UNKNOWINGLY JOINING THE GREAT UNWASHED

I've just come back from a lovely walk around Bray, where I live. As I passed my local church I decided to pop in for some quiet reflection, which didn't turn out to be very quiet as there was the daily gathering of middle aged and elderly men and women doing their novenas at the top of their voices.

What got to me though, was that again as I went to bless myself at the font on entering and leaving, both of them were empty. Now, I must of had a funny or disgruntled look on my face, because a middle aged woman who was entering turned to me and said, they've stopped filling them.

Why? Is there a shortage of holy water or more precisely priests to bless it, I wondered.

She went on to say, that the junkies had been washing their syringes in the fonts.

Now, I'm all for live and let live and peace and good will to all men, but when the great unwashed and those under the unrelenting scourge of drugs start utilising my holy water, I must protest... Yes, in India everyone goes into the Gangees together on holy days. But that's a fast flowing river, where the effluent and grime from a couple million people all bathing at once ends up, is anyone's guess. But it doesn't linger in a fetid little ceramic pool.

How long have they been doing it?(Is this a national problem?) I've visited churches in some of the more hard-up areas of Dublin. Because, no matter where you are a church is a sanctuary where everyone is equal in the eyes of god.

There are things we're not supposed to do in church, according to the bible. Lend money , barter or trade on it's grounds... Ha, I've been to churches in the UK where they have social clubs with bars on the church grounds. My own one has a coffee shop on it's grounds. Commit crime, churches are regularly robbed, hence why the majority are locked and only opened for a certain period of time each day. Dan Brown's characters seem to think murder in a church is ok.

So I suppose junkies washing their syringes in the fonts isn't a new low, lets hope that's all their doing. Good lord, I've seen a few homeless people sleep in the porch of my local place of worship, but are they using the facilities at the door too, to wash... Oooooohhh. Maybe I should go and place a bar of soap next to the fonts, toothbrush, mouth-wash and a towel...

Ok, so I maybe coming across as very un-christian, but see how christian any you would be. If you or any of your loved ones contracted something because one of these clowns, decided it was clever to wash before or after shooting up. Yes I'll always encourage hygiene, especially with H1-N1 running rife and with more and more institutions providing dispensers on their premises.

But this takes the biscuit, It's not as if a clean syringe is going to cost you anything, most if not all drop-in centres will give them out free. So I must deduce that in this case the junkies in my home town are just down right lazy..

OUR KENNEDY MOMENT

They say every generation has it's "Kennedy Moment", that being able to recall with almost super-human clarity where you were and what you were doing at the exact time you heard about JFK's assassination. My own generation has had two "Kennedy Moments", those being Diana's death and 911.

The generation before was of course the Kennedy one, but there are some who may say Elvis's death was a "Kennedy Moment" too. Then the previous generation is rather harder to Clarify, Churchill's death maybe.

So where were you on September 11th 2oo1? Me, I was at my job with Bord Gais(Irish Gas Board) in their south county Dublin offices, manning the Emergency leak telephone lines, when we heard that a plane had crashed into one of the twin towers. No one knew what type of plane, so we assumed it was a small Cessna or something like that. But then people who were in the canteen downstairs came up and said it was a commercial plane and the building was on fire. It had been a busyish morning on the phones, but after the first plane went in the calls dried-up, everyone was glued to the TV news.

I went down to the canteen on my lunch and stood watching the sight on the TV in the corner..I got my meal and sat down facing the screen, as I was tucking into it, I watched the other plane hit. At first just like the newscasters, I thought we were seeing a rerun on the pictures coming from the American stations. But then it dawned on us that both towers were now burning.. I've never witnessed an execution. But that day along with millions of others I saw 59 innocent victims die right there infront of my eyes(this was akin to the German soldiers marching their victims into the gas chambers, there was no way out for those souls), I couldn't finish my meal.

Ok I can also say I watched the towers fall, so I again witnessed along with the rest of us 2,628 people lose their lives trying to escape. Before that day too I'd never seen a "Jumper", we saw a few of them. Poor desperate people trapped above the impact points to which there was no chance of rescue or escape.

This year is the 8th anniversary of the events of that day, in 2002 I wrote a poem in memory of all those who were killed in the twin towers, lest we forget the victims in the Pentagon and on united 93, it's for them too.

This is the first time it's been published, despite trying to get it onto poetry.com alongside a previous award winner of mine.

IT CAME FROM THE AIR


I crossed the marble flooring as ground beneath us shook,
There by elevators a phantom of my partner I mistook,
Then briefly in an instant they’d gone again from there,
Now where they stood, terror and panic filled the air air air….

Disfigured and tormented wraiths ran screaming from the stairs,
Outside the world was raining crimson and darkness filled the Air air air.

I dialled the phone upon my desk,
Mum I love you,
I said with despair despair despair….

Sam’s mobile rang out,
And with broken heart and tears,
I said to a recording, take care, care, care

Across the hall in my bosses’ office they did come,
Two frightened souls whose escape was in one last affair affair Affair….

The office now filled with tears, as we knew our plight,
By the window one young man looked back and said,
I’ll see you there, there, there

As smoke filled my lungs I made one final call, to see if they could help us,

but as I tried to dial my mind it went all numb,
For the number of the fire dept and date were all in,
Nine one one one one one one ………


Adrian Murphy (c) 2oo2