From Streets of Birdsong "That Secret Night of The Yew"

Then that night – in the moonlight under the stars, I went down into the wood: to its pine heart; and garnered from the forest floor into my hamper box, small twigs, pine and fir and larch cones, covering them with palm.

I ranged outward, seeking the brown yellow and green, turning to amber, fallen-sinner-leaves covering them with creeping ivy. I scooped up hawthorn haws, yew berries and green spiky chestnuts, womb-open, showing their fruits inside.

I went and stole from gardens jasmine, lavender and bramble. From the bogs their heather and their peat. At dawn I took this treasure trove of forest bog and garden, to the house; to her father’s door, where he stood in his day-clothes.

I carried the captured night-time into that bitter-sweet bower. I surrounded her with the woodland. I gave her soft air born of pine fronds that wafted chestnut smells and whirling seeds of sycamore. I made for her the rustling sounds of leaves, wind-tossed against the swaying bark of ash and beech.

As sacred as any priest of pipe and plug, I pared and rubbed between my palms the peat and heather, and dropped the chaff along the floor and blew the fragrance to the air. I scattered the gardens on her bed. I told her I was sorry and called her my first love. She smiled and reached up her small hand and whispered “Hi.”

As the day filled our new wood with light we murmured of the old days and never spoke about the present The family left us alone that day. We whisper-talked, remembering.

She dozed and then we whispered again and then she dozed again. Together we waited.

In that Blackthorn Month, that Secret Night of The Yew: of death and rebirth, transformation and reincarnation; Deirdre died. They wrapped her and hid her away: carrying her in the heart of the coffin-wood, that once hid pine martins, squirrels, owls and sleepy, hot-foot-hopping, pigeons.

A closed mouth catches no flies.

So the USA leaked details around the Manchester bombing that the Brits supplied, in confidence. 

This, I'm sure made catching, what now seems to be a terrorist cell, more difficult. 

Just think what would have happened if the leak had happened the other way around. 

'Nuff said A Closed Mouth Catches No Flies.

Dark, dark, clouds here today, grieving for the children murdered in Manchester - need nonsense to cope!

The Frog Hedda Hoppa, star columnist and Fly-On-The-Wall found Slugger and Pal and told them all they knew about Harry's Dastardly Plan. The Pair as Hedda told it later in her Buke were still under Wacki Bacci influences and thought the whole thing was hilarious. Well they would wouldn't they and Hedda at the time – she omitted this is her Memoirs – was speaking with a mouth full of - well – crawling things: still crawling but doomed.

Eventually the penny dropped – well the cent than – bloody de cimi mation – you never know where you are. Pal figured he was just as broke under all currencies. No! Once he found a million Lira note on holiday and thought he was a millionaire. Well he was – and as he learned later he wasn't.

A meeting was organised for The Denis the Menace Centre and the word went out: by Chicken, chucking, by Duck ducking, by Fly flying, and Bat batting, and Wasp, waspishly wending their way, by Bee, buzzing and lots of things, doing things, lots of things' ways.

It was a momentous occasion: even Slug-Ali The Greatest turned up. “I gots and agenda.” He said as he arrived.

“No.” says Pal, “Dgenda is open t'all attendees to agendee what they wants to.” And then he couldn't help himself, he said “Like – like”

Ali insisted “I journey here, to find out whatta ya all gonna do about that slimy rat Harry. He's a nuisance and is disrupt-in' business. Can't get dem slimy workers to do any-tin' with all dat talk about The Revolution. Whatch'a doing about Harry. Listen Pal dats why I'm Here! “

Pal gulped. Ali on his tail with bulging eyes several inches above his head: slime boiling and bubbling on his brow, from head to one toe, was an awesome sight.

“Ya folly me Pal! I wants action!” And then he bellowed. “This meeting is called to order: and I'm presidin'. Any objections – Hah.” Then he glowered around the room at each individual he knew.

Banjoed looked away from his gaze and waited with fingers plucking an imaginary Banjo. Pal shook his trouser leg and pretended to scold his invisible dog.

Ralf chirped and moved nervously: then fell off a branch - it was an olive branch he bought for Robina. She didn't know whether to forgive him or make peace.

Ignoring Ali: Polly flounced in – missing her Pal – her current squeeze. She was calling everybody “Pal” now. “Howdah Pal. Seeya Pal. Have a seat Pal. Have a drink Pal.” It was driving Pal spare: making him very jumpy.

Ali nodded into a corner and one of his men moved in: over to where a very suspicious looking hedgehog that turned out on inspection to be Klanger - hiding under his wig.

He was seized and evicted; evacuated by Dobbin the Pony, who scoped him up on instructions from the Presidin' Chairman and pony tailed him up – up- and away.

Over a hedge, down the hill he landed Splat! on the windscreen of a car being driven by two baldy grim horsey brothers on the way to Lisdune Varna. That was their names: The Brothers Horsey.

“Would ya look at de head of hair on dat fly,” the younger one said.

“It's a wig, and it's a slug.” Brother said.

“A slug – so 'tis. We'll ask him where he got the wig.”

“No!,” Brother said.”Take it off him and we'll have turns wearing it at the festival.”

That brother of mine is smart! Younger thought. 

