A true story from the Isle of Man.
Some 18 years ago the activities of Poetry & Pints came to the notice of the Island’s literary and cultural hierarchy. For our sins we were duly summoned to Yn Chruinnaghe 2000, (a non competitive eisteddfod). There we found ourselves not in the main concourse but incarcerated in one small room at The Mitre Hotel, Ramsey with Mr. Bob Carswell and two very accomplished, highland bagpipers.
An experience which none of those present will ever forget.
The poignant skirl of bagpipes with their stirring warlike swell,
Would summon kilted regiments to storm the Gates of Hell.
Cameronians and Gordons and The Black Watch, there’s none such,
But at eighteen bloody inches, they were just too bloody much.
Tombstones may have wept to hear, the pibroch’s haunting strain,
Yet for those in that tortured room the recital played in vain.
Pipes may sound grand from mountain crest, or marching down the street,
But I tell you straight, they are a bitch at two short bloody feet.
For some it brought on migraine while others writhe and scowl,
Yet all there showed great fortitude to endure that fearful howl,
Folklore vaunts their marshal mystique, an enemy to appal;
And in the Mitre, at Yn Chruinnaghe, they drove us up the bloody wall.
David Kelly
David Kelly | Poetry & Short Stories 