Well Versed

Drinking a pint in the Waterloo,
Joking about Thomas Aquinas.
How many angels could you drown
In a pint of Guinness stout?
Picketing the American Embassy
Playing games with the photographer
At the window. There will be a laugh
In the CIA archives, thanks to Mick.
Browsing in the book shop,
Pick a book at random off the shelf,
"Is this any good Mick?"
"Well he has a point to make,
But it's not a very good one!"
When does he get the time?
Not just the books he reads
But the ones he writes or edits as well.

I see a line of trenches stretching
Over arid hills. Young men
In leather coats with earnest
Faces. This is not a soldiers war.
Soldiers respect their common avocation.
This is a war of utter hate!
Oh they share the cigarettes
Drink wine and joke of girls.
(Probably the others do the same)
But there is no common ground with
Nazis, Fascists, Falangists
Franco's Moors, the Condor Legion
Or the sharpest hate of all, the Blueshirts!

Mick you were there and brought it
Home to us in that great book
That tells all time to come
That when "The workers of all the world
Stand on our guard on Huesca's plain"
We Irish are not found wanting

About the poet

Robert Mitchell is a reader who sent in this poem as part of his contribution to the Well Versed anthology due out later this year.

Michael O'Riordan was an active member of the Communist Party of Ireland and also fought with the Connolly Column in the International Brigades during the Spanish civil war.

John Rety of Hearing Eye Press and Torriano Meeting House is ex-editor of anarchist paper Freedom.

www.torriano.org
www.hearingeye.org