Don't judge a book by its cover - it won't tell you IT'S FREE

For the next few days - until Wednesday 24th May 17, the Kindle version of In The Wicker Wood is free.

This is what Amazon readers (verified purchases) are saying about......In The Wicker Wood.

Jo Nesbo, has masterfully shown the world the secrets of Norway, its subcultures of authority (the police and the politicians), Oslo’s drug culture, murder, kidnapping and mayhem in Scandinavia. The author of “In The Wicker Wood” attempts to reveal Ireland in a similar fashion. Wicker Wood is a book worth reading.

There was just the right amount of street talk and street logic used by the characters to keep me on edge. I was very interested in, and yet scared shitless of, these mean bastards and the gritty underworld they inhabit.

I liked all the Irish nomenclature and phrases and customs that were normal to the author and the characters but were quaint and sometimes baffling to me.

Once taken up, it's hard not to finish this story. Some interesting characters, and while some of them imitate Hitchcock's Psycho, nevertheless a good weekend read.

This story takes a wild path which the author somehow magically combines with Irish mythology.

The Amazon UK Link

And a pitcha is wurth 1,000 wurds (Dublineese).

I'm Free again this week, well at least the Kindle is!!!

Seeing as I'm a starving artist in a Garret, I am giving away the Kindle version of In The Wicker Wood until Wednesday 24 may. Get it Chop Chop. If you were starving wouldn't you?

Jees Pat Stop...dems auld puns..

A guy who has lavish praise for his enemies said it's a Good Book, Good Book, Good Friend, New Pal....noticed he did not say Good Read, but that's another story....

Two Links .

Free Kindle Amazon.Com


Free Kindle Amazon.UK

An edit that didn't make the final copy of In The Wicker Wood. Went off subject I suppose.

Bob Tyrell and Frank Gowan visited the Bog of Allen to the north of Port Stephens and went for a spin on the narrow gauge railway through what the guide called “A Millennium of History. They saw where the turf was first cut by men, later machines, and later still not cut, but milled for briquettes and peat for the gardens, They learned there were seven floors of turf in the Dale Tree bog and ten in the better drained Kildare bog. They stopped to visit the Bog Oak Sculpture studio and saw how local craftsmen could bring out the hidden contours of wood that were thousands of years old and sometimes reveal faces and forms that had been hidden in the wood before their observation and skill could bring them to life and into view. They went through The Island and Tyrell marvelled once again how so small a place, this island in the bog, could produce footballers, sometimes three at a time, for the County Team. On the homeward leg, to the south of the bog they passed Rathmore, the Fairy Fort, and he remembered another team the one that beat them in the semi-final the year after they won the championship against Galway. God he marvelled three Island men and three Rathmore men on that team, tough boyos clean and fair but tough. In the back of his mind another thought, uncompleted yet there, another Rathmore man, who do I know that is another Rathmore man? A sub on one of the teams, or someone he met at another time. Never mind these things usually surfaced when least expected. But yet it bothered him. Who was the other man from the Fairy Fort?

Finally the ravening hunger aroused by the bog air satisfied by a fine “All Day Breakfast” in “Journeys End”, a converted locomotive storage depot. They stopped again to enjoy the afternoon sun, in the Peoples Park in Port Stephens, beside the river where Frank took the sun and Bob smelled the wind blowing off the river and thought once again of strong trout and tight lines. “Soon” he prayed. “Soon, please Lord, next week”.

“First sign of madness Bob, talking to yourself.” He turned squinting against the bright spring sun now lower in the sky as the approaching figure said “It’s Jack Collins. Haven’t seen you in a long time. Eight years I think. What are you doing down here in the bogs?”

As they shook hands and Frank and Maeve were introduced Bob remembered Jack was the Rathmore man. He smiled and in his mind this time to himself he said, “It’s amazing how you think of someone and then they turn up.” Out-loud he said, “Jack how’s that second sight of yours, this weather? Have you time to hear a story? I just need to rearrange a meeting,” he turned aside, walked towards the river and said into his mobile phone, “Mister Prunty? Junior? Can you tell Mister Prunty Senior that I’ll have that list collected tomorrow. Something’s come up in the case. Thanks.”

Cross of Christ, he thought as he turned back, what a bloody coincidence, Jack Collins, even if his sixth sense can’t pick up something now, it would be great if I could persuade him to have a look at the case. This might be just the break we need.

Over the next hour as the evening set in, and the flies hovered above the water and a few small trout “slapped” at the surface noisily, he brought Jack and Maeve up to date on all aspects of the case they had been reading about under the headlines, “Curate Captured! No Clues” and “No Confessions Forthcoming.” Worse of all “Charlie’s Chaplain Missing”, from a hack who knew that Jim Gaffney had once been a priest in the parish where the retired Taoiseach had his farm and stables.

In the silence that followed when Jack and Maeve considered what Bob had just told them and the crows flew home and the air grew colder and they admired the spreading redness in the sky. Maeve said “I just can’t get this bloody tune out of my mind. It’s driving me mad. Do any one of you know it? Is it a sixty's thing?

Descending dreamlike picture painting, figure floating sunset settles silently

As night-time visits the wicker wood again.

As each shook their heads and Jack said “It’s more like poetry or verse than song,” Maeve said “It may be but… it’s doing my head in.”