Two Poems by Eamonn Shanahan

from A London Irish Lad

#1

As I have to
I imagine you
coming home late
Gladstone bag in hand

you hang up your coat and hat
in the kitchen spam fritters
because we’re still in rationing
then chatting to mummy

about the general election
when you tell her you voted Phil Piratin
the Communist Party candidate for Stepney
and a week later she left you

she went back to Portlaoise
to her father
to her Lord Jesus Christ.
Piratin. She remembered his name.

from A London Irish Lad

#4

When Sullivan came for dinner
he’d be sure to give all the boys half crowns
dispensing them in the drawing room
the chink of ice in gin and tonics

he was huge and red and one time
prevailing over wine glasses and bottles
of burgundy with bowls of spuds
and cabbage and parsley sauce

he asked our mother if she ever
thought of going back to which
she countered when she took the boat she made her bed
and now she would bloody well lie on it.

Eamonn Shanahan is a London Irishman. He has been published in Salzburg Poetry Review, Pennine Platform, Magma, Strix, Orbis, and others. His debut pamphlet, Girl from Former Yugoslavia, was highly commended in the Fool for Poetry competition (Munster Literature Centre).