The Lone Star Look

For Enda Kenny and all those attending the Harry McKillop Irish Spirit Award lunch at the Maze Long Kesh on 20th June and who are unsure of what to wear; after what really happened at Abilene

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The honky-tonk piano played, a singer sang along

A slow and lonesome tumbleweed of a timeless Irish song

The Last Rose of Summer by the poet Thomas Moore

It made it out to Texas in the hearts of pilgrims poor

When out of the dusty blue the doors swung open loud and wide

Kicked hard by a lonesome cowboy with a slow and measured stride

The pianist dived for cover, the card-sharks hit the floor

He pulled the rim of his Stetson down, fanned by the swinging door

“Sarsaparilla! “ he demanded with a menace in his eye

Throwing it back he hammered the glass to threaten the bar-tend guy

If someone doesn’t tell me where my horse has gone, he said

What happened back in Abilene, might happen here instead

Nervously, the patron asked as though to buy some time

What happened there as you refer, in a neat internal rhyme

The stranger sank another glass and slowly turned to say

That someone stole his horse that night and he had to walk away

Well one thing borrowed this and that, he started to defrost

He told them he was pining for a true-love he had lost

'The sweetest little rosebud that Texas ever knew

Her eyes were bright as diamonds, they sparkled like the dew'

The piano started playing as he set his anger free 

'And The Yellow Rose of Texas is the only girl for me'

No one asked the cowboy’s name but softly sang along

And ever since where Texans meet they sing his lonesome song

There are no fixed rules of etiquette when cowboys come to town

The dusty roads they travel in the saddle takes them down

If you make it to the Maze - Long Kesh, on Irish Spirit Day

Please wear a rose, take off your tie

There's nothing more to say

                                                Hay Machine (e)