushed. Rot! It's not only real, but it's as fine a string for its size as I've ever seen. Will you bet on it? I'll bet you a hundred dollars it's an imitation. Done. Oh, Elmer, you can't bet on a certainty, said Mrs. Ramsey. She had a little smile on her lips, and her tone was gently deprecating. Can't I? If I get a chance of easy money like that, I should be all sorts of a fool not to take it. But how can it be proved, she continued. It's only my word against Mr. Collader's. Let me look at the chain, and if it's an imitation, I'll tell you quickly enough, I can afford to lose a hundred dollars, said Mr. Collader. Take it off, dear. Let the gentleman look at it as much as he wants. Mrs. Ramsey hesitated a moment. She put her hands up to the clasp. I can't undo it, she said. Mr. Collader will just have to take my word for it. I had a sudden suspicion that something very unfortunate was about to occur. But I could think of nothing to say. Ramsey jumped up. I'll undo it. He handed the chain to Mr. Collader. The Levantine took a magnifying glass from his pocket and closely examined it. A smile of triumph spread over his smooth and swirly face. He handed back the chain. He was about to speak. Suddenly he caught sight of Mrs. Ramsey's face. It was so white that she looked as though she were about to faint. She was staring at him with wide and terrified eyes. They held a desperate appeal. It was so clear that I wondered why her husband did not see it. Mr. Collader stopped with his mouth open. He flushed deeply. You could almost see the effort he was making over himself. I was mistaken, he said. It's a very good imitation. But of course, as soon as I looked through my glass, I saw that it wasn't real. I think eighteen dollars is just about as much as the damn thing's worth. He took out his pocket book and from it a hundred dollar bill. He handed it to Ramsey without a word. Perhaps that'll teach him not to be so cultural another time, my young friend, said Ramsey as he took the note. I noticed that Mr. Collader's hands were trembling. The story spread over the ship, as stories do, and he had to put up with a good deal of chaff that evening. It was a fine joke that Mr. Knowall had been caught out. It was a fine joke that Mr. Knowall had been caught out. But Mrs. Ramsey retired to her stateroom with a headache. Next morning I got up and began to shave. Mr. Collader lay on his bed smoking a cigarette. Suddenly there was a small scraping sound and I saw a letter pushed under the door. I opened the door and looked out. There was nobody there. I picked up the letter and saw that it was addressed to Mr. Collader. The name was written in block letters. I handed it to him. Who is this from? He opened it. Oh! He took out of the envelope, not a letter, but a hundred dollar bill. He looked at me and again he reddened. He tore the envelope into little bits and gave them to me. Do you mind just throwing them out of the porthole? I did as he asked and then I looked at him with a smile. No one likes being made to look a perfect damn fool, he said. Were the pearls real? If I had a pretty little wife, I shouldn't let her spend a year in New York while I stayed at Kobe, he said. At that moment I did not entirely dislike Mr. Collader. He reached out for his pocket book and carefully put in it the hundred dollar note. I realize the way your eyes deceive me With tenderness that I mistook for love So throw away the flowers that I gave you I'll send the kind that you remind me of Paper roses, paper roses Oh, how real those roses seem to be But they're only imitations Like your imitation love for me Your pretty lips look warm and so appealing They seem to have the sweetness of love But when you give a kiss there is no feeling It's just as if an artificial cold Paper roses, paper roses Oh, how real those roses seem to be But they're only imitations Like your imitation love for me And in the week that she died, he wrote a beautiful poem to her. It's a marvelous tribute to all her loving qualities. Now we listen to Joe McGowan reading In Memory of My Mother by Patrick Kavanaugh. You will have the road gate open, the front door ajar, the kettle boiling and a table set by the window looking out at the sycamores. And your loving hearts lying in wait for me, coming up among the poplar trees. You'll know my breathing and my walk. And it will be a summer evening on those roads, lonely with leaves of thought. We will be choked with the grief of things growing, the silence of dark green air, life too rich, the nettles, docks and thistles, all answering the prodigal's prayer. You will know I'm coming, though I send no word, for you were lover who could tell a man's thoughts, my thoughts, though I hid them. Through you I knew woman and did not fear her spell. As I walk the road from Killersham Row, weary I sit down. For twelve long miles around the lake, you get to Coventown. So up the panther road I go, wanting beyond compare. Though I curse the time it takes to reach my coven girl so fair. The autumn shades are on the leaves, the trees will soon be bare. Each red gold leaf around me see the color of her hair. My gaze retreats, defies my speech, and once again I sigh. For the broken proof of sky reminds the color of her eyes. At the Cabin Cross, see Sunday morning, there she can be found. And she seems to have the eye of every boy in Cabin Town. If my look will hold, I'll have the golden summer of her smile. And to break the heart of cabin men, she'll talk to me awhile. So then Sunday evening, I may hover Killersham Row bound. To work a week till I return to court in Cabin Town. When I think she would be my bride, at least she'd not said no. So then Sunday morning, bow to my son, and back to her I go. Peter Knox will sing Sunday Morning Sidewalk. I woke up Sunday morning with no way to hold my head. It didn't hurt, and the beer I had for breakfast was not bad. So I had one more for dessert. And I fumbled through my closet, through my clothes, and found my cleanest dirty shirt. And I washed my face, and combed my hair, and stumbled down the stairs to meet the day. Well I smoked my mind the night before, cigarettes and songs that I'd been picking. And I licked my furs, and watched the smoke get plain, with a can that he'd been kicking. And I walked across the street and caught the Sunday smell of someone's fried chicken. And it took me back to something that I lost somewhere somehow along the way. On a Sunday morning sidewalk, I'm wishing Lord that I was stoned. Because there's nothing like a Sunday that makes the body so alone. And there's nothing short of dying that's half as lonesome as the sound of the sleeping city sidewalk. And a Sunday morning coming down, in a park I saw daddy with a laughing little girl. And he was swinging. I stopped beside a Sunday school and listened to the songs that they were singing. And I walked across the road and somewhere far away, a lonely bell was ringing. And it echoed in the canyon, like the disappearing dreams of yesterday. On a Sunday morning sidewalk, I'm wishing Lord that I was stoned. Because there's nothing like a Sunday that makes the body so alone. And there's nothing short of dying that's half as lonesome as the sound of the sleeping city sidewalk. And a Sunday morning coming down. Thank you for listening to this week's programme. Thank you to everyone who was part of it. Thank you to Bridge for providing the technology. Thank you to Liv in the house for listening. Thank you for listening to this week's programme with another song from the 16th century. And until we meet again, catch you and Bridge on the road. Goodbye. Bounce Back Recycling. Say goodbye to your old furniture and mattress in an affordable, convenient and sustainable way. Call 091 760 877.
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