Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Gilligan's Wake

The mourners filtered

into the fellowship hall

at St Aloysius bearing

platters and bowls.

bottles and casseroles.


The urn filled with

Billy Gilligan’s cremains

sat center on a small table

surrounded by vases filled

with yellow Irish Hope roses.


The Jamison flowed

abundantly and glasses

were raised and quickly

drained, “to Billy, wherever

he snores, God rest his soul.”


Erin searched for a spot

to deposit a platter

of Cheezwhiz on crackers,

shifted Emily’s deviled eggs

towards the back of the table.


“I see you, Erin, whatta ya

think you’re doing?

Those took a lot of effort

I’m sure, sprayed out of

can on a box of Ritz.”


“Well I see you brought

the appropriate swill,

named for your master

who visits your bed nightly

from his lair in Hell.”


“Erin and Emily, cease

and desist, I insist”

says Rory.”Now's not the time

nor the place for behaving

like cats in a back alley.”


The lasses turn as one,

“Shut your lip, Rory, if there’s

anyone here with the character

of a feline, you should’ve been

christened Tom, not Ruairi!”


“Ain’t that the truth,”

pipes up Maureen as she

takes the foil off a plate

of sliced ham and hands

it to Sean. “Right, Sean?” 


She swats his hand as

he reaches for a slice

with a cigarette lovingly

clutched between yellow

nicotine-stained fingers.


“It’s ashes to ashes

for our corporeal selves,

not to season the ham, ya oaf.”

“Sorry, Mo,” he says as he

licks the offending digits.


Everyone turns as Big Pat

enters the hall like a prize bull,

a five gallon clear plastic sack

of rolls dangling from one hand

and a fifth of Red Spot in t’other.


He drops the bag of rolls

next to the table, turns round

nearly falling and says

“help yourselves,” and takes

a deep draught from the bottle.


Frail Christina wheels her chair

across the room, halts directly

in front of Big Pat. “I need some

help, Pat, would you put some ham

on a roll for me please?”


Pat gently brushes a lock of

Christina’s snowy white bangs

away from her temple.

“Sure, Lil’ Buddy, happy to

oblige, like some mustard on it?”


“Yes thanks, and I’ll have small glass

of that Red Spot if you’re sharing.”

“Of course you may, the color

of this fine spirit always reminds me

of the color your hair once was.”


“I asked for some ham, and

you’re serving baloney slathered

with malarkey, dear Pat, that ship

was stranded on a wild shore

when you and I and dear departed


Gilligan were young and innocent.

You alway had a taste for the whiskey,

you nursed that one bottle for years,

drinking it a few drops at a time.

And when it was empty, we composed


a note and tossed it into the sea.

Ten months later, a ship arrived

and we all went on to our separate lives.

And almost never spoke to each other,

no letters, no calls, why was that?”


Pat hands her a plastic cup of Irish

and  ham on a roll. “We just

wanted to forget, didn’t we all?

I’ve been trying to ever since.”

Raises the bottle. “This helps for a while.”


“Alas, poor Gilligan, I knew him well,

dear Tina, a fellow of infinite jest,

of most excellent fancy: he has borne

me on his back a thousand times; and now,

how abhorred in my imagination it is!”


Tina raises her glass, “Bravo Pat!

One of God’s fools indeed, wiser than we 

think ourselves to be, but without

the pretentiousness. I’m sorry that

we didn’t stay in touch, now it’s too late.”


“Too late in this world, for sure. but

perhaps in the next, somewhere

warm, tropical, with gentle breezes

and cocoanut palms, how does that

sound, Tina?” “That sounds grand, Pat”

Tuesday, June 24, 2025

Some recent celestial observations

 

Courtesy of the CERN Large Hadron Collider

and the Atacama Large Millimeter/

Submillimeter Array (ALMA):


The beauty-lambda baryons particle

has been detected. Without this

particle, matter would not exist.


Resulting in a slight

asymmetry between

matter and antimatter.


Otherwise, matter and antimatter

totally cancel each other out and

nothingness would be the whole.


Instead, the part that

survived gave birth

to stars and planets


and in the primordial

disks of dust and gas,

isotopes of methanol


-mineral spirits -alchohol-

was present as a building block

for organic life. Spirits.


Is that what we seek

when we partake,

the spirits of corn


and barley... or the holy

spirit which connects

us to God?


The poets have often

seemed to seek that

infusion from a bottle


Dylan Thomas and Bukowski,

Kerouac. Did they find it

before it destroyed their lives?


Is that the sharp sting

under the sweetness

of whiskey, a taste


of the multibillion year-old

amniotic stew at the dawn

of light and galaxies?


What was God drinking

when last call arrived

and he looked around


and said I’m lonely, I think I’ll

toss some dice in the cup

and see what happens?


Did it come up craps

or boxcars,

seven come eleven?


And now we seek to monopolize

the power of the atom,

the mushroom cloud.


Are we Cain or Abel?

Truth is in the Spirit,

if we can find it. Cheers.