Two Different Females Dressed in Red, 1992, 1973 by John Doyle

Purity - 1992

Crowds scraped our streets in hassled feet,

the master-race looming;

one was a strawberry blooming in Hell's garden -

one is all we need, the Rabbi told me, 

look at Heaven glowing through this soot -

shining, everlasting.

Then came the piled-up meat, the red within - 

no more than a stagnant river. 

All these dreams fell like waterfalls from our heads,

trampled on by sanguine streets. 

But look at the beauty, Mrs. Horowitz said, 

all light is everlasting

Evil - 1973

Italia, roasting into the night, 

black like the coal-crisp inferno;

water was his enemy back home, his baby girl

limp like a towel across a door; now she's running

from the screams, from his dreams, 

a halo round his senses; behind the firm logic of steel

there's no getting through,

they tell us don’t look now, not ever;

and so it's the ugliness that prevails - ugly, grotesque -

sin in its favoured colours, sin coloured like his throat

 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.