Watching the Cricket, Trinity College Dublin, 2/6/18. by John Doyle

Ah, those evenings -

where Mick Jagger's cotton-cooled angel

surfs the powdered-blues of Lords,

London's smog and soot clueless outside;

I read those papers, and dreamed of you and me

sipping pims, and the skeletal girls in hopscotch slacks

who rub their strings as songs begin, sit on dusty beer-filled steps - and end

on the slap of ball on bat, and boys walk past, l.b.w. - yet again;

but that's ok, a witness of you and me, of Jagger, the thinnest cut of woman

clenched to her guitar, and the angels are cool and chilled somewhere;

in newspapers in 1976 -

when Summer knew exactly what it was supposed to do

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.