Self-portrait with Hand on Brow – Kathe Kollwitz
by James O’Brien
Even after all, the span was only yesterday,
That yesterday of horrors, where everyone slipped away.
I felt I could handle it and maybe with you I could have,
But Catherine was dead and you were half insane,
Mum was chased by the Black and Tans,
Yet you still gave me a house to clear and all that was OK.
The horror squalor, the rat and mice infestation,
Amidst the empty whiskey bottles and the aghast ornaments,
I tried to crack on, losing my mind in your fucking lies,
The terminal dust, the detritus on those years,
The spiv function of policy as we decayed as worthless,
Without agency for our mere existence,
The house fell to pieces, no worker would come out to help,
I was saved in the end by my brother who took my hand,
He said it would be alright, I had my doubts about that,
We left for the country taking taint in the daunt of devastation.
