Finbarr Cullen's Bar & Lounge in Edenderry, County Offaly

With time to kill I ducked into a pub

and found myself in Miss. Havisham’s ruins

the half chance of escape stolen from me

with a “what’ll it be?” and so

I approached the empty bar and, disappointed

the barman with a request for tea

 

with an audible grunt and an actual grimace

he turned his back, broad as an oak and boiled a kettle

a kettle that, somehow, took eight

eight

winding minutes to boil

time enough for me to see mould on every wall

dark stains in the old red velvet

mahogany glossed with gluey wine

 

one light flickered, the other

didn’t even try

and I stood in lost light listening

for music in the clinking, stirring spoon

 

I imagined the thump of the mug on the bar

sending unseen rats and mice scurrying back

to their comfortable warm decay

a stale biscuit was offered with a stale smile

in the stale pub on the stale street and yet

I sat and read and was forgotten

 

and ate the biscuit

and sipped the tea

though I did not drink to the bottom of the mug

for fear

of what might be found there