All long dead, but late at night
Their hobnail boots ghost-crunch past me
Seaward, down the Pigeon House Road
Generations of raucous talk
And scabrous wit walks with them
Comebacks that could punch a hole through steel
They were power-house shift men, shit-boat sailors,
Salmon poachers, cockle pickers, mackerel lifters
Ragworm diggers and Half Moon swimmers
None go by names wetted at a christening font
But by strange and spot-on appellations,
Earned by themselves or inflicted by others
Abalena, Ball o’ Malt, Comet, Dripping Wet, Exer,
Fishy, Gog-gog, Hairpin, Jackamo, Kaiser,
Lousy Shoulders, Muddler, Nettler, Ogga,
Palawalks, Quicksand, Rubber Legs, Salty Feet
Turkey, Ucker, Waddles, Yang
Neither heaven nor hell could hold such spirits
Instead, they stride past me, night after night
Bantering on down through the sandy Shellybanks,
Then by Bligh’s wall out to the Poolbeg lighthouse
To vanish, laughing eternally, into the waiting arms of dawn
