Short Fifes Poems

The worst thing that can happen in life
Is to be buried alive with your wife
To quarrel for eternity
About insignificanties
While listening to the drums and the fifes


© Jack Ellison 2015...

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Today there won’t be a parade;
Concessions that Covid has made.
With no bagpipes or fifes
It’s befitting, since life’s
At a standstill from which we’ve not swayed.

Still, I’m wearing a bit o’ the green
Though, of course, if I had to come clean,
Being Irish I’m not
But I’ve never forgot
On St. Pat’s to become a colleen....

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Peaceful so he seems for he sleeps now. 
Just the sound of his breathing I hear.
Quiet and still is he, just like a soft spring eve.
A blanket serves as his security in a world so uneasy.
Shielding him from fifes great harm.
Soft and gentle,  like the blanket he can be.
Just a child,yet a man.
He weeps for the love of a parent yet to be seen.
A child of his own, just for him is what he longs for.
Peaceful is he, that is yet to be seen....

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Christmas eve night coming home
When grand marketing is done
Foot stepping high over stony loam
Heart panting for the merry fun
Suddenly the noise is not the same
The humming of figuring tongues
Changed to bush crackling with flame
The frantic scream of happy lungs
The scampering glee of feet, and there
The lurid lurch of masks, and fifes
Wooing me close to the bantering air
Of drums: jon kunno! A whip of strifes
Lashes out from the past, a sweet peel
Of laughter says hush, we are healed....

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