Buskers & Shop Street, Galway

[Jimmy O'Connell]

Buskers & Shop Street, Galway

The Corrib flows and plentifies by Claddagh
Pier, a slow heave toward a soggy green stretch
To Salthill under a not yet blue summer sketch

Of sky. By a Spanish wall, in Capuchin brown,
Where once Columbus may have calculated,
He leans, tenement dreadlocks dangling,

Picking on some kind of Galician hurdy-gurdy;
And chambering through the open Café doorways
A Philippina bows her out-sized fiddle, towards

A hop-stepping of ‘The Bucks of Oranmore’
Complete with her lilting Mindinao swerve;
Down Shop Street a laughing man in a Pink Panther

Suit sklimbers and trinkles an ivory laced xylophone,
Rendering a bounce of Brandenburg Concerto, spiced
With Mississippi blues. Just now, in a swirl of flitting

Shadows, a lemony parrot catches the eye, its lipstick red
Beak snuggled into its owner’s blue canvas hoodie, as they
Slow cycle-weave through somnolent mid-morning shoppers;

And how the Corrib, in a rush of bog stained water,
Froths a snow remembered glistening of winter;

And how this stolid western town can surprise
Itself with the gift of the unexpected; and yet, too,

‘Kevin Barry’ still echoes through an empty
Staccato laneway, eyes closed, drunkenly glazed.

[Jimmy O'Connell]

Did some minor editing on this one....
It should now be the final draft....
I think.....