It’s For The Best
So this is a play with music my old mate Sean McLevy wrote, and he asked me to help with it. So I did.
It tells the story of the Northern Irish poet June Flynn,
whose father fled with her to the British mainland in the early 1970s
only to find herself back in Belfast after falling pregnant - giving up the child
triggers a series of life-changing events that could only end in tragedy.
Here are some of June’s poems.
Dark
The dark always wins
Even when the dawn stretches and yawns
When the lights click on at stupid o’clock
The public bar fluorescents within
Even under this brutal illumination
The dark coalesces, wins
Always dark
The dark always wins
In the mirror, that isn’t a mirror
A rectangle of punished metal
Beyond the blemishes, I can see
A blur that represents me
And the background is dark
Always dark
The dark always wins
When there’s light enough to touch your face
And there’s a chance that things might change
I’ll probably open the door a crack
And the dark will bully its way back
Where it belongs, with me
Always dark
What’s the Opposite of Anticipation?
I know you’re out there
Dressed in a uniform
That represents
Everything I loathe
Maybe you’re pacing
Or sitting, waiting
Chatting with the guards
Because you have more
In common with them
Than you do with me
I realise that I’m
Holding my breath
What is it that I’m
Feeling? What is it?
What’s the opposite
Of anticipation?
Back Here
Unnerving
The glares that he gets
From the boys in the bar
He’s the shit
Who ran away
Got some guts
Showing his face
Back here
Even after all this time
Uncomfortable
The side eyes she gets
From the girls on the green
She’s the spit
Of her poor mam
Got her eyes
Knowing nothing
Back here
Back here after all this time
Unwelcome
The door nearly slammed
In his face, as he feared
It’s the pits
When his sister’s
Not missed him
Nowhere to go
But back here
Back home after all this time
One on her Own
She was always one on her own
Never played well with others
No sisters or brothers
Didn’t go out of her way to irritate
But her social skills weren’t that great
She was awkward with everyone
Especially her mum
Who never ironed her plain white shirt
Who shoplifted her A-line school skirt
Rarely got her to string two sentences together
Sad about not having a dad
She confided once in a friend
Never thought it would end
With the whole class laughing
And calling her illegitimate thing
She ran crying all the way home
And then she told her mum
Who said ‘that’s what you get for trusting folk
Everyone will always let you down. Trust me.’
And she laughed at her own joke
She was always one on her own
Kept herself to herself
It’s like her life
Was a permanent letdown
Like even in class
She was always on her own
Alone
A Vision
While you slept in death
And I lay beside you
Like sticks on the towpath
I saw angels in the cut
On fire under the water
Dancing like fireflies
Among the sparks
Their eyes were my eyes
I saw my baby under the water
My child’s eyes were my eyes
And he was dancing with the angels
And I lost you that night
Wreck of a Man
What happened to you?
You used to be such fun
Lit the world up like a flare
For the longest moment
And then you were gone
But when I close my eyes
I can still see the afterimage
Of the fun you used to be
Where did it all go wrong?
A domineering dad
And an ineffectual mum
Was more than you could bear
And you lost direction
Like a rudderless raft
Stranded on a sandbank
With no wish to go home
Dead in the ocean
The compass all skewed
Holed below the waterline
A wreck of a man