I have been invited to attend the coffee morning which Galway Peoples' Resource Centre is holding next Friday morning (May 17th) from 10a.m.
I will be going along to read my poem 'Community Employment Scheme' as my contribution to what promises to be a most entertaining morning.
The coffee morning is part of the Bealtaine Festival in celebration of creativity and older people in our community.
It is dedicated to that great hero of the Irish toiling masses, Jack O'Connor, President of SIPTU and all round Dublin accent with a beard. In 2010 Jack suggested that the Government was being unkind with its cutbacks to FAS schemes. I agree entirely; indeed, I would go further and say that from now on the Government's entire budget should be spent on FAS schemes. It is reported that, on hearing of this suggestion, Shane Ross T.D. was rushed to hospital. He is not expected to recover. Neither am I.
Community Employment Scheme
for Jack O’Connor
I am the thin fat man woman
you have been assigned to,
henceforth known as
The Co-ordinator.
Before the afternoon’s out
I’ll have you counting toilet rolls;
or guarding the traffic cones
that live at the bottom of the canal.
You will say nothing
about the blank cheques
you’ll never see me sign.
Play the cards I deal you right,
and I’ll have your back
fitted with a hunch. The others will know
you as my lovely assistant. You’ll spend
your best years penning post-it notes
to yourself, here in the office
with me. You’ll get to drink
on the job and hardly ever turn up
and know nothing
about the blank cheques
you never saw me sign. The rest
will be time in the loo.
Malcontents will be dispatched
to my friend the Independent Mediator.
I’m a social inclusion seminar
in a windowless room
no one leaves;
the thin fat man woman
you have been assigned to,
evermore known as
your Co-ordinator.
