whose first name's not Spiro
leaves me standing rain-soaked in a hotel foyer,
taxi motor still ticks outside -
she tells me sorry 14 times,
when a chef shouts at her
from the kitchen to bring out 15 souffles,
her bestie and soul-mate Sarah giving me the evil eye
with her cool-cat friends
waiting behind my taxi in dune-buggy
like its 1968,
ready to recreate photos of people standing by a wall
doing various alternating poses,
some wearing beany-hats,
others in stripey psychedelic drainpipe pants
and Dick Dastardly hats.
Everyone likes to jump when the camera clicks -
makes them look kooky, you see.
Her bestie's boyfriend's called David,
or Carl, or something - he's sensitive, apparently.
Agnew knocks things over, quite a lot, I notice,
and six months later
she still calls me 'Rob'.
Rob, she says, can we do this some other time?
I say sure, but I've forgotten your name,
is it Spiro? I know your pop's name is Nelson.
I turn around, she's gone - in a puff of smoke,
the bang of a dune buggy back-fires
outside, my cab driver drops his Evening Herald, looks around.
It's times like these I wish I smoked, though it couldn't be Marlboro,
I'm not enough of a cowboy just yet
to lasso cowgirls like these.
Turns out three years later she comes out. After dark, I tell myself -
to feast on the souls of fallen angels.
Bloodshot O'Hara sitting beside me agrees,
pours me a long-cool glass of milk,
we run Planet Waves and Oh Mercy through the jukebox,
until we start to weigh them down
and they stop by a water through, smoke coming from their saddles.
John Doyle became a Mod again in the summer of 2017 to fight off his impending mid-life crisis; whether this has been a success remains to be seen. He has has two collections published to date, A Stirring at Dusk in 2017, and Songs for Boys Called Wendell Gomez in 2018, both on PSKI's Porch.
He is based in Maynooth, County Kildare, Ireland. All he asks is that you leave your guns at the door and tie up your horses before your enter.
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