Old friend

“Tell me now, old friend, when you gonna let me be?”     The Allman Brothers Band

I don’t quite know how it came to this,

but if I have to take up arms against you

I’ll draw them from the auction houses

and antique shops; old muskets, sabres.

I’ll be relieved when I can’t find, let

alone afford them, and I’ll grow calm.

Gone are our nights of righting the world,

of drinking like we were bailing it out –

we knew too much about each other

and nothing at all of ourselves.

Richie McCaffrey’s collection Cairn was published recently by Nine Arches Press

Black Tie

In a charity shop today,

the tie rack was over-full

of old black ties –

silk, polyester and fabrics

invented and abandoned

in the nineteen-fifties.

It looks as if everyone

in this town has decided

to give up grief for good,

or that even the mourners

have died, leaving no one

to wear their black ties.

Richie McCaffrey’s collection Cairn has recently been published by Nine Arches Press.