A couple of poems for immigrants like us
NOWT LIKE THE OLD POPE
Davey knows how many zlotys to the pound
wages in Poland
price of lager in Krakow.
Stefan and Davey work side-by-side
in the factory they say, ‘you could be father and son.’
Davey laughs.
Stefan’s mate defrosts pizzas,
they are pointed out on a chart.
He wears a chef’s black and white chessboard hat.
Davey says he looks nowt like the old Pope.
Tom Kelly
My great grandfather, Thomas Cumiskey, came from Clonbur, Galway late in the nineteenth century. He married Jarrow lass Bridget Lydon and had four daughters and one adopted son.
They lived in Albion Street, Lord Street and finally High Street where he died in 1944. He could neither read nor write and his daughters would read the ‘Gazette’ to him, after he’d told them he had had lost his glasses or it was too dark for him to read. Like many Irishmen in Jarrow he supported Home Rule for Ireland and spoke Gaelic.
Thomas Cumiskey
(1866- 1944)
I am with my great-grandfather
looking for work,
finding lodgings in Jarrow.
He’s uncertain in these paved streets,
joining men spitting down Ellison Street
to Palmers shipyard.
His boots sturdy
cobbled by his father
before he left Galway.
He works with the riveter’s.
Noise is hell.
The fields of Clonbur
he would love to cup in his hands,
hold silence he dreams of carrying.
Geordie voices confuse
he deals in nods and smiles
carrying riveters’ hammers
on decks’ of marooned boats.
Today he wants to be home
there is a hole
where family should be.
The Foreman knows an Irish face
when he sees one,
calls him, ‘Paddy’.
Tom Kelly
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