Another Charming Poem By Tony, You can’t help but enjoy them!
Memory of Nelson’s Pillar 8th May 2014 by/Tony Gorman
I remember dear old Dublin back in my boyhood days
So far back that in the westerns was a bearded Gabby Hayes
And old Nelson on his pillar standing proud and tall and high
As we paid our tanner and climbed those steps and headed towards the sky
Climbing to the top seemed endless and our heads were spinning too
But from up there on Nelsons vantage point you had the most fantastic view
You could see the red and white Ringsend chimneys that were landmarks of their own
And the colourful peaks of the Dublin Mountains casting shadows when the sun shone
And down below O’Connell Street as busy as could be.
And the GPO with its memories of those men that set Ireland free
And the Metropole cinema and the queues that stood outside
And the ships mooring on the Liffey dock’s helped by the incoming tide
And after all our viewing we headed back down from Nelson’s top
We wondered in our heads if these steps would ever stop
On the last turn of the rail we could see the daylight glare
And we heard the flower seller calling out and we knew that we were there
Then we crossed the road to get our bus looking up at where we’d been
And we told the people at the stop of the views that we had seen
Now I’m old and grey and my mind will stray to those days when we were young
When the Pillar was our pride and joy and used by everyone
It was a meeting point for visitors from near and far away
It stood its part in history until that fatal day
For on the 8th March 1966 old Nelson took a powder and he blew
Just like the song by the Dubliners that was sung by Ronnie Drew
So we say goodbye to Old Nelson and those memories he gave to us
As we stood there at the bus stop waiting for the West Cabra Bus
Tony Gorman
Tony, I’ve given you a username on account of all your wonderful contributions, if you ever want to see all the work that you’ve published just click on your name which is written in blue.
All the best and thanks again
Eoghan
Web manager
Many thanks Eoghan
I’m very honoured that you enjoy my poems enough to give me a place on your website.
I enjoy the overall site as up to now it has given me the inspiration to write what I have written already and hopefully I can continue.
Again Many Thanks
Tony
You’re more than welcome, I love the work!
Tony Gorman
Your poems are wonderful.
Myself and my family hope you keep writing them and sharing them with all of us.
We all love your style of poetry.
x Norma Hills
Dublin Zoo 4th June 2014 by/Tony Gorman
Expectations were high
Our thoughts were new
Our plans were exciting
We’d bunk into the zoo
The fence was high
Our trousers new
And scale this height
We had to do
We shimmed over
The barbed wire fence
The arse of my trousers
Was no defence
Inside we dropped
We knew not where
Could we be in?
A timber wolf’s lair
We looked around
We were never scared
What looked back at us?
Was a buffalo herd
We walked through them
They were quiet tame
We had herded cows
They were just the same
We got out where
The public go
We viewed the animals
As we walked along slow
We enjoyed ourselves
In the zoo that day
But my mother back home
She had something to say
As the tear on my arse
It felt on fire
Where I tore my trousers
On the fence barbed wire
Then time for bed
My adventures through
Until the next time
We visit the Zoo
Back in the 1950s when myself and my pals Jimmy Farrell and Hugh O’Neill were adventurous without any fear we decided to (bunk) climb over the Dublin Zoo fence as we had no money to pay to go in.
I suppose we were foolhardy as youngsters and were lucky that we never ended up in any of the dangerous animal compounds or I wouldn’t be here today to write about it.
It’s funny when we think back to those days and the silly things we used to do.
So in memory of those days I wrote this little poem.
My Memories of Dublin 16th June 2014 by/Tony Gorman
I remember Dublin Town
When I walked down Eden Quay
And I listened to a tinker boy
As he sang a song for me
He sang so sweetly on his own
It brought a tear from my eye
He put so much feeling in his song
I could see the “Croppy Boy”
He finished off his first song
Followed by “The Rising of the Moon”
His eyes looked sad and lonely
As he sang that haunting tune
He bowed his head as he sang the song
And he shook his cap at me
I put some money in his cap
As his song flowed out so free
I enjoyed the songs he sang for me
But it was time for me to go
As I walked along O’Connell Street
I hummed those tunes real low
I headed off to Moore Street
To meet my mother there
The dealers called out the veg they sold
In their usual humorous air
Get your apples oranges and bananas
The best you’ve ever seen
Your cauliflower and brussels sprouts
You could serve them to a queen
We then went to meet me Da
In the snug in Madigan’s Bar
My mother drank some seven up
While our Guinness looked like tar
We didn’t stay there very long
As homeward we were bound
These are the things that I remember
When I lived near Dublin Town
Though my parents are dead and gone now
And I live far across the Irish Sea
I will never forget those happy days
As they meant so much to me
It’s funny to us old ones, although Dublin has change over the years we still keep the old version in our hearts.
I suppose it was simpler back then when we took our girlfriends to dances at the Metropole or Cleary’s Ballroom or maybe to the Crystal dance hall.
When we had friends visiting us from abroad we would have great pleasure in walking them all over town and showing them Moore Street so they could listen to the dealers with all their banter and to Grafton Street to show them how the other half live.
On the way back we would cross the Halfpenny Bridge and wander around by Hector Grey’s to see what bargains he had, then down to the Ace of Hearts for a well-deserved pint of the black stuff to revive us after all that walking.
Showing off all our landmarks made us proud to be Dubliners.
The Disappearance of Old Dublin 17th June 2015 by/Tony Gorman
The fading sights of old Dublin Town
It started when old Nelson came down
If he stood there today his pension be ripe
And tourists be showing him on IPod and Skype
And the Metropole followed by closing its doors
No more had our town got a place for its whores
For the girls plied their trade with a lot of fineness
Showing all their essentials by the way they would dress
In the Metropole ballroom we learned how to dance
With our shirts well starched and a crease in our pants
As the Metropole band played a medley of songs
We lurched with those girls with a mind full of longs
The Met shut its doors in nineteen seventy two
And the building knocked down what a strange thing to do
As the building back then was a landmark to all
It saddened us Dubs by its demise and its fall
And the tenement flats where our parents were born
With no flushing toilets just a bucket of spurn
Have had a vast facelift since our people moved on
Redesigned for the yuppies now the old days are gone
And now poor old Clerys has wrapped up as well
Will they gut it all out only leaving its shell?
Or will it reopen again as a store
And bring back the trade that it had once before
Will we still have our meeting place under the clock?
Will the windows have mannequins wearing a frock?
Will the ballroom reopen bringing back days of old?
Is it bound for demolition, is that why it’s sold?
Soon to us old ones our town will be gone
But the times that we had there will live on and on
And we’ll keep in a photo the Dublin we knew
And in time by our age we will disappear too
Farewell old Dublin Town now let us welcome the new!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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I was working in the Metropole Cocktail Bar when it closed up on the 11th March 1972 and was there when Old Nelson blew his stack.
The Met was a great meeting place and the Long Bar was renowned for having a percentage of ladies of the night plying their trade to whoever required it, as us Dubs would say “fair play to them”
It almost broke my heart when leaving the building knowing this was the last time I would step out of its doors so I well understand how the staff of Clerys feels.
Not long after that I had to leave my homeland to seek employment in England and have been here since then.
I have watched all the changes of old buildings being knocked down and new buildings going up and some of the new ones don’t suit their locations as they lack character.
I hope they don’t demolish Clerys as it’s such a lovely building and complements the other buildings of past that are still standing in Dublin.
Hopefully it will reopen as a store and those unfortunates that are out of work due to its closure will be reemployed there in the future.
I wish all Clerys staff well for the future and hope something will turn up for each and every one of them.