love hate [by Terence Winch]

Ed. Note: I had exhausted pretty much every crime series available on Netflix on Terence Winch [pictured here with a friend at La Maison blanche] wrote to suggest that I watch Love/Hate, an Irish crime series airing on RTÉ Television. The show is compelling and I was particularly drawn to Darren, a central character played by the compelling young actor Robert Sheehan. This poem just appeared in my inbox the other day. I love it! Thanks TP Winch for letting me share it here. He is pictured left chatting to a friend at Maison Blanche. — sdh

love hate

for Stacey Harwood

I’ll be up in a minute

I promise you. But first I have to

compose a long, complex symphony

dedicated to Duke Ellington, the

I composed from riffs

and bit off old tin 78s, scratched

with jumps but full of music

Notes like A, G and E.

If I could get up from this chair

I would. And I would rise

then to the throne of

Angelic Gangsters by RTE

who are right at this moment

murder each other

dark Dublin streets. It would be

laugh one and a half times two.

But I can’t get up. I’m not

able to keep my promises.

Serenity prayer is cruel

Joke. Baudelaire was an alcoholic

and your mother too, and

that is a fact revealed in the third

trade what I can’t stay for.

Excuse. My mistake. I’m sorry.

from the archive; First published on 01/13/2014